Archive of Our Own

Nate likes a certain amount of discipline in his life. Probably more than the average person. He runs religiously. He watches his diet. He gets up early.

Except for Sundays.

Call it a holdover from growing up Catholic, but in Nate's book, Sunday's a day of rest. He doesn't spend it in church anymore, but it's his day for no alarm clocks and whatever the hell he wants to eat and general, unplanned relaxation.

Before he's even opened his eyes this Sunday morning, he's thinking of all the fridge contents that can go into the omelet he wants for breakfast. He stretches and rolls over to make that happen... only he bumps into someone sleeping next to him.

And not just any someone.

Ray Person is asleep in Nate's bed.

This was most definitely not the case when Nate went to sleep last night. He hasn't seen any of his men from OIF in months, and even if he had, it's still quite a leap from "Bravo 2 reunion" to "fucking around with Ray Person". Of all people.

Nate pokes Ray hard in the shoulder with a sharp, "What the fuck are you doing here, Person?"

Ray snorts and starts awake, hair mashed into uneven clumps and eyes muzzy.

"LT?" he mumbles, frowning in confusion when he sees Nate. "Where the fuck are we?" The frown deepens as he looks around: at Nate's room, at Nate sitting there in only boxers, at himself, under the sheets.

"I'm naked!" he shouts, slamming the sheets back down around his hips. "Why the fuck am I naked? Why the fuck are you in bed with me? Why the fuck am I naked while you're in bed with me? What the eternal blessed fuck is going on?!"

"Beyond the fact that we're in my bedroom, I can't answer a single one of those questions," Nate manages to get in when Ray pauses for breath. Ray is considerately voicing Nate's freak-out for him.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Ray responds, and he's off again, panic making his voice rise, "How can neither of us know?" and rise, "There has to be an explanation," and rise, "I mean, despite all the implausible shit out there, aliens and fairies did not just magically plop us in bed together with one pair of boxer shorts between us!"

He's shouting now, and gesticulating wildly, and Nate hasn't had a chance to get another word in at all when Ray suddenly freezes, staring at his own left hand that's swung in front of his face. He looks down at Nate's left hand, then back up to meet his eyes.

Nate follows Ray's panicked gaze and does some panicking of his own when he sees the identical gold bands on both ring fingers.

"LT," Ray asks, steady and emotionless, sounding disturbingly like Brad in full Iceman mode. "Are you married?"

"No," Nate says. His voice comes out quiet and uncertain. "Are you?"

Ray shakes his head. "You'd have been invited."

"What the fuck?" comes from both of them simultaneously.

Nate feels he's been impressively reasonable and calm about this so far. That can't last forever.

"Person, I swear to God and whatever else you consider holy that if this is some sort of prank, I. Am. Not. Amused," Nate says, as serious as he's ever been about anything in his life.

Ray shakes his head vehemently. "Not a prank. Very much not a prank."

He catches sight of something over Nate's shoulder that makes him pull a classic double-take, bugged-out eyes and all. Before Nate can think what it might be, Ray is vaulting out of bed and running to the far wall. Nate didn't often share facilities with the enlisted men in his USMC days. He never did see Ray Person naked. This sure as hell isn't how he'd have predicted it might happen.

Ray doesn't seem to notice his state of undress, though, because he grabs something off the wall and turns back toward Nate. Well, there's the front view to match the back.

What Ray is holding is a photograph that he offers to Nate in stunned silence. A photograph of the two of them, hand-in-hand in matching tuxedos. A photograph of them walking through an unofficial sword arch of men from Bravo 2 holding up a motley assortment of canes, baseball bats, one saber (that'd be Brad, of course), and a goddamn vuvuzela. It is undeniably a wedding portrait.

A wedding portrait of Ray and Nate.

They both wear the giddy happiness of newlyweds proud and plain.

Nate can't understand. This? This event in the photograph? This never happened. He knows so for a fact. And yet, Nate's logical brain can only arrive at one conclusion. This photograph is a testament to an event carefully planned and prepared for. An event witnessed by their friends. It's like an image from some Twilight Zone bizarro world alternate reality of Nate's life. And there are matching rings. And Ray is naked in Nate's bedroom. Occam's Razor would suggest that...

"LT, I think we're married," Ray whispers, like if he says it too loud, he'll have to believe it.

Nate looks up at him standing beside the bed. The bed they both woke up in this morning, wearing matching rings, across the room from this very damning photograph. "Ray, I don't know how the fuck this happened, and you better believe we're going to get to the bottom of this. But in the meantime, since you seem to be right, I think it's time you started calling me Nate."

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The only way Nate can begin to fathom tackling this bizarre situation is to come at it tactically. If his military training taught him one useful thing, it's that sometimes methodical order can be the difference between making it through utter insanity and losing yourself in the chaos.

Ray's training must be kicking in, too, because he seems uncharacteristically quiet and very ready to follow Nate's lead.

They decide to verify the shitstorm of unbelievable ridiculousness (Ray's choice phrasing) that is their lives right now using a time-tested strategy: divide and conquer.

They look at the wedding photo, determine who's within a reasonable distance of DC, and take up their missions.

Ray drives off to check in with Walt halfway across Virginia, and Nate calls Brad. Brad, who answers to say that he's putting in some jump school instructional time at Quantico, and is happy to escape the sniveling, drool-soaked infants the Corps is currently pushing out of planes to have a meal with one of the few officers that didn't have his head up his ass.

Nate is reassured to know that Brad hasn't changed, even if the rest of his life seems to have been shaken and redrawn like an Etch-a-Sketch.

Over dinner, they shoot the shit for a socially acceptable amount of time before Nate gets to the real reason they're meeting.

"What the fuck am I doing with Ray Person?" he asks.

Brad grins his lopsided, amused smile, and says, "I am frankly astounded it has taken you this long to ask. I've been wondering the same thing from the first second I witnessed that those particular filthy, unlikely rumors were true."

"And that was...?" Nate prompts.

Brad raises one skeptical brow. "Is this some sad excuse for a SERE refresher course? Have you developed a sudden interest in torturing me by making me relive the memory of stumbling upon you and Ray attached at the lips like sea lampreys?"

Nate smiles bitterly. "I wish I could say it was." He realizes he was hoping that somehow Brad would have an explanation for all of this. That in his unceasing Iceman wisdom he'd be able to clear up the photograph and the rings and the whole Fick-Person legal union debacle.

But Brad's looking at him now with that penetrating, perceptive, assessing stare.

"What's the matter?" Brad pauses, then adds, quieter, "Has he fucked things up? Are you leaving him?"

Nate can't help the startled, unpleasant, choking sound that comes out of his mouth. "Leaving him?! Until this morning he wasn't mine to leave. Until he woke up naked in my bed this morning, I hadn't seen Ray Person in almost a year, and I sure as hell wasn't married to the man." Nate catches his head in both hands, resting his elbows on the table like his grandmother would have hated. He can practically see the end of his tether, and it's approaching fast.

"I don't understand what's happening to me," he says, mostly to the tablecloth. "I don't understand what in the universe has gone so cosmically cock-eyed. I have no memory whatsoever of carrying on a relationship with Ray, and here you are telling me it's been going on for..."

Nate trails off and lets Brad fill in the gap with,

"Four years."

"Four– fuck. Four fucking years."

"Yeah. You basically grew up to be the teacher-student cliché," Brad says. The words are disparaging, but their tone is gentle. "Well," Brad corrects, "TA-student cliché. Ray's always said it was one particularly brilliant argument he made in your section of some international relations class that got him into your pants."

"Go on," Nate prods. Brad, always reliable in a crisis, does just that, telling Nate about how long it took them to tell anyone, how Ray followed Nate to DC and moved in with him and finally proposed. It takes a decent amount of time and alcohol, but by the end of it, Nate feels like he at least has a sense of the progression of this alternate time-stream of his own life.

Brad tips the last of his whisky into his mouth when he's done. "I'll help you sort this out in any way I can," he says. His voice and hands are perfectly level. Nate wishes he felt even a fraction of that steadiness.

