Author's website: http://ww.happyfriendbox.com

Disclaimer: Nope, not my characters.

Author's Notes: Many thanks to Mistress SnowFlake for the (as usual) last-minute beta on this.

Story Notes: Okay. I have a few apologies to make on this fic. It's way over-length, but fully half of it is pure smut, so I figure you'll forgive me. It's barely about canoes. And I've been watching Hard Core Logo much too much lately, so I apologize if Ray, on occasion, channels Billy Tallent. Much thanks to the Canoe Canada website that got me started on this fic. <g>

Finding Balance
By witchbaby

<a href="http://www.canoecountry.com/canoecanada/">Get Away to the Most Pristine Wilderness in North America</a>

Quetico is the Canadian side of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It covers 4,800 square kilometers of untouched wilderness in Northern Ontario's Pre-Cambrian shield rock forest. No hunting, roads, or development of any kind are allowed and firearms are prohibited. Even motorized boats are banned from the park, so you can travel by canoe through a truly remote wilderness.

Fraser tries again to hand me the brochure.

"No." I push his hand away.

"Ray."

"I said no."

"Ray."

"Do you not understand English, Canada-boy? Look. I'm willing to do a lot of things, but this ain't one of 'em"

He just looks at me and there's a pause, and I know, I just know, I am so gonna lose this argument. Not without a fight, though. He's fucking crazy if he thinks I'm gonna go for this. Has he met me?

"It's not that far away. Only seven hundred seventy miles. That's much closer than..."

"Fraser. It doesn't matter how far away it is. Can you read this thing?"

His eyes widen. His tone is chiding. "Of course I can read, Ray. You've seen me read."

I ignore him. "No roads. No boats. No firearms."

"Now why on earth would we need firearms in Quetico, Ray?"

I look at him incredulously.

"Yes, well, we do have our share of bad luck..." He shifts uneasily as he says it.

I continue to stare at him.

"...bad timing?" he ventures. "But I assure you, Ray, we will be far outside the realm of gang fights and mobsters."

"This is just my problem, Fraser." I glare at him. "This little trip you have planned, it's far outside of my realm, too."

"Ray, we'll have a tent, sleeping bags, air-mattresses..."

"Fraser, we'll have no telephones, no roads, no boats, have I mentioned no firearms?"

Neglecting the obvious, he says, somehow persuasively, "Ray, we will have a canoe. We can follow the routes of the historic French Canadian fur trade of the 1600's."

"Oh, can we?" I exclaim.

He ignores my sarcasm. "Yes, and camp out at night in the wilderness, under the stars..."

"...with the bears and bison and wolves..."

"Buffalo, Ray."

"Whatever, Fraser."

"And we'll have a wolf of our own with us."

"And a whole flock of wolves..."

"Pack of wolves..."

"...after my skinny little ass as I lay there in our goddamn tent, not even a cabin, no, we got a tent..."

"...with an air-mattress..."

"Whatever, Fraser. Doesn't change the fact that we'll have wild animals hunting us down while we're vacationing in goddamn Quetico, wherever the fuck Quetico is..."

"Canada, Ray."

"Thanks, Fraser, I get that."

"Seven hundred seventy miles from Chicago..."

"Yeah, Fraser, I get it."

"Much closer than Inuvik." His tone is quiet and I stop on an intake of breath. I like fighting with him. We fight good. We fight almost as good as we fuck. Make love. Whatever. We don't fight to hurt. We...how does he say it? Yeah...we aren't mean for sport. We aren't mean. We fight because, hell, you're with somebody, day after day, fucking sharing your life with somebody...well, yeah, you're gonna fight. You can't be all calm and polite all the time (even if one of you is Canadian). You disagree and you simmer and you boil over and then you yell and then you make up.

Stella and I used to be real good at making up. Kinda better at making up than we were at actually, uh, relating. Being in a relationship. Whatever. At the start, we were good at being together. At the end...we weren't good for much. We would fight like crazy and eventually, even the making up wouldn't work.

Makes me a little shaky on the making-up with Fraser. Makes me worry that maybe we'll get to the point where we are mean for sport and I don't ever want to be mean that way with him. I tease him because he teases me back in his own polite Canadian way. It's what we do. It's where we find our balance. This back and forth and yeah, maybe it's bickering, but we get it, we get that balance and don't knock it if it works.

So now I'm standing here and I've worked up this whole head of steam, and he's been playing it with me, and I figure we're gonna get all hot 'n bothered here and there ain't no way this particular crazy argument ain't gonna end up getting settled in the bedroom (or maybe, the way it's going, on the couch), with me beneath him, and me agreeing, agreeing maybe at the top of my lungs, that yeah, yeah, I'll do whatever, whatever he wants. Camping or air-mattresses or the Yukon or Inuvik or anything, anything, so long as he, so long as he...

