How Ray Got His Groove Back

by Aristide & Bone

April 2000

Disclaimers: "I suppose the character is public ground.If you're willing to bring it into people's houses every week, the [fans] are entitled to certain liberties, wherever theirimagination is carried by those characters." -- Paul Gross,quoted in the Toronto Globe & Mail, August 8, 1998. Reason#876 why we think Paul Gross kicks almighty ass.

Acknowledgements: Big, mushy thanks and gratitude to The Craftand Kat and Crysothemis for sweet beta goodness. Thanks to Bone'shubby for the apt summary.

Notes: Careful assessment of the Bone/Aristide collaborativemethod has revealed a certain undeniable formula at work: swapfile, add more smut, repeat. Just so you know what you're gettingyourself into.

Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski

Rating: NC-17 for m/m sex in scandalous quantities, language,and some (gasp!) heteroerotic imagery.

Summary: How Ray got into Fraser's groove.

***************************************

From his vantage point just at the edge of the chaos, Fraserthought the scene looked like something out of a bad movie. A"B" movie, he thought the Americans called it. Even thesetting seemed almost staged: a dance club, robbed at gunpoint.The gunmen were long gone, but the hubbub they had causedremained. In the muted light, customers mingled with uniformedofficers, a mirrored ball suspended over the dance floorcontinued to spin light in dizzying patterns, and the smell ofbeer and smoke hung thick in the air, all underlaid by thethrobbing beat from a sound system no one but the DJ seemed toknow how to turn off, and said DJ currently lay sprawledunconscious under a table weighed down with culinary atrocitiesapparently known as 'buffalo wings' and 'Cajun popcorn'. The EMStechnician hovering under the table with him appeared to betending to his work with one hand and filching appetizers withthe other.

The whole thing made Fraser's head ache. He pinched the top ofhis nose, trying to clear the smoke smell from his nostrils, thenblinked a couple of times. The last time he'd seen Ray, he'd beentrying to calm a key witness, a petite olive-skinned brunette,who, judging by the waywardness of her sleeveless top and the wayshe'd leaned on Ray, had perhaps imbibed a little more than hersmall frame could support gracefully.

Usually, he and Ray split the list of witnesses to interviewalong gender lines: Ray talked to the men, while Fraser generallyfound that women opened up more to him. Not tonight, though. Theyoung woman, who wasn't really that young if you looked at herface instead of her... not that he'd been looking at her... butin that blouse, what there was of it, there wasn't really muchelse to look *at*.

At any rate, she had taken one look at Fraser and gone offinto gales of giggles, pointing and saying any number of things,most of which were buried under her laughter, but he caught"Hey, it's Smokey the Bear!" and "Who's the cat inthe hat?" before Ray steered her off into the crowd, and helost sight of them.

Silly to feel offended by that. Not everyone understood themeaning of his uniform, he knew that. Still, he appreciated Ray'sintuitive response, leading the woman away before she saidanything hurtful. More hurtful.

Of course, it was more likely that Ray's intuition had less todo with protecting Fraser's sensitivities than the fact that ahalf-naked (and more than half beautiful, in that rather obviousway some women had) girl was leaning on him, wrapped around himso closely that she could have reached down and pulled his socksup for him.

Fraser straightened his shoulders, dismissing that particularthought as unworthy of him. It wasn't the time, and it certainlywasn't the place. Not that there was any appropriate time andplace for such... unworthy thoughts. No. A fierce, bitterlyhonest amendment: jealous thoughts.

Ray was his partner. And his friend.

They'd established those parameters quite nicely during Ray'stemporary stint as a refugee in Canada. Whether Fraser found Rayattractive (which, with more of that bitter honesty, he felt compelled to confess that he did) was irrelevant. Ray was justanother in a long line of unattainable men he'd had themisfortune to find irresistible: A hockey player. An Inuitplaymate, now grown into a man. And now Ray, who had an ex-wifehe still loved to distraction. An ex-wife. As in a woman. Not aman. Ray loved women. It helped, sometimes, to repeat those knownfacts. Logic and truth invoked their own atmosphere of comfort,whether or not those truths aligned with his own desires.

Sometimes he wondered if he did it on purpose -- choosing onlythe most improbable objects of desire, fixating on those leastlikely to be able to give him what he needed. The more out of hisreach, the more he wanted them. A fairly sorry state of affairs,he had to admit, but not one to be solved on a dance floor stickywith something he'd almost prefer to think was blood, but wasprobably something worse.

Right. Well, first things first. The infernal noise came to anabrupt end mid-caterwaul with the expedient use of his huntingknife through the speaker wires. The mirrored ball ceased itseternal rotation after he flipped the row of switches on the wallbehind the DJ's booth, and bright fluorescent light cast itssickly pall over the crowd. Without the flattering light ofthe... dark... the club's customers looked even sillier in theirleather pants and barely there skirts and their garish make-up.He was sure Ray would have a good laugh over them later.

Or perhaps not. Now that he could see and hear, finding Raywasn't a problem. There he was, in the corner, leaningsolicitously toward the young woman, his bright head tilted downto her dark one. Fraser made his way over, his progress hamperedby three mildly hysterical women who approached him from hisblind side, one of whom got his attention by tucking her handunder his tunic jacket from behind and... squeezing. He decidedone of the female officers might be better suited to their needs,and handed them off with a sigh of relief and without a shred ofguilt.

His primary concern right now was Ray.

He found his way blocked by some tables and chairs and paused,still not close enough to hear what Ray and the woman were sayingover the din, but close enough to observe them carefully. Thewoman had her head tilted back, exposing the long line of herthroat and extravagant cleavage. She didn't look anything likeStella, but Ray leaned over her with the same protective stanceFraser had seen him exercise with his ex-wife. Did they reallyneed to stand that close? It wasn't *that* loud in here. Thewoman laughed at something Ray said, and he leaned even closer.Were it not for the EMS personnel and the unconscious DJ, youmight have thought it was just another Friday night at a club,another chance to... what was the word Ray had used once? Trawl?Troll? A mating dance, urban style. Males and females of thespecies, sending out their primal signals through the intricateand, to Fraser, often incomprehensible patterns of pre-coitalbehavior.

It seemed unlikely that Ray was actually interviewing thewoman about the incident. He wasn't writing in his notebook, forone thing. For another, given the way Ray's head inclined towardthe woman's chest, Fraser didn't think he was giving hertestimony his full and undivided attention. He moved so he couldsee Ray's face. Even from this distance, he evinced all thecharacteristics of an animal in heat: flared nostrils, increasedrespiration, and, after a quick glance below Ray's belt, adiscernible erection.

Fraser's eyes watered, and he inwardly cursed the smoke as herubbed them clear. Smoke, or perhaps shame -- bad enough that hewas assessing the patrons in such an unfavorable manner, but itseemed an outrageous breach of conduct to evaluate Ray throughthe same lens of bias and frustration. Not that that had stoppedhim from looking, not that that had stopped him from tormentinghimself with yet another image designed to somehow simultaneouslymortify and entice him.

They looked good together. Both so slender, one light, onedark. One tall, one small. He could picture Ray leaning over,nudging her ridiculous excuse for a blouse out of the way,sucking strongly at a pointed nipple. He could see the woman archher back, thrusting forward into Ray's mouth, lifting one tannedleg over Ray's hip, grinding against his groin. He could see themwrithing together, hands and mouths frantic, see Ray easing herto the floor, sliding his hands up under the abbreviated leatherwarmth of her skirt, then lowering his zipper and...

Abruptly, Fraser stepped back, putting physical distancebetween himself and the subjects of his mental lapse. Too bad hecouldn't distance the burning images as quickly. He felt dizzy,too hot suddenly in the uniform he'd so recently wanted todefend, his pants tightening over his own response to hisperverse thoughts. Time to move, think of something else, *do*something else.

He stepped forward resolutely, ready to tell Ray he was goingto see if the other officers needed assistance, when Ray's wholedemeanor changed: he leaned back instead of forward. His armscrossed over his chest in a classic defensive posture. The womanleaned toward him, stepping so close she blocked Fraser's view ofRay's face momentarily, then Ray stepped away from her, andFraser could hear him say, "... for your statement. Thanksfor your help."

Ray passed Fraser with a quick glance and a jerk of his head,which Fraser took to mean that he should follow him. Fraserglanced over his shoulder at the young woman, who was balancedprecariously on her narrow-heeled sandals and looking wistfullyafter them. He wondered what she could possibly have said tocause Ray to bolt so precipitously. He tipped his hat to theyoung woman, then turned to follow Ray, whose long legs had takenhim all the way out of the club by the time Fraser caught up withhim.

"Ray? Should we... " he asked.

"Let the uniforms take it from here; we've got what weneed," Ray said flatly, giving no clues to the cause of hisdistress other than that inward focus, that silent signal thatsomewhere, for some reason, Ray was in pain.

Fraser hated that. Ray upset and vocal was much easier to dealwith. Ray silent and withdrawn was much, much harder, as he'dfound on more than one occasion. And apparently, this occasionwould be no different. Fraser hesitated, unsure what exactly hewas trying to ask. Asking about his sexual response to a witnesswould be beyond inappropriate. The case. Yes, he could ask aboutthe case.

"Did the witness know anything?" he asked, thinkingthat was as safe as anything he could think of.

Ray laughed sharply, an ugly sound. "Oh, yeah, I'm sureshe knew --" He shut his mouth down on whatever else he'dplanned to say, took a breath and said, "No, she doesn'tthink she saw anything."

"Oh," Fraser said, more confused than ever."Perhaps when she's more rested."

"You mean more sober," Ray said.

Fraser inclined his head to the side in acknowledgement."Did you get her name?"

Ray turned to him, his face set. "Name, phone number,where she works. Yeah, I got all that."

Ray didn't seem at all happy about that, which was...puzzling. It was perfectly obvious that Ray had been attracted toher, and quite clear that his interest had been returned. Whichleft Fraser only with the unaskable, and possibly unanswerablequestion of what had necessitated Ray's abrupt change frominterested male animal to this stranger, this tense and tiredman.

"Look, Fraser, it's been a long day. I've handed over mynotes and I'm packing it in. You need a ride?" Ray alreadyhad his car keys out, his attention no longer on the club, orFraser.

Fraser stopped. "No, I'll walk, thank you anyway."

"Right," Ray said. "Okay, then I'll see youtomorrow." Then he was in the car, the engine gunned, and hepeeled out of the parking place, leaving a small amount of rubberbehind to show he'd been there.

