Fraser dabbed at the large, ugly scrape on Ray's thigh as gently as he could. The wound had been taken for him, after all. The second window Ray had been flung through working with Fraser, and this time the result was more than a few bumps and bruises.

He resisted the urge to chide his partner for his unorthodox behavior -- Although Fraser was reasonably sure no law enforcement agency approved of riding through windows on department motorcycles, the fact of the matter was that if Ray hadn't done so the day might not have ended half so fruitfully.

But Ray had refused to go to the hospital and was barely tolerating Fraser's presence now -- it had taken a lengthy discussion of the effects of gangrenous infections on human flesh to get him to agree to Fraser even taking a look at the wound.

Diefenbaker had placed his paws over his eyes so as to avoid hearing what had happened to Bearbait Bill Lafleur after the flies had found him in that illegal trap and, really, Fraser could hardly blame the wolf.

Ray had held out well into the third generation of maggots, though he still seemed slightly green.

And these thoughts weren't helping him use the light, slow touch Ray had insisted upon. Fraser winced at the sound of the other man's hiss. "Terribly sorry, Ray."

"You're not done *yet*?"

"I'm sure a medical professional --"

"No friggin' *hospitals*."

"Really, Ray, don't you think that attitude is a little illogical? Not to mention potentially dangerous."

"Fraser, hospitals are bad luck. You go to the hospital for a little thing and next thing you know they find a big thing and you never leave. No hospitals."

"But how will you get treated for a 'big thing' if you're never diagnosed?"

"I have no big things. I'm perfectly fine except for that damned scrape you're *lingering* over and no hospitals. And that's final."

Words less spoken than gritted out and Fraser bit the inside of his own lip viciously -- he'd been applying too much pressure again and was only halfway through the cleaning process. Clearly, he needed to clear his mind for this. Or, at the very least, he should clear his mind of all the nastier, more unpleasant things.

"Ray, tell me something pleasant."

"Why?"

"Well, if both of us stay focused on those things that please us, I'm sure we'll get this scrape taken care of --"

"Don't pat my thigh."

"What?"

"Fraser, do not pat my thigh. You looked like you were goin' for one a your hale and hearty pat-thingies and now is just not the time."

"Ah, I see. Sorry."

"I forgive you. I, too, know the pain of compulsive behavior."

"Well I would hardly describe myself as *compulsive* --"

"There, there, big guy. The first step is admitting you have a problem."

"I do *not* have --"

"So, pleasant, pleasant, pleasant. I got it: It is pleasant that I am not in the friggin' hospital being poked and prodded by bored, uncaring strangers who reek of sick people.

"There, that cut the mustard for ya?"

"Well, Ray, it wasn't precisely what I was looking for..."

"You asked me to tell you something pleasant, I told you. You cannot offer friggin' critique on my sense of taste."

"Oh, I certainly can, Ray. I merely choose not to."

"Ooooh, yer pretty cocky for a guy who spent most of the day tied to a *pole*."

"That was hardly my fault --"

"Spreadin' the blame, eh Frase? That's OK, so long as *you* believe it wasn't your fault."

"How could it be my fault?"

"I didn't say it was your fault."

"You just did!"

"No, *I* said it was OK for you to believe that it wasn't your fault."

"Ray..." Fraser trailed off, horrified to find himself -- yet again -- dabbing much too hard. Did Ray *want* Fraser to hurt him? The man clearly suffered from extensive emotional problems. Indeed, the other man's eyes practically twinkled from mingled amusement and pain.

But it was mostly amusement.

"Tell me, Ray, when did you first realize that you were a masochist?"

"WHAT?!"

Fraser bit his smirk off on the inside of his cheek. He could be amused, too. "That you were a masochist, or, in layman's terms, a person who requires a certain degree of pain in order to achieve sexu -- "

"I know what a masochist is, Fraser!"

"Of that I have no doubt. I was just curious as to when the desire developed."

"There are no desires happening here!"

"Well, you seem to *enjoy* it when I *press* a little *hard*er --"

"OW!"

"Please, Ray, you'll disturb your poor landlady. Doubtless not for the *first* time, but..."

"Fraser!"

"... she understands. After all, she's a mature woman of the world, probably knows her way around a trapeze..."

"FRASER!"

"... often the most *interestingly* dressed young men and women appearing and disappearing at all hours --"

"*FRASER*!"

"Yes?"

"Nobody likes an evil Mountie."

"Really, Ray, I was just hoping we could have a nice chat about each other's sexual preferences."

"Frase -- why?"

"Well, in my experience there are few things more pleasant than a nice round of purely carnal activities."

"With a trapeze?"

"Actually --"

"No, don't answer that. Fraser!"

"You don't have to keep yelling my name that way, Ray, I'm not very far away from you. Have you begun to lose your hearing as *well* as your eyesight?"

"I'm never jumping through another window for you again, you know."

"Well, that's just petty, Ray."

"I -- OK, fine. What are *your* sexual preferences?"

"So you're admitting to the masochism?"

"Why do you think I knew that big, wide, sweet-smelling leather belt of yours was called a Sam Browne?"

