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Disclaimers: Everyone belongs to someone else (Haggis, Alliance Productions, etc.) and I'm all alone in the world.

Other: This story fixes nothing. Nothing happens; no sex, etc. You Have Been Warned. The good news is that it's a very short story.

Author: annezo @ fastmail . fm

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BLAME IT ON THE BOSSA NOVA

"What are you asking me?" Fraser asked carefully. He stirred the soup twelve times, clockwise, then placed the dirty spoon on the plate waiting beside the burner.

"I dunno." Bowls rattled on the counter, one almost falling off before Ray caught it in mid-air. "I guess...I wanted to know how you felt about it," he said uncertainly. "You know. What happened out there earlier."

Fraser paused before he answered, the events of the evening clicking through his brain. The stakeout. The growing tension. The finale, gunshots, and finally an arrest. "Was there some difficulty with the Lieutenant? Because if there was...."

"No," Ray snapped. "That's not what I'm talkin' about and you know it. I mean later." A pause, then, more quietly, "In the car. You know."

"I see." Fraser fussed with the soup pan, arranging it more evenly on the burner. Of course. "Such events are, of course, not uncommon during times of extreme stress."

Spoons clanked impatiently. "You're ducking me, Fraser. You're ducking the question and I don't like it."

Fraser let the truth of that sink in. "Perhaps you're right, Ray. I am avoiding the issue."

"If you don't have an answer, then you don't know." Ray drummed on the counter. "If you don't want to talk about it, then that's...." He paused. "Not all right. C'mon Fraser, we gotta' talk about this."

Fraser felt a fleeting nostalgia for the vanished Ray Vecchio, who had not wanted to talk about things. "Very well, Ray. We can talk about it."

"What the hell was that?" Ray's frustration was boiling over. "I mean that thing. That thing that happened."

"When I was eighteen, there was a blizzard unusually early in the winter," Fraser started obediently.

"No!" Ray's interruption silenced Fraser instantly. "No stories, Fraser. No history of your family or the strange thing that happened with a bear one time, okay? No stories."

"Yes, Ray." Fraser looked for a different way to explain his behavior, and failed to discover anything other than a blunt recitation of events. Something told him that would not suffice.

"Well?" Ray glared implacably.

Fraser suppressed a sigh. "It was...a perfectly natural reaction to a highly stressful situation. Under times of extreme...."

"Bullshit, Fraser." Ray's eyes bored into him. "I know all the psycho-babble, okay? Things have been tough before. Tougher than tonight."

"The accumulation of long-term stress," Fraser offered.

"You know what, Fraser? You're full of shit, that's what." Ray dropped the spoons and stormed out of the tiny kitchen.

While Fraser was still trying to work his mind around how to approach the situation, Ray solved the problem for him (at least in the short term) by slamming the front door behind him as he left.

That did not go well. Fraser turned the heat off from under the pan of stew, ignoring the hopeful way Dief was lurking next to his feed bowl.

The door slammed again, startling him. An instant later, Ray was back in the kitchen. This time he crowded Fraser back against the compact stove, invading his space and stopping just short of actual contact.

"Completely full of shit," Ray continued as though there had been no interruption.

"Not entirely." Fraser defended himself automatically.

"Completely," Ray insisted. "Answer the question, Fraser."

"The question?" Fraser played for time and Ray gave him a dangerous look. Have to face it.

Fraser chose his words carefully, wondering if Ray's persistence was fueled by interest (if that was the word), or fear. "I believe you would call it a moment."

"A moment." Ray stared at him, blue eyes inches from Fraser's own.

"A moment," Fraser repeated.

"When the fuck would I call it that?" Ray demanded. "When have you ever heard me say anything that stupid, Fraser?"

"A connection." Fraser fumbled for a better description, wishing Ray were not so adamantly opposed to the idea of an illustrative story.

"Oh, we connected all right. But why?"

Knobs on the front of the stove were gouging Fraser's back painfully. He couldn't lean away from the pressure without stepping into Ray, so he told himself to disregard the pain.

"You were as responsible as well, Ray." Fraser tried an offensive move. "What did it mean to you?"

"To me?" Ray blinked in surprise and leaned back slightly.

"That's right," Fraser pressed. "What was your intent?"

"My intent?" Ray backed up. "What intent? What are you saying? Are you making an accusation here? Because if you are, Fraser, I'm telling you that was not my fault."

"I am not seeking to assign blame," Fraser corrected patiently. "Merely to ascertain your own reaction to the situation."

"Ascertain. What ascertain?" Ray was glaring again. "Are you going to answer my question?"