Fraser stood, watching him go, the turmoil of his own thoughtsdiverted at once with a startling ease that was neverthelesscommonplace when concern for Ray surfaced. Something had upsetRay. Badly. Something to do with the woman. He thought for amoment about going back into the club, to find her and ask her toexplain, but reason intervened. Interviewing witnesses aboutcrime scenes was one thing. Interviewing them about their sexualappeal to his partner was something else entirely.

Sexual appeal. Such a strange, wondrous, unpredictable thing.He'd never been able to control his own yearnings; merelysuppressing them took most of his energy without trying toactually force his desires to more appropriate targets. Maybethat was Ray's problem, too. Perhaps some uncontrollable part ofhim still yearned for Stella, and felt it would be a betrayal toadmit attraction to another woman, especially one so differentfrom the tall, reserved blondeness of his ex-wife.

That made sense. As much sense as anything. The last time he'dseen Ray that upset, he'd... well, really, the only word for itwas 'stalked' Stella. Maybe it would be a good idea to check onRay, make sure he was all right, that he wasn't about to doanything...ill-advised.

Yes, checking on Ray seemed prudent. With the ease of longcustom, Fraser pressed down all the other reasons his headstrongheart told him he was going to Ray's, and pulled forward duty,and prudence, and reason. And instead of heading sensibly to theConsulate and his paperwork and his narrow cot, he turned in thedirection Ray had sped off in, and started walking.

***************************************

Porn.

The answer was porn.

The answer to this godawful, never-ending ache was not ahalf-hammered witness to a felony, even if she did smell likegardenias and have the most beautiful tits he'd seen in person in his lifetime. Tits like that came with baggage. All he'd had todo was drag his eyes up from them to her face, to that'I'm-interested' look in her eyes, to that lean she had, thathand looking for a place to settle on him, and he'd known shewasn't the solution to his problem. No way. No, she was justanother problem waiting to happen; another heartache, heartbreakwaiting to shake up his life.

One time around that block was plenty, thanks anyway.

It had taken no time at all, when he was talking to her, to gofrom a tight, hungry thought about how good his cock would feelsliding between those gorgeous tits to a memory of how hecouldn't stop *shaking* in the aftermath of Stella, how the hurtwent on and on until he felt weak from it, how sometimes it hadbeen so bad that his teeth had chattered, and he'd had to clenchhis jaw shut until it ached.

One led to the other. Not necessarily the dick-tit thing, thatwas just your basic garden-variety fantasy, but all of it, thewhole stinking package. You'd start out good, right, but you'dend up bad. No other way to look at it. Good ended up bad.

It made him feel like a fucking lab rat, sitting next to thefood dish and slowly starving to death because, hey, he might bea lab rat but he wasn't a *dummy* lab rat, and he knew anelectric shock when he felt one. His dick had wilted in his pantsso fast that it made his head -- hell, *both* his heads-- spin.Pain would do that to a guy.

So no girl.

No soft, wet, warm places to explore with his tongue and dick.No long hair to grab onto, no hips to hold hard underneath him.No drag of nipples on his chest, no brush of smooth calves on thebacks of his thighs, no gardenias, no tits. None of that.

Just porn. Lots of porn.

Porn was definitely the answer.

You didn't have to buy it dinner and you never had to askafterward whether it was good or not. He was *not* going to beruled by his dick. Not again. So what if it had been one year,three months and twelve days since he'd made love to anythingexcept his own adoring right hand? He'd actually developed acallus -- and not on his hand -- from the repetition, but hewasn't going to fall for that happily-ever-after crap again.Nope. No more of that shit. His right hand was just *fine*. Hisright hand was, in fact, already, pushing his t-shirt out of theway and sliding into the stretched-out gym shorts he reserved forthings like sleeping and jerking off.

Now all his left hand had to do was push 'play'. Easy enoughto do.

Ray eased back into the couch cushions, just cupping himselfas the tail-end of the scene he'd watched last night played out(a pair of hot nurses going down on each other and on a nearbypatient, and how come whenever *he* went to the hospital all thenurses looked like Phyllis Diller?) The next scene started outwith some kind of horrible exposition that was supposed tosupport the idea that fuck-movies actually came with a plot, sohe hit fast-forward and watched the skidding, swift-moving imagesflow right by, until he got to some skin.

There. Skin. And lots of it -- the redheaded nurse in questionhad her uniform unzipped from throat to crotch, and was bent overa shiny wooden desk while some guy wearing just a pair ofsurgical scrub pants and a stethoscope gave it to her frombehind. The camera angle switched every minute or so from thefront view (bouncing tits, pretty face scrunched up in obviousecstasy over the pounding she was getting) to the back view (bighonkin' dick pistoning smoothly between round white cheeks, maleabdominals rippling with every thrust). Ray watched and stroked lazily -- he could do this quick, of course, no problem, but thiswas... well, this was as much feelgood as he got these days, thiswas as good as it ever got -- even if it was stupid and kind ofboring. It was just... all he had. And he wasn't going to rushit.

The redhead had nice lips, no doubt about that -- paintedsweetly red and wet and open, curving and lush, and from betweenthem came sounds - - groaning and moaning and whimpering likeshe'd never had it so good, like doc cock was just *it* for her,panting words now and then that Ray had for sure never heard fromStella's mouth. He watched them mindlessly, squeezing down on hiscock every time she groaned, sliding his legs apart just a littlefurther. He was... he was...

...he was sixteen years old when he'd thrown his underwearinto the laundry hamper without checking, and Stella's lipstickwas just the faintest shell-pink but it had been *there* and whenhis mother asked him about it he'd thought he'd die between thehorrible, crushing embarrassment of that and the electrifyingmemory of that first touch of Stella's mouth, sweet, hesitantlollipop sucks of Stella's lips and tongue, so shy about it, soStella...

"Fuck!"

Ray's muscles tensed and his hand stopped moving, everything rising up in one big cramp of... Jesus. Lust. Loss. Love. Pickyour fucking 'L' word. He bit his lip, hard. Enough. That'senough, now. Put that away. Be done. Move on.

(...Please...)

Ray sighed. Redhead, right. Back to the screen. Nothing butthe screen. Nothing but nurse. Well, nothing but nurse and themechanical, regular thrusts of that doctor guy. The stethoscopehanging around his neck bounced mellow time in rhythm, adistracting, stroboscopic flash, and it captured Ray's attentionlong enough for him to actually look at the guy's face --

Which at first was either funny or horrible, he couldn't tellwhich, because the guy looked kind of like an older, sleazyversion of Fraser. Ray grinned reflexively, and made a mentalnote that, if Fraser ever mentioned a desire to grow himself apussytickler moustache, he should tell him to think twice aboutit. Definitely.

It was stupid, but smiling over Fraser's sleazoid doppelgangeractually somehow managed to beat back the gloom that alwayssettled over him after one of his Stella-slips. Which was prettyamazing, and kind of cool, and let Ray get his attention back towhere it belonged -- on his dick, and on the jiggle and slide offlesh moving, rippling with impact, on swaying, tight-nippledbreasts, on the redhead's full- lipped, open, groaning mouth...

Which was groaning louder, now, because, whoa -- Ray fumbledoff his glasses and squinted -- because Fraser was really puttingit to her. If he looked at it like this. Like that.

There was a moment of confusion while he tried to figure outwhether or not this was a bad thing -- there was something aboutthe idea of sex fantasies starring your partner that justseemed... well, *wrong* was a good way to put it. But then a softinner voice spoke up with an opinion that, hey, if fantasy's allyou've got, it should damn well be open season. Fantasy's just...fantasy, right?

His dick twitched hard in his hand. Ray thought he couldpretty much figure out where that little voice had come from.

Right.

So yeah, it was pretty weird, watching a dizzy, shifting blurof Fraser making some redheaded nurse moan out nineteen differentshades of 'Jesus' -- but this wasn't what it had been before,something that was only as good as it ever got -- this wasactually *good*. This was kind of... weirdly... hot, strokeszipping through him with each one an actual pleasure, his wholebody soaking it up like he'd been *starved* for it, because maybehe had been. And yes, he was going to see to it that tomorrowhe'd be able to look Fraser square in the face and not thinkabout this at all, not think about Fraser's thrusts gettingragged, or squirming bodies on a smooth, shiny desk, or anythingother than--

A polite knock, at the door.

Polite. Which ruled out his neighbors, or his landlord, whosepounding thuds were usually accompanied by shouts of "Turnthat shit down!" and were never about porn, but always aboutCreed or Fuel or something else marginally musical, and alwaysmanaged to add a three-dimensional rhythmic stomp to the throb hecould only feel if he had it cranked that little bit too loud.

So not them. Which probably meant...

Which, really, to be honest, could only mean --

Ray whipped his hand out of his shorts. If he didn't answerthe door right *now* Fraser was going to hear the TV, and thatwould be --

Shit.

Lost, the remote was lost somewhere in the couch cushions, andhis overheated ears seemed to be *stuffed full* of the moans andgroans of that goddamn overacting redhead, and how the hell didhe get himself into these... Jesus-- remote remote *remote* --

Found. He hit the button with a vengeance, and the bottomdropped out of his stomach as the volume *soared* up just in timefor...

"That's right, you big stud, GIVE IT TO ME!! Oooooh,YEAH!!!"

"Awk," seemed to be all he could manage, but thankGod there was the 'stop' button, pressed and done, blessedsilence and that little stint had wilted pretty much all theenthusiasm he had to his name so he didn't have to wait anylonger to go to the door, shorts and t-shirt but that would beokay, cuz he felt like he was boiling hot anyway, and besides, itwas just...

He yanked the door open. Yup. There was Fraser's back, walkingaway.

"Fraser!"

Fraser stopped and turned around, looking a little flushed,looking *guilty*, shifting from one foot to the other. As Raywatched he blinked, cleared his throat. "You have company.I'm sorry. I... I came at a bad time."

Ray felt his face burn but still had to laugh. No way to stopit. "No."

Fraser's head tilted, that inquisitive tilt Ray recognized asFraser putting together the pieces of something. "No, youdon't have company?"

"No. It's, um..." He scratched his head, easing theitch of residual sweat. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Uh,no, scratch that. "It's a movie."

"A *movie*?"

Ray shifted, leaning on the doorway, and fought the crazy urgeto smile, his own chagrin fading now that Fraser's seemed to haveseen his bet and raised it. Leave it to Fraser to be shocked --like such a thing had never occurred to him. That was prettyfunny, and somehow annoying at the same time.