"..." was what Fraser managed before he caught the not-entirely-reassuring-but-still-laughing look in the other man's eyes. He covered his pause by focusing for a moment on what could have been a dangerous patch of grit in the wound.

Or his shadow, but you never knew.

"Well? I'm in the mood for some pleasant information, Trapeze-boy."

"Just because you're not agile enough to try it --"

"Hey, the chicks *love* my agile-ness."

"They've clearly never seen a Mountie perform."

"Fraser. That was, like, a one and a quarter entendre there."

"A what?"

"Well, it wasn't clever enough for a full double."

"You're having far too much fun for someone who hasn't even smelled the antibiotic ointment yet."

"Oh, that odor haunts my dreams, buddy, have no fear. It's no neatsfoot oil, I'll tell you that much."

"Just how much *do* you know about the RCMP standard issue uniforms?"

Grin he could feel before he even looked up again. Ray had his eyes closed, head leaned back on his vaguely dusty countertop. The exhaustion was clearly visible this way, a darker shadow than the other man's lashes. "That's between you, me, and my sore ass, Frase."

"That definitely sounded like an admission."

"Yeah, and bunny sounds like money but Thumper won't buy ya beer in a *Chicago* bar. Lord knows what they do up dere in the Yukon."

"There aren't many public drinking establishments, no."

"This doesn't surprise me."

Fraser had the absurd urge to brag about the number of illegal stills per square kilometer in certain areas of his country, but quickly stifled it. "I like to be touched."

"Well, so do I, Fraser, if you ever finish with the friggin' wound we can have a nice, manly embrace and you're talking about sex again, aren't you?"

"You asked."

"You started it."

"Don't be childish."

"Don't make me pop you one."

"Ray."

"Fra-zerrrrr."

"You're just not going to stop taunting me, are you?"

"Are you gonna stop using words like 'taunting?'"

"No."

"Well, there ya go."

"That's --"

"So how do you like to be touched, big guy, huh?"

"I..." Well, that was it, then. Fraser would actually have to *answer* that question or concede defeat. It really was a shame -- for a while he'd been almost positive Ray would change the subject entirely, thus winning Fraser the battle.

Clearly his partner was a more dangerous opponent than Fraser had given him credit for... but he was not yet *wholly* defeated.

"I like to be touched on and around my genitals."

"Ah, jeez, I can't believe you just uttered that sentence *aloud*!"

"You --"

"Asked, I know. You plan on breaking me of the habit of questioning you entirely, don't you?"

"I think of it as a sort of side-project, Ray. A hobby, if you will."

"I won't."

"That's not very nice."

"I never, ever claimed to be nice. I'm not givin' up, you know."

"You're a very determined young man, Ray."

"We're the same age!"

"I've always found age to be a relative thing. Are you ready to be wrapped?"

"What?"

"The bandage, are you ready --"

"Yeah, yeah, so you still haven't answered my question, though. You told me where... I wanna know how."

"Ray --"

"Are you surrendering?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Ray, Mounties never surrender."

"Heh, just keep on believing that. Tell me how."

"What precisely do you mean by 'how?'" Fraser barely had any time at all to congratulate himself for the skillful stall before Ray barked out one distinctly harsh laugh. The look in his eyes was purest evil, the lowest of the low.

"You know what I mean, Frase --"

"No, actually, I do not know --"

"Slow? Gentle?" Ray's hands had been resting innocently on his own knees, now they moved upward, slowly coming together in what would certainly be Ray's most vividly comprehensible series of hand gestures yet. "Or maybe --"

"Slow. Hard. So I can..."

"So you can what, Frase?"

"Has it occurred to you that this conversation could easily be construed as highly inappropriate?"

"Yeah, ain't it pleasant?"

Fraser wasn't sure if 'pleasant' was the word he would have chosen, especially after Ray slid lower in the simple wooden chair and spread his legs, near knee bumping Fraser lightly in the chest. He was just about to protest until he realized that he was still holding the strapping tape, that Ray was, in fact, gingerly holding the large strip of gauze in place.

Expectantly, even.

This might be easier if *I* held the gauze while you wrapped the tape around.

He was staring intently into Ray's eyes when he realized he hadn't spoken his last thought out loud.

"So I can be sure to feel it, with every nerve ending. So that my whole body knows --" Fraser's teeth shut with an audible click. It was *never* too late to lock the barn door.

Ray ran his tongue over his lips in one quick movement, winced slightly. Fraser realized he was pressing too hard again. Much too hard... he shook his thoughts off as best he could and began wrapping the tape around...

But trying to avoid brushing the soft, mostly hairless skin of Ray's inner thighs only made the other man attempt to oblige him by spreading his legs even wider. Movement that shifted the snugly held flesh of Ray's groin to a more... obvious position.

Shifting his gaze to a less incriminating focus left him staring at the oddly, truly endearing sight of the thigh of Ray's boxer briefs -- it had been rolled up to make it easier for Fraser to work and was now cutting into the flesh just slightly.

If Fraser worked quickly he could soothe it back down...

"Easy there, Frase, don't pop a blood vessel or nothin' there."

