Ray read the recipe for the thirteenth time, wrinkling his nose. Yeesh. He couldn't believe Fraser actually ate this stuff. Still, he had been cooking since that time when he was ten and both his folks had the flu, and he'd yet to meet a recipe he couldn't master. It hadn't been easy getting the ingredients. He'd had to get Quinn to ship most of them down to him on the sly. Even then he'd almost blown it. He'd forgotten about Fraser's sensitive nose. The tiny trace of oil left on his fingers after he'd opened the jar out of curiosity had nearly blown it. Fraser had walked around trying to figure out where and what the smell was until Ray had managed to make an excuse to wash his hands.

Unable to face the akutaq recipe just yet, he lifted the lid on the Dutch oven to check on the stew, and took a whiff. The smell made his mouth water. If it tasted anything like it smelled, it would be great, even if he'd never cooked with venison before. The stew ingredients had been considerably easier to come by. The butcher shop in his parents' old neighborhood stocked venison. He'd gotten the juniper berries, shallots, and fresh rosemary at the yuppie market, and the potatoes and parsnips from his usual grocer, though parsnips were not normally on his shopping list. He'd forgotten to get any red wine, so he'd substituted beer. His mom put beer in her stew, so it should be okay.

With some trepidation he turned back to the ingredients on the counter. Since Fraser would be there in half an hour, it was now or never. He picked up the chunk of freeze-dried caribou fat and the grater, and grimly started grating it into a big mixing bowl. When he finished, he consulted the recipe Turnbull had given him, picked up the jar of seal oil, and poured some over the grated fat. Putting the mixing bowl onto the mixer base, he lowered the beaters, started them, and then added water a little at a time until the oil and fat mixture frothed up some. Dumping in the sugar, he blended it in, then turned off the mixer. The resulting mixture looked like weird whipped cream. Smelled like fish. He wondered if Fraser was going to make him try some or if just making it would earn him points.

The dried salmonberries had been soaking for hours, and were as soaked as they were going to get. He drained them over the sink, and then rinsed the two pints of outrageously expensive out-of-season blackberries, eating a few plain since he hoped to be able to avoid tasting the finished product later. Carefully he stirred all the berries into the fat-and-sugar mixture until they were evenly distributed.

After scraping the resulting pinkish sludge into the special dish Quinn had sent down along with the ingredients, he checked the recipe again. Just like every other time he'd read it, it still didn't say to put the stuff in the freezer, or even the fridge. How the hell could you call it ice cream if it wasn't even cold? He decided to put it in the fridge anyway. He covered it with plastic wrap to keep the smell from permeating the entire refrigerator, and then stuck the mixing bowl and beaters in the dishwasher and turned it on. Checking the time, he realized he didn't have enough time to do the from-scratch dumplings before Fraser arrived, so he grabbed the box of biscuit and pancake mix from the cupboard and short-cut the recipe. It was better than nothing.

He'd just finished spooning the dumpling dough on top of the stew when a brisk knock sounded at the door. He put the lid back on the Dutch oven, glanced down at himself, and discovered he was wearing about half their dinner. "Just a minute!" he yelled, yanking off his t-shirt and heading for the bedroom for a clean one. Grabbing one out of the drawer, he pulled it over his head and was still tucking it in as he opened the door.

Fraser stood on the threshold, nostrils flaring, a faint frown on his face and a brown paper bag in one hand. Behind him, Diefenbaker stood, looking equally alert, muzzle lifted to test the scents coming out of the apartment.

"Fraser, glad you could make it. Come on in. You too Dief," Ray said. "You want me to take that?" he asked, nodding at the bag in Fraser's hands.

"Thank you, yes. I wasn't sure what you might need, so I took the liberty of bringing a beverage. You know, it's the oddest thing. . . coming up the hallway, Diefenbaker and I could have sworn we smelled. . . " He stepped into the apartment as he spoke, relinquishing his bag to Ray as he did so, but he abruptly stopped, his sentence trailing off.

Ray grinned. "Thought you smelled . . . ?" he prompted.