"Yeah, a movie. What, did you suddenly get hard ofhearing or something?"

"No, Ray, I hear perfectly well."

Fraser's face was so red it looked like maybe *he* was boiling-- oh yeah. Good ears. No doubt about that.

Like someone had flipped a switch, Ray felt his face get hotagain. He sniffed. "It's, um well, it's blue."

Fraser's eyes dropped nervously down to hip-level, then shotback up. "What is?"

"The *movie*," Ray said, trying not to fidgetagainst the doorframe. "It's a blue movie."

"Ah."

One beat, two. He waited. Fraser just stared at him, almostsmiling and flushed, looking like it all made sense to him now.Ray knew better. "You have no idea what that means, doyou?"

"Well, no."

"It's the coping mechanism of the modern Americanmale."

Ha. For once, he had Fraser looking at him the way he wasforever looking at Fraser -- like there were words coming out ofhis mouth, but he'd be damned if they sounded like English.

"Coping... "

"With this," and Ray made the universalpull-the-hotdog motion with his hand.

Fraser just stood there, fondling his hat. Thatnot-quite-smile looked frozen in place, and that was kind offunny, yeah, but still -- unbelievable. He'd just done thejerk-off sign in front of Fraser. Christ, he was losing it.

"Did you want something?" Ray made himself ask.

Fraser jumped a little, and Ray realized that Fraser wasstaring at his mid-section, where his hand had made the gesture.Jeez.

"Excuse me?"

"You at my door for any particular reason?"

He watched Fraser swallow, and watching Mr. Flustered pullhimself back together gave Ray a momentary urge to go find a hotredheaded nurse and let her loose on him, just to see what wouldhappen.

"Oh. Yes. Well... earlier, you seemed upset. I wanted tomake sure you were all right."

Upset. Yeah, he had been. Felt better now, though. Still, itwas pretty cool of Fraser to come by, even if he had the world'sworst timing. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just, you know..." he caught himself about to use some of that universalsign-language again, but made himself stop. "C'mon in."

***************************************

The air in Ray's apartment was not particularly arid, butnevertheless Fraser found that his throat was perfectly, entirelydry. He kept trying to swallow, but the result was nothing morethan a parched rasp. He should ask for water, but that wouldentail trusting his voice, which seemed unwise. To say the least.

Part of him could only marvel at the shift in himself -- fromthe despondency he'd felt when it seemed clear that Ray was...engaged, to the muscle-loosening weakness and heat that had setin as soon as he understood that Ray had simply been... indulginghimself. And apparently doing so without a significant amount ofshame; despite the blush, Ray had been entirely forthcoming. Mostlikely, regardless of the fact that he'd known Ray Vecchio fortwo years without ever encountering the topic, this was yetanother one of those American forms of casual behavior that hewould need to adjust to.

At the moment, that seemed entirely beyond his abilities.

Ray entered the living room from the kitchen and wordlesslyhanded Fraser a glass of cool water, reaching for Fraser's hat atthe same time and tossing it on the table. Fraser nodded histhanks, drank so deeply he felt like he was being irrigated, andfound that he could speak, now. "Thank you, Ray."

"Welcome. No problem." Ray sank onto the couch,sighing. "C'mon, sit down, okay? I'm gonna strain my necklooking up at you like that."

Fraser wanted to sit down. Wanted very much to settle onto thecouch next to Ray, and perhaps surreptitiously admire in closerproximity what he'd already coveted from a distance -- the fine,golden hairs on bared thighs, the substantial swell of fabric(just one thin layer, washed and faded to a comfortable-lookingsoftness) between them. He wanted that. However, he had arrivedunannounced, and although when Ray had invited him inside he'daccepted automatically, it wouldn't do at all to forget what he'dcome over for. "I shouldn't... I didn't mean to intrude onyou, Ray. I just wanted to make sure that you were all right, andobviously, you are. I certainly don't want to--"

"She asked me if I was married."

Fraser hesitated. "I beg your pardon?"

"That woman, the woman at the club. She asked me if I wasmarried."

If there was a conclusion he was supposed to draw from thatdisclosure, he wasn't at all sure that he'd grasped it. "Andthat... disturbed you?"

Ray scowled. "Will you sit *down*, Fraser? I'm not gonnabite you."

Which was, of course, simply another in a long line ofdisappointments, although it wouldn't do to say so. He satgingerly on the couch beside him, and forced himself to look atRay's face. And *only* that.

"She asked me if I was married," Ray repeated, stillscowling. "And she didn't back off any when she asked it.That means one of two things -- either she's looking to getmarried herself, or she's got a thing for doing married guys andthat's just trashy. Either way, I do not want a piece of that.Well, I mean, I wanted a *piece*, but I... screw it. You get itnow, Fraser?"

"I believe I do, Ray." Indeed, he did. And part ofhim couldn't help being proud of Ray for acting with suchintegrity, even though it was painful to think of Ray beingfrustrated. "You're not interested in remarrying,then?"

Ray's face darkened, and Fraser immediately regretted askingthe question. "I've *been* married, Fraser. I was married tothe one woman I ever loved, and it didn't work out even though Iwanted it to, needed it to. No. I'm done. No more marriage, nomore love. Me and love are quits."

That seemed terribly sad, given Ray's innately loving nature.He would have liked to say something about how sorry he was thatRay and Stella hadn't been able to resolve their differences, howthere was undoubtedly someone out there who could make him happy,but with Ray in this strange and volatile mood it was more thanlikely that he might hit a nerve, no matter how diplomatically heframed his words. "I understand."

Ray looked at him intently, as if he were assessing Fraser'sstatement for more than the words it contained, then shrugged."So, you know, I'm okay. I mean, yeah, I feel like I'mhalf-crazy sometimes, but I can, uh, there's always..." Aneloquent hand gesture -- not the same one that had nearly meltedhim out in the hallway, but evocative nevertheless.

No love. Just...release. Self-induced release. Fraser feltsomething tight and achy in his chest at the thought of Raycutting himself off from not just the potential for a lastingrelationship with a woman, but even the momentary pleasure ofa... liaison, as if any physical lapse would automatically leadto emotional collapse. Perhaps, given his history, he had reason.

Fraser cleared his throat. "Hence the...coping mechanism.I understand." Compulsively he reached for his water, anddrank some. It seemed important to acknowledge this and then moveon, hopefully quickly -- he'd cut his visit short, and reservehis private meditations on Ray's 'coping mechanism' and all theattendant details for a time when he was in bed, and alone.

Ray grinned, and the lines in his forehead smoothed away as ifthey'd never been there. "Yeah. Hence that. You ever seen aporn movie, Fraser?"

Through a herculean struggle, Fraser managed not to spraywater all over the both of them. He swallowed convulsively."I... That is... well, I've..." He coughed, aware thathis eyes had begun to water. "Not as such, Ray, no."

"'Not as such'? What's an 'as such', Fraser, some kind ofCanadian thing? Either you have or you haven't."

It was perfectly normal, he reminded himself sternly,perfectly reasonable to discuss this. That American casualness.Which felt, right now, like it just might cause him to explode."Well, I've seen... various health-oriented filmstrips,which were designed to impart knowledge of procreation, humansexuality, and the associated risks thereof--"

There was no point in continuing, because Ray was in the gripof laughter so violent that it shook the couch beneath them. Hesupposed it would be easy to take exception to Ray's response,but the truth of the matter was that it was *good* to see Raylaughing, even if it was at his own expense.

"Oh, Fraser, Jesus," Ray said eventually, pulling upthe hem of his t- shirt to wipe his eyes and thereby givingFraser a momentary but compelling glimpse of the smooth skin ofhis stomach. "That hurts, but it feels so *good*, you know?Oh jeez..." There were a few moments of what sounded likesniffling, and then Ray was blinking at him with tired butexceedingly bright eyes. "Okay, Fraser. Don't say I neverdid anything for you, all right? Hand me the remote."

"Ray, I don't... I'm sure that's not... I... oh,dear." He had *no* idea of what to say to that, none. Whilethe idea of viewing a pornographic film had no appeal at all, theidea of watching *Ray* and Ray's possible responses was... well, nearly irresistible. And probably extremely ill-advised.

"Consider it like, educational, or something. Just likethose f- filmstrips, Fraser --" here Ray appeared to bestruggling to not break down into further laughter. "Likeresearch of customs. Something. So make like a normal Americanguy and gimme the remote."

The darkest of temptations stirred in his blood, his loins,wicked and intriguing. And that was the danger -- that hewouldn't be able to get through this without divulging...something; that the lure of Ray's proximity would ultimatelyprove too much. "Ray," he began in the most reasonablevoice he could find, but, perhaps not surprisingly, Ray seemedimmune to reason and simply leaned over him, hands wanderingaimlessly -- groping, touching -- in search of the remote."*Ray*!"

"S'okay, I got it." And Ray sat up as if nothing wasamiss, as if he hadn't just pressed himself firmly down into...Fraser's... lap...

Above the thundering rush of his own heartbeat Fraser heard adistant click and whirr, and before he could deal with the shockof being abruptly, painfully erect inside his pants there was*another* shock as Ray's hand slipped over his eyes, blindinghim. He gasped softly. "Whoops -- hang on, Fraser. I forgot,I gotta... I gotta fast forward this one scene, and then we'regood to go."

"Why?" he heard himself ask, although he didn't feelhis lips move. He felt nothing but Ray's hand -- hard, callused,warm -- over his eyes. Ray's right hand. Probably the hand Rayused to --

"Um... there's... uh... it's a bad camera angle. Youwouldn't like it."

While that was undoubtedly true, it also seemed completelyclear that Ray was lying for some reason. Curiosity was utterlybeyond him at the moment, however; at least, any curiosity thatdidn't pertain to how Ray's hands might feel on other parts ofhis body. "I see."

"I hope not," Ray muttered, and then Ray's hand wasgone. Ray was grinning, settling back into the couch cushions,and Fraser heard a woman's voice say, "Oh, Doctor, how can Iever thank you for saving my sister's life?", and Ray said,"Three-way, her and the sister. Betcha," and then someappallingly bad music started playing, and then Fraser was...lost. Watching Ray.

Ray glanced at him, then pointed at the screen. "C'mon,Fraser, look -- nurses and doctors and stuff. Something to keepyour mind off what they're doing to you next time you land in thehospital."

Forcing his head to turn took incredible effort. And notreally worthwhile effort, as it turned out, because after a fewseconds of staring unseeingly at a blur of images he didn't wantto look at, his head turned right back as if of its own volition,towards something he *did*.

