Calling is always the hardest part. Fraser knows where the buttons are by feel in the dark, and the keypad is slick against his fingers. He waits as each ring grows dull, droning.

“Hey.”

“Hi, Ray.”

The telephone receiver fits warmly between Fraser’s ear and the pillow as he settles on his side.

“How are you?” he asks, folding the soft blanket around his waist.

A small cough wheezes over the line. “Okay, I guess. Had lots of paperwork today, you know, busy with stuff like that,” Ray replies, and Fraser blinks back the memory of Ray sitting at his desk, head bowed and shoulders hunched over.

“Indeed.” There’s a sliver of moonlight falling across the slats in the floor. Fraser closes his eyes, concentrates on Ray’s voice.

“What about you?” Ray asks, sheets rustling in the background.

“Me? Well, today I tracked a moose across the tundra, made liniment from the blubber of a whale, birthed a calf…”

Ray interrupts him with a short laugh. “Okay, okay, I get it, Fraser. You’re Super Mountie, like always.”

Fraser smiles, even though Ray can’t see it. Ray lets out a long yawn, and Fraser imagines Ray’s breath, warm and humid, in his ear.

“Ray,” he hastens, concerned. “Ray, are you tired? Perhaps I should let you go.”

“No, no, I’m fine. Just getting settled in, that’s all. Keep talking.”

Fraser rolls onto his back, tucks the phone under his other ear. “How is everyone at the station?”

“Same, fine, good. I stole that picture of you Frannie had stuck on her monitor.”

“Oh, no,” Fraser groans, and shakes his head.

“Yep,” and Ray laughs, softly. “It’s a good one.”

Fraser thinks of the picture he has tucked into his wallet: Ray, standing in the snow with the sun shining around his head, hair sticking out over his ears from under the flap of his hat. His lips are red and his cheeks pink.

Fraser had taken the photo himself – it was the last day of their adventure, and after he snapped it, he put down the camera, and walked over to Ray, and found out Ray’s lips were cold and dry and sweet against his own.

“Ray, are you – ” He draws in a breath. Happy? Content? Lonely?

“Ask, Fraser,” Ray implores, voice dropping to a whisper, “ask me.”

The ceiling is shadowed, and Fraser pictures the stars hanging above his head, beyond the roof.

“Are you naked?”

He hears Ray gasp, and then scratching, fumbling, and a distant muttered curse as something thumps heavily and yet more scratching –

“Sorry,” Ray says, breathless, “dropped the phone. And Jesus, Fraser, warn a guy before you say things like that. Shit.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Ray.”

A grunt, and Fraser can almost see Ray’s lips twitch when he says, “What do you think?”

“I think most likely the answer is no, as you have a fondness for pajama pants.” The fabric underneath his own fingers is soft and warm – too warm – and he snaps open the buttons, tugs the longjohns apart.

“Yeah,” Ray says wryly, “you win.”

Neither of them speaks, and Ray’s breath is smooth and even in Fraser’s ear.

“That’s not what you wanted to ask, is it, Frase?”

“No,” he replies simply.

“Yeah,” Ray agrees, and Fraser knows the question won’t be asked again tonight, just like it hasn’t been asked for the past two months. Just like he didn’t ask when Ray stood on the tarmac with his palm curved into a wave, his lips set in a resolute goodbye.

A muffled scrape and thump tells Fraser that Ray has opened and closed the drawer in his bedside table.

“Ray, what do you…what can I do to make this – ”

“Fraser, there’s nothing – ”

“Please, Ray…just – ”

There’s a long pause, and Fraser tightens his fingers around the hard plastic of the phone.

“I know. I know, Fraser, it’s just so fucking messed up. Everything’s messed up.”

There’s a defeated sigh over the line, and Fraser scrubs a hand over his face. It is messed up, everything is completely messed up, and nothing, nothing at all since that one kiss – god, that one brief incredible kiss – has been right.

They’ve spent nearly eight weeks fumbling through conversations with one hand wrapped around the phone and the other wrapped around their erections as they whisper confused sentiments and obfuscations.

“I’m sorry, Ray. I shouldn’t ask you – ”

“No, it’s not that. It’s not this. This I want. It’s just – it fucks up my head, is all. It screws me around and makes me think things and want things that I just can’t have.”

“Me too, Ray.”

“So you think…you think we can’t have it?”

“I – I honestly don’t know, Ray.”

Another long sigh from Ray, and Fraser knows he’s getting restless, and will most likely want to hang up soon.

“Fraser, tell me – tell me what you did when you got home tonight.”

He wishes Ray didn’t have to ask – he wishes he could tell Ray: Tonight, when I came home, you were sitting on the sofa, and I walked over and kissed you, and you tasted like peppermint.

“Well, Dief and I ate dinner. I read for awhile, and then I got in bed. And called you.”

“When did you take off the uniform – tell me, Fraser.”

“Oh, well, er. Before dinner, actually, immediately when I walked in the door, but only after I – ”

“Which one, Fraser?”

“Which one?”

“Which uniform, Frase.”

“The brown one.”

Ray sighs, soft and low. “You took off the tie first?”

“Yes,” Fraser whispers, and his throat is dry. “Yes, I did. And then I – I unbuttoned the shirt, and the pants, and sat on the bed to take off my – ”

“Slow, Fraser, slow. You took off the tie real slow, right? And hung it up, all nice and neat, and then” – a low ‘hmmm’ fills Fraser’s ear before Ray speaks again – “and then you unlaced your boots, took those off, yeah?”