Fraser's tongue flicked out. Maybe he was part snake and he smelled with his tongue. His eyes went wide and he stared at Ray in astonishment. "Venison?"

Ray felt his face getting warm. "Hey, it's not caribou or moose, but I thought you might like it."

To his surprise, Fraser's response was to push past him into the kitchen and snatch the lid off the Dutch oven. Of course, he dropped it instantly with a muttered curse. Ray choked back a laugh as he realized Fraser had just burned his fingers. A moment later the lid came off again, this time held with a hot-pad, as Fraser stuck his face over the pot to inhale deeply.

"Don't scald your face. Or your sinuses," Ray said, setting the bag on the counter and unrolling the top to peer inside. Looked like a six-pack. Shocked, he reached in and pulled out the contents, and was reassured to find he held ginger-beer.

Fraser turned, his expression something like that of a junkie who's just been handed a free hit of his drug of choice. "You made venison stew!" he said accusingly.

"Guilty," Ray said, holding up both hands like he was being arrested. "With dumplings, even. You gonna run me in now?"

"No, but I may well marry you," Fraser said with startling earnestness. "Where on earth did you get venison?"

"Fraser, this is Chicago. I could get elephant if I wanted to pay for it. Venison's nothing in comparison. My folk's old butcher carries it."

"A butcher," Fraser said, looking poleaxed. "That never even occurred to me."

"Live and learn," Ray said. "So are you gonna stay a while or were you just dropping off the drinks?" Ray asked.

Fraser looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Of course I'm staying. Why would you even ask?"

Ray flicked the Stetson up with one finger, and tugged at Fraser's coat sleeve. "Oh, no reason."

This time it was Fraser who got pink. He put the lid back on the pot and whipped off his hat. "You must think me inexcusably rude."

"Nah. I just think you're hungry. But get out of here and shuck down and let me dish up dinner."

The speed with which Fraser exited the kitchen would have been satisfying it hadn't owed more to the prospect of dinner than obedience. He poked a dumpling to make sure it was done, then got out three bowls and filled them, topping each with a dumpling. He put one of them down on the kitchen floor.

Dief was there instantly, but Ray put a hand over the bowl. Dief whined and pushed at his hand.

"I'm just saving you a burned tongue," Ray said. "Give it a couple of minutes to cool. I mean it, or no seconds."

That was apparently threat enough. Dief sat back, looking longingly at the bowl. Ray took the other bowls in to the table. Fraser had opened two bottles of ginger-beer and put one at each of their places. Ray thought about getting glasses and ice, but judging by the way Fraser was eyeing his bowl, that would be pointless delay. He raised his eyebrows at Fraser. "Do I need to warn you about the burned tongue thing too?"

Fraser smiled back, a rare, open smile. "I'll blow on it."

* * *

The stew recipe claimed to serve eight. Clearly their guest list had not included Mounties, detectives, or wolves, because the three of them had scoured the pot clean. Fraser had sneakily bloused his shirt out to disguise the fact that he'd opened the top button on his jeans, but Ray noticed anyway. That one undone button whetted a very different appetite from the one he'd just satisfied.

It was torture having a partner who was so exactly Ray's type, but apparently straight– though sometimes Ray wondered about that. He could've sworn he'd caught Fraser checking out guys sometimes. Even less often he caught Fraser looking at him in an almost predatory way. . . and Fraser was always touching him even though he almost never touched anyone else. But when Ray dropped hints, they went nowhere. So either Fraser was clueless, uninterested, or straight. Any way he looked at it, it sucked. And not in the good way.

Ray leaned back in his chair, belched quietly, and then remembered they weren't done with dinner yet. "I hope you saved room for dessert," he said, sitting forward again, reaching for Fraser's empty bowl and stacking it with his own.

"Dessert?" Fraser sounded a little doubtful. "I suppose I might have room for just a taste."