Ray appeared to be absorbed, still faintly grinning, chewingabsently on the edge of one thumbnail. His eyes were heavy-liddedand sultry, and Fraser hoped Ray was too focused on the screen tosee him shiver.

Moans, cries, ecstatic gasps of 'Oh, Doctor!', and none of itseemed real, all of it an unnecessary soundtrack to his ownprivate dramatization playing out before him, watching Raystretch, relax his thighs so that they lay open... open...watching the bulge at Ray's crotch as it stirred, swelled, grew... he was dizzy, absolutely dizzy, and so hot, far too hotfor this. He wouldn't be able to stand this much longer. Hecouldn't *imagine* how he would feel if it stopped.

Ray glanced at him, and for a moment Ray almost looked...sheepish. "You look like you're about to pop a vessel there,Fraser." He shifted restlessly, and Fraser nearly groanedaloud. "I guess I... you're hating this, aren't you?"

No way to equivocate -- not when he felt this passionately."No. No, I'm not." Let Ray make of that what he would.

Ray didn't seem to know *what* to make of that, but eventuallyhe shrugged and turned back to the screen, and Fraser got back tothe business of observing Ray in an aroused state.

It was an easy, simple trick of the mind to translate what hesaw into something that was not stolen, but freely given -- Ray,hard and wanting, waiting for his touch, waiting for *him*.Relaxed, boneless Ray, sprawled out in lazy indolence and takinghis pleasure from Fraser, finding warmth and comfort andsatisfaction of every hunger from Fraser's mouth, hands, body.Ray's sleepy head on a shared pillow, Ray's fine hands dragginghis head forward for a deep kiss, then sleepily tugging him downunder a haven of blankets to the dark, to where Ray wanted him.Ray in his mouth, Ray thrusting in, and finding release there,and moaning -- Ray staring at him.

Ray was staring at him. Right now.

Fraser dragged his gaze back to the screen.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Ray do the same.

Fraser swallowed, and attempted to get his breathing backunder control.

Ray shifted again, as if he couldn't find a comfortableposition.

And it was that movement, he told himself, that drew his eyes,but whatever it was it was true that he was back to watching Rayagain, and Ray appeared to be fully, hugely erect inside his thinshorts, perfectly outlined in faded cotton. A stray thoughtcrossed his mind and he wondered if Ray's pubic hair was blonde,and that seized him, shook him, a tumultuous but silent spasm ofwant that occupied him entirely until he realized that Ray wasstaring at him again.

He met Ray's eyes. All his own fears, all that terrible deepwanting and blissfully wicked lust, he knew all of that had to bewritten incontrovertibly on his own face; he could feel it. Andhe saw Ray's eyes spring wide with sudden comprehension, sudden*awareness*, and something in him tightened down, braced forwhatever disastrous consequences were now his due.

But Ray only blinked once, and then looked back at the screen,his face carefully blank, and apparently unseeing.

His heart, his heart was out of control now, because some partof him that usually remained deeply, justly buried had now sprungforth with a vengeance, at a terrible cost for what had been alifetime of restraint and...his hand was moving...toward Ray.

Ray, his face still smoothly calm, taut with something thatmight have been anticipation, or watchfulness, or dread, blinked.And Fraser's hand was still moving, across the couch cushionneutral zone between them, and then beyond.

Easy, it was easy because he was *drawn* there, all he had todo was relax his own control the smallest bit and his hand just*went*, settling gently on smooth, hard, overheated flesh leftlaughably vulnerable by the meager shield of cloth, just holding.Only holding. He heard his own sucked-in breath faintly,distantly.

Ray turned to him as slowly as if moving through water. Frasermet his eyes again, everything in him racing, pulsing; trying tobe prepared once more for the unknown, unimaginable penalty doledout for this kind of... transgression.

Ray looked down into his own lap, to Fraser's hand. Fraserfelt a powerful twitch under his palm, and gasped again.

Ray looked up at that and licked his lips. "Uh-oh."

Fraser tensed. "What?"

Ray shivered, arched a little, drew in a deep breath... andcame, hot spurts wetting down his shorts, allowing Fraser to feelthe heat and strength of him all the more clearly.

"Oh," Fraser said calmly, and then started to shake.

***************************************

What... the fuck... just happened?

One minute he was watching two girls play swivel stick on thegood doctor's eight-incher -- safe, because the camera never, notonce, panned above the guy's waist, like it knew the real appealthere wasn't the pussytickler moustache but the Wadd-esque clubdown below, and how sad was it that he'd seen so many of thesestupid flicks that he could predict where the blowjob sceneswere? -- one minute he'd been watching two pink tongues lickingand slicking, and the next minute he'd looked up, just to see howFraser was doing, see that wide-eyed Canadian thing going on,only that wasn't what was going on.

Not at all. Fraser wasn't even looking at the screen. Fraserwouldn't know one of those tongues if it came off-screen andlicked him on the... Fraser wasn't paying any attention at all.Fraser was looking at *him*. Wide-eyed, yeah, he was that, allright. And flushed red, like Ray thought any guy would be on hisfirst look at a porno flick, and probably hard, though hecouldn't tell that just by looking, not that he was looking, butthe jacket was too thick to tell, even if he had been looking,which he wasn't...

But Fraser was looking at *him* and doing the wide-eyed,red-faced, probably hard thing.

Looking at him, stretched out in his porn-mode and, aw Christ,he should have pulled his t-shirt down, would've been something,some protection... but no, there he was, stiff in his shorts, andit wasn't like he could hide that; hadn't been able to since hereached down one day in early pubescent amazement and found a newbest friend. No, there wasn't any hiding that, and the thoughtthat he was sitting there, with Fraser right there next to him,and that he was *hard*, and Fraser could *see* that...

Then it was sort of like Fraser was the guy from the movie,only without the moustache, and Ray was the hot-to-trot redheadjust begging for it, because he didn't turn away, or turn thedamn movie off, or lift up his leg to hide his hard-on, oranything like that. He just sat there, trying to remember to lookat the screen, letting Fraser look at him like *he* was the porn.

Looking at him... with his eyes lit up like Ray had neverseen, full to the brim with some kind of feeling that Ray wasn'tsure he'd ever seen before. Maybe Stella'd looked at him likethat, back in her petal-pink lipstick days, before she got alllawyery, with plum-raisin color on her mouth that he wasn'tsupposed to muss once she got it how she liked it. Maybe Stellahad looked at him once or twice like that, too long ago toremember. So long that he forgot what it could do to him, a looklike that, full of...

Sex. Not flirtation, not potential interest, not casualchecking out -- sex. Do-me-do-me-do-me sex.

Fraser looked like he was thinking about... sex. Which shouldhave been the point, they were looking at porn, right, but notthe way he was doing it. Fraser looked like there wasn't anythingon the screen that was anywhere near as interesting as Ray'sface, Ray's... and then his hand had moved, slow, so slow Raycould have pulled away anytime. Could have, but didn't.

Didn't move at all until Fraser had his hand there, warm andfirm, five long fingers and the curve of his palm right there onhim, pressing, holding. Fraser, holding his dick through hisshorts. Even then, his only move had been one, sharp, involuntarytwitch, as his already hard dick swelled impossibly, his ballscrowding up, like they wanted that hand on them, too.

Uh-oh, he'd thought. No, fuck it all, he'd said it out loud.Had to have, because Fraser said, "What?" and itsounded like he was really far away, which was crazy, becauseFraser's hand on his dick was still attached to his arm, and hisshoulder, shoulder-bone-connected-to-the- neck-bone, so how far away could he be? And then it was just too late, way too late, todo anything but suck in a breath, let his back arch like itwanted to and just come all over himself, and his shorts, andthat big hand of Fraser's in his lap.

So... what...the fuck... just happened?

His heart was just about to kill him, it was pounding so hard,and his dick was still squirting out dribbles of come, so goddamnhappy to have a hand on it besides his own that it couldn't seemto *stop* coming. Usually, he had the presence of mind to droptrou before succumbing to the one-eyed bandito's selfish wants.Not this time. This time he had a big spreading wet spot vaguelythe shape of Australia.

He'd just come on Fraser. Sort of. Maybe a big hole would openup on the floor, suck him in and save him the trouble of havingto ever look Fraser in the face again. He'd been worried enoughabout picturing Fraser giving it hard to some nameless redheadfrom behind; but this was...so much worse.

The spark of reality flared brighter. Now that the show wasover, the show on the couch anyway -- the sisters were stillraking Doc's coals over there on the TV screen -- he felt, well,kind of like he always felt afterward. Relaxed and tense at thesame time, like he hadn't really gotten enough. He was a littlesurprised, frankly, that it didn't feel all that different. Likesomeone else's hand (some *guy's* hand? *Fraser's* hand?!?)making him come should have felt more different.

His dick had known so little in the way of variety. His hand.Stella's. And her mouth, and her warm, tight pussy. Twenty yearsof those four things, and really, the last three had pretty muchdried up a while ago. Pussy, sometimes. Her hand, late at night,when he couldn't stop himself from bugging her and she was tootired for the whole enchilada. Her mouth? Hardly ever anymore,not after college, when it still seemed sort of daring and hip togo down on your boyfriend in the bathroom of a bar, getting offmore on doing it *there* than on just doing it.

He knew guys who kept track of the women they'd slept with ongym lockers and notebooks and honest-to-God notches on thebedpost. He'd have the most pristine bedpost in all of Chicago.Just one little notch.

One cut.

Now he'd have a matching one on the other side. Couldn't really count Fraser the same way, could he? If he were counting,which seemed crazy... counting one, two... it didn't exactlyrequire higher math. Now he'd have to add Fraser's hand to thatvery short list. Did it count if Fraser hadn't touched his skin?Hadn't really even *done* anything to him?

The shivers still playing out over his skin told him hell,yeah, it counted. So maybe this wasn't *exactly* like he usuallyfelt afterwards -- because instead of the aggravated relief of'hey, cool, the dick still works, now what's on TV?', there was awhole bunch of... *something*, all mixed up and jumbled together,something that started with 'what the fuck' and ran right onthrough to 'hand good. want more'. His skin didn't much care whotouched it, or why; just how often, and when would it happenagain? Fuck. He lifted a hand that had a fine tremor to it,fumbled for the remote and cut off the sisters mid-squeak. In thesilence, he could hear his pulse in his ears, his raggedbreathing, obscene in the quiet. From Fraser, he couldn't hear athing.