"Thank you," Nate says, meaning it sincerely, and signals for the check.

They've parted ways in the parking lot when Brad turns back from his bike to call out, "The Ray I know is sickeningly gone over you. To a disgustingly diabetic degree. If that means anything." He straddles the bike and zips up his leather jacket, then turns one last time and adds, "Of course, the Nate I know feels the same way," before he slides his helmet over his head, guns his engine, and zips out of the parking lot and off down the road.

Nate takes a few deep breaths, filling his lungs with the cool night air. For the first time since the morning, he feels a quick pulse of regret that he doesn't know this life where he's found someone to share his ups and downs and everydays with. Nate suspects it's not going to be the last time he feels that way.

{}{}{}

Ray's not back yet when Nate gets home, so he goes snooping through his own house. Sure enough, there are signs of Ray everywhere. Black Flag and NOFX albums mixed in with Nate's classic soul and East Coast rap. An impressive array of gaming systems with all their cables jumbled together. Several shelves full of philosophy books that give Nate a pretty solid guess as to Ray's college major. It's a surprisingly wide range, from the expected Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Art of War to surprises like The God Delusion and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Hume... Ray wasn't messing around. Nate smiles reflexively at a shelf full of titles familiar from his own undergrad days: Plato's Republic, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Nicomachean Ethics.

There are double copies of a few of those, and Nate pulls both editions of Xenophon's Memorabilia off the shelf. He flips through his to find the familiar occasional scribbles aligned in the margins near highlighted key concepts. The other is full of what is clearly Ray's chicken scratch, ideas zig-zagging haphazardly around much of the white space on most pages. Ray's response to Xenophon could fill its own volume.

Nate's caught up in some of Ray's (actually very astute) analysis when the doorknob turns and Ray himself comes in.

The vulnerability in his befuddled, uncertain expression makes something inside Nate twist uncomfortably.

"I don't know what the Iceman said," Ray says quietly, "but according to Walt, we've been knockin' boots for a good long while, and it was about six months ago that I decided I liked it, and I should put a ring on it." He looks resigned and small, missing the larger-than-life aura Nate's used to.

Nate smiles ruefully. "Yeah, Brad said something similar, though he left out the Beyonce references." He holds up Ray's Xenophon and goes on, "For what it's worth, he said we got together in what sounds like some flagrant disregard for the teacher-student line."

Ray's leer looks like it's costing him genuine effort. "That's what Walt said, too," he agrees. "Sounds like you couldn't resist the magnitude of my awesome academic prowess."

Ray's trying for humor so hard his voice is brittle. Nate surprises himself with how much he wants to make Ray feel better.

"It must have been the shock," Nate says. "I'll have you know I have a very sturdy moral compass. It could only have been thrown off by some serious cognitive dissonance. Which, yeah, discovering that there's substance buried inside that addled brain of yours... that could do it."

He aims a tentative, hopeful expression at Ray, who lets out a rough chuckle and says, "My brain is a champion, I'll have you know. Capable of destroying even the sturdiest of moral compasses. You didn't stand a chance."

"No," Nate smiles. "I probably didn't." He puts Xenophon down and sits on the couch, patting the cushion for Ray to join him. Ray does, and they're silent beside each other for a few minutes.

"It sounds like a soap opera," Ray says with a small glint of his manic grin. "I mean, you're my LT in the Marines, we both get out, I go to Harvard and end up in one of your TA sections, we fall into bed together and end up shacked up and hitched. Not to mention the whole amnesia, waking-up-married thing." He gasps dramatically. "We're not even a soap opera. We're fanfiction."

"I'll say it sounds like fiction," Nate says with some fondness and a decent helping of amusement. "Only way you and Harvard should ever have ended up in the same sentence."

Ray points to the framed diploma on the wall. "Read 'em and weep, Fick. Some of us can't help being born geniuses." The token humor is still a relief.

Ray turns sideways on the couch to face Nate. "Seriously, though. What are we gonna do?"

Nate's been carefully not thinking about this very question all day. "I don't know," he says. "I think an annulment is out of the question, but we could get a divorce." It hurts him just to say the words. He grew up with parents who've loved each other through a long, successful marriage. He's always assumed he'd end up more or less the same way.

"I checked that out, actually," Ray says, subdued and not quite meeting Nate's eyes. "Talked to a lawyer friend of Walt's. Between the divorce and the splitting up of assets and me finding a new place and all the other attendant bullshit, we're talking about a hefty chunk of change and a shit-ton of time. All of which is highly inconvenient when I've got two major addresses looming at the end of the month like a shotgun-toting daddy on a porch."

Ray's a speechwriter at BGR Group. One of their youngest ever hires, and damn good at his job, too, as he's always been the first to say. Nate remembers hearing about it through the Recon grapevine. Funny how everything about his and Ray's lives seems to be the same, except for the fact that they're now sharing them.

"So, the thing is," Ray continues, "this is an epically bad time for me to have to sort out personal shit." He tucks a knee under himself on the couch, making himself smaller.

"I suppose we could wait until after your addresses are done," Nate offers.

"That's three weeks. Is that cool with you?" Ray asks. His voice is skeptical, but he's uncurled back to an open posture.

"I think I'd actively like that," Nate says. "Brad seemed to indicate that we're actually pretty happy together. Well, he said it like Brad, so there was a lot more disparaging of us both, individually and collectively. But that was the gist of it." He squares his shoulders and twists to face Ray straight on. "I wouldn't mind a few weeks to see how we get along."

Ray's shy smile is so small and genuine that Nate feels his insides clench. He wants to scrub at the center of his chest.

"You're on, Mr. Person," Ray says. "Three weeks to see if we don't kill each other."

"Exactly, Mr. Fick," Nate returns. They both smile and shake hands like it's some business deal.

When Ray pulls his hand back, there's a reassuring mischievous gleam in his eye that Nate remembers well from the desert. "You've got to admit it's kinda hot," Ray says. At Nate's inquisitive eyebrow, he clarifies, "The whole teacher-student thing, I mean. Do you think we fucked in your office?" He considers for a moment. "Actually, that probably just horrifies your sturdy moral compass, doesn't it?"

Nate looks innocently back at Ray. "Yes. Horrified. Horrified that after years of amassing an award-worthy collection of teacher-student porn, I might find myself in the position to try it out in real life."

Ray's jaw literally drops open. "Nate Fick, you dirty son of a gun! You did not!"

"Award-worthy, Ray. I assure you. I've always been a great believer in thoroughness." He smirks. "You clearly haven't done much recon on the house, or you'd have found it yourself."

He can't help but laugh at how Ray's eyes immediately start flitting around the living room.

"Who'd ever have suspected. Nathaniel 'Choirboy' Fick, a filthy, perverted devil dog just like us grunts," Ray says. He sounds impressed. "I'd have pegged you for the Eagle Scout type."

Nate allows one corner of his mouth to turn upward. "I was an Eagle Scout," he says. "A well-tied knot can come in handy in any number of situations."

Ray laughs outright at that. "I'm starting to understand what alterna-Ray might see in you."

Nate looks at him, deadpan serious. "You mean that wasn't you back in the sandbox making jokes about the cherry lieutenant's cocksucking mouth?"

"Damn!" Ray swears, looking anything but contrite. "You weren't supposed to hear those."

"I don't think the silent part of Swift, Silent, Deadly has ever applied to a Recon Marine's libido," Nate says, lifting one eyebrow.

"Hey," Ray replies, "A man's got needs. And there's no telling what kinds of strange go into the fucked-up, delicious cocktail of a good combat jack."

Nate nods sagely, then grins devilishly at Ray. "That might explain you featuring in so many of mine."

Ray gapes at him again. "No! No fucking way! The Iceman? I can see it. Rudy? Who the fuck one of us didn't jerk one out over the Fruitster. But me? I call bullshit, you twisted motherfucker."

"Hand to God," Nate promises, smiling like butter wouldn't even think about melting in his mouth. "The skinny thing works for you. Trust me."

