ds_flashfiction | Naked without sex challenge.

Sitting at work, wishing I was home taking a nap. Hence, 776 words of Fraser coming in.

When the clock ticks over and Fraser is officially late getting home from patrol, Ray breathes a sigh of relief. The sun's been down for eleven days, and Ray knows--just like he knew, back in Chicago, that full moons really did bring out the crazies--that no patrol out there in the dark ever runs smooth. He's always afraid of Fraser coming home early, because that means he's hurt too badly to go on, but if he comes home late, it's because he was tending to somebody else's emergency, or in hot pursuit out on the tundra. Ray doesn't worry about that; Mounties always get their man. If they didn't, Ray would still be in Chicago, which he never used to think of as the land of sunshine.

After that it's just the waiting. He checks that the first aid kit's good to go--because there's a pretty wide range of injuries that aren't bad enough to bring Fraser home early--and that the firewood's stocked up. The day after Fraser was supposed to be home, the temperature starts dropping fast, and the logs that form the cabin start pop-pop-popping like a drive-by as they contract in the cold. When Fraser's in the bed with him, the sound doesn't bother Ray, but when he's alone, it jerks him from the edge of sleep every time. He wakes up over and over, thinking he's still in Chicago, that his whole life up here with Fraser was just another one of those good dreams that made his real life seem to suck so much harder back then.

Fraser's two and a half days late, and the temperature's hovering around sixty below, when Ray hears Dief barking. It sounds like he's right outside the door, but Ray knows by now that it's just the way the sound carries in the cold; they're still a few miles out. Dief sounds fine, so he figures everything's aces. He puts the kettle on and gets out a thermos and fishes his emergency stash of peanut M&Ms out of the back of his underwear drawer. He banks the fires while the water's heating, checks that there's nothing in the cabin that Fraser will be tempted to clean up or put away when he walks in the door. Then he pours hot-but-not-boiling water into a thermos with a few tea bags, and takes himself and the tea and the M&M's to bed.

He only takes off his boots before he crawls under the covers, and sprawls out to take up as much space as he can. As he and the blankets warm up, he undresses, wriggling out of his sweater and jeans and kicking them down to the foot of the bed. He's squirming out of his thermal underwear when he hears the door open and close, and Fraser's footsteps coming in.

Fraser stands next to the bed and strips, boots and parka first, and then his hat and mittens and scarf and then his layers of clothes. He gets all the way down to skin--pale, except where it's bright pink, but there's no sign of frostbite to Ray's educated eye--and then crawls into the bed with Ray.

He's freezing fucking cold, shivering in slow waves. Ray makes sure the covers are pulled right up over their ears, and then wraps himself around Fraser's body, even though it's like hugging a block of ice. Naked. He feels himself start to shiver but he knows that's just surface, that's nothing, not like Fraser's feeling, not like five days in the dark and cold alone.

He presses his face against Fraser's throat, his heart to Fraser's heart, belly to belly, so all the warmest parts of him can bleed heat into all the most important parts of Fraser. After a while, Fraser lets out a long, shuddering breath and closes his arms around Ray's back, his fingers pressed along the ridges of Ray's ribs. Ray squirms and shivers, but he doesn't pull away, just reaches under the pillow and pulls out the M&M's.

"Ray--" Fraser says, like he always does, as Ray rips the bag open.

"Shut up," Ray replies, and stuffs a handful of candy into Fraser's mouth to be sure that he will. He never talks with his mouth full. "Carbohydrates. Protein. Artificial colors. Everything you need right now. If you don't wanna eat M&M's, don't stay out in the cold so damn long."

Fraser swallows and then says, "I have to."

Ray pops a handful of M&M's into his own mouth and says around them, "Well, then you have to," and feeds them to Fraser with a kiss.