Disclaimer: Benton Fraser and Ray Kowalski aren't mine (boo-hoo.) No profit is being made.

Author's Notes: Written for dS ConEnvy. Prompt: Fraser/Kowalski, "Confess that you stole these apples" for Roadrunner1896. Betaed by the fantastic Green_grrl . Any mistakes that remain are absolutely mine.

Story Notes: Wingfic.

The brisk late August wind and the happy warmth from a brilliant sun combined to provide Benton with a rare but completely welcomed moment of idleness. This short camping trip to Silver Springs was a delightful break after what had proved to be a stressful instance of being a peace officer...behaving as a bodyguard for the worst-mannered teenager he had ever met. Apparently, being a Canadian pop music star meant having carte blanche to throw tantrums for being unable to find `the perfect pair of jeans.' Benton shuddered as he remembered the petulant adolescent causing a scene at a French designer store. The upside of the situation was that not only had Ray been co-assigned to security detail, but that both of them had gotten three days off after the pop princess continued East on her first American tour. Being in the park on a Tuesday added a patina of wickedness to his very idyllic surroundings.

Straining his ears, he could tell Dief was, quite literally, scampering after a small feral woodland animal. He felt equal surprise and relief at seeing the half-wolf occasionally revert back to his natural instincts. There had been occasions, especially during those first months in his Chicago assignment, when Benton tried to assuage his guilt about keeping an otherwise wild animal within the Chicago confines.

A sudden caw--he cocked his head to the side (was that an osprey?)--broke his reverie. Benton embraced the opportunity to be seduced by Nature. He was lulled by the same kind of peace he felt whenever he was in Ray's arms. Nodding a couple of times, almost in slow motion, he slouched further against the tree trunk until only his head rested against the oak's rough, solid bark, and promptly fell asleep. On a not-so-balmy day like the one they were having, he was sure Ray wouldn't return for hours.

*****

Hurrying back to the spot he had last seen Ben, wings beating with perhaps more vigor than was necessary to keep him on the air, Ray tilted his body, the late afternoon sun's heat on his left side, as he felt the same rush of excitement as the first time he flew. He tried to keep his arms around the small nylon pouch that was fastened to one of his belt loops.

Being the skinny kid in a mostly working class neighbourhood had meant he had to be tough or wily enough to go around the bullies. Being the skinny kid who had wings by age twelve automatically earned Ray Kowalski a ticket to the "you-better-wise-up-or-you'll-get-your-ass-kicked-`til-the-end-of-time" ride.

Meeting and falling in love with Stella had given him a smidgen of normalcy. His golden girl had had a non-reaction when he, spurred by the need to tell someone about his outer freak, unfurled the occasionally manifested, fearsome silver-gray wings. She never brought up the fact that her boyfriend, then fianc and (finally) husband could fucking fly.

Not once, not even during their worst fights. It was as if he never molted right before the end of every summer as long as neither of them talked about it. Ray knew Stella enough to recognize he would never feel completely free or ok with letting her see them again, let alone see him fly. She wasn't disgusted (more like uncomfortable with the idea that Ray would never be normal) and, in her own way, she did love him.

He sometimes thought his ex-wife feared having a couple of winged babies, Cupid-style, flopping around her living room. She'd had nothing but nightmares on the three separate occasions she had tested false positive for pregnancy.

Ben, on the other hand, had wholeheartedly accepted the very real fact that his boyfriend defined freak. Of course, Benton Fraser was the non-winged variety of weirdo. Tasting everything from arsenic to electricity and having discussions (and arguments) with a lip-reading deaf half-wolf was part of his everyday routine.

It had been Ben's idea to go to the parks during the offseason just so Ray could have enough space to really take to the air. "You wouldn't want them to get atrophied, correct?" he suggested one night, back in their apartment, after looking at Ray check his feathers and flap his wings to stretch out the muscles.

*****

Ray coasted on the wind, dipping his body this way and that, extending his wings out as far as they would go, until he found his jeans and flannel shirt-wearing Mountie slumbering by a tree. He began to fall down in lazy circles. In an ideal world, he would have as much grace landing as he did whenever he danced. Instead, he miscalculated how close the ground was and ended up fumbling hard enough to wake up Ben. Within three seconds, his wings folded and blurred, leaving the skin of his back looking like everyone else's.

He took in the image before him: mussed hair, half-opened mouth, dark blue shirt pulled up until just a hint of Ben's firm belly showed, and legs splayed, inviting him, feathers and all.

"Tsk, tsk, Ben. What would the RCMP Manual have to say about Mounties that doze in the middle of the afternoon?"

"Well, Ray," Benton said half-yawning, "I'm sure there is a chapter on the need for proper rest." He stretched out his arms, giving fully into the yawn, eyes closed tight, as he began to sit up.

Ray smirked at him in return, kneeled between his still-sleepy boyfriend's legs, and tilted his head to give him a quick kiss. "Got ya a present, Ben," he said. He straightened up long enough to unhook the pouch from the waist of his cutoffs and shift his body so that his right shoulder rested against Ben's torso. "G'on, open it. I promise ya, it won't bite."

Benton rolled his eyes (but because he's Canadian, he did politely), before taking out three apples that were on the cusp of being ripe. He dropped his head until he could look back at the blond man, an "I better hope to hear you bartered for these, Ray" expression on his face.

Ray tittered for a second and decided that the best defense to nosy boyfriends-who-love-winged-freaks was to go on the offensive. He lifted his head until Ben's very appetizing left ear was close enough for him to nip. His left hand rested against Ben's flannel-covered right nipple, the fingers beginning to tease it.

"Confess you stole these apples, Ray!" Benton whispered as Ray's teeth worried the exact place where neck meets shoulder. Feeling his cock harden and all coherent thought shushing in his mind, he made a compromise with himself to raise his inquiries again sometime before they made it back to their camp. He dropped the fruits and the small bag to the side and began to lick Ray's neck.