I Know I Am But Summer to Your Heart
by Nos4a2no9
Author's Notes: Many thanks to Meresy and Malnpudl for detailed, fast and exceptionally savvy beta work. I could not have done it without you, chicas! The title is shamelessly stolen from one of Edna St. Vincent Millay's brilliant works. No limbs were harmed in the making of this story. Pinky swear.
Story Notes: Written for stop_drop_porn's Fall Into Porn challenge.
I Know I Am But Summer To Your Heart
The words came to him for the first time in Ray's car, when a hard, desperate kiss had somehow transformed into a hard, desperate entwining of their bodies.
It had been building for a long time. Fraser had felt Ray's interest, had seen small signs: the hot weight of Ray's gaze on the back of his neck, small jokes and innuendos, a curious, assessing look after Fraser had let Janet Morse return to Montana with her husband. But he had never thought that the glimpse of Ray's interest - half guess, half wishful thinking - would ever translate into reality.
But one night on an endless stakeout, Ray had turned to him and said, "Fraser, what do you want from me?"
The words had boiled up in Fraser, steaming away like a kettle on a cold day. I want to be first in your heart. But he couldn't speak: the words had frozen inside of him, stiff and genteel and far too sentimental. Had he spoken them aloud Ray would surely have laughed. And so Fraser had reached across the small space that separated them and gripped the back of Ray's neck, the skin warm and muscles relaxed under his fingertips. He drew in a deep breath, leaned forward, and pressed his mouth to Ray's.
The kiss was messy and uncoordinated. Startled, he realized later. He'd startled Ray, caught him by surprise. Ray had jerked against him, uttering a soft, confused, "Frase...?" and he'd searched Fraser's face for some sign, perhaps, that this was all just a practical joke. Fraser had shaken his head and deliberately tightened his hold on Ray's neck, skin still warm and loose under his fingers but now smelling faintly of arousal.
The single untidy kiss seemed to be the all the invitation that Ray required. He launched himself across the seat and pushed Fraser back against the door, and began kissing him with an intensity that left Fraser disoriented and shaken. Ray was a whirlwind. A typhoon. Unstoppable and destined to wreak havoc.
Fraser surrendered to Ray's manic energy, to his hard, almost bruising kisses, to the hot, insistent press of Ray's arousal against his thigh. He could feel Ray's erection through his loose denim jeans and the tension in Ray's hands as they stroked his face and tugged on his hair, manipulating him to better the angle, deepen the kiss. Fraser's lips felt bruised, and his tongue ached from the constant assault of Ray's. But he closed his eyes and slid down in the seat, widening his legs so Ray could move between them, threading his hands beneath the hem of Ray's t-shirt and stroking low over his back. The skin there was smooth, hot and almost silky, and he wished they could have done this somewhere else. Somewhere with light, and privacy. He would very much like to see Ray's body. Or his face.
Ray moaned softly and pulled away to gasp, "Yeah, that's good." His words were a hot puff of air against Fraser's neck above the line of his collar, which cut painfully into his neck. The serge was unbearably confining and Fraser was sweating heavily under the wool; it was suddenly an imperative that he open his tunic. He couldn't breathe.
Fraser reached up to loosen his lanyard and the Velcro fastening of his collar. Ray protested the removal of his hand with a sharp, stinging nip to Fraser's ear.
"I'm sorry, I need to-"
"I'm dying here, Fraser. C'mon!" Ray whispered against his throat, and Fraser shivered. Ray pulled back enough to help Fraser with the buttons of his uniform jacket. "Don't want the last thing I hear in life to be a Canadian, apologizing."
"Heaven forbid," Fraser murmured, sighing with relief as cold air rushed into his jacket. He felt too hot - too hot for this, for Ray, too hot even for the chilly autumn evening outside. If he were home he would have simply stuffed a handful of snow down his collar to cool off.
"Frase," Ray said, rapping the side of his head. "How do I get the pants open?"
"The pants?" he asked, dumbly, his sluggish brain taking a few moments to translate Ray's meaning. With shaking hands he undid the fastening on his jodhpurs as Ray unzipped his jeans - he spared a moment for sartorial jealousy - and then they were both free of the constraints of clothing. Ray already had himself in hand, his erection pointing like a divining rod to the gap in Fraser's pants, and Fraser moved quickly, pulling Ray to him again.
Ray didn't kiss him; he turned his face, and let Fraser nuzzle his neck and lick at the tendon there as he lined them up. And then Ray's hand closed over Fraser's erection, trapping them both there in the hot, tight space. Fraser bit back a moan and buried his face in the join of Ray's shoulder, shielding his eyes from the heat and the darkness and the sound of Ray's frantic breathing.
He heard the pounding of his racing heart, or perhaps it was Ray's that he heard. It felt like a series of small, regular explosions blasting through the rock of lies and half-truths they'd told one another for two years. Ray wanted him. That should be enough, shouldn't it?
