Author's website: http://www.trickster.org/kass/

Disclaimer: Boys are theirs, words are mine.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Sihaya Black for beta.

Story Notes: Written in response to the "Fraser-whomping" challenge at livejournal community ds_flashfiction.

The first time Benton Fraser fought, he was fifteen. The moment he overheard Jack and Qilut's plans, he knew he had to confront them; no Fraser would knowingly tolerate cheating. His skin prickled with foreknowledge of their fists. It felt good to raise his chin and call after them, catching up with them on the far side of the snowbank, knowing the altercation was coming.

He held his own. Jack and Qilut wound up with bruises and split lips, and his threat to tell Mr. Forteith (combined with his obvious lack of fear of reprisal) cowed them into replacing the stolen answer key. Had his father been there, he might have been proud.

Ben came home aflush with new sensations: aches where he'd been hit, sore muscles where he'd struck back, and overall the feeling that his skin had been sensitized. He knew the workings of the endocrine system: many men developed erections after violence. It was a survival mechanism, a lizard-brain response to threat.

Though he also knew better than to mention it to anyone, especially his grandmother who fussed over wrapping a chunk of ice in a towel to stop the egg forming on his forehead.

After the rare luxury of a hot bath, he slid between the rough wool blankets of his bed, but his arousal refused to dim. In the end he took himself in hand, in one of the many cheap bandannas he bought with his allowance for precisely this purpose, and jerked himself to quick, shuddering completion.

Fraser and the new Ray, it turned out, fought side-by-side with the rhythm of many years' partnership. By the time the two would-be muggers were cuffed and awaiting transport back to the station, Ray was stanching a nosebleed and Fraser could feel bruises welling up in several places.

"Nice work," he said, walking over to where Ray leaned against a lamppost.

"If you can get it," was Ray's cryptic reply. Fraser was still mulling that over when Ray spoke again. "Hey, you wanna come over and have some pizza? Hate to think of you going home alone after a fight like that."

Of course, after a fight like that was the only time Fraser relished going home alone: to the prospect of a long, slow masturbation session fueled by the post-brawl adrenaline. But it would be impolite to refuse the offer, and besides, Fraser had been hoping that he and this Ray might grow to be friends.

"I'd be delighted." He was rewarded with a flash of smile that turned his knees to water and intensified his post-fight erection. Fraser set his jaw and smiled back. It might be a long evening, but the anticipation would make his climax all the sweeter when he finally got there.

Once at the apartment, Ray took one look in the mirror and made a beeline for the shower. "All this dried blood, pretty nasty," he called apologetically through the closed door.

"No trouble at all, Ray."

"You're welcome to shower once I'm done."

Fraser felt himself flush at the notion. He wanted to think the invitation had meaning, but it was probably just hospitality. "Thank you kindly, but I'm all right."

"Suit yourself." The water kicked on.

Fraser looked around the living room for something to read, but found himself sitting on the couch listening to Ray's shower. He was...humming something, though Fraser couldn't quite make it out.

The humming stopped, then abruptly re-started. It was chokier, now. Jerkier.

Less like a hum than like a series of short, repeated gasps, actually.

In the next second, Fraser's deep breath revealed the scent of semen. It hit him harder than any of the blows he'd taken, and left him reeling. In the very next room, separated from him only by a hollow-core door and a shower curtain, Ray had just taken himself in hand. It hadn't taken long: he must have been as excited by the fight as Fraser was.

Unconsciously Fraser grabbed a side pillow and pressed it over his aching erection, willing it to subside. He felt almost sick: with excitement, with desire, with the voice in his head which told him he had no right to listen to Ray's activities in his own home, with the other voice which urged him to follow Ray's example, to accept the offer of a shower, to touch himself under the spray -- he closed his eyes, the better to envision Ray's capable hands --

"Fraser? You okay?"

Ray was standing right in front of him, hips wrapped in a towel. Fraser had been so lost in fantasy that he had not heard the shower shut off, nor the creak of the opening bathroom door. Fraser swallowed hard, knowing his face was reddening as his id shouted for him to reach forward. Ray was so close...

"Yes," he managed. "Yes, I --" And how was he going to finish that sentence?

Oh God. Ray was looking at the pillow covering Fraser's groin. When he looked back up at Fraser's face, his eyes seemed almost...hopeful.

But that couldn't be. It was a delusion, surely, brought about by the strength of Fraser's desire, which threatened to undo both his restraint and his common sense.

This was unbearable. He was misinterpreting. Ray's emergence from the shower half-naked was a reflection of some appalling American custom, not flirtation. If he opened his mouth now he would ruin the nascent friendship (and how would Ray Vecchio forgive him, when he came home to find that "he" and Fraser were not speaking?) Fraser stood, dropping the pillow hastily, and with three large steps reclaimed his Stetson.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Ray, but I simply must --"

"Shit. I'm sorry." His tone was so subdued that Fraser turned to look. Ray's body language had entirely changed. The slump of his shoulders projected defeat. Fraser's chest tightened.

"I thought maybe you were -- I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." Ray scrubbed at his face with one hand.

Concern overtook arousal. Fraser placed the hat back on the chair and took a step towards Ray. "I don't understand."

Ray smiled at him, but it was thin and unconvincing. "Don't worry about it."

"Ray, I can't...I need to understand." Hope warred with terror in his chest. His skin prickled, as it had before his first fight, fifteen years and a million miles ago. But this was another kind of first, wasn't it? Unless he was wrong, unless this too was going to end with him nursing bruises in his dark and silent room, stroking himself with pained fingers --

Ray took a deep breath. "I thought maybe you were interested in me, but I can see now I was on crack, it was just the post-fight thing, everybody gets it, doesn't mean you're gay, I shoulda known that."

Fraser felt time stop. He just stood there, looking at Ray.

"Man, did I just make things -- you said you had to understand, don't be weird about this, Fraser --" Half-under his breath, like a prayer.

Finally Fraser found speech. "You were right."

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, can we let it--"

He stepped closer, into Ray's space, relishing the shower-clean scent of him, the surprised little gasp which made Fraser tingle. "I mean you were right, before. I understand your hunches often are."

Ray's posture still said scared, shoulders tensed protectively, but his smile looked more genuine. "You were interested?"

"I am interested," Fraser corrected.

"Whaddaya know," Ray mused aloud, and before Fraser could begin to consider how to answer that, Ray's mouth was opening to his.

Every bang and bruise flamed up as their bodies pressed together. Ray's embrace compressed the bruise over Fraser's kidney and the scrapes along Fraser's left arm, but the pain and the adrenaline of taking this crazy, delicious leap just ratcheted each other up. It was intoxicating. Ray was hot in his arms, still damp from the shower. As Ray moved against him the towel came untucked and hung there, caught between them. Fraser thought he might combust.

There was a bed in the next room. And when they got there, Fraser would strip his uniform away, and Ray would kiss and lick every mark on Fraser's body, and if Ray were hard again Fraser would touch another man's erection for the first blessed time, and if not maybe Ray could be enticed to place his hot, sweet mouth...just...there...

And Fraser would get his long, drawn-out post-imbroglio orgasm, but this time it would be better than ever, because he would not be alone.

(1438 words)

End Fighting by Kass: kass@trickster.org

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