"I thought you wanted me to hurry up and stop touching you." Scandalous, dangerous... Fraser felt his cheeks pink.

"I never said anything about you stopping touching me there. That. Shit."

"Language --"

"Fraser --"

"All done. Finished. With the tape."

"I'd get down there with you... on my knees, if I could."

What to say to that?

Ray didn't wait. "You could come up here."

"And do what?"

Another laugh, edged and breathless. "OK, Mounties don't surrender, horny Chicago cops do, you win, you win, you --"

And Fraser managed, barely, to take his time smoothing down Ray's boxers before just yanking them -- as gently as possible -- out of his way.

"Owowohhh... ohhh, man, Fraser fuck I knew you could do something useful with that tongue no don't stop you can do lots of useful things I'm sorry I should not be blamed for my inability to properly express my thoughts when you're doin' *things* like that oh God, Fraser!"

Salty, much too much salt. Ray's diet was a scandal in its own right, really, but oh, he couldn't complain about the tang of it on his tongue, sharp and easy counter to the thick heft of the other man's penis in his mouth. Tang and blunt like blood on a billyclub, so good...

Fraser slipped his hand into the warm, sweat-damp hollows of Ray's groin, toying with velvet tightening sac, unsure whether he wanted to halt the progress of the other man's impending orgasm or not. He wanted more of everything, and someone had replaced too much of his brain with thick cotton batting for him to have any idea how to get any of what he wanted --

Wordless groans from above, hands in his hair, tangling and tugging just a bit... too much control. Fraser sucked harder, allowed his moan at the taste, the pure concentrated essence out and felt Ray's shudder all through him.

"Please --"

*Yes*. Fraser wrapped a hand around the base of Ray's penis and held firm, just barely prepared for the other man's helpless thrust. He found himself kissing his own fist, an act somewhere between precious and obscene.

"Fraser you feel so good..."

And that was it. This was wonderful, everything about it was wonderful, and he wasn't surprised to find his body agreed whole-heartedly with the assessment. Everything felt right, from the hands roving restlessly, helplessly over his scalp to the hard floor beneath his knees, to the way the tips of his fingers skated easily over the fine, thin skin of Ray's inner thighs.

The need to know, once and for all, everything that would make Ray insane with need for him was palpable, intense. A hot tight weight around his chest, uneasy on his skin. Fraser let his finger ease back behind Ray's testicles, teased at the perineum experimentally. Ray moaned and shuddered again, fingers tightening in his hair.

The implications were staggering, utterly impossible not to imagine in a series of strobic flashes of awareness that for a brief, marvelous time made up the whole of Fraser's conscious thought processes.

Ray came while Fraser was still trying to work his finger past the hotly inviting pucker of muscle. He swallowed instinctively, fighting against the sudden soul-searing *need* to keep going, to get far enough inside to ruthlessly stimulate the other man's prostate in the hopes of getting Ray to harden again as close to immediately as possible.

Ray *was* tired. Was *tired* --

It was deeply gratifying to hear the small disappointment in Ray's moan as he moved away.

Fraser wiped his mouth on his hand, licked himself clean with thorough pleasure, feeling Ray's eyes on him, feeling the shell-shocked fascination like oxygen in his lungs.

And then he was being pushed backwards in what was either Ray falling on him or the world's slowest tackle. They hit the floor in a tangle and when Ray didn't just slump over him he knew it had been the latter. "Ray, your leg --"

"Can be rebandaged later. Let me... let me... well, fuck. Uniform 1, Ray 0. Open these right now, Fraser."

Fraser obliged and found himself wondering, mindlessly, whether Ray had ever played a musical instrument. His hands seemed much too clever, not fast, not fast at all oh --

"No, move your hands, let me... you don't want this to be the same as what you do for yourself, do you?"

Unsafe, unknown, Ray on him, touching him, touching him --

"I could touch you this way all over..."

Curiously innocent, maddening. "*Please*."

"God, do you have any idea what you sound like? You want me to suck you, hunh? You want my mouth on you?"

"No... not yet..."

Soft laugh. "I don't think we're gonna have all that much longer, do you?"

"Ohhhh..."

"Ah, Fraser, you're beautiful like this, just beautiful c'mon, come for me... for me."

"Yes, please --"

"D'you feel me? Is your body sure?"

White heat at the base of his spine, arching him up off Ray's cool kitchen floor, gathering power, sapping him, making him loud, shameless. His eyes were long since closed, helpless denial, pointless struggle to maintain some illusion of control and Ray knew just what he needed, Ray knew

Ray had always known, always --

The flames rolled through him fast and catastrophic, leaving him a fragile sculpture of ash just waiting for a stiff wind to blow him away utterly...

And later it wasn't so much Ray's surprising weight on him that roused him as its constant, noticeably uncomfortable shifts.

"We have to get you to bed." No, he did *not* sound just like his grandmother.

"Mmm... I like it here."

"You need your rest."

"And why is that, oh evil Mountie of mine?"

"Because later I am going to flog you unconscious with my big, wide, sweet-smelling leather belt."

"..."

Game, set, match.

End.

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