"Great!" Ray put the dishes in the sink and got the akutaq out of the refrigerator. The wooden dish was carved in the shape of a stylized bird, with the bowl part being the bird's back. The bird had a cowlick thing on the back of its head. Weird, but kind of pretty. He took off the plastic and tried to stick spoons in the sludge. Which wasn't exactly sludge any more. It was sort of the consistency of grainy wax now. Duh, Ray. When you chill fat, it gets hard. No wonder the recipe hadn't said to refrigerate it. He thought about microwaving it but wasn't sure how long would be too long. Besides, it was cold where people ate this stuff, so it probably was supposed to be like this.

He carried it out to the table and plunked it down in the middle triumphantly. "Ta da!"

"Ah. . . what is that?" Fraser asked, eyeing the bowl suspiciously.

"Something from your homeland. I got the recipe from Turnbull. I asked him what was a uniquely Canadian dessert, and he said akutaq. Well, first he said Nanaimo bars but you can get those anywhere so I made him try again."

"Akutaq."

Fraser sounded a little funny. For a fraction of a second Ray thought he saw an expression of horror cross Fraser's face, but when he looked again it was just surprise.

"Where on earth did you get the ingredients?"

"Quinn. I had his number on file at work so I called and asked him. He said he'd be happy to send me down the makings."

"I'll just bet he did. May I ask what motivated you?"

Crap. Ray hadn't prepared for that question. Hell. Was it Canada Day? No, that was in July, he remembered now. And it wasn't Fraser's birthday either. He didn't think, anyway. It dawned on him he had no idea when Fraser's birthday was. Caught without a handy lie, he cleared his throat and 'fessed up. "Remember a couple of weeks ago when you were talking about how you missed Canadian food? You wanted to put cottage cheese and gravy on your french fries or something like that."

"Cheese curd," Fraser corrected. "I was talking about poutine,"

"Right. Anyway, you seemed kind of homesick, and I wanted to make you feel less like that. So, venison stew, and akutaq."

Fraser stared at him, his mouth hanging open a tad. After a few seconds he closed it, smiling tentatively. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

Ray blushed. "No big deal."

"It is to me," Fraser said firmly. He reached for a spoon, seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then he dug out a spoonful and brought it to his mouth. Another momentary hesitation, a faint squaring of the shoulders, and then the spoon went in his mouth. Came out clean. He closed his eyes, and shivered.

Watching closely, Ray saw Fraser's throat move convulsively. The way his own throat usually moved if he tried to put canned spinach down his gullet. "Fraser?" he said softly.

Fraser opened his eyes. "Mm?" he asked, not opening his mouth.

"You don't have to swallow that."

Before he'd even closed his mouth on the final 't', Fraser was out of his chair and in the kitchen, spitting into the sink. Ray followed, opened a ginger-beer, and handed it to him.

Fraser downed half the bottle in frantic gulps, and finally lowered it with a sigh. "Thank you."

"I thought you told me once that you ate that stuff back home."

Fraser took another swig of his drink, swishing it around in his mouth like mouthwash before swallowing. "I said I'd eaten it. I never said I liked it."

"Oh." Ray felt stupid. "Guess it was a dumb idea." He turned to go get the dish off the table and dump it.

Fraser put a hand on his arm, pulling him back. "Not at all. It was wonderful idea," Fraser said. "And I'm moved beyond words by your thoughtfulness."

Ray studied him closely, suspecting sarcasm. Most people didn't realize how sarcastic Fraser was because he was so damned good at it and so damned polite about it, but Ray knew it when he heard it. He'd been trained by a master. Or rather, a mistress. But this time Fraser's mouth wasn't quirked that way it did when he was being sarcastic and he seemed sincere.

"It's no big deal," Ray repeated, feeling the flush creep back into his face. "It's just what you do when somebody you l. . . like is down, you know?"

Fraser's gaze was relentless. "Please don't denigrate what you did. No one's ever done anything like it for me before. Thank you."

His hand was still on Ray's arm. Ray tried not to think about that. "Well, if they cared, they should've."

The grip on his arm shifted a little, almost a caress. "No one did care," Fraser said softly.

