Disclaimer: Characters not mine

Author's Notes: Thank you to Nos4a2no9 for the beta!

"Okay, I need the coffee now, where did you put it, Fraser?"

"The coffee? Weren't you supposed to pack that?" I try my best for wide-eyed innocence. Ray draws in a breath for a sharp reply, then shakes his head and raises a finger.

"Oh no you don't, Fraser. That joke stopped being funny years ago. Bring it out." He snaps his fingers. I grin and surrender the coffee to him.

"I'll light the fire, okay? I need the practice."

"Of course." I begin preparing dinner, and Ray carefully builds up a pile of papery birch bark, with dry twigs and some larger pieces of wood stacked over it. He lights it with a match, then blows on the flame until the fire has caught.

"Ha." He sits back, dusting his hands off with an air of accomplishment, and I put the pot on to heat dinner. The evening is overcast and windless, so we have to choose between the cloud of hungry mosquitoes and sitting in the smoke.

Ray flips up the hood of his jacket to keep his neck mosquito-free. "Did you hear that Sally Carter is going south to go to college?"

"She is? I'm not surprised. She seems to be doing very well in school."

"Yeah, it can't be easy being an intellectual when you grow up in this place. You're like the exception that proves the rule."

"Well, my circumstances were rather unusual."

Ray leans over to the fire and dips a spoon into the pot. "Hmm. What spices did you use in the stew?"

"Nutmeg, I believe."

This earns me a skeptical look. "Not sure that actually goes well with the caribou meat."

I try a little of the stew. "I think it tastes good, actually."

Dief chimes in, indicating that he'd be glad to eat Ray's share if he doesn't want any. "As if. You greedy furball."

After dinner, we quickly put the tent up, and Ray kills the few mosquitoes that managed to sneak in with rapt concentration, one by one, as I arrange our thermal pads and sleeping bags. "They're all gonna die."

"If you'd just put on some more mosquito repellent, you'd be far more comfortable."

Ray snorts. "You know, your mosquito repellent stinks. I don't even want to know what you put in it."

"Well, you can't deny that it works. I invite you to count your bites and compare the number to mine."

He scratches at his neck and grins. "Fine, maybe it does work. But I don't see why you can't make a concoction that actually smells good for once."

"Now, you know that would go against my nature, Ray."

It is still quite warm, so we lie down on top of our sleeping bags, and Ray looks in deep satisfaction at the mosquitoes swarming outside the mesh window of the inner tent. I read for a while, then Ray starts to fidget, and I put down my battered copy of Aldo Leopold'TMs A Sand County Almanac.

"Ray? Are you feeling restless?" I raise my eyebrows. "Perhaps we didn't hike far enough today?"

Ray looks at me through the corner of his eyes. "Yeah, well, maybe I'm bored and horny and you're not doing your husbandly duty by me."

"Oh, is that so?" Ray's teasing smile grows broader.

"Well, if I've been remiss in my duty'" I growl playfully and roll over onto Ray.

"Would you prefer," I say in his ear, "to fuck or be fucked?"

I quite enjoy saying that word now, though I found it vulgar and tasteless before. Ray used to make me practice, claiming if I could do it I had to be able to say it. Though I suspect it simply aroused him to see me turn red while saying 'fuck me, Ray'.

"Oh, be fucked, definitely." He pulls me down for a kiss, slow and light at first, his two-day-old stubble rasping against mine. The kiss deepens into something more urgent as I rest my weight on him, sliding my thigh between his legs. We fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, the familiar hardness of his erection pushing against me through our layers of clothes. I reach down to unbutton Ray's jeans, and he impatiently tugs them off along with his shirt. Seeing his erect penis, I lick my lips in an almost Pavlovian response, then lean down to slowly suck the head into my mouth. Ray sighs in pleasure, closing his eyes. "Yeah, that's it... mmm."

I begin to suck him in earnest, sliding my tongue along the underside while he moans and moves his hips in counterpoint. Ray has always been most vocal in his pleasure, and I suppress my impulse to point out that sound carries very well though tent walls. After all, there is (probably) no one within kilometres of us. And besides, my mouth is otherwise occupied.

By the taste, and the sounds, and the feel of Ray under me, I can tell that he is approaching orgasm, and I take my mouth off him with one last slow lick. He glares at me while I pull my shirt and jeans off.

"I thought you wanted to be fucked, Ray?"

"You... uhn."

He pants and finally finds words. "Goddamnit. You could let me come first."

I smile happily at the sight of him, aroused and sweaty and on the verge of climax, then I shake my head. "No."

Ray growls, frustrated.