He shifted restlessly. The puddle inside his shorts hadstarted to congeal in his pubic hair, the welcome, easing warmthstealing into cold and clammy. When he moved, so did Fraser, andfor the first time he realized that Fraser had basically frozenin place. Fraser had seized right up. Probably freaked him thefuck out. Probably ought to think of something... anything... tosay.

He took a breath, but before he could even begin to shufflehis thoughts around until something close to appropriate came tothe front, Fraser's hand moved... again. Moved up, under hist-shirt, spreading warm damp fingers on his belly.

Below his wet waistband, his cock stirred sleepily. A mellowbeat of warm-warm-warm-touching-so-gentle-warm started up fromsomewhere inside and just made itself at home, and that was nicebut at the same time it was also pretty damn scary, and before heknew it he'd stiffened up, in a couple of different ways.

"Ray... " Fraser's voice sounded rough, like it wasrusty.

"Don't," Ray murmured. Whatever it was, he didn'twant to hear it. Wasn't really Frasertalk time, was it? Okay, somaybe Fraser'd done something a bit outside the Mountie lines; hestill wasn't the one who'd introduced the wonder of porn to acultural virgin and then *come* all over himself. Besides, thathand felt... that new hand, that third hand ever on his skin,felt... oh, shit...

... like it wasn't moving anymore.

It took a lot for Ray to turn his head, to look at Fraser. Hewondered what Fraser saw in him, no, wait, not that. He wonderedwhat Fraser was seeing in him right this very second, what hisface said. Surely he could tell by the wet spot and the shakingthing his body continued to do that "don't" didn't mean"stop."

Fraser sat still as a statue, with one hand still snuck upRay's shirt, the other braced against the back of the couch.Above the tight collar of his uniform, his face was bright red,and Ray could see little beads of sweat at his temples. He didn'tseem to have noticed that the TV had gone blank. Fraser wastotally focused on him, pinning him there with just the weight ofhis eyes and that big, hot hand.

Fraser, too, seemed to be shivering. The good kind ofshivering.

Fraser... wanted him.

Fraser wanted *him*. That look, that sexy, achy look he wasstill wearing, had nothing to do with porn, and everything to dowith him.

God, the shit you never knew about people. He'd never havebelieved his Gold Coast girl would get wet for a career insteadof bridge clubs and rugrats. And he'd never have believed hisbuttoned-up partner would ever, under any circumstance he couldimagine, voluntarily put his hand... there.

And he would never have believed how much he wanted Fraser togo right back to it, put his hand *there* again, touch him again.

Ray turned, just a little, so the hand slid a few inches onhis skin, leaving a warm trail glowing behind it. He liked that,so he did it again, twisting from side to side under Fraser'ssteady hand, warmth gliding down into his groin and up to hisface, radiating from that stroked place on his stomach.

"Don't say anything," he managed to get out, andwaited to see Fraser's hesitant nod before he closed his eyes,dropped his head back onto the couch and put his hand overFraser's, moving it back to his crotch, but under the shorts thistime, inside the swampy mess where his dick had decided once andfor all that someone else's hand beat that same old Ray hand,well... hands down.

Fraser's hand went easily, eagerly. Certainly more eagerlythan Stella's in recent memory, more eagerly than his own handearlier on. God, how long had it been since his dick had beentouched with any kind of genuine enthusiasm? So no matter that itwas *Fraser's* hand wandering around down there, somehow it stillmanaged to be righter than anything else he'd felt in awhile.

It took the rest of him about a minute, no, make that half aminute to catch up, to push aside random thoughts about how weirdit was to be doing this, with *Fraser*, how odd it was that he'donly ever thought of Stella, and the occasional bimbo, whiledoing the necessary. He wondered briefly how long he'd beenpaying attention to the men in the skinflicks, and the size oftheir dicks, and whether their faces looked like... Fraser's,with or without a moustache, without even knowing he did it,getting off as much on the money shots as he did on thewidespread thighs of the bimbo of the moment.

Then he was there, all of him, from sweaty hair to curledtoes, finally focusing on Fraser with the same intensity Fraserhad focused on him. Fraser's hand had done that eagerness onebetter, had taken the cue and now cradled his half-hard erectiongently, squeezing the tip from time to time, stroking the damplength of him rhythmically until Ray lifted into the touch,rocking up into that strange, familiar hand.

Ray gave up trying to control either heart rate or breathing,deciding if he stroked out, Fraser probably knew CPR, or at thevery least how to dial 911, and tried not to think of theimplications of Huey and Dewey arriving at his apartment to findhim awash in spunk and mostly dead, with Fraser's dripping handstill on the cordless phone.

Crazy thoughts, crazy. The whole thing was crazy. But good.Crazy good. He was letting this... letting this happen. Thiscrazy-but-good thing.

He guessed Fraser had finally bought a clue, because he hadboth hands on him now, tugging his shirt up until Ray lifted hisarms and let it be taken from him, pulling down his shorts untilmost of the sopping mess now lay trapped in cloth on the floorinstead of in his lap. Then he was naked, with Fraser in fulluniform moving between his thighs, kneeling in front of him,spreading his legs wide open, and that flash, the picture in hishead, and then the reality of it before his eyes, took hishalf-hard erection and pumped it up to its full, throbbingstretch startlingly fast.

Alarmingly fast.

"Fraser--" he got out, fighting with words in onedirection, while his body slid and spread on the couch in a bigold 'fuck-you' to anything his mouth might have to say--

And he'd *never* seen Fraser's eyes like that, a bit past thewide-eyed stage now -- wide-eyed was getting eaten alive bysomething *fierce*, something *wanting*... "Can I?"Fraser said, so soft and hungry. "Ray, can I... "

It was too late now, once again way too late to do anythingbut let it happen, let his own hands reach out finally, touchingFraser's hair for the first time, then his cheekbone, then hismouth. He pulled before he knew it, pulled Fraser's head towardhim, toward his yearning cock, and he should have closed his eyesthen but Fraser made a quiet, happy- sounding noise and then hecouldn't, couldn't close out the sight of Fraser's tongue dartingout, tasting him, tasting the come smeared into his pubic hair,the loose skin of his balls, lifting one with his good, strongtongue, balancing it for a minute before moving on to the otherone.

Back and forth, up and down, above and below, everywhere buton his dick, until he thought he'd scream, or worse, cry, or evenworse, come again, and then Fraser was there, wet mouth takinghim in, tongue doing that tasting thing way down on him, way downinside; down farther than Stella's little mouth could take him,down a big, wide, man's throat, down, and with a convulsiveswallow, down some more, until he could feel Fraser's lips rightat the base of his cock. In. Inside. Deep inside. He rocked uphelplessly; wondered, wildly, if Fraser did have a moustache,whether it would make this feel any better, then decided nothingcould make this feel better than it already did.

He revised his opinion five seconds later, when, with hisentire length snugly compressed in the tightest, hottest place ithad been in years, he felt Fraser start to suck."Jesus!"

No porn-star cool here, for sure. No cool at all because thatwas *so* good, good enough to take over his body and joltsomething straight through him that was kind of like a shock andkind of like what had happened to him on those few, unhappyoccasions when he'd been kicked in the nuts -- it was thatintense, only not pain, it was the opposite of pain, it was just*way* more goodness than his body had been ready for. So therewas some part of him that knew that he was clutching Fraser'shair much too tightly, and being way too pushy about thrustinghard and fast, getting while the getting was good, but *God* hecouldn't get enough, couldn't stop, couldn't do a single goddamnthing except fuck Fraser's mouth and groan.

The need... the need was an old friend, familiar; but givingin to it was not. Fraser slurped, sucked, swallowed, and Raypushed and pulled and panted, and both of them were acting like acouple of fucking animals who should never have been let out oftheir cages -- but even that felt good right now. He realized hishead was shaking back and forth, over and over like 'no' but itwas 'yes' all the way, no letup, no teasing. No trying to findthe right rhythm because the right rhythm had found *him*, theright rhythm had him, had him tingling all over and shivering andshocked by the knowledge that he was going to come again reallyfucking soon.

So he looked down, lining up the words in his mind so thathe'd be able to actually say them rather than just grunt somewarning sounds, but all that came out was a long, drawn-out noisethat didn't sound anything like any of what he'd meant to say.Fraser... it felt like Fraser had at least ten inches of tonguehidden away in that proper mouth of his, and every single inchseemed to be wrapped tight around him, a slick, wet, throbbingsqueeze. Fraser's eyes were wide open, and he looked... he lookedlike... Fraser... *liked* doing what he was doing, that much wasclear.

That made his heart spike almost painfully, and while therewas some kind of background noise going on -- some distant voiceblithering something about how he needed to get his dick *out* ofFraser's mouth before he completely lost it -- that was nowherenear enough noise to distract him from the wild, explosive pleasure of watching Fraser take it. His own hands were clenchedwhite, holding hard in dark, silky hair while he rocked, circled,plunged in and out so deeply it wrenched him, somehow --undiscovered country, outlaw territory -- and there was no way,*no way* he was going to be able to stop.

"Can't. Stop --" but Fraser just grunted outsomething that sounded like gratitude and that was it, game over,everything in his body seized up in one massive spasm ofuncontrollable pleasure and everything -- from his wildly tossinghead to his cramped, curled toes -- went with it. He was *going*with it, going purely crazy with his cock pulsing and twitching,spurting all over... ooh... right over Fraser's hot tongue,rubbing himself *right there* and moaning until the last shuddersand twinges died away.

"God...*damn*." It hurt to say it because his headwas arched so far back that he could barely breathe, but itneeded to be said anyway. At least, he *felt* like he needed tosay it -- what else was there to say, really?

"Mmm," Fraser hummed in amiable-sounding agreement,and *wham* just like that Ray felt every bit of what he'd put offin the name of lust catch up to him all at once: shock, andsomething that didn't know whether it wanted to be guilt oreuphoria, and a goodly helping of pure embarrassment. If hehadn't been wrung out like a limp, damp rag he would havecringed, or grabbed for his shorts, anything. As it was all hecould do was pant and shiver. Oh, and -- he could let go ofFraser's head, finally, but when his hands fell away he couldstill feel quite a few silky strands in each: Fraser could blamehim for the bald spots. Great.

Random words floated through his mind, all the possibilitiesof what he could say now, every one rejected because it wasn'tright -- there probably *was* no right thing to say. Everythingfrom 'you learn that at the Mountie Academy?' to 'what the *hell*did you just do?' -- none of that quite covered it. In the end,he went with the statement which wasn't maybe the *loudest*, butdefinitely took the 'most panicked' trophy: "I like women,Fraser."

