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They usually make it up to Canada twice a year.
They always go in July and have a combination Canada Day/Fourth of July celebration. That's celebration, as in a selection of beer from both countries, Canadian beef barbecued on an American pit and lots of sex.
Ray really likes Canada in the summer.
Fraser likes their second trip to be in December and because Ray is a nice guy, he goes along with that. Ray bitches a lot when the snow is waist high and he has to go out to the shed for firewood. His nose runs and the shower is never hot enough and there's always a point where Ray thinks maybe he'll go insane if he goes one more day without TV.
But there are good points about Canada in the dead of winter too – the smell of wood smoke on air so clean and sharp that it hurts your throat to get a lungful of it; the darkness; the quiet. Best of all, there is just he and Fraser and Dief and nobody else for miles.
After dinner, Fraser stokes the fire and the three of them settle in for the night. Ray sits on the rug, his back against the third-hand sofa they bought the year before. Dief is sacked out against Ray's thigh, snoring softly.
Fraser's on the sofa reading with one hand on Ray's head, gently sliding his fingers through Ray's hair. It feels good, the way that Fraser touches him. It always has.
For a while, there is nothing but that – Dief breathing in and out, the fire snapping and cracking in the fireplace, the whisper of a page turning.
Ray breathes in, slow and easy, and lets it out the same way. Yeah. The Northwest Areas in winter are all right.
"Hey, Fraser?" Ray's voice is a little rough. He's hardly talked all day. For some reason, he and Fraser don't talk much when they are in Canada. They don't need to. They communicate with their eyes and their hands, just like they do in Chicago, but in Canada, it's all dialed down and quiet. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Certainly."
Ray closes his eyes, relaxed and drowsy from the feel of Fraser's fingertips ghosting over his scalp. "Remember when we were on the Henry Allen?"
"Yes, I recall that quite vividly."
"The buddy breathing. That was a scam so you could kiss me, wasn't it?"
Ray hears Fraser close his book. "Well, Ray, the word scam is a little misleading. You were in some respiratory distress and I do have excess lung capacity so to say that – "
"Fraser."
"It is possible that buddy breathing is not strictly an official term." Fraser's voice gets soft and Ray can guess at the look on his face. "And I had been wondering for a while if your mouth was as soft as I imagined it was." Fraser moves his hand down, letting the back of his fingers graze against Ray's neck. "I can hardly be faulted for being so taken with you."
Ray tilts his head to one side to encourage more of that feather-soft touch. "Yeah. I was real taken with you, too. I was so taken it used to keep me up at night."
"Why did you ask about that?"
Ray makes a contented noise, something between a sigh and a groan. "Don't know. That's the way my mind works. It's like a waterfall. It never stops."
Even though he can't see him, Ray knows that Fraser is smiling. "Yes. I would imagine that on certain days, its like Niagara Falls up there."
"Fraser, you have no idea."
Dief twitches and makes a noise in his sleep and the logs in the fireplace shift and fall. Fraser fingers the outline of Ray's ear, tender and light. It almost tickles but it gives Ray a warm buzz in the pit of his stomach at the same time.
"I just had an epiphany."
Behind him, Fraser shifts onto his side. His voice is closer when he answers. Closer and more turned on. Ray knows this kind of thing by now.
"Tell me." Fraser says it against Ray's ear, giving the lobe a bite and Ray shivers hard. He almost forgets what he was going to say.
"I'm thinking – hot tub. Back porch. With a view of the valley." Fraser leans in and gets his mouth on Ray's neck, where it meets his shoulder. That's a hot spot for Ray and Fraser knows it.
"That's a very wasteful use of a valuable commodity, Ray." Fraser breathes the words wetly into Ray's ear. Fraser's hand cups the back of Ray's head and Ray turns, meeting Fraser's hot stare.
"I love it when you talk dirty," Ray says, barely getting all the words out before Fraser starts kissing him.
After a while, Ray pulls back just enough to look into Fraser's eyes. "Was that a yes to the hot tub?" Ray whispers with a smile.
It turns out it is – a very enthusiastic yes.