I trail my hands lightly up the inside of his thighs and then further up, avoiding his cock, which is hard and glistening with saliva above his stomach. I ignore my own arousal in favor of Ray's body. After years of making love with him, I know exactly how to touch him. I know the play of fingers on warm skin, the shivers and goosebumps as I run my hands up the sides of his ribcage. I know the tightening of his nipple under my lips and tongue, and how his body seeks contact with mine like a flower turning towards the sun. But I deny him, keeping only my hands and mouth on him, touching him everywhere except where he wants me to, until he is reduced to shameless begging.

I reach for the lube in the side pocket of my backpack, and slide a careful finger into Ray.

"Finally. You gonna fuck me this week?"

I raise my eyebrows and insert a second finger. "Do you have something else you'd rather do?"

Ray's face goes slack with pleasure when I twist my fingers inside him, and I slow down. My cock brushes against the sleeping bag, and I shiver with arousal, wanting to just let go. I don't. I wait, enjoying the way Ray's breathing hitches a little on each breath, the way he trembles when I move my fingertips the tiniest bit. His cock is wet at the tip, smearing a little on his belly.

At last, when Ray is incoherent and pleading for me with every line of his body, I reach out for my heavy sweater and put it under Ray's hips to improve the angle. I slick my cock up, then slowly, very slowly, press into Ray. I focus on my breathing to control myself. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. God, so good. I'm deep inside Ray now, and he is breathing raggedly.

"Yeah, that's... Fuck me, now. I need you to... please!"

I slowly pull out, just a little bit, and then thrust deliberately in again. Ray gasps and bites his lip, and his eyes narrow, calculating. He performs a remarkable maneuver with his hips and reaches up to tweak my nipples, and I feel his muscles tightening around me. That pushes me over the brink, it always does, and I need to fuck him then, I have to, so I hold him down and thrust, again and again.

Ray reaches down to touch himself, and after two strokes he comes, mouth opening soundlessly and head arching back. I bury myself in his convulsing body, waves of pleasure washing over me as I climax deep within him.

I collapse next to Ray, and he strokes my sweaty hair back from my forehead, looking smug. "Love it when you let go like that."

I hum wordlessly in response, closing my eyes and resting my head on Ray's shoulder. Our breathing gradually slows, and Ray stirs eventually, wiping himself off in the cooling air.

"Time for bed?"

"Yeah. I'm tired. But a good tired."

"So am I. Move over." I fold my sweater to make a pillow, and crawl into the light summer sleeping bags we've zipped together. Ray curls up, his back to me, and I fit my face into the hollow between his shoulder blades, sniffing his warm skin where the sweat has dried. He still smells like sex. Mmm. I rest my hand on his hip and close my eyes.

"'Night, Frase."

"Good night, Ray."

***

I slip from Ray's arms and dress quietly. He is sleeping soundly with a scarf tied over his eyes to keep the constant light away. Even the sound of the zipper on the side of the tent doesn't wake him. Condensation runs down the inside of the outer tent in small rivulets as I bump against it, crawling out. The morning is clear and a bit chilly, and the birds have long been awake and singing, their territories making a patchwork of the willows and occasional stunted birches. I'm surprised Ray can sleep through that, but perhaps he brought his earplugs.

Perhaps a kilometre off I can see the raised profile of a small pingo, and I make my way through the brush and boggy ground towards it. Dief takes his own circuitous route, following whatever scent strikes his fancy, and I hear him chasing off after a snow goose. At the top, I sit down on the springy mat of crowberry shrub growing close to the ground. The sense of knowing the land and the teeming life on it fills me with a quiet certainty that I am home. To the west, I see one arm of the Mackenzie River winding its way in lazy curls to the Beaufort Sea, and small lakes dot the landscape, glittering in the sun. The land shifts in shades of green, brighter where wetlands are covered with sedge and Sphagnum moss.

Dief comes trotting up to me, panting. "Missed your quarry? You know, things that can fly generally are hard to catch."

He flicks his ear dismissively. "Well, perhaps it's time to see if Ray's awake yet."

We make our way back, and I kindle the fire and heat water for tea and coffee. The tent is still in shadow, although the sun is now lapping at one edge of it. It will soon be in full sunlight, heating up like a miniature greenhouse. I crawl into the tent and spoon up around Ray, who is curled on his side. He snuggles closer to me and makes a sleepy displeased sound when I sneak my hand under the sleeping bag to reach skin.

"Hand's cold."

"Sorry." I bring my hand up to his neck instead, and run my thumb along the short, soft hair at the nape of his neck. He sighs contentedly. The tent gradually fills with heat and orange light. Ray mutters and throws off the sleeping bag.

"You bastard," he says, though with no particular rancor, "you put the tent here on purpose."

"Would I do that, Ray?"

He tugs the scarf off his eyes, blinks, and yawns. "Fine, you win, I'll get up. You better have coffee ready, though."

"Mmm."

And then, because I can't resist, I bury my face in his neck, behind his ear. He smells like woodsmoke and sweat and mosquito repellent. Like happiness and home.