He dragged his head back up in time to catch a look of concernsettling over Fraser's face -- *that* was a Fraser he knew,taking the place of that good-looking stranger with the wickedeyes. "Of course, I'm... I'm aware of that, Ray."

Fraser didn't sound hurt, and he didn't look hurt, but somehowRay got it that he *was* hurt, anyway. His mouth opened before heknew it was going to. "But I really... um... I mean, Iliked... what you just did. I liked it."

Fraser blushed. Jeez -- the guy had just given him theblow-job of the century without a second's hesitation, and *now*he was blushing. "I'm glad. "

Okay. Okay. Things were starting to settle a little, now, andthe world was the world again instead of some weird place whereeverything went screwy. There was something familiar going on,something going on with Fraser that Fraser wasn't talking about,but Ray got it anyway because he knew that one, he'd been thereso often they should have put his name over the door...

Bottom line, it went like this: I want you, and it hurts me towant you because I know I shouldn't, but I just can't stop.

"Come up here, Fraser. Sit down." This wasn't abouthow weird it was that Fraser wanted... whatever it was that hewanted, this was about that 'can't stop' feeling. This was about the kind of panic and pain that had been the worst thing Ray hadever gone through, and about how he wasn't going to do that tosomebody... didn't want to... he wasn't Stella. That was all.

Fraser moved slowly, and settled himself on the couch stiffly,as if he was hurting. Right away Ray's eyes were drawn to theflap of tunic over Fraser's lap. Yeah, the guy was probablyhurting, all right. He swallowed, hesitated for one moment,decided that all hesitation was going to do for him was make thisinto a bigger deal than it really was, and reached for Fraser'spants.

"Ray!"

Fraser had a grip that felt strong enough to crush iron, butlet his wrist go right away when he shook it off. "Easy,Fraser. Just... just take it easy, okay? I'm... I got it."

That look in Fraser's eyes -- he knew that one, too, from the other side. That was the look of a guy who *knew* he was gettingsome pity- petting and hated it, but didn't have what it took toturn it down. A miserable, horny, desperate look -- and onFraser, who had never seemed to be any of the three, that lookwas pretty damn strange.

"I got it," Ray said again, and eased his hand backunder the tunic. Fraser shivered a little and his brows drew downinto something that was almost a scowl, but although his handstwitched, he didn't stop him this time. Ray wished there was morehe could say -- something, anything that might ease that edge ofmisery -- but really, there was nothing. He was, after all, justdoing this... well, out of friendship, really, and because fairwas fair, and there was no use in pretending otherwise. Sure, hecould always take a cue from a certain redheaded nurse and startmoaning about how he *needed* that big Mountie cock, ooh, yeah,give it to me... but there was zero chance he could do it with astraight face. His lips twitched, and he realized he could barely*think* it with a straight face. So that wasn't an option.

"It's okay," he said, and that was true --surprising, but true. This *was* okay with him. So he didn'twaste any time messing around or teasing or giving himself achance to freak, he just groped around in Fraser's lap until hefound a way in. It had been a long, long time since he'd tried toundo someone else's clothes one-handed, so yeah, that took awhile, but Fraser just kept breathing and giving him that sadlook and not getting twitchy on him, so that was okay.

And then he was in, and digging under stiff, starched fabrictowards something warm. His heart took a flying leap, and alittle voice asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, buthe barely noticed because Fraser bit his lip at the same momentthat Ray found something not warm but *hot*, silky and hot, andhe and Fraser drew in identical deep breaths like neither one ofthem could help it and then they were off and running.

Big guy. Big *hot* guy. Maybe he should have tried a few ofthose nurse-isms after all -- Fraser seemed like the perfectcandidate for it, and it was no stretch to imagine that a womanwould have to be pretty damn happy about getting into these itchyMountie pants... Or... or a guy, he supposed, and that brought upa question and he asked it without thinking. "You... likeguys?" Well, duh, Ray. Try it like a fact, not a question."You like guys."

"I like you, Ray," Fraser said softly, and Ray hadto smile at that. When he did Fraser's eyes flashed dark again --back to that handsome- devil look that had seemed so strangebefore. But maybe he was getting used to it now because yeah, that was still Fraser, and Fraser looked better like that thanwhen he was being damn miserable, so Ray just let himself smileand gave Fraser a little squeeze.

"I didn't know that," he said, starting to get intothe squeeze-release thing. Knew that move like the back of hishand. "I mean, about the liking guys thing."

Fraser shifted, then stilled, his fingers digging into thecouch cushions. "I didn't intend for you to know," hesaid through clenched teeth.

Ray knew now, though. Boy, did he know. Wasn't any mistakingthat for something else. Wasn't anything else you could call itwhen one guy blew another guy. He was still trying to decidewhether to have a 20/20 hindsight panic attack about that or justget over it when he must have hit on some good rhythm there onFraser's dick, because everything on him stiffened up to matchit.

"Oh, my." Fraser's teeth were giving his bottom lipanother workout, and hey, this was actually kind of fun, watchingFraser try to keep himself all still and quiet, watching Fraserput up a good fight... that he couldn't possibly win. *Wouldn't*win, if Ray and his trusty hand had anything to say about it.

A long, twisting stroke from the bottom up, which was how *he*liked it, and Fraser made some sort of controlled grunt whichprobably meant that he liked it just fine, but still, it feltdifferent. It was different. Hard, rock-hard, but... looser skin.

"You uncut?" he asked as his mouth ran away from hisbrain once more. Fraser blinked at him twice, uncertain, butnodded and blushed a little after Ray rephrased the question to,"Uncircumcised?"

"Take your pants off, Fraser." Right away, Frasergot wide-eyed on him again. Ray swallowed and felt his face gethot, but hell -- it wasn't like he could take it back oranything. "C'mon -- I'm sitting here buck naked, right? Soeven it up. I want to, uh, I wanna see what I'm dealingwith."

Ray let Fraser go with a little see-you-later pat, and watchedFraser struggle out of his boots and pants while he took a littlemind-trip on the fact that hey, here he was, waiting for his bestfriend to get out of his clothes so that he could check out hisbig uncut dick and then get him off. The only really disturbingpart of it was the fact that he hadn't run out of the roomscreaming yet.

To his surprise, Fraser didn't bother with folding his pants,but just left them at the foot of the couch, piled on top of theboots. When Fraser finally sat back Ray fought off a smile --here he'd gotten himself all nerved up to look at Fraser naked,but Fraser still had the damn tunic on and... well, thebig-and-hot parts were still hiding out under there, in a waythat was more funny than sexy.

"This too," he said, tugging on Fraser's sleeve.Thankfully Fraser didn't stall anymore -- just one piercing,inquisitive look and then Fraser was stripping down, bit by bit,so many layers and buckles and snaps that it seemed like amiracle that the guy didn't suffocate under there.

There. Naked Fraser. Naked, *horny* Fraser. Naked, horny,nervous- looking Fraser, somehow still as rigid and *proper* ashe was when he was fully clothed.

Okay. Ray took a deep breath, and looked. Broad chest. Nicenipples. Pink. Muscles. Good skin. Strange, half-hungry,half-terrified look on that handsome face, the only part thatshould have been familiar but actually wasn't, not wearing thatexpression. Ray fell back on his tried-and-true standby."It's okay, Fraser."

Fraser swallowed visibly, nodded, and looked very much like hedidn't believe Ray for a second. Ray could fix that. He reachedout, keeping eye contact with Fraser until his hand had gottensituated, and then looked down.

So *that's* what an uncut dick looked like. Not thatdifferent, except for the fact that his hand was wrapped aroundit -- that was pretty damn different, all right. He stroked alittle, found that it was better to pay attention to how thatextra skin slid around than it was to pay attention to the factthat this wasn't *his* dick his hand was getting friendly with,and settled down into a slow rhythm. Up. Pause. Down. Squeeze.Up, twisting a little. Pause *and* squeeze. Down again - -

Fraser's legs were shaking. Just a little tremor, not a bigdeal, but it zinged him anyway because that too was familiar --when it was really good, when he really *wanted* it, his legs didthat. It brought his head up to look at Fraser's face again, andthen...

...*Everything* seemed to slide into place all at once --touching Fraser, and it was kind of a shock that it hadn'toccurred to him before but yeah, he hadn't just missed beingtouched, he'd missed *touching*, too, he'd missed that, misseddoing this thing and that thing and seeing heat and pleasurespread out on someone else's face.

It was... a rush. A helluva rush. It was a whole other kind ofsatisfaction, a kind he never got when it was just him and hishand and the screen, and that was too bad because...

He squeezed, flicked the tip of Fraser's cock with his thumb,heard the resulting gasp, and felt Fraser *push* just a bit intohis hand, like that. Like that.

...Because he'd missed it. Oh yeah.

Good. Good to touch, good to give and see what came down fromgiving. Fraser wasn't tipping him off with any porn-inspiredclues or anything, no loud, burlesque moans or showy writhingaround, but yeah, his legs were still shaking, and his breathinghad sped up a lot, and besides that Ray could *feel* Fraser beinginto it, really into it, and that was good.

At least, it was good right up until Ray caught his other handtrying to sneak into the act. Not on Fraser. On *himself*. Onhis... dick, which was... trying to get hard. Again. Right now.

Hard, from touching Fraser. Watching Fraser.

And it would be easy to shove that off on desperation, but theproblem there was that he'd already come twice and so wasn'tdesperate anymore, except obviously some part of him *was*, andthat wasn't part of the game plan *at all* -- good to touch,right, he got that he'd needed that, but he wasn't...

This was... that friendship thing. Supposed to be. Thatfriendship thing, with him giving something to Fraser because hewanted to, on a friendship-thing kind of level. *That* was theplan, that worked.

Not this. Not him turning on, getting off on petting Fraser'sbig, hot dick. That was...

That was scary enough to make him break out in an instantsweat. To make his heart pound like crazy and make his mouth godry. To forget all about how good it was that Fraser's legs werestill shaking, and just...

Stop.

He stopped.

***************************************

Ray... stopped. All at once. Fraser couldn't say that it wasunexpected -- he'd been waiting for this, for Ray to be overcomewith the realization of what he was doing, for Ray to finally seeclearly through the post-coital haze of gratitude.

So, it was indeed not unexpected. But... he couldn't stophimself from wishing that Ray could have kept... that it had beenotherwise. For just a little while. For just a little longer.