So long as he doesn't stand there looking so sad. I lean back against the wall, my arms crossed across my chest. He thinks I'm still fighting. I'm just looking, looking at him. I can't do it, I can't take it, when he looks so damn fucking sad. Of course, it's Fraser-sad, which means he shuts down and his expression doesn't look like he feels much of anything, unless you know him real good. Like I know him real good. And when he gets that closed-off look, that means he don't want you looking too close. Like it ain't polite to get upset or angry or lonely or yeah, fucking homesick. I mean, I understand homesick, that makes sense to me.

It's funny. The guy is so weird and out of place that I guess I sometimes forget just how out of place he really is. Seriously far from home, Fraser is, and maybe he thought that he really could get me to see this trip like a fun kinda thing, with canoes and tents and sleeping under the stars. 'Cause that's fun to a guy like him. Me, I like indoor plumbing and nice comfy beds and my gun within reach. But here's another thing about relationships: it ain't all about you. It's about us.

I reach out and grab the brochure out of his hand. "Look at this, all this stuff we're gonna end up carrying. Tents and sleeping bags and knives, hey, at least they'll let me bring a knife..."

He looks up at me quick, like he's checking to see how fast I'm caving. Like maybe he didn't know I'd cave. Like maybe he's not too sure, either, how solid we got this teasing thing going.

"And if you think we're gonna let some sleazy two-bit outfit plan our trip for us, when I know you gotta know this Quetico place better than any of these people..."

Now his lips twitch, not quite a smile, but a break in that shut-down expression he's got. "Of course I know the area, Ray. I have done the research."

"And hey, look, free cold beer at the end of the trip. You didn't mention nothing about the beer, Fraser."

"I didn't think that drinking beer was the point of trip, Ray. I'm certain the French Canadian fur traders of the 1600's didn't have that particularly in mind..."

"I'm gonna need something to get me through a week of freezing cold nights."

He looks at me. His tongue pokes out just for a second. He rubs his eyebrow with his thumb. "I'm sure I can think of something just as stimulating to keep you, ah, occupied at night."

I raise an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?" I say, challenging. "Like what?"

"Well," he says. Then I'm pressed up against the wall, and his leg is thrust between mine, and he's kissing me hard, tongue in my mouth, and he's got my wrists in his hands, pinned against the wall, hard, hard. He's making these little sounds in his throat, lost sounds, and it's like even though he's trying to show me something here, trying to show me how much he wants me there with him on this trip, how much he wants me to want to be there on this trip, he's also caught up in this, this kissing, this fucking heat between us, and yeah, yeah, I like it when he gets lost like this. I want him to get lost like this. It's worth it for me to trek all the damn way to Quetico for a chance to get lost like this with him.

I finally yank my mouth away from his, my breath coming in these heaving gasps, like there's no air in the room. "All right, all right," I pant, but he's not listening, he's too busy licking his way down my neck, nosing my shirt aside to press his mouth against my shoulder there. I shudder and groan, "Fraser, Fraser, I'll go." But he's still not listening, or at least he doesn't hear me, because all he does in response is bite down hard on my neck, and I buck up against him, but he just crushes me back to the wall.

I'm trying to find enough air to breathe, and I jerk against him as he lays into me with his teeth, his mouth, and I just...I just...fuck, I just want him, so bad. He finally lets go of my neck, and I gasp out, "Jesus fucking Christ, Frase, I said I'll go, I want to go..."

He pulls back, looks at me, threads his fingers through my hair, holds on tight, tilts my head to the side to get just that right angle. Brings his mouth real close to mine and stops for a second, his breath fucking searing my lips.

"I'll go," I whisper helplessly, and he nods, then kisses me, kisses me so hard I can't breathe, feel like I don't want to breathe, don't need to breathe, this is buddy breathing, this is real buddy breathing, this is buddies, and Christ, Christ, I want him so bad.

It's this good with him. It is always this good with him. One thing leads to another and it is always, always this fucking good. I'm hard, seriously rock hard, and he reaches down between us, just cups his hand against me and presses down, then strokes me, and I groan into his cheek and buck again and fuck, fuck, he keeps this up, I'm gonna come in my jeans.

This is what he does to me, this is what he fucking does to me, gets me so out of control I forget how to think, how to breathe, forget everything except his hands on me, his mouth on me, his cock rubbing against me. He's losing it too, he's shaking, hard, and that just gets me off more, just rocks me, watching him lose himself in me like that. It's a struggle, is what it is, for him to give himself to me, to let me see him. It's hard for him, really hard, and I get that like I get homesickness, like I get why he needs me to come on this stupid canoe trip to Quetico with him. It's not the trip, and it's not the canoes, and it's not even Canada. It's more. It's me and it's him and it's us and it's more than he can put into words. So he puts it into this, this rocking push and pull between us, and I let myself get yanked into him, because he feels so good, this feels so fucking good.

