Title: Rhythm

Author: necessary angel

Pairing: BF/RK

Spoilers: Possibly the very vaguest of hints for Perfect Strangers

Rating: NC17 for m/m slashy stuff

Disclaimer: Alliance owns them I just wish I did

Feedback: Oh yes please - necessary_angel@yahoo.com

Notes: My belated contribution to the masturbation challenge....

Thanks again to Megan for knocking this into somewhat better shape.

This one's for "cath fy"

Rhythm

The door is still there when he opens his eyes. The rumble of music has changed, the insistent driving guitar not masking the husky rasp of the female singer. The music has changed and he is still standing there looking at the wrong side of Ray's apartment door. Fraser turns, hesitates, and swivels back to face the blank wood once more.

He breathes deeply and, raising his hand, finally obeys the impulse that drove him from the Consulate. The door opens just as he raises his hand for a second attempt. Fraser lets his hand drop, trying not to show his dismay at the rapid response. Some part of him had expected Ray not to hear him, and then he could have just left.

"Fraser!"

The music is louder with the door open but his partner makes no attempt to raise his voice. Ray leans against the wall, running one hand through his damp hair. Fraser tracks a bead of sweat from the bare, flushed skin of Ray's neck to the open top button of his tan pants before he realises that he is looking, no, staring, and that Ray is watching him.

"I didn't mean to disturb you, Ray."

"Yer not. I was just...I thought you'd plans for the evening anyway, buddy?" Ray steps back from the doorway, refastening the button with one hand.

Fraser follows him, watching his partner turn down the music to a low background thrum, and shrug into a white T-shirt. Ray is still swaying, his hips snapping slightly as he moves around his apartment. Fraser stamps down firmly on the sudden impulse to turn the volume back up and just watch.

"I er... I am disturbing you, Ray. I..." He sits on the couch despite the words he intends to say.

"I told ya, yer not, I was just... unwinding."

There is more amusement than impatience in the rush of words, so Fraser relaxes back into comfortable curve of the couch.

"Dancing?"

"Yeah. How? Never mind, that's not important." The smile mutates into creases of concern so quickly that Fraser would have thought he'd imagined it but for the ghost burn on his retinas. "So what happened?"

"My plans didn't work out quite as I expected."

"No kidding." Ray's eyes are wide and soft in the half-light and a hand is on his shoulder, squeezing down into his sweater until Fraser is certain he will experience that touch for days.

"Oh." Fraser feels his face change, but for once can't stop himself just showing it all.

"Ya look like ya got hit by a wall. C'mon, Fraze, give! What the fuck happened?"

"All I can tell you is that I acted on a presumption, on what I thought I understood the situation to be, but I was very mistaken."

"Ya wanna leave it at that?"

"Yes, I do."

A look that Fraser feels move over every millimetre of his face and then his partner nods. "Okay."

"Thank you." Fraser lets a little breath of relief escape.

Ray stands, moving towards the kitchen, "Though I oughta kick her in the head or her ass."

Fraser circles his shoulder to disperse the too-light feeling. "Who?"

"The Ice Queen."

Ray's mouth is curved in its familiar smile but Fraser finds the glint in his otherwise flat eyes far more comforting than he should.

"That's hardly appropriate or fitting, Ray." He finds the words but not the tone.

"I know." The smile has faded to a grim line matching the hard light in his partner's always revealing eyes.

"I see." Fraser can not muster the rebuke he knows he should, and that should matter more than it does.

"Good." Ray is back, holding out a mug of tea.

*************************************************************

It's late; Fraser knows that before he even opens his eyes properly. The dappled scatter of the street lighting through... Ray's blinds... is the final small shock that pulls him fully awake. He glances at the clock display on the video, 2:17.

"Oh dear."

His mutter sounds unnaturally loud against the quiet hum of the refrigerator. Fraser sits, pushing the blanket aside and feeling for his boots in the dark, without success. He is now certain that he fell asleep watching that movie Ray had been so keen to see, and that Ray had removed his boots. Certain, because they are nowhere near the couch, which is where he would have placed them.

Sighing, he feels carefully for the table lamp and switches it on. The illumination it provides is much greater than he expected, but no telltale sounds of wakefulness are coming through the open door to Ray's bedroom. He should be able to collect his boots and get out without waking his partner. Fraser stands, scanning the room for his boots, finally spotting them tucked neatly against the wall near Ray's bedroom.

He moves as silently as he can on sleep-stiffened legs to retrieve them. He is almost there when he hears it, a low mumble and the rasp of skin against cotton, then again and again. Fraser is at the bedroom door before he knows he has made the change to his trajectory.

With the street lighting showing through the gaps in the curtains, and the overspill of lamplight, there is more than sufficient light to show Ray against the dark background of his sheets, hips shifting and twisting. More than enough light to show the tangled heap of bedcovers kicked to the bottom of the bed. Light enough to show Ray's fingers dragging over his nipple and sliding over the lines of his ribs. Fraser is close enough to hear the words Ray is breathing in a slurred mumble.

"So good, that's it... ah."

Then nothing but breathing and the slide of skin against skin as Ray's hand moves to his half-hard erection. The long fingers curve over the thickening shaft and slip down between the sprawled thighs before gliding back up to grasp the reddened flesh of his cock.

Fraser closes his eyes, trying to breathe long enough to move away, to leave, but Ray is moaning now, need and pleasure wrapped in every syllable, and Fraser is lost. He opens his eyes, his own hand shifting down to ease himself against the press of his jeans. Ray's head is arched back, his neck flexed. Fraser pushes the fingers of his free hand against his mouth, and then against the edge of his teeth, biting hard enough to make his cock surge against his zipper.

Ray's fingers are shining slightly in the lamplight, as he pumps steadily in a rhythm Fraser almost sure he recognises. Fraser's right hand is rubbing in a matching cadence against the front of his own jeans, the scrape of material against sensitised flesh flashing a deserved pain into the warm rise of pleasure shooting up his spine. Somewhere in his hazed mind some neural connections are still working, and he recognizes their rhythm as that of the music that Ray had been dancing to. Fraser's hand rubs faster, moving out of sync, pushing the burn into his brain, until he slows it again, wanting to keep pace with the lean figure in front of him.

Fraser drags his eyes from the pump and twist of his partner's fist, up the sleek body to his face. He has to see Ray's face; he suspects that Ray may be close, the sharp tang of his partner's arousal is stronger than ever and the stuttering rhythm too fast for it go on much longer, at least for Fraser. As his eyes slide up over the flushed cheekbones, his hand stops dead, flattening against the aching throb of his cock.

"Knew ya wanted to watch."

Ray is panting, almost black eyes gleaming before the long eyelashes fall shut and his teeth clamp down hard on that sulky lower lip. Fraser watches the last pulses of fluid pump out over now loosened grip and glide of his partner's fingers; his own hand still pressing down hard, not moving.

"Jesus, Ben. C'mere."

He is on the bed before his brain can find any objections, flat on his back with Ray's shaking fingers freeing his now painful erection. Fraser's back arches at the swift slick slide of Ray's mouth moving down and then he is coming hard, shooting all the heat in his spine into the wet warmth.

He tugs lightly at Ray's hair; his partner, obeying his signal, lifts his head from Fraser's stomach.

"Come here, Ray."

Ray smiles slightly, his eyes hooded against Fraser's gaze. Fraser runs one finger down a stubbled cheek and then leans in to kiss the slick swollen mouth.

End