"Ray," he said, and he put everything he had intoit, all the understanding and acceptance and apology he couldbring to his voice. They *must* get through this -- Ray was hisfriend, his best friend, and to lose that would be intolerable."Ray, I..."

But his initial plea for amends remained unspoken, stoppedcold in his throat by the sight of Ray's absorption...

With his renewed erection. Ray was staring down at his ownpartially erect shaft with an expression on his face that lookedlike a combination of astonishment and resentment. That and...fear?

Ray was scowling at his own penis. This was something Rayhadn't expected, perhaps, which of course would completelyexplain why he stopped, why he had needed to withdraw that touchthat, to Fraser's surprise, had felt so much more than clinical,had in fact felt almost...eager.

Ray was uncomfortable with his own arousal. That wasunderstandable. It was also familiar, reassuringly so, andreawakened all of the need Fraser felt to offer Ray comfort andassurance, to offer confirmation that Ray's pleasure was awelcome, wonderful thing.

"Ray," he said again, but this time he allowed thewarmth he felt to speak clearly. Ray's head jerked up at that,his cheeks flushed, his eyes brilliant and dark and full ofconfusion.

"Fraser --"

He could *feel* Ray's rising panic, could see it in thatdefensive, troubled stance with both hands raised. He reached outand grasped one warm palm before he lost the nerve to do it.

"Come here." Ray's eyes widened. Fraser didn't waitfor any demurral, but reached over slowly with his free hand,touching Ray with one soft, smooth stroke from shoulder to groin,gliding easily over skin that had dewed with sweat. Apparently itwas his turn to offer reassuring inanities. "It's allright."

"But... I'm not... I mean--" Ray's stutters alsosounded familiar, and Fraser found himself smiling, while at thesame time he hoped he could find the right words to soothe Ray.

"It's human nature, Ray," he said quietly, strokinghis chest and arms, soft, non-sexual, non-threatening. Gentlinghim. Lulling him. "An instinctive response to theatmosphere, to my... arousal. Male animals often feel anempathetic sexual response."

Ray now seemed to be fixated on their clasped hands, thoughhis body moved wherever Fraser's other stroking hand went,following the touch. "So, um, it doesn't meananything?"

Oh, that one hurt, but he'd asked for it. He'd asked forwhatever he got, good or bad, by coming here when he knew heshouldn't, by not stopping Ray from playing the ridiculous video,by not controlling himself for just five more minutes andexcusing himself, and leaving before his hand had reached out forwhat it... he... wanted.

You act, and then you live with the consequences.

He took a deep breath. "It means your body understandsthe appropriate response to stimulation."

Ray's eyebrows drew together. Oh, dear. Perhaps that hadsounded too clinical.

"So you're saying I'm responding to you because you'reresponding to me?" Ray asked, turning his hand so theirfingers meshed.

"Essentially," Fraser answered, letting his otherhand roam closer to Ray's groin, where, despite the conversation,his penis continued to show unmistakable signs of interest."That's fucked," Ray said succinctly, but he didn'tpull away.

"Human sexuality can be a strange and --" Fraserstarted to say, only to have his pseudo-lecture cut-off inmid-sentence by a laugh from Ray. Unexpected and sharp... andgenuine.

"I know, I know, you've seen the filmstrips. Spare me thedetails," Ray said, leaning forward into Fraser's hands.

Fraser felt that laugh all over his body. Felt it, literally,through the hand he held, and deep in Ray's stomach, where hisother hand rested. Felt it sneak inside his heart, lick into hisgroin.

Whether it was his words or his touch, Fraser couldn't tell,but although Ray's eyes didn't entirely lose their wariness, hedid indeed lean towards him, moving slowly as if under some kindof spell.

Fraser reassured himself with a quick glance at Ray's nowsturdy erection, then shifted Ray to kneel astride his lap,swallowing back a rising, rampant excitement at this, thisreality burning so close to what had been, until now, forbiddenimaginings.

He could feel the moment Ray let go of his hesitation. Oneminute he was an awkward armful of elbows and knees searching outa comfortable position, the next he seemed to... melt a little,and Fraser heard him murmur, "Fair's fair." He couldn'tbring himself to ask what Ray meant by that, couldn't shatter themood beginning to rebuild. Slowly, yes, but surely.

Fraser shook his hand loose from Ray's, wanting the freedom totouch as much as possible, and Ray moved his own hands toFraser's shoulders, where at first Fraser could barely feel them.Then he slid one finger down the length of Ray's erection, andthose two hands dug into his shoulders, hard.

Too powerful and too heady, that rush of feeling -- the roleof the seducer was an unfamiliar and altogether new thing. Hestroked Ray slowly, letting his senses fill with the delight ofhaving Ray -- sight, smell, sound -- so very close to him. Theache in his own groin was a half-pleasant, half-maddening thing,vast and nearly painful, but he wouldn't have given it up foranything, this pulse of want that Ray drew forth from him. Ray's head was bowed, his attention fixed on one or the other of them,he couldn't tell which. But when his own cock twitched at theidea Ray promptly gasped, and then it seemed like the easiest,simplest thing in the world to pull Ray closer, to slide down alittle under that welcome weight so that he could... oh yes...

"Wow," Ray said softly, and shivered, and Frasercouldn't help but shiver himself because Ray's erection, Ray'sbody felt so *good* against him, strong and warm and moistlyalive, sliding together like they'd been made to fit this way.His hand had adapted to the grip and firmness necessary to keepthem pressed together, and now he was able to hasten his strokesa little, dizzy with shared pleasure and the sensual effect ofRay's sighs.

Ray seemed mesmerized; leaning closer and closer with his longlashes cast downwards, his hips rocking slowly in rhythm. Fraserwatched a droplet of sweat trickle from Ray's forehead down tothe mild curve of one stubbled cheek and then Ray groaned just alittle, and before he knew he meant to do it Fraser moved forwardto taste. Salt -- salt that echoed what he'd tasted of Raybefore, piquancy that flooded him with memory and further hunger.

Ray didn't resist, in fact Ray leaned into him at once, andFraser couldn't stop himself from tasting, seeking more, until,yes, there were Ray's lips, *here* were Ray's lips on his own.Both of them uttered some sort of subvocalization at the samemoment, and Fraser shuddered as he felt Ray's mouth open a littleagainst his, felt his tongue reach tentatively for his own.

He welcomed it, brought it inside his mouth and tasted it,sucked on it, wishing he could make Ray's tongue come, wishing hecould make it feel that good. Ray leaned into him even more,spreading himself out so they touched skin-to-skin in a thousanddifferent shocking places.

There was a brief moment when he had the presence of mind toregister and retain these details -- how perfect Ray felt underhis hands, how delicious his mouth was, how good and right andtrue it felt to hold him, to kiss him and feel that longed-formouth kiss him back. Then arousal, so long banked, flared inside,consumed him until he couldn't think of anything except theheated body pressed up against his, the hot mouth he found hecouldn't release.

He held Ray's head to his until he was dizzy, until he had tolet go or pass out, and he didn't want to miss a single, solitarysecond. He opened his eyes to find Ray looking at him. Staring athim, his skin flushed, his eyes glazed. No longer just confused,he looked... dazed.

Fraser opened his mouth, to ask what he didn't know, but Rayslid a finger across his lips, then... then... pleasure explodedwhen Ray's wet finger dropped unerringly to his right nipple.

Fraser shuddered, shifted, told himself sternly not to beg byarching into that touch, and then did it anyway. He had a briefmoment of amazed curiosity -- how had Ray known? Was this anestablished habit, or was it intuition? Because, if it *was*intuition, that kind of unerring accuracy was... formidable, tosay the least. But that only lasted a moment, because all kindsof wonderful things were happening now, shocks and jolts andshivers of sensation, electric and astonishing, and so Frasergave up wondering and gave in to feeling.

A circle. First Ray painted a circle. Then retraced it, withhis fingernail. Fraser felt the hairs on his arms stand up, andhis erection, still held loosely with Ray's in the trap of hishand, jerked violently.

Ray thrust against him in response, sliding his cock alongsideFraser's, heightening the streaks of pleasure darting between hispeaked nipple and his penis. Time and again, Ray repeated themotion: gathering moisture from Fraser's mouth, transferring itto his ultra- sensitive nipple, then rocking their cockstogether. A one-two punch, in boxer parlance, Fraser thought.Devastating. Prelude to a knockout.

Watching Ray's face gave him almost as much pleasure asfeeling Ray's hands on him. He looked absorbed in his task,focused intently on a specific pattern he'd created, drawing itout until Fraser had to arch up again, press harder into thatmaddening finger, trying to muffle his desperate moan, but notsucceeding.

Then the hand was gone.

Fraser dropped his head back and squeezed his eyes shut tight,shutting out Ray's face, not wanting to see the hesitation comeback, the clarity of realization that he was close... veryclose... oh, God... so close... to bringing Fraser to orgasm.

And of course Ray wasn't the only one afraid of that, as muchas he himself wanted it -- that loss of control, that point of noreturn that threatened to liquefy his very bones -- dangerous onso many levels, to himself, to Ray (who just might bolt at that,yes), so maybe it was better... maybe better that...

It was good that he had his eyes closed, because the sight ofRay bending over him, taking the tongue that had felt so good inhis mouth and applying the same delicate torture to his nipplewould have thrown him over the edge. As it was, he had to grabhard at his penis, and therefore Ray's, as well, clutching tightto keep from spilling immediately.

Ray yelped at the tight grasp, then pushed hard into it, hiships thrusting smoothly, powerfully. Fraser felt the rush of airacross his nipple, cool where it was wet, hot everywhere else,and then suction. Deep, sweet, regular suction, in the samerhythm as the forceful thrusts into his hand.

That was... overwhelming. Somehow, he managed to keep fromshouting his pleasure right into Ray's ear. The stifled sounds inhis throat would have embarrassed him if he hadn't been so fargone, but he was. He was gone, floating on some other plane now,tethered to the room only by the slick heat of Ray's cock againsthis own, held tight in his hand, and the wet suction of Ray'smouth.

Everything else faded, leaving only the feeling buildinginside, all the stronger for having been so long denied, and whenhe felt Ray's teeth for the first time, a precise, determinedlittle bite, right on the center of his nipple, he gave in, gaveup, leaving control and fear to battle each other on somedistant, misty field while he went on heedless without them. Helet loose years' worth of not getting what he wanted, what heneeded, spraying Ray's penis and stomach, and his own hands andstomach and chest, feeling as if each streak and splatter healedsomething that had been left aching inside him.

