Story Notes: Here's the thing I scribbled on the Chicago-to-Seattle leg of the trip to Bitchinparty. This was for the "Fics on a Plane!" 'zine, which was the very cool idea of Wordplay and omphale23. I was most grateful that I got to write it on the flight where I was seating next to the girl with the "I <3 yaoi" logo on her bag, and not the one where I was sharing an armrest with the gentleman with the giant crucifix. ;-) Posted as scrawled, for that raw immediacy that comes with not having FIXED anything, aren't you lucky!

Ray knew what to do with the twitchy, restless tired that Fraser got from following stupid orders all day. When Fraser got home in the evenings back in the Ice Queen era, he needed pushing out again--out for a long Dief run, out for basketball at the Y. Sometimes Ray went with, sometimes he started dinner; either way, after that Fraser would be sweaty but grinning, able to crack jokes about Thatcher's decision that he needed to go through every file cabinet and replace all the metal paper clips with plastic-coated ones.

"Lest they leave rust stains on official Canadian documents," he explained solemnly.

"Yeah, lest," Ray said with a perfectly straight face, and Fraser snorted and started setting the table.

So, yeah, that worked for the few months Thatcher was there after the whole submarine thing, when she was even pissier and more let-me-make-up-the-most-pointless-fucking-jobs-ever than usual. (Ray thought, privately, that she got worse then because right after the Quest was when Fraser moved in with him--that up until then she'd been thinking she'd had a shot.)

But after she got her transfer & Fraser got his promotion, Fraser just started coming home a different kind of tired, and Ray wasn't sure what to do with this one. It wasn't jittery/twitchy like before; Fraser just seemed kinda--flattened. He took whichever his turn was--cooking or clean-up--but then he'd flop on the couch, stare blankly at the tv; say "Whatever you like, Ray," whenever Ray asked what he wanted to watch.

He was perfectly pleasant and perfectly polite & it was starting to drive Ray out of his fucking mind.

Ray kept bugging him about what the hell was going on at work, and of course it took days, because Ray had to get over the wall of "Nothing unexpected, why do you ask?" and push past the guard dogs of "Really, everything is going quite well," and swim the moat of "I can't imagine why you keep thinking there's a problem," and beat back the rabid alligators of, "Well, of course every job has its stresses, Ray, but it's tiresome to rehash them."

And finally, finally Fraser cracked, slumped back further into the couch cushions even than usual, and sighed, "I suppose--it's just the stresses of command, Ray. So many decisions, and so few of them clear-cut, and..." he waved one hand vaguely, and Ray took a guess, "Turnbull as second-in-command isn't exactly taking much of the pressure off, huh?"

"Hah. No," Fraser said. "In fact, his reinstatement after the fizzling of his political career--makes it evident that I have not managed to endear myself to all of the hierarchy of the RCMP."

He sat up, shook himself a little, said, "I'm wallowing. How was your day?"

"Standard," Ray said. "C'mon, let's go to bed."

And Fraser was--a little off there, lately, too. Nothing too major, but he was kinda--hesitant? He'd start reaching for Ray and just stop for a beat, like he wasn't sure he had permission, which as far as Ray was concerned he had a "You can touch Ray anytime" note signed by the President and the Queen and Michael Jordan and God, and Fraser knew that, so what the hell?

And tonight he was pulling that again; stripped down like usual and climbed in with Ray, no problem; but then started to reach for Ray and paused, ducking his head down & looking up at Ray through his lashes. And Ray suddenly had a hunch.

"No," he said sharply, and Fraser blinked at him, looking--startled, but something else, too, Ray was maybe onto something here. "You can't touch me yet," Ray said, making it a little mean, throwing just a little bit of "sit in the fucking chair and shut up, perp" tone in there, and Fraser's eyes fluttered shut and he got that full-body shudder that only happened when he was spectacularly into it, and Ray was a fucking genius.

"On your back," he said, low & fierce, and Fraser rolled. Ray got up on his knees, crouched one knee on either side of Fraser's thighs, and fuck Fraser was warm against the insides of his legs and Ray just wanted to throw himself all over Fraser and kiss him a couple dozen hundred times, but that was not the point right now.

Fraser was looking up at him wide-eyed and kind of stunned and like he'd do whatever damn thing Ray said. But Fraser's hands had little evil hand-brains of their own and were touching Ray now, just lightly like he wasn't gonna notice, trailing fingertips up the outsides of Ray's legs.

"I. Said. No," Ray snapped, and Fraser dropped his hands, made whiteknuckled fists in the sheet with them, shuddered some more.

Ray leaned forward, put his hands just outside Fraser's shoulders, and Fraser's dick was standing up and saying hi and making a pretty convincing case that Ray ought to be touching it right now, but Ray bit his own lip hard and wiggled himself up Fraser until he was over his chest. He leaned more then, and bent his elbows and then he was stroking his stomach softly across Fraser's lips and nose, and just the tip of his cock was sliding across Fraser's chest. And those were the only two spots they were touching, so gently, over and over, and Ray was possibly gonna die, but under him Fraser was moaning and shivering but not touching him, not moving, perfect, so Ray kept it up as long as he possibly could. Until he felt like if he went another second without more he was going to scream or pass out or combust or something, and then he gasped "Now touch me now now now," and just barely managed to bite back the "please please please" that wanted to be on the end of that, but he managed, kept it an order.

Fraser made a high sharp "ahhhhh" sound and grabbed Ray's hips, shoved and pulled at him until he was lying flat full-length on Fraser, and that was so good and so hot and Fraser's arms were around him almost rib-crushing and their cocks were lined up yeah and Ray was grinding down and Fraser was arching up, and everything was good and fantastic and fabulous and then everything was sticky.

Ray stayed flopped where he was for a couple minutes until he wasn't breathing like he'd just gone ten rounds, and then clambered off Fraser but got an arm under him, tugged until they were plastered together front to front; fuck the mess. Fraser was giving him a wary look, a "Was that weird?" look and Ray squeezed even closer, got Fraser's face tucked into his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "You did good, you did exactly right," and then just hung on, stayed there listening to Fraser's breathing slowing into sleep.