How to Fall in Love and Survive
by zahra

Just because you love someone does not necessarily mean you love them all the time -- or even most of the time. As a matter of fact, Fraser's finding out that being in love does not require one to even like their partner on occasion, because there are times, like at two in the morning on a stakeout, when Ray's behavior bears more than a passing resemblance to that of a spoiled five-year old; and Fraser wants to put him in the corner for a time out. Unfortunately the GTO does not have a time-out corner, so Fraser is forced to endure all sorts of indignities about where he keeps what in his uniform and what's really hidden where, and it's tiring and annoying, and Fraser had no idea that people you loved could be so annoying. Except for his dad.



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Fraser will be the first to admit that he's not exactly the easiest person in the world to get along with; he knows he's different. He knows that on occasion his being Canadian is a metaphor for other things, but it's not as though he goes out of his way to be difficult. He doesn't go out of his way to be unique just to worry Ray. He doesn't goes to extraordinary lengths to make Ray feel as though he has to try and one-up Fraser in everything they do, like playing kick the can in the street at three in the morning.

Fraser wasn't deliberately attempting to kick the can into the garbage bin; he was simply following Ray's lead and trying to keep the noise to a minimum. It's not his fault that he happened to score a goal; he didn't do it on purpose. Engaging in masculinity contests with his lover is not his idea of a good way to spend an evening. Apparently Ray doesn't feel the same way.



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Fraser does love Ray, he loves him desperately and to distraction and with everything the poets have waxed rhapsodic about for many years, however, on several occasions Fraser wants to take Ray and 'kick him in the head', because he's deliberately being annoying or dense or misleading. Actually more often than not, Ray's just being Ray and Fraser isn't always equipped to deal with that. Sometimes his tolerance is simply low, like at five in the morning when Ray is snoring with his mouth wide open and he's managed to abscond with all the blankets on the bed.



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For all the Inuit lore and legends and lessons Fraser learned in his childhood, no one told him that one day he was going to fall in love and want to hang his lover by his ankles and shake some sense into him for jumping from the back of a moving vehicle onto the hood of another moving vehicle.

Ray's not meant to do that sort of stuff, that's his job.



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It has often been said that love is painful and earth-shattering and all consuming, and Fraser's experience with Victoria has certainly shown him that; however, Fraser's also read the classics and the brief stories on the walls of many bathrooms between Chicago and Tuktoyaktuk, and nowhere has anyone bothered to mention that love is actually very difficult and ulcer inducing and often make you want to belt the object of your affections with whatever large object is handy in frustration. Nevertheless, Fraser has also never read anything that could prepare him for the way his heart swells and beats erratically when Ray curls against him in his sleep or the way that Ray's face softens at one in the morning after he's finally fallen asleep.

Clearly there are a lot of things that one simply has to learn on their own, and how to fall in love and survive is one of them.



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