Author's Notes: No beta.

When Ray woke up, he was alone. The night had a 3:00 a.m. hum to it. He was stretched out on his couch, the room dark, and he was covered with a blanket, tucked in tight under the cushions. He fumbled to turn on the light and then fell back against the couch cushions with a thump and a groan. Proof positive that the evening's activities had actually happened and wasn't the result of some nice old-fashioned fantasies courtesy of Herra Dura Silver on the rocks with salt. Until he'd turned on the light he still could have fooled himself into thinking he'd passed out on the sofa from far too many margaritas. Course, his usual M.O. when pounding back the tequila was to sleep on the floor of his bathroom hugging his bathmat. Closer to the john, the better. He could have talked himself into that bullshit--that he'd had the presence of mind to throw himself on the couch and haul a blanket over his head before passing out and then had a really great dream where he and Fraser had given each other hand jobs--except for one thing. The blanket tucked underneath him? With hospital corners. Okay two things, because a quick sniff in the direction of his crotch and we're talking major fumes. Adios tequila-fueled fantasy, hola Benton Fraser.

He turned the light back out. Some things you got to think about in the dark and this was one of them.

Okay, pervert tally coming right on up. Hand jobs to date? Three. Fraser was up on him two hand jobs to one, except that if it went up in front of a judge, the whole intent thing was missing. Hand job number one was sort of a stealth hand job in that Ray didn't even have it on his radar, and Fraser treated it like it was just something you did when on stakeout. Like stocking up on the gum. Hand job number two was in response to Fraser being a total asshole and pooh-poohing Ray's understandable class grade-A freak-out, like, of course you jack off your partner during stakeouts. All the best families do it sort of shit. So they were about even steven until the last round of spank the monkey when Fraser asked and Ray said yes. That wasn't about Ray dancing his usual ADD mambo or Fraser working his attitude. It was about Fraser giving him a hand job, and Ray totally on board with getting one.

Where in the hell did they go from here?

Ray had tried chatting. That didn't work very well. He ended up with Lo Mein trickling down his wall. Talking? Fraser pulled out his fifty-seven varieties of scorn and laid them on with that Canadian trowel he always had handy. Of course, he'd also pulled Ray's dick out of his pants and done him, so maybe Ray should just shut up.

Yeah, that was it. Shut up, Ray. Ray'd spelled it out and shouted it out, and now it was time for the Canadian team to take that baton and run with that gay sucker. Ray had done his sprint with the whole gay thing, and now it was up to Fraser to pick up the fucking slack. Fraser'd been the last one to touch dick and now it was his turn to deal with the fact that he and Ray were, apparently, trading in their used hetero for some new homo.

Although Ray should have just continued to freak out and question every decision he'd made since 1978, because this sort of shit was, fuck, life altering--atoms weren't exactly doing nuclear stuff where you get mushroom clouds, but they were reorganizing in a pretty weird-ass way--he didn't. Nope. He found himself indulging his latent fourteen-year old teenage boy by laying a whole slew of stick shift jokes on Turtle. Which were really stupid, but pretty funny in a totally guy-like way, and he had to tell Fraser in the... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

*****************************

Did Fraser get his Canadian ass with the program? Did he say anything to Ray whatsoever?

Fraser said dick.

Oh, it wasn't like Fraser wasn't talking. Fraser was talking alright. He wouldn't shut the fuck up. But none of it was about Fraser and Ray getting up close and personal. In a nutshell? The entire Arctic Circle was on the verge of melting and it was ALL RAY's FAULT.

Up until now, Ray had grooved with Fraser's love for all things Arctic, frozen, and tree-ish. And while you'd think that this would have been a deal-breaker given Ray's love of gas-guzzling muscle cars, it wasn't. Ray paid tribute to Fraser's tree-hugging persona by not running the water when brushing his teeth, recycling (which was really just throwing his beer bottles into a milk crate and having Fraser take them out to the curb whenever he came over), and writing lots of checks to a ton of tree-hugging organizations (that had been vetted by Fraser). And while Fraser might deplore the effect carbon dioxide was having on the ozone, he really appreciated, like whoa, Ray's ability to handle a car and the Goat's ability to haul ass when push came to shove. Which was a given about three times a week on average. And you didn't make those sorts of moves and burn frigging rubber driving a fucking Prius. So yeah. They were cool with each other, generally, on that score.

So? What the fuck?

It started off on Monday morning during their donut/whole wheat bagel run, with Ray getting a lecture on how he was single-handedly felling the entire Amazon based on the number of napkins he'd just used. Then at lunch Fraser asked him (in all seriousness) if Ray had given any thought to converting the Goat to gassing up with vegetable oil (the very idea caused Ray to snort bits of pastrami sandwich out his nose). The rest of the week was more of the same.

Ray had gotten pretty good at turning a deaf ear to Fraser's save-the-earth spiels (Dief deaf my ass), but this time Fraser wouldn't let up. He'd keep interspersing these Nature channel info dumps and Ray being an accessory after the fact, with critical observations about the cases they were working on, so Ray had no choice but to listen.

Every day Fraser reamed Ray a new environmental asshole, when he could have been discussing assholes in an entirely different and a whole hell of a lot more fun context. Ray honestly didn't know where this shit was coming from. It was ENDLESS. They weren't talking about their boners, which is what they should have been talking about (which, Ray admitted, would have normally freaked him out, but now seemed hell of a lot more reasonable than putting Crisco in the Goat's gas tank). All this talk about impending environmental doom and gloom did kill most of his sexual impulses and maybe that was the point.

By Saturday night, Ray had had enough. His hand was itching to just grab the napkin container sitting on the table and beat Fraser to a silent bloody pulp with it. Like seriously harm his environmentally-friendly Canadian ass. He'd get off, no question. He'd call Fraser as a witness for the defense, and let Fraser talk for three hours about whatever. The bailiffs would probably have to hustle Fraser out of the room before the jury turned on him and collectively beat him to death with their notebooks. They'd return a verdict of justifiable napkin holder battery. Ray'd be free by dinner time; Fraser would be deported for being the most irritating fuck on the face of this planet.

They were eating in their favorite diner--possibly about to become their former favorite diner because that napkin holder had "State's Exhibit No. 1" written all over it-- and Fraser was sniping about Ray's napkin consumption again and how many trees had died so that Ray's upper lip could remain catsup free. Bash him until he shut the fuck...

And then he got it. Oh, he was so fucking stupid. So stupid. The Canadians hadn't forfeited. Mr. Snippy was trying to pass the baton! But not Fraser's usual Ray-you-are-being-ridiculously-stupid-it's-obvious-it-was-Miss-Scarlett-with-the candlestick-in-library snippy. Nope, it was his Ray-please-touch-my-dick-you-ozone-depleting-whore snippy.

Ray debated sliding down into his chair, spreading his legs, and just laying on the sex-me-up voice, but he didn't. Because Fraser riding his ass for the last week in this totally backward and annoying way told him that this was as hard for Fraser as it was for himself. Ray wasn't going to play games with him. Given the mountains of snippy shit that had been spewing out of Fraser's mouth for the last week, he wanted it bad.

Ray sat forward and said in a low voice, "Fraser, you're pretty snippy there. You want me to take care of that for you."

Fraser blushed and dropped his fork, and for one second Ray panicked because maybe mutual dick fun wasn't on the menu, but then Fraser ducked his head so that Ray couldn't see his face, but he could see the nod.

Ray found himself blushing, too, and rather than look at Fraser he threw some bills on the table and growled out, "Wolf, we're out of here."