"Then they were nuts," Ray said, then feeling as if he'd said too much, he attempted a diversionary tactic. "You know, I'm kind of glad you don't like it. It's good to know there's actually something you won't stick in your mouth."

Fraser's lips curved. "I put it in my mouth. I just didn't swallow." His gaze slid downward, and then back up, and his eyes were bright and hot. "Though there are other things which I would."

It was Ray's turn for a jaw drop. There was just no way in hell to interpret that any way but dirty. "Fraser!"

Fraser raised his gaze to Ray's, eyes wide and too-innocent. "Yes?"

"I. . . you. . . did. . . was that. . . ?" He couldn't figure out how to ask what he wanted to ask. Not with Fraser looking at him like that. How the hell could he say 'Did you just offer me a blow job?' with Fraser looking at him like that?

"It was," Fraser said, a wash of color darkening his face. "I mean, that is. . . if I've correctly interpreted your actions and intimations. If not, then I ap. . . ."

"Don't." Ray said. He took the bottle out of Fraser's free hand and threaded their fingers together, pulling him closer. "You mean it?"

A little uncertainty showed in Fraser's eyes. "Yes. If you want."

"If? If I want? IF? Let me tell you, there is no friggin' if around here. But you need to know– you do this, I won't let you go. I'm like that. So it's back off now or forever hold your peace."

"What if I don't want to back off?"

Ray grinned. "Then you're stuck with me." Fraser was so close, and it was just too tempting. Ray leaned forward and brushed his lips against Fraser's. The touch was brief, but still made him shiver.

Fraser returned the favor with interest, his hand moving from Ray's arm to the back of his head, fingers clenching almost painfully in the short hair there as they kissed. Finally Ray pulled back, licking his lips. They felt a little greasy. Fraser mostly tasted like ginger, with an odd, fishy undertone. Ray wanted to keep kissing him until he couldn't taste anything but Fraser.

"You still up for dessert?" he asked, his voice husky.

Fraser smiled slowly. "Absolutely."

* * * fin * * *

Venison Stew with Dumplings
(I don't remember where I got this recipe)

1 Lb of Venison Leg Meat, cubed into 1/2 inch pieces
4 oz Red Wine (or beer, if you're Ray...)
1/2 Lb of Fingerling Potatoes, diced medium
2 Tbsp Diced Garlic
1 Small Sweet Onion, diced medium
2 Tbsp diced Shallot
2 Parsnips, peeled & diced medium
2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
3 C Rich Brown Stock, or Chicken Stock
4-5 Juniper Berries, crushed
1/4 C of Flour, seasoned with Spice Mix of choice
2 Stalks of Celery, diced medium

In one stock pot heat 1 Tbsp vegetable oil & add the parsnips, onion & celery. Sweat for a minute, then add the potatoes & stock & bring to a boil. Dredge the venison pieces in the seasoned flour & heat a second heavy bottom stock pot with the other Tbsp of vegetable oil. When the pot is smoking, slowly add the floured venison pieces & stir to brown all sides. When the venison is browned, add the juniper berries, garlic & shallot. Stir well & deglaze with red wine. When the wine has reduced by half add the boiling stock with the vegetables. Let the stew come to a boil then spoon in 4 - 6 dumplings from recipe following. Cover stew & let cook 10 - 15 mins. Ladle into soup bowls, garnish with fresh chopped thyme & parsley.

Dumpling Recipe:
1 C All-Purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Kosher Salt
1 Tbsp Butter
Approximately 6 Tbsp Milk

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together, add the butter and pinch with fingers until crumbly, fold in the milk until you have a soft dough. Drop by tablespoon into the stew.

For the akutaq recipe, go here: http://www.nortonsoundhealth.org/kaniqsirugut/k49/page20.pdf  Although the recipe for akutaq is Inuit, something very similar is made by southern coastal First Nations groups which is delightfully called 'grease.' Since Quinn was not Inuit, but First Nations, I had him give Ray a special feast bowl for the dish, which is traditional in some coastal areas. They are generally carved in the shape of stylized animals, salmon, beaver, and loons being common forms.