4/4
one
It's the dog end of a dog day and the close heat is lumbering off upwards, chased by the rising wind. Ray drops his head into the crook of Fraser's shoulder, pressing his whole front into the warm length of Fraser's back. Ray's in boxers and a shirt and the windows in his apartment are flung open to catch the breeze. He snakes one arm around, tracing a line with the heel of his hand, over the hip and down, down, down.
The countertop is cold. The night is warm. The breeze is cool and Fraser is burning in his suit.
He rises, onto his toes, and pushes gently, gently, his hips forward, hooking over Fraser's shoulder with his chin and leaning close. Fraser is standing, legs apart, at easenot at the counter. Fraser keeps standing and Ray keeps pushing. A siren wails around the corner but it is muffled somehow.
Slipping down narrow shoulders, Ray lets his shirt fall; it's a crumple of cotton against the hard floor. Now there's just skin against wool and thick silence in the room.
Ray breathes. Fraser opens his mouth and nothing comes out, just a stifled pant: a word caught in his mouth. Someone whispers a moan, so so quietly that it might be the wind.
Two cars at a red light: they tremble together, tight up and taut with wanting.
Fraser butts Ray's cheekbone with his own. Please. Please. Fraser is a hot, serge-draped column and Ray rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, pushing upwards against the weave of that perfect, brown jacket. Every hair on his body stands out suddenly and his nerves shiver against the fabric. Up and down, he thrusts and rolls in slow motion and Fraser just stands there, his head travelling a smooth figure of eight and his eyes staring straight at the wall.
"I don't find this very convincing."
"What?"
"Well, there's no set up. One minute we're colleagues and now you're exposing yourself to me over..." Fraser looks at the counter top and then at the iron in his hand. "The ironing. Where's the logical progression?"
"Shut up."
one two
No logic, this is the fast fuck. This is quick and dirty and up against a wall no kissing and fuck like you've something to prove. Who's a big man?
This is a just one night and standing too close, just a bit too close, just pushing the boundaries.
This is the fast fuck and no kissing. This is up against a wall. This is grit, grit grinding, and grazing scrabbling hands that batter brick harder and harder. This is slamming two bodies together and fuck everything. This is letting his head hammer again and again until mortar dusts his hair. This is scrapes bursting with bright beads of blood and fuck it don't pay attention just go harder, press in closer.
This is the fast fuck and Ray's skin feels a size too small.
"Ray Ray Ray Ray."
"Yeah, yeah."
"No, Ray. Stop."
"Fuck, no."
"Ray, I think this is the fourth wall we've broken. I think this may be anatomically impossible and certainly physically inadvisable."
"Oh, fuck me."
"Oh, certainly."
one two three
Morning. Bright and clean, the sun searches the bare room and shows it to itself. Cold, the dawn cold of the dozy sun, prickles goose pimples into Fraser's neck. He stretches.
He takes four long strides to the bathroom, dropping his pants and kicking them back on to the bed. His sleep-drugged eyes are fuzzy for a moment then clear, clear blue and wide open and looking for something in the sky.
Ray just knows that the first thing Fraser does in the morning is open the window.
The sun picks out a rippling line of muscles as he rolls his shoulders. It dances with a magpie glee as a shower of water steams and he dips his head under the gush. Hello, hello, good morning...
Fraser is wet and naked. This is greatness. Ray's thinking that this is the most tremendously groovy concept since the fusion of jelly and peanut butter. Ray's thinking this might even edge out peanut butter and jelly as the most mouth-watering combination of all time.
Fraser whistles and burbles snatches of cartoonishly old-time songs and turns the shower to hot, to hotter. His skin reddens and he lets out surprised little breaths and takes quick steps from one foot to the other. He adjusts, he straightens, he lifts his chin up and the water rolls down his face and his neck and his hand follows, wiping away the wet.
And now there is soap. Fuck yeah. Ray shifts in his conveniently dark and, frankly, inchoate corner, pressing himself against the wall, into the shadows. He furiously battles the thrumming in his arms; the urge to reach out and touch is almost breaking him.
Fraser is rubbing, he's soaping his body in long sweeps. He's firm and efficient and thorough. He's stroking and rubbing and there is soap and there are crevices and they're getting to know one another pretty damn well and Ray thinks this is just about the best of all things that could happen, maybe ever in the whole wide world.
And then Fraser sees him. Fraser's head levels and his eyes focus and they pick out Ray's for one brief searching moment and he smiles. It's a flash, fast like a dazzle on a car door, and then it's gone, folded up secretly into the corner of Fraser's mouth. And then Fraser reaches up and stretches deliberately and then just keeps on rubbing, so hard the soap foams just against the skin.
"You know, Ray," he remarks seriously, "I don't even have a shower."
four
And Ray's full steam ahead, two fingers pressed against Fraser's heart and shunting him backwards through the squad room. Through the doors. Bang! Into the break room. Blam. Fraser staggers backwards, missing his step for a moment, and slams up hard against the vending machine. Ray's two fingers jab him right in the chest and stay there.
"Get out," he says to the guy loitering by the snacks.
"What about me?" says another from behind a filing cabinet.
Ray sighs. "You too, go on."
Ray lifts his eyes to the ceiling. "Anyone else in here?"
A guy emerges from the vending machine. He pauses at the door and jabs his thumb over his shoulder. "What about them?" he says.
They all turn. A Chilean panpipes group wave at them tentatively. Ray sags, his chin butts his chest. "Go! Go! GO! Everyone out! Now!"
"Thank you kindly," Fraser calls after them. His eyes are locked forward, boring into the crown of Ray's head. "Ray?"
"What?"
"I must say, I'm..."
Ray's still there with his fingers pressing hard against Fraser's chest, leaning into it almost. "Why must you say? Why? Why? Why?"
Fraser considers for a moment. "Because that's what I'm like?" he offers.
Ray collapses, his knees buckling, falling onto them, surrendering. "And fuck if it doesn't make me want you."