Ray sputters, chuckles, and punches Nate affectionately in the shoulder. "Credit where credit's due, man. You're just full of surprises. It's gonna be a barrel of monkeys discovering them."

"I figure we might as well have fun over the next three weeks," Nate says with a full-out grin. "I'm going to make some hot milk before bed. And before you ask," he holds up a hand, forestalling Ray, who's already opened his mouth to start in, "yes, I'm for real with that one." He ducks into the kitchen, leaving Ray laughing and shaking his head.

"Couldn't make you up if I tried, huh?" Ray calls out to him. "You go ahead and make your grandma nightcap. I'm gonna hunt down this epic porn collection of yours. If I only have three weeks, I have my viewing cut out for me."

"Fair enough," Nate calls back. "FYI, the teacher-student stuff should be between the choirboy section and the Scouts one. I'm equal opportunity like that."

Ray just laughs.

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Half an hour later, Nate's in bed reading when Ray clears his throat awkwardly from the doorway.

Nate looks up over his glasses. "Hey," he says in greeting.

"So I found the porn," Ray says.

Nate nods. "And?"

Ray's got a small furrow between his brows. "Well I haven't watched any of it yet—and yeah, 10.0 for amount and variety, even from the German judge—but from my unscientific survey, it um... it all seems to be dudes."

"And?"

"What and?" Ray squawks indignantly. "And you're straight!"

"Says who?" Nate asks.

Ray turns a surprisingly bright shade of pink. "Uh... says everyone," he answers.

"Not me," Nate returns.

"But... but..." Ray splutters. "But the Corps"

"When I was serving, I most definitely never told, and thankfully, neither was I asked," Nate says smoothly.

"But... chicks!" Ray tries again.

"I've never had sex with a woman in my life."

Ray laughs weakly. "Damn, Nate. Like I said before, you're full of surprises."

"Figured it was obvious by now, what with the guy-centric combat jacks. Not to mention the bed-sharing. And, oh yeah, the marriage." Nate shrugs, pulls off his reading glasses, and folds them on top of his book on the night table. "What about you?" he asks. "I know you like women. How does that translate to hopping into bed with me?"

It's Ray's turn to shrug. "I'm flexible. Pretty sure just about any version of me could end up in bed with just about anyone appealing enough."

"Oh, so I'm appealing now, am I?" Nate teases, raising both eyebrows and lounging suggestively into the pile of pillows behind him.

Ray swallows visibly, and his eyes skate over Nate's bare chest and arms. "Bitch, please!" he scolds. "You know you're hot shit."

"You don't know the half of it," Nate teases.

Ray laughs, as intended. "So I went to crash in the guest room, but the bed in there is covered with a million Post-Its' worth of speechwriting notes that some mysterious-yet-brilliant fucker inconsiderately put there, so..." he trails off.

"Ray, don't be ridiculous. You're not sleeping in the guest room. Get the hell in here." Nate's already on one side of the bed. He flips back the covers on the other side for Ray.

Ray grins. "Yes, sir," he says. He heads for one of the two dressers along the wall, opens a drawer, and rummages around for a minute. "Don't quite feel up to sleeping in the ol' birthday suit tonight," he says, pulling out a pair of thin, flannel pajama pants. "Don't take it personally, though," he assures Nate. "I'm not worried for my maidenly virtue or anything."

Nate snorts. "I don't think you ever had a shred of virtue, even at birth. And as far as I can tell," he says, blatantly eyeing Ray as he unselfconsciously strips naked before pulling on the flannels, "you're entirely lacking in maidenly anything." Ray is exactly the kind of lean and wiry Nate prefers. In the soft light of the bedside lamp, Ray is all hipbones and tattoos, and Nate has to force his gaze back up to Ray's face.

Ray is looking at him with something dark and appraising in his eyes. "Not so maidenly yourself, there," he says, and Nate thinks Christ, it's easy to flirt with him.

"Nope, not a maiden in sight," Nate replies, and then can't help adding, "Just the way I like it."

"Shut up and go to sleep, you cocksucker," is Ray's witty rejoinder.

"Only if you're lucky, Ray," Nate says, reaching to turn out the light. "Only if you're lucky."

Ray's laugh is warm and maybe a bit surprised, and it's like a lullaby in Nate's ears. He drops off to sleep almost as soon as he's horizontal.

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Down the road, when Nate looks back on this brief period of his life, it will play out like a montage in a film, as flashes of key moments that blur together in his mind to leave their impressions behind:

{}

Ray keeps Nate on his toes.

He seems equally capable of ranting about ridiculous conspiracy theories ("The whole Bronies movement is evidence that NAMBLA's got an in with Hasbro!") as carrying on informed, intelligent conversation about pretty much any topic.

When Nate gets home from work last, he's just as likely to find Ray, controller in hand, loudly and creatively criticizing the ancestry and lifestyle choices of Mario and Luigi, as he is to come in to a mouth watering home-cooked meal. For all that Ray eats like a complete slob and can't seem to be housetrained, his cooking could bag him his own Food Network show.

"I'd call it Eat Me," Ray declares proudly when Nate volunteers this opinion, along with some very indecent noises over Ray's bourbon-thyme cream sauce drizzled on rare, juicy tenderloin. Ray seems distracted for a moment watching Nate eat, then shakes his head sharply and continues. "I'd go around the world tasting people's food and then making vastly superior versions myself without any pussy recipes or ingredient lists. The other cooks would get all butthurt, and I'd tell them where they could go with their little wounded cream puff souls. And then there'd be international incidents left and right, and on every episode I'd only make it out alive because of my badass Recon skills." Ray chews a bite of steak thoughtfully, spilling sauce on his shirt. "The logo could be the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, only it'd be, like, a chef's hat, a plate, and a fork."

Nate is entertained and well-fed enough to not care about the mess Ray is making of himself. "You could end every show dangling out of a helo there to rescue you from the irate horde."

"Now you're talking!" Ray agrees, smiling wide enough to display a mouthful of half-chewed food. "And then I'd wave at them all down on the ground and yell 'EAT ME!' really loud, and the screen would fade to black. I'd watch the shit out of that!"

"Me too, Ray," Nate can't help but say. "Me too."

{}

Post-Its are how Ray runs his life. He jots down ideas for speeches he's working on, he leaves notes for Nate, and he sticks lists on every available surface. It doesn't take Nate long to realize that the locations of those lists are their own way of decoding Ray's inner workings. Some are self-explanatory; the grocery list is on the fridge, ERRANDS is on Ray's comically large Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum keychain. Some require explanation.

Nate finds a small, unlabeled Post-It inside the coffee canister lid that reads

• C: Socrates, F: Democritus, M: Aristotle
• qyz FAIL
• sea glass

He tries to figure out what it tells him about Ray, but finally has to resort to asking. Ray stares at him defiantly when he answers, "That one's 'Fick Comma Nate, Observations of'. Obviously."

"Obviously?" Nate asks.

Ray sighs heavily. "The world will never understand my brilliance." Ray jabs a finger at each bullet point as he elaborates. "You'd chuck Socrates, fuck Democritus, and marry Aristotle. You suck at Scrabble; QYZ isn't military lingo for jack shit, no matter what you say. And you're the only motherfucker on the planet who's got eyes the color of bottle bits the ocean has bashed the shit out of. They're things about you I've been taking note of. So they go in with the coffee."

Nate's still mystified. Amused and admittedly flattered, but still mystified. "They go with the coffee, because..."

"Because when I was a kid and there were tornadoes," Ray explains to Nate like he might to a particularly dense four year old, "I knew they were gone and it was safe again when my mom put on a fresh pot of coffee. So coffee equals safe and due to some bizarre crossed axons in my gray matter, safe, right now, equals you." And with that bombshell dropped for maximum effect on target, Ray turns on his heel and leaves the kitchen.

{}

Ray's a voracious and indiscriminate reader. He's got at least four books going at any given time, from Anna Karenina to Achilles in Vietnam to Cryptonomicon to Twilight.

