Author's Notes: Mille grazie to Spuffyduds and Nos4a2no9, who alerted me to the fact that I'd been tagged for this challenge on a day when I was hiding from the world. Without them, Fraser and Kowalski would have no clean clothes whatsoever.

Story Notes: Written on 19 October 2008 for stop_drop_porn's Fall Into Porn challenge. Prompt = "flannel".

Flannel was the fabric of his childhood.

A fabric, anyway. Wool for sweaters, of course--his grandmother would not have countenanced the conscious use of acrylic in her home even had it been readily available in the Territories at that time--and for blankets and socks and shawls and the Fraser plaid his grandfather wore, seldom but always with pride. Cotton, often--lighter for undergarments, a little cool against the skin at first, and the heavy indigo weight of denim and unrefined khaki cloth that went into work pants and skirts. One fine long piece of silk, faded from a shining purple to lavender everywhere but the folding creases by the time Ben first saw it around his grandmother's neck one rare night of celebration; thirty-odd years later, the way her rough skin caught on the silk as she stroked it remains vivid in his mind's eye.

But flannel was the best fabric he knew back then: in the bright plaid shirts all three of them wore, in the deep blue covering his grandmother sewed for their threadbare couch, in the sheets with which she made up each bed twice a week, switching one set for the next regular as clockwork so nothing would wear through before its time. Flannel was comforting, and thus unusual. Warm. Soft, once broken in. Sensual, though Ben neither knew that word as a child nor could have brought himself to use it if he had. Flannel smelled like lye soap and line-drying and wood smoke, and so like family, and like home.

It still does.

"Hey." Ray's arms come around him from behind, hands coming to rest not, as so often, over his eyes or his cock, but warm over his own hands where they hold the corners of the last pillowcase. "Wool-gathering?"

Ben smiles to himself. "Flannel-gathering, rather."

Ray's mouth, which he's lowered to nip at the nape of Ben's neck, curves into an unconsciously answering smile against the sensitive skin there, and Ben shivers. "Yeah? Y'know, Ben, this thing you have for flannel is kind of, whatsit, fetishistic, don't you think?"

"Not at all, Ray. Flannel is both a practical and a useful fabr-- ahhh..." Ray's hands have shifted, one moving suddenly to pluck the pillow from Ben's grasp and fling it towards the head of their bed while the other comes down--inevitably, inexorably--to cup Ben's cock through his jeans. He bites Ben's neck, then licks a wet, hot stripe along Ben's newly shorn hairline and up to his ear. Ben moans, his head dropping back onto Ray's shoulder and his knees weakening, but Ray has him. Ray has him.

"Don't get me wrong, now, I'm not objecting or nothing. Quite the reverse, as a certain Mountie of my acquaintance might say." Ray's voice--mocking, affectionate--has a familiar husky edge to it, and Ben can feel him, hot and growing harder by the moment, through the two layers of denim that separate them. He thrusts against Ben, his hips insistent, and Ben moans again. "Firstly, flannel is part of the package with you, and I am all over that."

"So-- so I n-noticed," Ben says breathlessly. Ray's hand tightens over his cock, rubbing hard through the fabric, and Ben takes his next shallow breath through teeth clenched against the painful pleasure of it.

"Hah! Funny guy." Ray slides the other hand down Ben's body, flicks open the top two buttons of Ben's jeans, and slips his hand beneath the waistband, insinuating his long fingers into the crease between Ben's thigh and groin and pulling outward. Ben widens his stance, panting, and gasps as Ray's stroking fingers brush against his balls. The contrast between the heat of Ray's knowing touch against his skin and the rough pleasure of the denim against his cock where Ray's palm cups him is dizzying, and he sags against Ray's body.

Quicker than Ben could have imagined possible if he had not, by now, come to appreciate some of Ray's typical tricks, Ray moves with him, winding one sock-clad foot around his calves and tumbling them both onto the bed. He turns them as they fall so that Ben winds up on his back, Ray's arm curved under his neck. Ray wraps one long leg over both of Ben's, effectively pinning him to the bed, and Ray's free hand goes unerringly to the remaining buttons of his jeans. The worn-soft flannel of the sheets Ben put on the bed moments--hours? seconds?--ago brushes against the skin of his back where his shirt has come untucked, fuel to the flame that already threatens to consume him.

"Second," Ray's voice is thick with arousal now, and his hand shakes a little as it flicks open Ben's fly buttons, "given that approximately two-thirds of your non-Mountie wardrobe is flannel, plus pretty much every set of sheets we own for this place, and given that you are more than a little bit of a neat freak, flannel and laundry tend to go hand in hand around here." On the word "hand" he wraps his own hand around Ben's cock, freeing it from the confines of Ben's jeans.

Ben arches up helplessly, heels digging into the bed under the weight of Ray's pinioning leg, and a keening moan escapes him. Ray grins at Ben open-mouthed, tightens his grip, and begins to strip Ben's cock from root to tip, flicking his thumb over the swollen head every few strokes. "And because I am a trained observer, being as how I am a detective and all, I have noticed that while flannel makes you hot, clean flannel makes you even hotter, not to mention horny as hell."

Ray's speed increases, the muscles in his forearm working as he jerks Ben off, and even as Ben's vision clouds with approaching climax he can see the way Ray looks at him, all intensity and passion and intent. "Case in point: you, right here, right now, stretched out across all this soft clean flannel that smells like us and sweating like crazy, with your shirt open and your pants open and your nipples hard and your cock leaking all over the place, just waiting for me to finish you off, to let you come, to give you what you need..."

Ben screams--or tries to, the sound muffled by Ray's mouth as it comes down over his. His hips come up off the bed, pushing his cock into Ray's grip again and again and again until the pleasure explodes, contracting every muscle and then releasing him into exhausted joy.

When he can feel his fingers again, he is wet with sweat and semen, like Ray, like their sheets. Ray lies beside him, propped up on one elbow and looking into his face, fingers stroking idly through the streaks of come that stripe Ben's stomach and chest. Ben blinks, and Ray smiles lazily at him.

"Nice mess you made here, Benton buddy. Guess we'll have to do some more laundry, eh?"

"Not yet, I think." Mustering what strength remains to him, Ben tenses his muscles and then flips them so that Ray is underneath, sprawled on his back, with Ben's weight pressing him into the sheets. Ben catches Ray's wet hand by the wrist and pins it against the pillow above Ray's head, bringing one knee up to press hard into Ray's groin. Ray's mouth goes slack with pleasure, his eyes closing. Ben puts his mouth against Ray's ear, so every word will brush hot air across Ray's sensitive skin. "So much more flannel to dirty up first, don't you think?"