He pressed up into Ray's hot grip and tried to forget the rumbling sounds of far-off detonations. This was enough, he told himself, and closed his eyes, and came.
Ray's orgasm followed his own by mere seconds. He felt Ray tense, heard him moan, and then the hot spurt of ejaculate was welling in Fraser's hand. Ray sagged against him, and Fraser wrapped an arm around Ray's shaking shoulders.
"Can you drop me at the Consulate?" was the only thing he could say.
***
They didn't speak about it, after that. Like an event from a dream, Fraser tried to convince himself it hadn't really happened. It seemed inconceivable that he and Ray...that they had...
At least, it was inconceivable until the next time it happened.
"What do you want from me, Fraser?" Ray had asked him at the station, just a week later.
Fraser had been the one to freeze in shock, that time, Ray's tight grip on his shoulder sending an electric current to his brain and frying every last thought in his head. He hadn't known what to say. Those words - dangerous words, words of power - threatened to bubble over, but he'd held them back, his attention fixed on Ray's solemn, half-terrified face.
His silence had not gone over well. Ray scowled and lowered his eyes when Fraser didn't answer, but his grip on Fraser's shoulder had tightened. He marched them into a stall in the men's room with grim determination, and it had taken Ray two attempts to slide the stall door's metal lock into place. The next few moments were filled with quick, hard kisses and half-whispered instruction, and Ray had been almost frantic in his insistence that they do...something.
"Anything," Ray had whispered. "Anything, Fraser, just do something."
Soon Fraser found himself on his knees trying desperately not to catalogue all of the things that might be soaking through his pants. He concentrated instead on the way Ray felt in his mouth. Hot, and silky, and incredibly sweet.
He kept his eyes closed. He'd been wrong about wanting to do this in the light, where everything would be visible. He couldn't bear to look at Ray. To look would be the breaking of him. I want to be first in your heart, he thought, but never answered Ray's question.
***
The last of the leaves had fallen before they trusted themselves to be alone together. At least, that was the explanation Fraser gave Dief when the wolf asked why he and Ray were avoiding one another. Ray no longer dropped by the Consulate, they hadn't had dinner together in weeks, and Fraser didn't feel welcome at the 2-7. Ray seemed nervous and on-edge the few times he'd seen Fraser at the station, and Fraser had lost his resolve to enter the 2-7 when confronted by the sight of Ray's pale, tense face.
All of this was his fault, of course. Oral sex in the station's men's room? Congress on a stakeout? It seemed that his worst fears and deepest self-doubts were confirmed: with Ray, he had no sense of propriety, decency or duty. He was mad with lust and so desperate for Ray that he was more than willing to sacrifice both of their professional reputations for...for what? A few moments of warmth and repletion? Surely that was a poor bargain by anyone's standards.
This longing for Ray - physical and otherwise - was ridiculous. He'd long ago resigned himself to unrequited longing. That Ray was now willing to indulge him meant nothing. Ray didn't love him. He wasn't first in Ray's heart, nor was he anything else to Ray that could be easily expressed by a greeting card.
And, Fraser reminded himself, what he wanted wasn't important. He was a mature, rational adult. He was a Mountie. This needy, selfish, unwieldy desire to be Ray's first and primal love was ludicrous.
What did he want from Ray? To be noticed? Cared for? Touched? Surely he had those things already. Clandestine encounters in muscle cars and men's rooms aside, Ray had touched him more than anyone else had in years. Fraser knew - he knew - that Ray thought of him as a friend. And that was its own kind of caring, wasn't it? That Ray also thought of him (or, at least, had twice thought of him) as a suitable sexual partner, someone with whom Ray could ease a physical need, well, that should have been enough. In fact it was a season of wealth and abundance, much more than he had ever known. It was a lot, really.
But it wasn't everything. It wasn't a full year's worth of feeling. It wasn't love.
He'd been loved once, though it was so long ago that the truth of it had been all but lost. Fraser could only glimpse it in a single faded, sepia-toned snapshot, or in the dusty annals of his own unreliable memory.
He'd been first in the heart of someone else only once. And she had died of a gunshot wound in 1967.
It was, to put it mildly, a rather pathetic record.
He came to this conclusion the next time he saw Ray, who sat, beautiful and golden and perfect, next to him in the car on yet another stakeout. (And when, exactly, had their lives become one long series of stakeouts and men's rooms?) But this time Fraser's presence was mandated by Lieutenant Welsh.
"The Lieu wants us to fix this thing," Ray had said on the phone, quietly, grudgingly. "He's noticed you're not coming around so much anymore. He thinks sitting together in a car all night will help." His voice was dry with the irony of it. "I'll pick you up in an hour."