What's more, he annotates them all like he'll be quizzed later. Nate starts making it a habit to pick up Ray's discarded literature and skim some of the recent comments. They never fail to amuse. He catches, in order, "Farming reform is boring and pointless, you asshat! Wait for the Revolution" and "Berserker!Rudy = scary as shit. Call him to check in" and "Shaftoe I Most Want to Fuck: America or Jack?" and "Vampires are stone-cold, killing-machine motherfuckers (viz undead Brad Colberts). What the holy fuck makes people go for this brainless hack housewife's SparkleTime MoodRing!Eyes variation?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

"If the speechwriting thing doesn't pan out," Nate says, chuckling, "you should be a book reviewer."

Ray looks up from his current field of work-related Post-Its and asks, "Which one?"

"Twilight."

"Yeah, that was a goldmine for the margin notes, if I do say so myself," Ray preens. "You find 'brain abstaining from active use as much as her dried up cunt'?"

Nate laughs aloud. "No. SparkleTime MoodRing!Eyes and undead Brad Colberts."

"Oh yeah," Ray smiles, pleased with himself. "That was a winner. I am a perspicacious and adroit observer of the written word."

"I'll say," Nate says. "You should actually send this one to Brad. I'm sure he'd love the comparison."

"Dude, Brad and I have already dissected the Twilight saga so thoroughly that its own mother wouldn't recognize the remaining bits and pieces," Ray says. "That fucked-in-the-earhole Jewish Viking is Team Edward. Can you believe it?!"

"Which makes you Team Jacob, I suppose?" Nate asks, trying to keep a straight face.

"Of course I'm fucking Team Jacob!" Ray shouts, throwing his hands in the air and raining a few loose Post-Its to the floor. "He's the only one who's not blinded by– Wait a goddamn second. You don't give a shit about Twilight," Ray stops himself, though it looks like it's taking a truly Herculean effort.

Nate grins slyly. "Nope."

"You just like winding me up and letting me go!" Ray says, affronted, as though getting his rant on isn't one of the things he likes best in life, when he and Nate both know better.

"Guilty as charged," Nate admits. "You just look so damn cute when you're all riled up."

Ray grabs his crotch and volleys back with, "I'll show you riled up."

Nate gives an exaggerated leer at Ray's hand. "Anytime, anywhere, Ray. Just say the word."

Ray gropes himself some more: playful and over the top, but his eyes sizzle. "Oh I will, Fick," Ray promises. "Soon as I figure out the optimal word for what I want to do to you."

Has the room gotten warmer? Nate lets his eyes stay on Ray's crotch as he says, "I can think of any number of words I'd like to try out. But since you're the wordsmith, I'll... await your pleasure."

He lets Ray see him adjust himself before he leaves the room.

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There will be plenty of these little moments that stick in Nate's mind later on when he looks back, but the simmering tease of that three weeks is the overall impression that will remain. That taut, fraught anticipation tensing up deliciously low in his belly. The growing confidence in Ray's ability to back up his posturing about all things carnal. The knowledge that if Ray were a stranger Nate met in a bar, they'd probably have gone home and fucked each other's brains out right at the jump.

But Ray's not a stranger. Ray's his husband, despite the insane way it came about. To be honest, it's not long into the allotted three weeks that Nate finds he's stopped worrying about what it was that realigned his and Ray's paths. When he thinks about it rationally, it's ridiculous and unbelievable that the two of them should fit together so well, zero to sixty, occasional status updates to married, literally overnight.

When he lets his logical brain go, though, and just feels, it's nothing but good. They work. They fit. Nate's disgusted by Ray's eating habits, and Ray snipes at Nate for his compulsive routine following, but when they crawl into the same bed at night, it's getting harder and harder to remember that it's on a temporary, trial basis only.

Ray's almost done with the two addresses he's writing. They haven't talked about what's going to happen next. Nate's dreading that conversation. He doesn't know what to say.

The only thing he knows is that he's not ready for Ray to leave.

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It's a Friday night when the situation finally comes to a head.

Nate gets home to find Ray in sweats on the couch with a book. He looks up at Nate's entrance. The usual saccharine Honey, you're home that Nate's come to expect doesn't materialize. Ray just nods as Nate heads toward the bedroom to take off his suit.

When he gets back to the living room in his own sweats, Ray puts the book aside and comments, "Best part about being home. No more real pants!"

"When you're right, you're right," Nate agrees, snapping his elastic waistband as punctuation. "Why are you home so early?" Nate wasn't expecting to see Ray until later in the evening.

"Finished my speeches, man," Ray shrugs. He doesn't meet Nate's eyes. Which is good, because Nate's sure the sick swoop in his belly must also be showing on his face.

"Congratulations! We should celebrate," he offers, trying—though not succeeding—to inject the words with happy enthusiasm he absolutely does not feel.

Ray sounds similarly hollow when he says, "Let it never be said that Ray Person refused a celebration in his honor. Where to, fearless leader?"

"The Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse is having a George Romero marathon all weekend," Nate suggests. The first thought in his head when he saw it in the paper this morning was That would be the perfect date with Ray.

Ray apparently agrees, because it's with genuine excitement that he flutters his eyelashes and puts one hand to his heart, saying, "Wings and beer and zombies. Fastest way to a man's heart, Fick. Well, this man, anyway. You got yourself a goddamn date. I'll even put real pants back on for this very special occasion." He climbs off the couch and stops in front of Nate to look him square in the eye. "But play your cards right like the big hunka hunka ex-Marine you are, and they'll be coming right off again by the end of the evening." He winks and saunters off toward the bedroom to change.

Nate flashes on the night of his senior prom, waiting excitedly to see what the after-party and Chris Walters might bring him. He follows Ray to the bedroom to change his own clothes.

Ray laughs when Nate comes in. "Note to self: flirty one-liners work better when you can walk out and the other person isn't about to follow you. Also, I guess when you've already seen me naked and we sleep in the same bed, there's not much point in suggestive bullshit about clothes coming off." He shrugs and goes back to pulling on the skinny gray jeans that Nate hasn't told him make his ass look amazing. "Whatever, homes. Just... I'm one of those slutty girls who'll definitely put out on a first date. Take that however you want."

"You bet your ass that looks so good in those jeans"—what? it's not like he was planning on keeping that from Ray forever—"that I will take it in exactly the spirit it was intended," Nate says, curling one corner of his mouth upward.

Ray pumps a fist in the air, and Nate lets the anticipation stew happily in his belly.

Ray's so much hotter than Chris Walters.

{}{}{}

The wings are spicy, the beer is cold, and they make it through Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead before Ray's fidgeting in his seat and Nate decides he wants some actual food.

They wander down the street into a Thai place, Nate listening contentedly as Ray expounds on how Romero opened up the horror genre to comment on fucked up societal issues and also how anyone who can't escape those slackjawed yokel slow-ass zombies deserves to be eaten. Suck on that, Darwinian motherfuckers!

Nate lets Ray go on. The thought of coming home to a house void of this eclectic, profane patter and eating some mediocre stir-fry with whatever's on TiVo is lonely and depressing.

Man up, Fick, he scolds himself. As his Grandad always said, you never get anything worth having by avoiding your fears.

"I had a really good time tonight," he starts.

Ray stops mid-sentence and mid-bite (the two are, of course, happening simultaneously). "Seriously?" he asks around his Duck Ka Pow (ordered because who the fuck wouldn't want to eat something that sounds like a creepy import kids' tv show about badass fighting poultry?). "You're not even waiting until we get home to trot out the most cliché line in all of courtship history? Hate to break it to you, Nate, but dating? You're doing it wrong."

"Touché," Nate acknowledges the hit. "I mean it, though. Even if it doesn't end up with you coming in for a cup of coffee."

Ray smiles, dimples carved deep into his cheeks. "Me too," he says. "Good call on the Romero-a-thon."

"I've had a really good time in general over the past few weeks," Nate presses.

Ray's genuine smile instantly flickers into a brittle, performed imitation. "I know, I know," he rushes in before Nate can say anything else. "Our lovely sojourn of flirtatious cohabitation has drawn to a close. It's time for me to get a move on that whole divorce and new apartment thing. Never fear! Your deviant porn collection will soon be once again for your eyes only."