Fraser tries to swallow around the lump in his throat. “Yes, I did,” he whispers again, hoarsely, fingers curling around the edges of the blanket.

“Yeah? Good. Tell me more, tell me what you had for dinner.” Ray’s beginning to sound a little unsteady, and Fraser knows he’s already touching himself, perhaps tugging down his pajamas so he’s unfettered. He’s open and laid out on the bed.

“Just stew, Ray, that’s all,” and Fraser has to close his eyes. Pushes the blanket down, away, and runs his hand up his thigh, slides it inside the longjohns.

“I can see you eating it, Fraser. Licking the spoon, wiping your mouth on your napkin.”

“Yes,” he agrees, and it should be comical and absurd – talking about stew and ties and boots – but it’s not, because it’s Ray, and Ray is making low and needy sounds all the way in Chicago, for him.

“Remember that ice crevasse, Fraser? The one – uhhh – the one we got stuck in?”

“Yes.”

“ – And we were so close – god – just all tight in there and your face was so close, so close, Fraser. I wanted to kiss you then. I wanted to just reach out and – ”

“Yes. Yes, Ray.” Fraser’s fingers are stroking slowly, over and around his stomach. He trails lower, between his thighs, finds the soft smooth skin behind his –

“So fucked up, this is just so – ” Ray breaks off with a quick snap, almost a cry.

“Ray, we can stop – ”

“No, no we can’t,” Ray pleads, “I don’t want to stop, I can’t.”

“I’m sorry – ”

“Stop, just stop apologizing, Fraser. Don’t say – don’t say that. Just…just keep going.”

Fraser’s hand is sweating around the phone, and he unclenches his fingers, relaxes them.

“What do you – ”

“The stars, Fraser. Remember how bright they were – they wouldn’t stop shining, filled that fucking tent with so much light – ”

“They’re out now, Ray. The northern sky is full of them tonight. They’re glowing and beautiful.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ray murmurs.

Fraser inhales slowly, sees them in the tent, with the night stretched out around them and the starlight shining through the canvas. “I wish – you should see them, Ray. It’s just like the adventure, when we were in the tent. When we were…sleeping beside one another and – ”

“Fraser,” Ray groans, “Fraser, please tell me you’re touching yourself. Are you touching yourself? Cause I – ”

“Yes.” Fraser blows out the word quickly, his hand squeezing around his erection, and he presses his head back into the pillow. Runs his thumb over the head of his penis, and catches his breath.

“God, I – I want it to be me. I just want – ”

“I know, Ray, I know. I do, too.”

“It’s me – God, Fraser – it’s my hand on you. It’s me, I’m touching you. I want to touch – Jesus – I want to touch you so bad, Frase. So fucking bad.”

Ray’s breath is hitching, speeding up, and Fraser can picture him against the sheets. Pale and lean, beautiful in the moonlight, his pants twisted around his ankles, and the sheets shoved to the foot of the bed. His legs splayed open and his eyes clenched tight as his chest rises and falls in time with his hand, tight-fisted and moving – desperate, smooth – around his penis.

“Ray, you – ” and Fraser moves his own hand, in time with Ray, in rhythm and together with Ray, with the image he has of both of them now – together – rocking together on the bed: two bodies, two hands, two of them kissing and rubbing and whispering their way to release.

Fraser knows Ray is thinking of him, as well. Knows that Ray has himself in a tight grip, slick with lube and thoughts of Fraser.

Ray asks hoarsely, “What, what? Tell me – Christ – tell me.”

“My mouth is on you. And – I’m sucking…”

“God, yes – ”

“I’m sucking you,” Fraser chokes out around his rapid breathing.

“Yeah. Just like – mmm, just like that, Fraser,” and Ray’s moans are increasing.

“I – I want you…. I – oh – I want to be with you – ” The heat of his hand and the frantic pants of air coming over the line, coming from Ray’s mouth, coming from lips that Fraser knows should be on his body, should be on his own mouth, should be –

“Ohh – don’t stop – oh god – don’t stop talking,” Ray whimpers.

The wetness already spreading under Fraser’s thumb eases some of the friction, and Ray is moaning, louder and faster, and he can almost feel Ray’s lips instead of his own fingers, Ray’s tongue hot, heavy –

“I want to kiss you, all over your body…everywhere…I want – ”

“Fraser – ”

“Ray – come…come ba – ”

“Christ, oh…oh god  – ” and Fraser hears a hiss, a quick indrawn breath – and then Ray’s softly muttered ‘fuck’.

His own hand speeds up, and he imagines Ray’s mouth on him, Ray’s hands and legs and body covering his. Ray, with him in the bed, in the cabin – 

“Come back to me,” he whispers, dry and quiet as he spills across his stomach. His hand is numb around the phone, and his body falls limp, blanket twisted around his legs. Fraser thinks he hears ‘okay’, low and quick, but it might only be Ray’s soft, distant snore.

Fraser wakes the next morning, the phone still cradled against his ear, his longjohns still hanging open and his hand pressed to his groin.

This evening, it will be Ray’s turn to call, and Fraser hopes fervently, desperately, that the phone won’t ring. He doesn’t want to know if Ray’s had a good day, or a bad one. He doesn’t want to pleasure himself in tempo with Ray’s voice. He doesn’t want miles and miles of distance sitting between them like rough granite, unyielding and immovable. 

He wants the phone to ring – tomorrow morning – and he wants Ray to say: I’m here. The flights sucked and the food was crappy. Come get me and take me home.