"Are you going to answer mine?" Fraser countered.

"I asked first." Ray's response was almost reflexive. "You tell me first."

"What precisely do you want to know?"

What did that mean to you?" Ray was getting wild-eyed. "Did it mean anything? Why did it happen?"

"I can only account for my part in the activity, Ray," Fraser hedged. "Your own motivations and intent, of course, only you can...."

"Fraser!" It was just short of a scream.

"I'm getting to it, Ray." Fraser waited, but there was no response. "It was...." He stopped again, stymied for an explanation both clear and...sufficiently roomy to allow for backtracking. Just in case.

"It was...a kiss." He settled for the merely obvious in a rare moment of cowardice.

"A kiss, my ass. That sounds like... a kiss. One kiss. That was not one kiss, Fraser. It was more like...."

"Yes?" Fraser said hopefully. Ray might be better equipped to put words to it.

"It was more like a lot of kisses. And groping. Don't tell me you weren't groping, Fraser. Because unless someone was in the car with us...." He shook his head.

"As I recall, there were more than my hands involved, Ray," Fraser insisted.

"Okay, so we were both groping." Ray accepted the revision and swept past it quickly. "Both of us. We were both kissing. Both groping. What I want to know is why."

"I would have thought, for the obvious reason."

"You mean...." Surprise, confusion, and suspicion chased each other across Ray's face. "What made you do it?"

"Ray, as we've agreed, we were both...."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both of us. I know," Ray interrupted. "But why did you. That's what I want to know."

"If you mean, why did I initiate the embrace, I did not."

"What do you mean?" Ray's jaw set. "Are you saying I started it? Because I didn't."

"But, Ray, surely you must have," Fraser insisted. "Certainly I never would have."

"Oh, right. You, Mr. Perfect Mountie Policeman. You wouldn't have kissed your partner or felt him up in a parked car, so it had to be my fault, is that what you're saying?"

"It's not a matter of fault, or of placing blame, Ray."

"But you do blame me, don't you?" Ray stepped toward him and Fraser slid to one side, mindful of the hard knobs on the front of the stove.

"No Ray, I don't blame you."

"Bullshit. You blame me. Just admit it." Ray crowded into Fraser's space again, his jaw shoved forward stubbornly.

Fraser tried to edge back, but the unyielding countertop gave him no place to go. "I don't blame you."

"Yeah, well, I don't blame you, either." Some of the energy drained out of Ray abruptly.

"It's not as though there were any witnesses to the incident," Fraser assured him. "No one saw us."

"So, that's it? Case closed?"

"If you prefer."

"And what if I don't?" Ray challenged.

"Was there something further we should discuss?"

"Discuss? No."

"Then...what, Ray?" Fraser took a moment to let himself be confused.

"What if it happens again?"

"It's not likely to happen again if we don't want it to."

"And we don't?" Ray's eyes swept Fraser's face quickly. "Right."

That was harder to answer truthfully. "If you say so, Ray."

"What do you say, Fraser?"

"I'm agreeable to whatever you prefer."

"To whatever I prefer." Ray looked disgusted. "What do you prefer? Can you just tell me that? Can you just answer that one, simple question?"

It was not, in fact, a simple question. Fraser took a deep breath and looked for an answer.

Ray was in his space, in his face, and then suddenly he was all over Fraser. Just the firm pressure of his chest against Fraser's. And the press of his hips, welding Fraser's body into immobility. And then the touch of his mouth, gentle but persistent against Fraser's.

Ray's arms braced against the counter on either side of Fraser, trapping him with a confidence that he hadn't exhibited before.

The touch flared into heat and there was no place left to hide. Fraser's arms lifted of their own volition, circling Ray's waist and pulling his weight against Fraser with a satisfying solidity.

Fraser's attention focused back on the movement of Ray's mouth. A whisper of rough stubble around the still-gentle lips scraped Fraser's own mouth and coaxed his lips apart. Ray took advantage of the opportunity, not instantly but rather slowly, letting both of them taste the consequences of the action.

Ray seemed to pull back and Fraser's grip tightened, a breath or a pleading noise working its way out of his mouth.

He felt Ray's hands on his arms, squeezing encouragingly. Fraser leaned into the kiss, the warmth of Ray's body in his arms seeping through his clothes and into Fraser with a heavy languor.

Ray broke the kiss and turned his head, his forehead pressed against Fraser's cheek. "What do you prefer, Fraser?"

"You, Ray." Fraser gathered him back in. "I prefer you."

****

The end