"No! I mean, if anything... That's not... I actually... I was sort of thinking that..." Nate stumbles his way through, fascinated by his napkin and quieter at each successive attempt, until his last is only just above a whisper. "Maybe that you'd stay."

Courage, Marine. He makes himself raise his eyes to meet Ray's. Ray is looking skeptical and suspicious. "You want me to stay? For real?" he asks.

"I do."

"For really real?" Ray asks again.

"For really real," Nate assures him. "I mean, it wouldn't have to be forever if you don't want, obviously. I just... I don't want you to go yet."

Ray's still staring, that incredulous look still scrawled across his pinched, furrowed features. "Why?" he asks.

"What do you mean, Why?" Nate asks.

"I mean, you've done the gentlemanly thing and let me stay while I've been swamped with work and all, and it's been a good time, and I appreciate the hell out of it. But I'm a scrawny, loud-mouthed slob of a backwoods hick from Nowheresville, and you're... you're Nate Fucking Fick: honest-to-God-world-changing Ivy League dreamboat offspring of classy, smart folks. The mismatch is kind of epic."

"Yeah, well I'm also Nate Fucking Fick: stubborn, ridiculously baby-faced, compulsive routine freak, and you're an ex-Marine Harvard grad with a sexy-as-hell gallery of tattoos who gets paid to tell classy, smart folks what to say," Nate replies.

Ray's brow is still slightly furrowed. "You like that stuff?" he asks, an honest question.

Nate puts all the earnestness he can muster into his answer. "I really, really do."

The bashfully pleased look on Ray's face is a reward in and of itself. Then Ray grins, an A-plus shiteater: half wide-eyed, eager child and half obnoxious, testy teenager. "Well shake my hand and butter some toast for Jesus, are you proposing to me?"

"I think you beat me to that punch," Nate says and sticks up his left ring finger at Ray as though it's its neighbor. "But I'm asking you to stick around for a while so we don't have to cancel The Nate and Ray Show just yet. What do you think?"

Ray takes a bite and chews, messily and thoughtfully. "I think," he drawls slowly, "that it should be called The Ray and Nate Show. Or better yet, I Love Person. I'll be the zany wack-job wife who's constantly getting in trouble, and you'll be the long suffering husband who's always there to rescue me from my crazy schemes. Brad can be Colbert, the enabling neighbor who gets dragged into my shenanigans each week. It's a sure-fire hit!"

Ray beams, all pride and Duck Ka Pow, and Nate knows a yes when he hears one.

"I'd watch the shit out of that," Nate says with a laugh.

"Me too, Nate," Ray agrees. "Me too."

Nate raises his Singha. "To I Love Person, then," he says sincerely. "May it run for many seasons and always keep its viewers satisfied."

"Hear, hear, you sappy fuck," Ray toasts. His smile is genuine, and his eyes are warm.

"Wait! Hold the fucking phone," Ray splutters after a second, spilling beer down his chin. He bangs his glass on the table with a dull thud. "I Love Person may follow certain time-honored traditions of the situational comedy, but I stipulate one key difference that must be included in my contract. In no way are the stars of the show to sleep in separate twin beds like the frigid prudes they most definitely are not!"

"A very good point," Nate concedes. "I'll get the lawyers right on that. Have to keep the talent happy."

Ray's mouth slips sideways into a sly leer. "Actually, to be honest, I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to a multi-season contract at all if there's been no testing of the co-stars' chemistry." He leans forward over the table toward Nate. "In bed, I mean," he elaborates. "By which I mean fucking. You know, in case your uber-educated brain operates on too elevated a level to understand such crassness." His eyes have gone witchy. A tight thrill thrums through Nate's body.

"Josh Ray Person," Nate gasps. "I am a good Catholic boy who was raised to believe that no carnal acts should be performed before marriage." He looks pointedly down at the ring on his finger. "Oh wait." Back up at Ray, this time with a leer of his own. "I believe we're past that point."

"You bet your sweet patoot we are," Ray says fervently. "And don't ever try to pull off that 'good Catholic boy' shit again. The bloom is off the rose, Fick. I've seen your porn." He considers for a second. "Actually, speaking of your porn, feel free to play up the 'good Catholic boy' thing. There's always room for a good role-play scenario."

Nate hums in agreement. "I think you've seen plenty of DVD evidence that I'm right there with you." He wants very much to be done with dinner and back at the house.

"What else do you like, Nate?" Ray asks. He's intent and focused, and while he's still smiling, it's not a joke anymore. "What gets you going?"

"Feedback," Nate says without hesitation, low and keen. He is so ready to get into this with Ray. "I like being told how things feel: what feels good, what feels better. I like knowing I'm getting a guy off hard. I like figuring out how to blow his mind."

"Jesus!" Ray gasps. He's flushed a gorgeous red, and his breath has gone shallow. "You don't do anything by half measures, I'll give you that. I'm gonna go nut one out in the bathroom before we go, 'cause my dick's–"

"You most certainly are not!" Nate snaps, cutting Ray off like a truant schoolboy. "You don't touch your dick tonight unless I'm there. Understood?" He wasn't a Recon officer for nothing. Ray's jaw clicks shut immediately.

"Understood, sir," he says, and his voice is smoky, slithering sex. Nate shudders. "And if I'm a good boy?" Oh fuck. Ray's gathered enough intel over the past three weeks to press shamelessly on Nate's buttons, and holy shit, is he ever applying what he's learned.

Nate leans across the table to look directly into Ray's eyes, as he says, barely above a whisper, "If you're a good boy, I'll take you home and strip off your clothes. I'll get you all tucked up into our bed, and I'll spend the rest of the night fucking you deaf, dumb, and blind."

Ray looks right back at him, pulse beating like a sprinting rabbit at his throat. "Do it," he says. "Take me home and mess me the fuck up," and Nate's never heard an order he wants to obey more.

{}{}{}

The drive home is a blur of tense anticipation and disobeyed speed limits.

When they finally make it through the door, Ray's in the lead. He takes two steps in and turns back to face Nate. "Like I said before," he says archly, "the best part of being at home is no more real pants." He unbuttons his jeans, and shimmies them right off, kicking off his boots and toeing out of his socks along the way.

Nate moves toward him, but Ray puts up a hand to stave him off. "Patience, young Skywalker," Ray cautions. "Sexy things come to those who wait." He shrugs his motorcycle jacket off his shoulders like a trained stripper, and peels his shirt off slow and slinky. That leaves him standing in the entryway, his skin set off by black: tattoos and boxer briefs, and Nate can't decide where to look first. It's not like Ray's body is a surprise after sharing close quarters for almost a month, but it sure as hell hasn't been presented to him like this, for his delectation.

Ray pulls his shirt taut between both hands, saunters up to Nate with a gleam in his eye and a sway in his hips that someone in the sex trade must have taught him, and loops the cotton around the back of Nate's neck to pull him in.

"Holy shit, Ray," Nate breathes. He's having trouble thinking clearly, even more now that he can feel and smell the inviting heat of Ray's body.

"Such an eloquent motherfucker," Ray teases. "Kiss me, bitch," he says, and Nate does.

After all the flirtatious, teasing anticipation of the last few weeks, it's a fiery thrill to finally slide his hands up Ray's back, tug him close, and take that smartass mouth under Nate's own. Ray's kisses are like Ray himself: quick to change and constantly surprising. He scrapes, bites sharp and rough before letting his mouth go soft and submissive against Nate's. He licks deep into Nate's mouth and then pulls back and teases with only the lightest of fluttering touches. It's infuriating and magnetic. Nate would expect nothing less from rakish Ray Person.

Similarly as-expected is that Ray makes noise. He sighs and grunts and hums and occasionally lets loose small whining moans that Nate quickly realizes mean he's particularly pleased. Nate wants more of those.

He pulls back to huff out, "Remember what I said at dinner?"

