Author's Notes: Beta'd by the gifted and astonishing estrella30. Girlfriend rocks like a rock star.

Story Notes: Written in October 2004 for nifra_idril, who was on crutches at the time and needed some porn about which she had to make absolutely no decisions.

There are different kinds of pain.

There's the bruises you get every day, banging into the alley wall during a chase or tripping over a pile of harnesses and dogsled parts or being under someone's hands at exactly the right time. There's the ache when you're sick and only want soup and crackers and to be left the hell alone, and the irritable itchy hurt of a sprained ankle, where mostly what hurts is that you can't fucking move when you want to and your muscles are tense all the time with the need to just get up and go already, go. There're the cuts, same story as the bruises and scrapes but closer calls, or maybe the knife slips when you're cleaning the last of the fur off the rabbit Dief brought back. Or maybe it's someone else's knife, and it didn't slip, or maybe it's a gun. But those heal, too, like the others; it just takes time.

Then there's the kind of pain where Ray's hands hurt, clenched tight around the thick top rungs of the headboard, and the small of his back twinges a little when Fraser shoves into him even harder than normal, and he's got more of both of their weights on his knees than maybe he ought to. And if he's lucky, like he is at the moment, there's still a little burn where Fraser went in hard and fast, wanting it so bad that he gave that whole proper-preparation thing a miss and just took Ray nownowNOW. Just enough stretch and burn to back Ray down from the edge, which he usually hits in, like, four strokes when Fraser's fucking him. Ray appreciates this particular small pain; it lets him stay in that place where he can see the edge but hasn't hit it yet, so it's less about him and he can actually feel what Fraser's doing, what Fraser needs, what's got Fraser so completely twisted up inside today.

Because, yeah: whatever's going on with Fraser is hurting him like hell. No doubt about it--Fraser is in pain.

Which Ray knows, and so he also knows that this sweat-soaked slip and slide, this fucking intense thing they have on going here is really not about him at all. Ray figured that out when Fraser pinned him down on top of their comforter and sucked biting, stinging kisses from his throat all the way down to high inside his thighs without ever touching his aching, leaking cock. He knew it when Fraser flipped him over and pulled him roughly onto all fours, pushed two lubed fingers into him as a token courteous gesture and then shoved into him, deep, voice cracking in the middle of a monologue Ray's pretty sure was French and full of curse words. And he can feel it now in the way Fraser is fucking him, thrusting into him over and over, teeth sunk into the side of his neck and a steady stream of broken groans humming against the sensitive skin there, marking him and taking him and owning his ass.

And Ray knows this one, Ray is with this, this particular pattern of all the ones they've got together, and he has a rough idea of where this is gonna end. Yeah, he'll come, hard, and he can see that edge a little closer now and that's a very good thing. He'll come before Fraser, probably, because when Fraser's this far inside his own head what he needs more than anything else is to fuck his way through it, to get lost in the skin and the sweat and the contact of being deep inside Ray -- he needs that a lot more than he needs the actual release of coming. Ray knows this, too; it's one of the pieces of Fraser he gets.

So Ray knows this is gonna take Fraser a long time--long enough maybe that Ray'll come again, definitely long enough that Ray'll feel it for a while and Fraser'll wind up apologizing afterwards. Finally, though -- finally Fraser'll lose that pounding rhythm he's got going, that rhythm that right now Ray thinks might never stop, and his hips will jerk into Ray short and sharp and like he can't help himself, and his scraped-up, sore hands will tighten their hold where they're curled over the points of Ray's shoulders -- hard enough to bruise -- and he'll moan long and low like he's dying and collapse on Ray, wiped out and exhausted and empty.

And he'll sleep.

And then, maybe, he'll be able to find words for it.