Story Notes: Written in March 2008. Veers ever so slightly into s & m territory.

When Fraser strips him down Ray thinks they're headed where they've been headed--well, pretty much every time they had the chance, since they started this thing; four or five weeks now. But Fraser keeps his own clothes on, gives Ray one long kiss but then says, "Lie down, Ray, and I'll give you a massage." And Ray's his usual amount of tense and sore, which mostly he doesn't let himself think about so it's just kind of a background whine in his head, but the second that offer is out there--yeah, that sounds really good.

He stretches out on his stomach and Fraser rattles through drawers for a minute, comes to the bed and kinda half-kneels with his knees to either side of Ray's thighs. His jeans tickle a little, and when he says "Wait a moment, Ray, I'm just warming up the oil with my hands," his voice is low and furry, and Ray squirms some against the quilt. But once Fraser starts rubbing and squeezing, Ray's brain goes away from the sex place, because damn this is great all by itself--Fraser's strong fingers digging in all the places that hurt, shoulders and back, squeezing and pressing the pain out. There's one spot just inside his right shoulderblade that feels so good when Fraser rubs it that Ray actually gets tears in his eyes, Jesus.

So after a while he's just a warm puddle of Ray--he can't remember ever being this relaxed without some kind of chemical help. He's really, really close to just drifting off to sleep, and then Fraser starts scratching his back, just right, not so light it tickles or so hard it hurts.

"Mmmm," Ray says. And Fraser says, "Mmmmm," right back, like he's getting something out of this too, which makes no sense, so Ray mumbles, "Pay you back later, 'kay?"

"No need," Fraser says, and he's scratching a little harder now, and a little harder, and. Long swoops down Ray's back that are skating up to the edge of too hard, and then they're over it.

"Hey," Ray says, and he's still so relaxed that even with that happening he doesn't tense up, doesn't move, "Hey, hurts."

"In a bad way?" Fraser says, and that's such a stupid question that Ray raises up on his elbows a little, turns his head so he can glare up and sideways at Fraser and say, "Yeah, bad, that would be the definition of hurts, buddy," but Fraser is giving him this look like he expects Ray to be actually thinking about his answer, like it was not a stupid question. So Ray doesn't say it, stops and thinks and feels instead, and...huh. Yeah, there are the lines of mild ow down his back, but rising up--under them, kind of, there's this good burn, and some other feeling that's sorta--cold; tingly and sparky, somehow? Hot and cold at the same time. Like peppermint.

"Weird," he says. "Bad, yeah, but...and...not, too?"

"Good," Fraser says, his voice all thick, and goes back to what he was doing, covering every inch of Ray's back now, really leaning into it and digging a little, and fuck, that's got to be marking him up, leaving welts. Ray keeps gasping and twitching and almost asking him to stop, but after every streak of pain there's that hotcold rush that lasts a lot longer than the pain does, and after a while the pain is only lines wherever Fraser just scratched, but the good, really good cold burn is all over his back, way wider than the hurt.

That burn is filling up his head, it's hard to think about anything else except ow, yeah, yeah, so by the time he notices that he's not twitching anymore, that he's rocking his hips instead, grinding his cock into the mattress every time Fraser draws a hot trail down his back--he's probably been doing it for a while, because he's hard and aching and close.

"Fraser," he gasps, "what the hell--" and Fraser stops scratching, curls his hands under Ray's hipbones, and for a second Ray thinks Fraser's gonna grab on tight, stop him from fucking the mattress, which, God, please don't. But Fraser just holds onto his hips gently while Ray rocks for a minute, along for the ride, and Fraser's moaning like Ray's doing something seriously porny instead of just high-school humping, here.

Then Fraser lets go of his hips, slides one hand under and squeezes Ray's cock, thank you Fraser, and Ray could not possibly feel any better anywhere except that Fraser's other hand is on his back again and then shoots lower than he's gone yet, scratches down Ray's ass hard and it hurts and it's fantastic, and that's it. Ray makes a god-awful howling choking noise and comes all under himself and over Fraser's hand, and it seems to go on forever, his whole body jerking and shuddering and when he tries to stop yelling his teeth chatter.

When it's finally over he's got nothing left. He is never moving again, he is just going to lie here until he dies of something because moving is--he can't even imagine being able to move.

Fraser's on the case, though, Fraser is pulling the extra blanket up over them and then getting his arms under Ray's chest, pulling Ray up out of the sticky puddle, rolling them so they're on their sides on a dry part of the quilt and he's spooned up behind Ray. It's warm and good and Ray would be passing right out, except that he's pressed against Fraser's flannel shirt now and his back is crazy sensitive--not hurting but it's like he can feel every individual tiny bit of shirt fuzz touching him. He's got to be nothing but a crisscross mess of red welts back there, and what the hell was that about?

"Fraser?" he says. "Uh, what was that about?"

"I don't know, Ray," Fraser says softly. "You were just so--" he tucks his face suddenly into the space between Ray's shoulderblades, and he's a little stubbly, so, ow, and good. And he mumbles something that is maybe, probably, "beautiful."

Ray just lies there for a minute, trying to work through the logic of "You looked beautiful so I had to streak you up with welts," but what the fuck, it makes as much sense as anything else Fraser does. So he wiggles until his back is up against Fraser's shirt a little harder and isn't doing the distracting prickly thing anymore. Finds Fraser's hands with his own and gets their fingers all tangled together, says, "Okay, whatever, buddy," and goes to sleep.