And then his hand is in my jeans, in my shorts; he's gotten my pants open so quick I didn't even have time to notice. Now, it's all I can notice, his hand, so warm on my cock. He's breathing hard and he's pressed against me, and then he's on his knees in front of me. I hang on tight to his shoulders, 'cause my knees almost buckle, seeing him in front of me like that, and I slam my head back against the wall, because his breath on my cock is almost enough to make me come right there.

He doesn't look up at me, his attention entirely focused on this, on me, on my cock. When he takes me in his mouth, my knees buckle for real and it's only his hands, firm on my hips, that keep me upright. You'd think this would cool off between us eventually, you'd think it wouldn't always be this hot, this blinding hot, between us. That I wouldn't get to the point of almost passing out this fucking quick, every single time. He just does this to me, he makes me crazy, he makes me hard, so hard, so fast, so hard that it hurts really, really good.

Like now. He's got his mouth on me and, Christ, he's good at this. All focused and intense and his big, square hands are strong as they hold me up.

"Fraser, Fraser, c'mon," I gasp. "Let's go, bedroom, now, like, now." Because I'm suddenly close. Real close, because he's down there on his knees and he's sucking me hard and he's flicking his tongue over the head of my cock, and again, and again, before he swallows me down deep. No way I'm gonna last when he does this, so intent, no way. I'm trying to pull myself away from him, or push him back, something, anything, because fuck, fuck. "Fraser, Christ, don't...I can't...I'm ..."

And I think my head slams back into the wall again, but I don't feel it because I'm too busy coming so fucking hard in Fraser's mouth. I can hear myself, like from far away, kinda moaning his name in a way that would be embarrassing, only I can't seem to worry about it. And even his big, strong hands aren't enough to keep me standing up, because my legs fold under me and I just slide down to the floor. A big ol' messy pile of Ray, and it's Fraser that put me here.

I don't even find the strength to open my eyes before he's kissing me again, leaning forward over me and just kissing the hell out of me, pushing his tongue in deep, deep, so that I can taste myself in his mouth. 'Cause he knows I love that, love how that tastes, that mix of me and him that should be weird but isn't. And I'm wondering if I have the energy to even moan, because I want to tell him how good this is, how good this all is, the kiss, the taste, the blowjob, all of it. Him. Us. This.

He finally stops kissing me when I bat weakly at his shoulders. He pulls back and is kinda sitting back on his knees in front of me. He's still breathing real fast and shuddery, and I can see how hard he is, see the outline of his cock through his jeans. But the look in his eyes right now isn't lust, it's more kind of relieved, I don't know, wonder. Like I'm wonderful or something, when he's the one who just gave me the blowjob of my dreams.

"You'll go with me," he says, but it's really more like a question, still.

I bat at him again, a little more strength this time. Knowing he wants me so bad. "Yeah, duh, of course I'll go. Freak. Like I could say no to you." I reach out and stroke his cock through his jeans and he closes his eyes, breathes in through his nose. Yeah. He wants me, bad.

"You could say no," he says, but it's like he's just not paying attention to the conversation anymore, his focus obviously centered mostly on my hand and his cock.

I grin a little. "I want to go, Fraser."

"Don't have to," he murmurs, getting a little more lost as I slowly unbutton his jeans, ease his zipper down.

"Want to," I say.

"No cabin..." he says, gasping a little as I inch my fingers inside his boxers.

"I like tents," I say, and now I'm leaning real close and my lips are right up against his.

"No, um, firearms." And he's pushing forward, but I'm pulling back. Teasing. I fucking love teasing him. Love it when he comes after me. I wrap my hand firmly around his cock.

"S'okay," I say, then kiss him, soft, long. Pull back. "I'm pretty good with a knife."

He's so not listening anymore. "No...boat," he mumbles, thrusting his hips forward.

"We'll have a canoe." Now I kiss him again and inch my tongue into his mouth, slow, slow. He tastes...good. So, so good. He actually groans out loud when I break the kiss.

"I love canoes," I say, real serious.

"I love you," he says, then gasps as I stroke his cock, slowly.

I grin at him, even though his eyes are closed and he can't see it. "I love you, too."

He opens his eyes, smiles one of those nice, real Fraser smiles.

"Freak," I can't help adding. Then I pull my hand out of his boxers and yank him to his feet, push him stumbling towards the bedroom. Gotta take advantage of that bed while I can, though seeing what Fraser can do in a tent should be....interesting.

Damn.

I'll follow him anywhere, won't I?

I love him that fucking much.

~end~

End Finding Balance by witchbaby: brooklinegirl@rcn.com

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