A place to vent about Fraser/RayK

Look at how normal Fraser is about this guy. Go on, look.

Frannie trying to hide her smile is adorable. Look at her second hand embarrassment, they might as well be real siblings.

Fraser, though, Fraser doesn't find this weird, or embarrassing, nothing like that. He thinks this is hot. Right in this moment, he finds Ray exactly as cool as Ray thinks he is.

It's like these two were made in a lab for each other.

I love this take, but I have a completely different one:

Fraser knows how dorky and arrogant and wannabe Ray is, and in this moment he is imagining taking him apart like a puzzle.

it's not that he doesn't see the awkward or that he doesn't care because love is blind, it's that he sees Ray's dorkitude and attitude and that although he's a poser he IS wiry and light on his feet and Fraser looks at him and sees a dogdamn BANQUET and he is HUNGRY.

like that is fraser at his most fucking Dom, not the bird in the hand with the boot and the chair and the bamf, THIS, because he is ANALYZING and he LIKES WHAT HE SEES.

I think about “he finds Ray exactly as cool as Ray thinks he is” CONSTANTLY, but this new perspective is also PERFECT. These two dorks. God.

So I just rewatched this episode and I want to add to @inconclusionray's note that:

Because they're so bang on about that, and you can see it through the entire runtime.

A Bird in the Hand is NOT Fraser in his most Dom energy, because that is a Fraser who is NOT in full control of himself. Yeah, the scene with the boot and the chair and the bamf is hot (obviously), but Fraser is also thisclose to absolutely losing it. Like he says to his father moments later, "It takes every bit of restraint I have not to walk back in that room and separate his head from his shoulders." That's Fraser just barely holding it together; the edges of the Mountie are bleeding out into Ben Fraser.

In Mountie and Soul, on the other hand, Fraser is in complete control of himself. He is in full observation mode—of the gym, of the competitors, of the coaches—but mostly of Ray. Domming means being as in control as possible at all times; you’ve got to keep your head on straight to keep your partner safe. But that’s okay, because that’s part of what does it for ya, etc.

This is the episode where Ray is thisclose to losing it, to actually having to bare-knuckle fight his way to victory in the end. But Fraser is not so emotionally invested, here, and that is what gives him the space he needs to watch.

What Fraser sees in this episode is:

And in himself, Fraser finds someone who refuses to hurt Ray, despite his bratty demands, until he makes the measured and controlled decision to give Ray exactly what he is asking for, with the associated consequences:

(Immediately, of course, followed by a check-in—and an apology, because he is still a Mountie).

Fraser watches Ray get bruised and beat up over and over again and like it.

And Fraser, also, likes it.

It's the praise at the very end for me, when he says:

Perfect.

And he means it.

@syrupmap’s video clip from the early S2 episode Bird in the Hand (screenshot above) reminded me of an important fact: that plaid shirt right there is the exact same shirt Fraser lends to Ray Kowalski in Asylum.

DUE SOUTH (1994-1999)

deleting all of my dating apps cause from now on i only want to meet people the old fashioned way (going to work undercover and pretending to be his old partner)

Imagine your OTP going undercover together to do a mission of some kind. Person A finds Person B very attractive in their disguise and stammers when Person B asks “How do I look?”

X files season 1