Title: All About Breakfast
Fandom: Due South
Rating: Teen (the usual swearwords, and the fact that sex exists)
Length: 856 words
Content notes: A bit of fluff to make up for last round's total angst-fest :)
Author notes: For ride_4ever, to whom I hope it brings warm fuzzies
Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, I don't own them, I derive no profit from their use.
Summary: The key to partnership is compromise

It’s like Ray has always said: the key to partnership is compromise.  Well, and communication, so there’s really two keys.  Compromise and communication.  The two Cs.  And then, you also have to have—no, no, knock that off, keep it simple.  Compromise.  Give and take.

Take, for example, the whole breakfast thing.  Breakfast is one of the many points on which him and Fraser just do not see eye to eye.  Fraser is very into breakfast, and by breakfast he don’t just mean a bowl of cereal or a pop tart.  No, Fraser’s idea of breakfast includes hot food made out of real ingredients, and fruit and shit like that.  Fraser likes his breakfast hearty and nutritious, although he’s been known to go for bacon and eggs if he has the time and feels like making a production of it (or if his plans for the day involve strenuous labor, like mountain climbing or hauling all of Frannie’s worldly goods across town and up and down three flights of stairs).

Ray, on the other hand, is not so much of a breakfast guy.  Ray is a pour-down-coffee-until-the-body-wakes-up-hours-later kind of guy.  If he’s feeling fancy, he might pick up a donut. 

Now, you might think that this is not an issue that requires a lot of compromise.  Two grown men can make independent decisions about breakfast, right?  And that’s true, except that A) Fraser can’t leave well enough alone, he makes his opinions clear even when he don’t say nothing, and 2) the breakfast thing is all tied up with the getting-up-in-the-morning thing.

Now again, two grown men—even if they sleep in the same bed—can get up at different times in the morning.  Especially since Fraser don’t actually use an alarm clock, he just naturally wakes up at fucking-early a.m.  But while Fraser’s willing to get up before Ray, he don’t like to do it.  This ain’t something Fraser’s ever said, but Ray is pretty damn good at reading Fraser these days, and if Fraser liked starting his morning while Ray was still sleeping, he’d just do it, and they wouldn’t have all these damn arguments about breakfast.  And guess what?  Ray would much rather get waked up by Fraser kissing his hair and running his palm gently down Ray’s chest, than get kicked out of an empty bed by the alarm clock.

So: compromise. 

Weekdays, Fraser gets to play alarm clock, and they both get up stupid early, and Fraser fixes breakfast Fraser-style while Ray drags his ass into the shower to jumpstart his brain.  Ray has his first cup of coffee while Fraser does his Superman-in-the-phone-booth routine, showering and shaving and doing up the zillion buttons, buckles, and secret fiddly bits of his uniform in what seems like about ninety seconds.  They eat breakfast together, Ray cleans up (meaning, rinses the dishes and puts them in the dishwasher, which, buying the dishwasher was another whole compromise, right there).  Ray drives Fraser to the Consulate, unless his schedule calls for liaising in the morning, and then drives himself (with or without Fraser) to the station house, where he gets brownie points for being in bright and early, plus if he’s lucky, a little time to work on whatever stuff he’s behind on before the daily shit starts hitting the fan.

Weekends, Ray sleeps in.  Fraser don't exactly sleep in, because he’s too much of a morning person.  But either he gets up and takes Dief for a run and does whatever else he does until Ray damn well wakes up on his own, or he stays in bed reading or playing symphonies in his head or cogitating about open cases.  The first option means Ray most likely gets treated to a fancy breakfast that includes something like pastries from the bakery around the corner or chocolate-chip pancakes.  The second option means Ray gets treated to some very fine morning sex with a man who has an endless supply of both energy and patience, not to mention creativity.  Guess which option Ray prefers?  (Though he has to admit, Fraser makes a mean pancake.)

But then, sometimes (and here’s the real beauty of compromise, the thing that a lot of people miss, the thing that makes their partnership a real duet and not, just, you know, a thing).   Sometimes, on a weekday morning, Fraser’s internal alarm clock goes off, and he wakes Ray up with his gentle touch, and Ray looks up bleary-eyed at Fraser.  And maybe it’s something about the angle of Fraser’s smile, or the expression of his eyes, Ray's not sure what he’s looking for.  Maybe nothing about Fraser at all.  Maybe he does it just because.  And what he does is, he reaches up and puts his arms around Fraser, and pulls him down for a kiss—not a sleepy, good-morning kiss, but a hot, deep, 100% sex kiss.  And all the good things that that sort of kiss leads to.

And on those mornings, breakfast is a cup of coffee and a donut snatched on the way to work and eaten in the car.  And that is very much okay.