And so here they were, still and silent and cold, not looking at one another, trying not to breathe too loudly. This was the wreck of their partnership, and it was all his fault. He'd overstepped, overreached.
Wanted too much.
Ray shifted restlessly in his seat, tapping on the steering wheel, pressing buttons on the radio even though the engine wasn't running. The sound of the buttons made a hollow click, click, click noise in the silence between them.
"How're things in Canada?" Ray asked him, slowly, carefully, as though Fraser were a wild animal who might snap at him if he came too close.
"Fine," Fraser replied, just as carefully. "Everything's fine, Ray."
Good lord, they were stiff. Stiff and too formal, like the words that danced in his head. You're first in my heart. Tell me I'm first in yours.
"That's good." Ray didn't sound convinced. "You, uh, file anything interesting lately?"
"Regrettably, no."
Ray's small answering smile wasn't much, but it was something. Fraser allowed himself to relax minutely, and he settled back in the seat, feeling the chill of autumn creep up his spine. He was struck by a flash of memory - the warmth of Ray's breath on his throat, the heat of Ray in his hand - and instantly he sat up, staring out the windshield intently.
"What? What, you see our guy? You see Brenner?" Ray was squinting at the lighted apartment building across the street, his hand on the door handle.
"No. I was just-woolgathering."
"Oh. That's good. Gotta gather that wool, I guess." Ray returned his hands to the steering wheel. Fraser deliberately did not think about how those hands had felt buried in his hair, massaging his scalp as Fraser sucked and licked. He did not think of the lean, wiry strength of Ray, or of Ray's murmured commands, or his warm, soft skin.
He did not think of any of those things, and yet somehow his mind began to replay the memories of its own accord. And lost as he was in the memories of Ray's deep, hot kiss, he nearly missed Ray's slumping sigh.
"Fraser."
Fraser looked up, jerking his attention guilty back to the building across the street. They had a purpose here, after all.
"Fraser," Ray said again, and this time Fraser looked at him. Ray's slump was profound; he seemed almost boneless, weightless, slouched there in the driver's seat. His long legs were extended so far into the footwell that Fraser couldn't see his shoes. His whole body radiated an exhausted kind of surrender, as though Ray had been fighting something larger than himself, and had finally decided to give over to the inevitable.
"Fraser, what do you want from me?" he asked, quietly.
Fraser didn't move, didn't make a sound. Why did Ray keep asking him that? There was no answer he could possibly give to such a question.
"I mean it. What do you want?"
"What do I want?" Fraser repeated, feeling almost numb. This was it, then. The end of all things. He'd speak the words and Ray would laugh, or purse his lips in disgust, and their...relationship, would be over. If one could call two hurried, fumbling acts of intercourse in a public space a relationship.
"I want-" he stumbled, but Ray made an encouraging gesture, turning his hand over, his silver bracelet sliding down on his wrist. Fraser remembered that the skin there tasted faintly tangy and metallic. "I want to..." Say it, he thought desperately. He had little enough left to lose.
But inspiration struck. It would offer a reprieve, if nothing else. "I want to know what you want."
His response caught Ray by surprise. Startled again, Fraser thought, with an unworthy sensation of triumph. Let's see how he does with the question.
Ray blinked at him, and then looked back out at the street. He seemed to consider the question carefully. "I don't know," he said, finally. "I guess...I guess I want to want you, and for you to want me, and for all of that to be okay."
Ray stole a glance at Fraser, whose face must have conveyed some of his sense of dismay. He looked away quickly, and licked his lips.
"The thing is, I...I liked what we did. A lot. But you've been real weird about it. Not talking. Not wanting me around. And I'm not sure if it's because you're a little freaked about doing it with a guy, or about doing it with me. And that would suck, but I just...I want you. I want to be with you, either as a friend or-"
Another one of those expressive hand gestures. Ray's bracelet caught the light again, and Fraser reached for the shine of it. He closed his fingers around Ray's wrist and swallowed, hard. He was worried his voice would shake.
"Ray, please." He wasn't sure what that meant. Please what?
But Ray knew, or seemed to know. He turned his hand over, and twined his fingers with Fraser's.
"What do you want, Fraser?"
And the words, this time, were easy to say. "I want you. I want to be with you, too. I want..." No, he thought, and pushed on, forcing himself to say it. "I don't want this to be a...temporary arrangement. I want to be...first, for you. I want to be first in your heart, as you are in mine."
Ray's grin lit the inside of the car, the street, the world. His heart was pounding and his hand felt sweaty pressed against Ray's, and he felt a little dizzy with the rush of saying it, finally saying it.
The smile on Ray's face widened and he pulled Fraser close, pressing a warm, insistent kiss to the corner of his mouth.
"Hell, Fraser, you could have told me that," Ray said.
THE END
End I Know I Am But Summer to Your Heart by Nos4a2no9
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