Disclaimer: omgsotired&starved. The usual, yes?

Story Notes: Written on 8 April 2008 for stop_drop_porn's Spring Fever Challenge. Takes place in the Northwest Passages 'verse, after "Guns Don't Kill People" and "Immovable Forces" and before "Deep Colours Bleed".

"You're going grey down there, y'know."

Ray can't see Fraser's face from here, nose to Fraser's nipple as he is, but he'd bet the last beer in the cooler there's a raising-one-eyebrow thing going on up there. Fraser's eyebrow-muscle control is pretty amazing, and demonstrations of it are not exactly rare where Ray is concerned. Or of other muscles, if it comes to that, which Ray is sort of hoping it will again in just a minute here.

Okay, more than sort of. More like a lot.

"Indeed?" Fraser, such the efficient guy, packs a world of stuff into that one word: a little laughter, a little challenge, a little sleepy irritation. Also a little denial, which Ray kind of loves.

"Yep." Ray tightens his fingers a little, just to emphasize his point--no other reason here, no sir, moving right along--and Fraser's cock twitches hard under his hand. Ray grins against Fraser's chest. Excellent. Gotta love that Mountie-style recovery time. "Well. Okay, so it's actually silver. Which is totally unfair, by the way, that you got the whole distinguished-gentleman thing going on and I'm over here fading into the woodwork."

Fraser makes a questioning noise deep in his throat, and Ray grins again. Wordless Fraser: always a good sign. Even if half of what's making him that way is this weird unMarchy, unSeattleish heat. Ray can work with that.

Yeah he can.

"Yeah," he says. "Dishwater blonds go dishwater grey. Even the chemically assisted ones such as yours truly. It's, like, a rule. And with my skin, the whole sun-in-the-seventies thing plus being fifty-mumble and scrawny and snowblind-white Polish to boot? Forget about it. I'm woodwork, man. Dull and boring and monowhatsis--all one color." He tightens his fingers over Fraser's cock again and slides his palm slowly, slowly, up and down over the center seam of the cutoffs Fraser pulled on a while back, making like it's an absent-minded thing, just something to keep his hands busy. Like he's not pressing down against Fraser as he goes, not curling the tips of his fingers over the bulge of Fraser's cock to tickle back towards Fraser's balls. Not trying to turn Fraser on, to heat Fraser up, sleepy and slow and sexy as all hell as he is.

"Mmm. Mono. Monochromatic, Ray. And boring is certainly not a word I'd associate with you." Fraser's chest heaves beneath Ray's cheek in what Ray is man enough to admit is a pretty good imitation of Fraser's patented "Oh, Ray, come on already" sigh. It's bullshit, of course--the heat coming off Fraser makes that pretty clear, blood-hot under Ray's hand and against his face, so strong Ray can almost see it even against the glare off the Sound. But you gotta give him props for trying.

"No?" Ray props himself up on the hand not otherwise engaged. Heh. Such a Fraser phrase, that. Guess after this many years the guy's rubbing off on him. So to speak, and double heh. Ray raises an eyebrow of his own and waits for Fraser to do his best imitation of making sense under stress. His fingers twitch, and Fraser almost doesn't squirm. God. Beautiful.

"N-No, Ray. Not in the least. You are many things--a great many, a, hm, multifarious assortment--but boring will never be one of them. Far from it, in fact." Fraser's eyes don't open and his face doesn't change, but Ray can hear the smile in his voice. Oh, man. Polysyllables. Fraser's gotta know what that does to him. Well, yeah, of course he does. Just like Ray knows what his fingers do--are doing, will, God willing, always do--to Fraser. Who knew age and experience could be this fucking hot?

Well. Him. And Fraser, apparently. And thank Anyone Who's Listening for that little miracle. D-U-M Ray may sometimes be, but dumb he is fucking well not; this one's obviously down to the patron saint of Chicago flatfeet and Canadian saints-with-slipping-haloes, and far be it from Ray to mess with what's meant to be.

Speaking of which... Still leaning on one hand, Ray slides the other--warm from where it's been, the heat of Fraser's cock deep in his palm like someone's brand--slowly across Fraser's chest, pressing down with the pads of his fingers as he goes, pretending for a minute that he's doing that sunburn-check thing his mom used to make him stand still for after he'd been out for hours that first Saturday of actual, honest-to-God Chicago fucking spring. It's the action of family, right there and present, love and want and fucking need. Fraser doesn't move, but Ray can feel how much it costs him, feel it in the way the long muscles of Fraser's thigh tense like cords against Ray's own, family like nothing he's ever known before. Fresh sweat beads up on Fraser's skin, slick and so, God, sweeeet against Ray everywhere they touch. Ray lets his fingers drift over Fraser's nipples--seems casual, but they both know better--and the pebble-hard surface, velvet and stone and with breath behind it no matter what Fraser might want, tells him he's gotten it right yet again.

Ray swallows hard, want and worry roughing his throat like tumbling stones. It's a close thing here, closer than he'd want even Fraser to see. Fuck, yes: he wants that, so much, that intense extreme heat and closure, wants it so much he can hardly see what--who--lies before him. But it isn't only that at stake here: it's what they need, what they're building, what they have and want and will. How to choose? How to make it work, make it--what would Fraser say? (WWFS? Jesus, fucking well no)--viable?

And in a flash, right then, he knows--like sunshine, yeah, like fire and heat and melding, yes, like what's bottom-line and basic after all's said and done: connection, sweet and gradual and earned. Yes, yes, yeah. Can it be that easy? Seems so--for some value of "easy", anyway. And that's enough for now. For Fraser's sake, it has to be.

Next step. Yes. God. Fraser.

"Lift up." Fraser's hips buck up towards Ray before the second word's out of his mouth, and Ray licks dry lips as he catches Fraser's waistband and pulls it down carefully over Fraser's cock, erect and wet and tempting beyond words, slick and delicious. Fraser, wanting it so much and so hard, flushed and sweating in the surprising sunshine: if it gets better than this, Ray doesn't want to know about it, because this right here is gonna kill him in a minute and he can't think of a better way to go.

"Turn over." Ray's voice is hoarser than he'd thought it would be, thick and slow, and he can't seem to catch his breath. The sun is just this side of too hot against the tops of his shoulders, that twinge of almost-but-not-quite burn shocking through him like he's, what, solar-powered. "Over." He has to clear his throat. "Over, Fraser. Go." God, god, and Fraser just goes, over onto his face, spread out in front of Ray like something almost too good to eat, the plaid (of course) flannel of the picnic blanket flaming red and matte black against the burnished cream of his skin.

"God, I want, I want -- Need to-- Fraser. Jesus. Can you-- " Ray can't seem to control his mouth; it's running away with him, pleading, begging, and in between he has to, has to taste the skin of Fraser's back, along his spine, scars and smoothness salty with the sun and with sex and right there, oh, God...

"Yes, Ray. Please. Please." Fraser's voice sounds dreamy, slowed and soft-edged, crisp military edges planed off by want and trust. If Ray had a synapse to spare, he'd be amazed by that, by what it says about what they are. And he will be. Have. Whatever. God. Right now, though, he doesn't-- he can't-- Yes, yes, in in in, hot hot hot heat yessssss...does it get better than this? deeper? hotter? closer? more more more? ...