Ray arches his torso back from Nate's body, which presses his crotch into Nate's thigh. "I remember you promising to fuck me deaf, dumb, and blind. Can we get to that part, like, yesterday?" Ray demands.

"I said I want to know what feels good. Tell me what you like, and we'll get to the fucking that much sooner," Nate promises. He plays his fingertips over the tattoos spread across Ray's chest and shoulders, reveling in permission to touch.

Ray shivers under Nate's hands, and his voice shivers, too, when he asks, "So, just to be sure, because it's not a request I get all that often, you want me to talk?"

Nate smiles. "Yeah. I really do."

"Well that's something I'm pretty good at," Ray says. Nate ducks to mouth his way along Ray's neck and listens.

"I like how you're touching me now. I like that light, exploration thing at the beginning with someone new. And– ah! There!" he gasps as Nate gets to a spot just under the jutting hinge of his jaw. Nate licks at it some more, and Ray commands, "Bite. Right there. On the bone." Nate does, and Ray jerks in his arms and lets loose another of those moans Nate's been looking for.

"Mm-hm," Ray purrs. "That's good. Fuck, that's good. Do it again."

Nate worries at Ray's jaw with his teeth, and Ray moans again and ruts his hard dick against Nate's leg. The imbalance of his own fully clothed body against Ray's smaller, slighter, mostly naked one is working for Nate in a big way.

He lifts his mouth from Ray's skin only to say, "Come on. I want to play with you some more," before he's spinning Ray around to pull him against Nate's chest and fixing his mouth back on Ray's body as he shuffle-walks them up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom.

Ray, of course, talks while they go. "God, I want you. Best kind of temptation. All big innocent green eyes with a side of yes ma'am on Sundays. And then crack the surface, and you're a dirty, twisted bastard taking charge like a boss. It makes me wanna fucking roll over and beg."

Nate's hard in his jeans. He keeps shoving his cock up against Ray's ass while they walk. The image of Ray begging for dick on hands and knees hits him so viscerally that Nate can't do anything but grab Ray hard against him and thrust two, three times in rapid succession. "Fuck," he swears. "We can arrange for the begging. You're being so good, telling me what you like. I want to give you what you like."

Ray presses right back into Nate's thrusts and croons, "Like feeling your cock against my ass. Want it all up in me. Wanna be good for you."

Jesus! Ray'll be the death of him, and they're not even naked yet. If Ray stays pressed warm against him much longer, this may be over before they get there.

"Get on the bed," Nate commands.

"Yes, sir," Ray growls and does just that. "Come with me, and get naked."

Nate's dick twitches. The messed up zing of Ray calling him 'sir' right now just adds to the thrill of hearing orders sent his way, even as he gives his own. Nate's always been happy to trade power with his partners. He's got no doubt Ray is his match in this, and to that end, he says, "We're going to play a game."

"I'd bet a fuckload of money and my momma's house that I'm going to like this game." Ray looks up at him, the picture of flushed expectation.

"Easy rules: you tell me something you want me to do to you, I do it and take off an article of clothing," Nate says.

Ray grins, feral and full of glee. "Deal. Get over here and touch me."

As promised, Nate toes his shoes off and crosses to the bed. He stretches out on his side next to Ray, leaning over him on one elbow, and runs a firm hand across Ray's chest and down his sides, exploring.

Ray arches into it, but huffs impatiently at the same time. "You bastard," he spits. "You know that wasn't what I meant. Touch my dick."

Nate sits up and pulls his jacket off, then reaches for the band of Ray's underwear, but Ray grabs his wrist. "Leave 'em on," Ray says. "For now."

"Whatever you say," Nate agrees, and strokes the hard ridge of Ray's cock through his shorts. He rubs from base to tip and back, grasping a little, giving Ray some pressure, and Ray responds beautifully, arching his hips up rhythmically and whining, "Fuck yes, that feels good!"

Nate kneads and massages for a few minutes, soaking in Ray's pleasure and shifting his own dick against the side of Ray's thigh. Finally, Ray gives his next command. "Rub against my hole," he pants, and Nate slides his hand down further between Ray's legs to push his fingers where Ray wants them.

Ray shudders at the tease of it through his underwear, and chokes, "Good, but– Follow through, Fick. Show me skin."

"Of course," Nate says, and his voice comes out husky. "How silly of me to forget." He sits up and pulls his socks off, grinning challenge at Ray.

Ray glares back. "Not the skin I meant, and you kn– oh!" because Nate's put his hand back to work where Ray requested its presence. Ray writhes against that hand for a minute, but it's not long before he tells Nate to, "Go on and suck me off with that pretty mouth of yours."

Nate's belly lurches lustily. "Aye aye," he says, and pulls his shirt off over his head.

"Fucking finally," Ray sighs, with an eye roll like Nate's some daydreaming student who's just caught up to the rest of the class. Then his eyes are roaming over Nate's body and zeroing in on his mouth, and Nate slides down the bed and opens his lips around Ray's dick through his underwear.

He tongues at it and at the bulge of Ray's balls until Ray snaps, "Ditch the shorts! Christ!" So Nate does, flinging them who-knows-where and taking a moment to stare at Ray's cock, hard and red and waiting for him.

"Chop chop, now," Ray says. It's impatient, his voice shot and raspy with arousal. "It's not going to suck itself."

"No," Nate agrees in a rasp of his own. "That's my job." And he makes sure to maintain eye contact with Ray as he slowly and evenly slides his mouth down the entire length of Ray's cock in one long, smooth, swoop.

Ray shouts wordlessly. Nate nudges his nose into Ray's belly to get his focus back, and once he has it, he very deliberately swallows. Ray shouts again, with words this time. "Holy fucking mother of goddamn twatting Christ! That's a hell of a party trick! Can you stay down there?"

Nate hums for yes, which makes Ray writhe under his attentions. "Gonna guide you," he pants. Which sounds fantastic to Nate. Especially when guiding him involves Ray putting his hands on either side of Nate's head and steering him up and then back down Ray's cock. He does it slowly a few times, making sure Nate can take it, then picks up the pace and, after a few moments, the audio commentary.

"Yeah, that's it. Holy shit, you suck good dick! Stay down, now. Unh– yes." He presses Nate's head against his belly, holding him in place. Their eyes lock, and Nate's sure his own arousal is right there on display. Sure enough, Ray gasps, "You fucking love it! Sucking my cock gets you hard. Hum if I'm right."

Nate gives a full-out moan around Ray's dick, and Ray's whole body seizes up. "Motherfucker! I'm gonna come, Nate. Gonna come. Let me do it all over your gorgeous face, huh?" He slides Nate's head up and down his cock again, then loses the coordination to do even that as he snaps his own head back and keens and comes.

Nate pulls off to catch most of Ray's come across his face, feeling it jet across his mouth, a cheekbone, his nose. It feels debased and subservient, and Nate grinds his dick hard into the mattress with how much he likes it.

Ray pants through his trembling aftershocks, and when he lifts his head to see the state of Nate's face, his body spasms again, weakly. "You are unreal," he groans. "You're made up by the porn fairy, aren't you?"

Nate licks come off his lips, and grins an evil grin. "Nope. Real," he says. "Real enough to make you blow all over my face." Ray groans weakly. "Speaking of which... you told me what you wanted... I owe you an article of clothing." He stands and pushes his jeans down and off, well aware of the picture he must make, cock straining at the front of his briefs, chest flushed, hair sweaty, and face splattered with spunk.

Ray takes in the whole thing, and shakes his head. "Not helping your case." He gestures feebly at Nate. "That is definitely something the porn fairy would bring."

Nate laughs. "What would the porn fairy like me to do with all the jizz on my face?" he asks.

Ray snorts and gestures Nate over to him. "Let me take care of that." He uses one hand to wipe up his come, then looks at his hand, and curiously back at Nate. "You've got one more piece of clothing on," he says. "Which means I've got one more thing to ask you to do for me."

"Mm-hm," Nate agrees.

Ray's command comes softer this time. "I want you to take off your underwear, kneel by the bed, and lick my hand clean. Will you do that for me?"

Nate will, and he does. He strips off his briefs and kneels next to the bed. Ray slides over to sit at the edge and reaches his hand out. Nate laps at it. He's never minded the taste of come, and even if he did, the awed, naked way Ray is looking at him right now would more than make up for it.

When Nate is done, he kisses Ray's palm and rests his head against Ray's thigh. He looks up, open and fond, and Ray cups Nate's cheek with his other hand and looks back at him like Nate's something priceless and rare.

After a minute, he shakes his head as though he's forcing himself out of a daze. "Not that this hasn't been dirty and deviant and delicious and other d-words, but I'm still owed an f-word." He widens his eyes and pouts his lower lip and asks, "Now?" in an exaggerated falsetto like he's a character in some seriously fucked up anime.

It's a sign of how warped Nate has become over Ray that it still makes his dick twitch.

He climbs onto the bed and kneels up to tower over Ray, who's still sitting. "Yeah," he tells him, leaning into Ray's space until he's forced to fall back onto the mattress. "Yeah, now." He plants both hands on either side of Ray's head, looming as much as he can, making Ray feel how much bigger he really is.

He lowers himself on his hands, holds himself in push-up position above Ray, only a few inches between their faces. Ray's breath catches audibly. "I'm all out of clothes," Nate hums. "Guess that game's over. Time for a new one." He pauses, like it's a great dilemma. "I've got an idea. I think you'll like this one, too."

Ray's panting and dark-eyed beneath him, and still he manages to snark, "Is it called You Shut the Hell Up and Get Your Dick Inside Me? Cuz that's one I really really want to play right now."

Nate growls, which provokes a sharp noise of want in the back of Ray's throat. Nate sits back on his knees and commands, "Hands and knees. Face down, ass up."

"Hell yes," Ray groans and obeys, spreading his legs wide and pillowing his forehead on crossed arms. He makes for one sinfully good-looking tableau.

Nate grabs lube and a condom from the night table drawer and drizzles some slick down the crack of Ray's ass. He slides his middle finger in a line from Ray's tailbone all the way to his balls and back. Ray shivers. He taps the pad of that slippery finger against Ray's hole, tap tap press tap, tap tap press, press tap press tap, press tap press.

Ray whines and wriggles and then laughs, "You are a dork, Nate Fick! I'd know Morse for FUCK anywhere."

Nate smiles where Ray can't see it, but it's audible in his voice when he says, "Just seeing if you were paying attention."

"Believe me when I say you have my undivi– mrph," but Nate's shoved his finger fast and deep into Ray's ass, so he doesn't finish the thought.

Nate lets Ray adjust for only a few seconds before he slides his finger out and back in, see-sawing a bit. He pets the length of Ray's back with his free hand. "That's it," he soothes. "Easy now."

"M'not a fuckin' spooked horse," Ray snipes. "I can take a measly– ahh!" That's two. Two slick fingers in Ray's body, and this time he bucks at the suddenness, and he doesn't complain about how Nate keeps stroking his back, even as he keeps stroking Ray inside, too.

The tension doesn't leave Ray's back as quickly after two fingers as it did with one. A distraction seems to be in order. "Talk to me," Nate tells him. "Tell me what's good. Tell me if it's not."

Ray grunts. "It's fine. It'll be good in a minute. Just... big. You've got big fingers. Long fingers. Mm, now I'm thinking about how it's gonna be your cock in a minute. Bigger. Longer. Give me three." And his tense lats have loosened up, so Nate does as he's bid, adding more lube and sliding back in with three fingers this time.

Ray still grunts at the new intrusion, but he bucks back into Nate's hand this time. "Tell me, Ray," Nate reminds him.

"What a demanding top it is," Ray mutters, but he sounds pleased about it. "Feels achy. But good achy. Good stretched muscle burn achy. Need another minute, but man, do I want that to be your dick in there."

"Me too," Nate murmurs. "Me fuckin' too. You should see it. You're all flushed and sweaty and wired, and your hole's nice and shiny around my fingers. You're being so good, talking for me and stretching for me. You want a present for being such a good boy?"

Ray moans, "Yeeeeeeessss," so apparently it's not just Nate who's twisted enough to get off on this kind of talk.

"OK," he whispers and angles his fingers inside Ray to brush at his prostate three times in flickering succession.

Ray yowls, arches up hard, and shoots his arms forward to grab the headboard so he doesn't slam his face back to the bed. "Fuck!" he swears harshly and holds his position parallel to the mattress. He hangs there, stretched gorgeously between Nate's hand at one end and a death grip on the headboard at the other.

"Nice present?" Nate asks smugly.

"You know it was," Ray pants. The teasing tone is gone from his voice, and when he turns to look back over his shoulder at Nate and says, "I want your dick in my body so much right now," it's with nothing but the very best kind of sloe-eyed, wanton desire.

"Yeah," Nate gasps. And it's all he can say, again. "Yeah."

He pulls his hand free, and Ray whimpers at the loss. Nate watches Ray's hole twitch and flutter while he sheathes and slicks himself faster than he thinks anyone's ever managed it before.

"Stay right there like you are," he tells Ray, faintly surprised at just how jagged and low his voice sounds. Ray nods and moans again, dropping his head between his stretched arms, still gripping the top of the bed with white knuckles.

Nate kneels behind Ray, lines himself up, and slides into the warm, sweet squeeze of Ray's body.

He goes as slowly as he can bear, wanting to just fuck and fuck and fuck until he comes, but not wanting to hurt Ray at all. And though Ray's beautiful back muscles have tensed up again, the high-pitched, drawn-out sigh he gives is most definitely a noise of pleasure.

When Nate's all the way in, he folds himself down over Ray, grabs the headboard on top of Ray's hands, and holds there, suspended together. "You. Feel. So. Good," he whispers at Ray's ear.

Ray cranes his head around gracelessly, mouthing at the air, straining for Nate's kiss. Nate obliges, awkward in such a tight-strung position, but fervent and eager and true.

He pulls his mouth back after a minute. Ray's eyes flutter open, confused and hazy, and he tries to follow Nate, but he's too stretched and twisted to do it.

"C'mere," Nate croons. "Sit up." He wraps his arms around Ray and hauls him up to lean back against Nate's chest, keeps him there as he settles back on his knees. He manages a pretty smooth transition, but the movement still shifts his cock inside Ray's body, and Ray cries out.

"OK?" Nate whispers, uncurling one arm to smooth through Ray's sweaty hair.

Ray hauls in a shaky breath and opens his mouth in a soundless answer. He swallows and tries again. "Yeah," he croaks. "Good. Move now."

So Nate does. He starts out slowly, nudging his hips up against Ray's ass and pulling them back in incredibly tiny increments. But he's been so hard and so patient for so long that it can't stay slow and soft, and pretty soon he's swinging his torso back for the leverage to get deeper inside Ray. Faster. Stronger.

He's got one hand digging hard into Ray's hip, and the other planted behind him on the mattress for balance. Ray is using his own thighs to lift and lower himself into each of Nate's thrusts. He's grinding out cut-off syllables each time Nate's cock pushes in. Nate can't see his face or what he's doing with his hands until he clamps one down on top of Nate's at his hip, and starts a familiar rhythm with the other.

It's a struggle to make words happen in this fog of pleasure, but Nate tries. "You're hard?" he chokes out.

And because, unlike Nate, even now he can make words do his bidding, Ray answers, "So hard. You fucked me hard. Fucking me hard now. So good. C'mon. Harder. Harder for me, Nate."

Nate snarls and pushes upright, pushes Ray down before him on the bed—splayed and balanced on one elbow as he jerks himself off furiously—pushes his own body over Ray's. And the rest of it is purely animal, no finesse, no delicacy. Just shoving as hard as he can, as deep as he can, as much as he can into Ray's yielding, answering body.

Ray's elbow gives out, and they collapse flat. Without room to touch his cock, Ray immediately starts to writhe his hips against the mattress and back up into Nate's driving pelvis. "C'mon. More. Jesus, yes!" gives way to wordless high cries, and then one long sob of Nate's name, and Ray is coming, clenching around Nate's cock so that Nate freezes up and gladly gives in to the rippling, shivering thrill of his orgasm, his body pulsing desperately and gratefully against Ray's.

It's several minutes without a single conscious thought before Nate realizes he's collapsed on top of Ray.

Finally, though, Ray's gasped-for breaths register beneath Nate's chest, and he forces himself to kneel up and pull out.

Ray groans pitifully, and Nate removes the condom and pitches it at the trash can. It's good it lands inside, because fuck if he has the fine motor control to tie a knot in it right now. He collapses back to the bed beside Ray, who unashamedly throws an arm and a leg and half his torso over Nate's back.

"You fuck real good, you know that?" Ray says muzzily against Nate's skin. He giggles. "Fick fucks good. Good Fuck Fick. New nickname."

Nate smiles, mashed into a pillow. "Because no one's ever made bad puns with my name before."

"Hush," Ray scolds, sounding halfway to sleep. "Didn't matter before. Now's your husband sayin' it."

For the first time since this whole thing started, hearing that makes something warm and proud happen in Nate's chest.

"Go to sleep, husband," he mumbles. "Clean up in the morning."

Ray hums semi-conscious agreement, wiggles around to sprawl further across Nate, and Nate's out before he knows anything else.

{}{}{}

He wakes to find Ray Person naked in his bed.

There's a weird second of déja vu, and then Nate processes all the ways this morning is different from that one a few weeks ago.

Today he knows Ray is here, and he knows why. 'Why' makes him smile.

Today Ray is starfished on top of Nate, snoring a little and drooling on Nate's back. This also makes Nate smile.

Today Ray is partially stuck to Nate and Nate is partially stuck to the sheets with the unpleasant morning-after glue of dried come. The fact that this, too, makes Nate smile means he's in pretty deep.

"Ray?" he asks and shrugs a shoulder to wake Ray up.

"Hmph?" comes the snuffled response.

"Get off me," Nate says. "Slowly."

He feels Ray lift his head, then, in a simultaneously sweet and disgusting display of affection, lick his drool from Nate's back. Nate laughs as Ray slowly peels them apart and flops down beside him.

Ray is sleepy-eyed, and his hair's a mess, and there's a bright red blotch on his right cheek from sleeping against Nate's shoulder, and it's the best sight Nate's seen in a long time.

"Good morning, Mr. Fick," Nate murmurs.

Ray shuts his eyes and digs his head into the pillow with a wide, childlike smile. "Good morning, Mr. Person," he responds.

"Do you think you–"

"Don't start," Ray cuts him off, apparently knowing where Nate is headed without even opening his eyes. "Don't cheapen my best morning-after ever with meaningful heart-to-heart, state-of-relationship bullcrap." Apparently not even being fucked into oblivion and sleeping like the dead can blunt Ray's special brand of communication.

"Best ever?" Nate prods.

Ray grumbles at him. "Yeah yeah, figures that's what you heard." But he's still smiling.

Fine, so Nate won't hash out all the details here and now, but he wants to make a few things perfectly clear. "I don't think we'd have ever ended up together if you hadn't been crazily thrown back into my path like this," he says quietly as Ray keeps his eyes closed. "I didn't think we'd end up together when you woke up in my bed three weeks ago. I have no fucking idea what happened, or what kind of cosmic joke some higher power thinks got pulled here. But Ray..."

Nate nudges a fingertip under Ray's chin, stroking softly. "I'm so glad you're here now."

Ray finally opens his eyes. They're warm and brown and smiling, and Ray scoots forward to bump his nose against Nate's. "Kiss your husband good morning, even though your mouth is gonna taste like sleep germs and my stale dicksmack," he says sweetly. Nate does, thoroughly. Ray wraps an arm around Nate's neck and kisses back contentedly.

They pull apart a few inches, both smiling now. Ray's smile slips smoothly from sweet to sly just before he says, "Now get in the kitchen and make me an omelet while I shower. If I'm sticking around, I'd better be getting a man who cooks me breakfast."

"Yes, sir," Nate replies. He nips at the tip of Ray's nose, hard just beyond playful. And then he's glad to troop off to the kitchen as commanded, with the sound of Ray's complaints about domestic violence ringing happily in his ears.

{}{}{}

Epilogue: Six months later

The door shuts after the last guest, and Nate surveys the living room.

Cake crumbs are mashed irretrievably into the carpet. Beer puddles appear in unexpected places. Framed photos are variously askew, knocked over, and adorned with lipstick kiss marks and impolite Post-It commentary.

The coffee table in the middle of it all is covered in presents and cards.

And seated on the couch beside that table is a wiry terrier of a man who gives Nate a run for his money every single day of his life, for which Nate will be eternally grateful.

Ray is poring excitedly over the table's contents.

"All right... hit me," Nate says, and sits down next to Ray on the couch. "What did the horde bring us?"

"I show, you tell who brought it," Ray says, and at Nate's nod picks up a book from the pile.

Sacred Sexuality: A Manual for Living Bliss

Nate scoffs. "That is so clearly Rudy I'm offended you didn't start with something harder."

Ray chalks up one point in the air, then holds up an array of personalized paper goods that came together: thick creamy stationery monogrammed NCF and Post-Its in all shapes, sizes, and colors, headed "Straight from the brain of Ray Person".

"Leave it to Gunny Wynn to make sure his old LT is properly outfitted on his paper anniversary," Nate approves.

Ray nods and chalks up another air point.

Next is a pair of DVDs whose covers show a distinct lack of both production values and clothing: Teacher's Pet and The Slutty Professor.

"Lilley is an idiot," Nate says, shaking his head fondly. "Especially because we already have both of these.

Ray grins. "You're good," he says, and tallies a third point for Nate.

He picks up a card next, and performs a dramatic reading of its message, complete with exaggerated drawl. "Happy anniversary! I still don't quite know how such a messed up hick managed to get with one of the most stand-up good guys I've ever known, but when it works, it works, you know?"

"Aw, Hasser," Nate smiles.

"Got it in one," Ray says and picks up the next card.

He skims it with a quick, "Aw, this is an easy one," then reads, "To my gay-ass white oppressor brothers."

"Poke," Nate interjects, and Ray tosses the card back on the pile and grabs the next one.

He reads, laughs, and says. "OK, this one's a gimme, too, but it's too good not to share out loud." He clears his throat, blanks his face, and reads, "Nate, I don't think it's precisely congratulations that are in order for surviving a year of life with a degenerate inbred miscreant like Ray. Commiserations, perhaps. Confusions. Concerns. But for some reason unknown to me or any other halfway intelligent human, this occasion is being celebrated, and unit cohesion demands my presence. Person, keep on doing right by the LT. If you don't, think about the innumerable ways I know how to kill untraceably. Nate, same to you."

Ray smiles again and, before Nate can speak, exclaims, "Brad loves us deep in his squishy pink Iceman heart!"

"Come here," Nate says, and lies back on the couch, pulling Ray on top of him. Ray flops down heavily and kisses Nate, warm and pleased and tasting like whisky and cake, which somehow on Ray is just right.

"Happy anniversary, my slutty professor," Ray hums.

"Happy anniversary to you, my degenerate inbred miscreant," Nate answers, and then asks, "What do I get for guessing all those presents right?"

Ray smirks mischievously. "You did get the answers right to those hard questions. Such an impressive performance deserves a big, long reward. However can I show you my appreciation?"

Nate smirks a smirk of his own. "I'm thinking Teacher's Pet, scene two."

Ray's eyes flash. "I'm thinking naked on the bed in ten seconds or less."

Nate looks up at this devilish, quicksilver spark of a man he's ended up sharing his life with. He kisses Ray hard and deep and lewd and pulls back to whisper, "I love you," fierce and low.

Ray doesn't shake his daze until Nate's already pushed him onto the floor and sprinted for the bedroom, calling, "Ten... nine... eight..."

He hears Ray's, "I love you, too, you cheating fucker," and the thunder of his approaching feet, and then turns his attention to other pressing matters for the rest of the night.