Minutes later -- how many he didn't know, but his muscles hadstarted to stiffen, and the wetness streaked along his skin feltcold -- he raised his head and slowly opened his eyes.

Ray sat crouched over him, his hands braced on his thighs.Fraser realized he was still clinging to both their penises witha grip that could be construed as beyond possessive, and heforced his hand to open, wiping his damp palm on his thigh ascasually as he could.

Ray looked... calm. None of his earlier apprehension showed on his face. He was no longer flushed, or skittish, or any of thethings he had been.

He was, however, still mostly erect, and Fraser could see noevidence that Ray had joined him. He'd come alone, even with Rayright there. The thought tugged at him, casting a slight shadowon his bright pleasure.

"Ray, you didn't... "

Ray looked down at his penis with far less trepidation than hehad just a little bit earlier. Although still engorged, it lackedthe angry stiffness that preceded climax. As he watched, Raypushed down on it, then grinned as it popped back up to abouthalf-mast.

"No," he said, seemingly untroubled. "Two'susually all I'm good for. Don't worry... I mean, I didn't do thisfor... that."

Which begged the question of why Ray *had* done it, why he'dovercome his confusion and fear and touched him with such easeand... expertise, but Fraser couldn't bring himself to ask.They'd come far enough tonight, farther than he'd dreamed theycould, and to want more was just... selfish.

And if refraining from orgasm had made Ray feel morecomfortable with the rest of it...

"Thank you, Ray," he said quietly, his throat tight.

"You're welcome, Fraser," Ray said flippantly, hisgrin widening.

Fraser didn't have the strength to do more than smile back athim.

***************************************

Sleep alone long enough and you forgot how to share. Fraserwas taking up *way* too much room: a hot, heavy leg trapping himhere, a hot, heavy arm pressing too hard there.

Whoa.

Ray cautiously opened one eye. Light, but not up-time brightyet. It was that in-between time, that thinking time of day,caught between asleep and awake, when all the rotten stuff youmanaged to put off with work all day and sleep all night crashedin and whaled on you.

Usually that meant Stella, and all the shit that had gonewrong, and all the shit still left that *could* go wrong.

Not today, though.

No, the Stella folder had been filed in the basement, and hehad a new case to work on.

Fraser was asleep in his bed, touching him with his hands,arms, legs, everything that stuck out, practically, except (quickglance down) no, that wasn't touching him. Yet. Would be in abouttwo inches, though, which given how fast it was growing would bein about two seconds.

Ray closed his eyes, put his head back on the pillow he wasalso having to share (the bed was a queen, but they were using itlike a single), and tried to regroup.

Fraser was asleep. In his bed. Wrapped around him like saranwrap. Getting hard. Fraser liked men. Fraser liked... *him*.

And here he'd thought the whole Stella thing was a big cosmicjoke. This made that look... well, at least this had come withsome personal satisfaction. Remembering the way he'd exploded inFraser's mouth, and on his hand before that, seriously personal.And seriously satisfactory.

Funny, how even though there were a few key differences, itwasn't really as different as he'd thought it might be. Sex witha man, that is. Sex with Fraser. Not that he'd thought about it.Until recently. Real recently. Right.

It was interesting -- very, very interesting -- how thebiggest difference he'd been able to find (beyond the obvious --the obvious was pretty, um, *obvious*) was that Fraser, who'dalways seemed so cool on the outside, was really warm -- hell,*hot* -- on the inside, once you got him out of his clothes andhis mind and into... stuff. As opposed to, say, Stella, who waswarm on first look, but turned out to be kind of cold underneath.

But as far as the whole physical thing went, it just hadn'tbeen all that different. Yeah, some things stuck out where he wasused to spaces going in, and some places were flat where he wasused to curves, but smooth skin was just... smooth skin. AndFraser had *acres* of it. A mouth, tongue, lips... well, thosethings on Fraser weren't really that different from Stella, justwider, and more mobile, and, God, could he even say it? Hotter.When Fraser kissed him, it was like that was all he was, like hiswhole self narrowed down to his mouth. It was... flattering ...and arousing as hell, being the focus of attention like that.

Some things were different, no question, but some things werethe same. Judging from his reactions last night, Fraser *loved*having his nipples played with, sucked on. Stella had loved that,too, and he'd loved doing it, so it was good for them both. Heknew what he was doing there, too; never heard a word ofcomplaint about that (and he'd heard words of complaint aboutjust about everything else he'd ever done, so it meant all themore) and it felt good to have one thing where he didn't evenhave to think about whether he was doing it right. Given howcrazy Fraser'd gotten over it, he'd done right by him, too.

Wasn't like it was a hardship, sucking on Fraser's nipples.They were... pretty. Pink, and not too big, and they tightenedright up under his tongue, just like they were supposed to.Couldn't hide that, even if you wanted to, which Stella hadsometimes seemed to try to do, but even if she kept quiet, hernipples talked.

Fraser's nipples had a *lot* to say. In fact, Fraser's wholebody was pretty... eloquent, or something. Everything Fraser hadfelt showed up somewhere, even though Ray *knew* he'd been tryingto clamp down on it. Didn't want to freak him out, probably. Ofcourse, by the time they got to the point of Ray sucking Fraser'snipples, he'd been pretty much beyond freakdom. No matter howhard Fraser tried to stifle those noises, they came throughanyway. And how hard he'd been breathing, that had told Ray alot, and those tight little nipples, and that big, hard,leaking...

Ummmm... Okay, maybe he didn't really need to do aplay-by-play. Not with the guy right there, asleep. Didn't seemquite... sporting. So. Back to the comparisons.

Good skin. *Great* skin. And good nipples. Yeah, pretty mucheven money there. Ray didn't even miss the cushy pillows he wasused to finding under pretty pink nipples. Fraser's chest was...just fine the way it was. Wide handfuls of muscle instead of softpuffy hills, that was all.

That was all.

Just guy wrappings instead of girl trappings.

And that was surprisingly... cool.

Before last night, he'd never imagined being able to havefantastic (he could admit it; it had been fantastic) sex withoutit automatically leading to a cling thing -- meeting the parents,going to the IceCapades, shopping for tampons.

But Fraser... well, come on, it wasn't like Fraser was goingto wake up wanting to go pick out china patterns, now was it?

This could be... this might be... perfect. All that skin,those great nipples, that mouth... he even had to admit Fraser'sdick had a certain novelty appeal to it... but with none of thehassle of second-guessing what he wanted. Ray knew what hewanted. Ray knew what guys wanted. He was a guy and he knew what*he* wanted.

Sex.

Lots of it.

As messy as possible.

And that was another thing. Fraser hadn't traipsed daintilyoff to the bathroom when they were done last night, bitchingabout the mess he'd made. No, he'd just sat there, covered in it,smiling at him, and then he'd pulled Ray to him, and they'dstumbled to the bed, and then they'd gone to sleep. No towel, nocomments about the sheets, just... sleep. Deep, easy,no-nightmare sleep.

He stretched as far as he could in the cage of Fraserskin hefound himself in, luxuriating in the feel of a for-once-satedbody. He couldn't remember the last time he'd really felt, whatwas it? Full? Or empty? Some of both, he guessed. He didn't havethat hungry beast crawling up his back anymore, searching forsomething he really wasn't finding watching redheads boff the ERstaff on video.

Fraser had given him a whole new perspective on things, and hedidn't think it was just from having his head cleared up by acouple of truly spectacular orgasms. Fraser'd opened up a wholenew world. Even in the cold half-light of day, he was havingtrouble coming up with a downside.

He stretched again, rubbing unconsciously against all thatsmooth skin against him, and yup, there went those last twoinches. Pretty cool that he could get Fraser hard even in his sleep. Or maybe Fraser was always like that in the morning. Noway to know without trying it a few more times.

More. He could handle more. More of Fraser.

He slapped his hand to his forehead. Way to make a left turn,Kowalski.

Human nature, he reminded himself. He'd asked, Fraser'danswered, and it sounded like as good an excuse as any. Malearousal, animal responses, pretty nice of Fraser to take all theresponsibility like that. Made it real easy to--

Fraser moved against him -- first with his dick, then with agrope of hands and scissoring of big feet, rumbling and grumblinguntil finally his eyes opened and Ray found himself staring downa well of good- morning Fraser.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," Fraser answered, and then just looked at himsome more.

Ray turned a little, feeling the hot streak of Fraser'serection slide from his side to his stomach as he rolled to facehim. Fraser left his arms where they were, so basically they werelying there, hugging.

Which was... cool.

"We stink," Ray said, thinking how nice it was to bewith someone who didn't leap out of bed with her hand over hermouth, headed for a toothbrush and mouthwash and deodorant.

"I'm afraid so," Fraser said, sniffing the warm airpocket between them. He didn't seem terribly concerned about it.

"Want a shower?" Ray asked, unsure whether he'd justoffered to shower *with* Fraser or not, but figuring since Fraserwas the guy-on-guy guy here, he'd leave it to him to do themorning-after interpretation.

"Not yet," Fraser said, and buried his face in Ray'sneck.

Didn't look like Fraser was seeing any downsides, either. No,Fraser had a way upside thing going on.

Ray felt a moist tongue, hot breath (not bad breath, justFraser- sleepy-smelling breath) licking up that tendon in hisneck, the one that kinked when he got too uptight. The one thatfelt like spaghetti this morning. Licked it right up to his earand then licked behind and over and (oh yeah, mmmm) right insideit before meandering back down his neck and sniffing him somemore.

"Weirdo," Ray muttered.

"Should I stop?" Fraser asked into his neck. Raycould feel his lips form each word on his skin.

"Did I say that?" he asked.

"No," Fraser mouthed against him.

"No," Ray agreed.

Ray was just about matching him in the hard-on department whenFraser pulled back. Ray protested. At least he thought he did --he mumbled something, and put his hands on Fraser's back andpulled on him. Fraser seemed to get the message because herolled, pushing Ray on his back and sliding over on him, pressingdown on him, rubbing a little, getting their cocks lined up andtalking to each other.

Damn, he felt good. It even felt good being under instead ofover. Everything Fraser had done felt good, all along. Made himwonder what else might be out there he hadn't done, and how goodit might feel.

"So, Fraser," Ray said, reaching up to mess upFraser's hair some more.

"Yes, Ray?" Fraser replied, rubbing his head intoRay's hands.

"We're already gross, right? Might as well getgrosser," Ray said, sliding his hands down from Fraser'shead, down that long, broad back to his ass, where he took adouble handful and squeezed, thinking this was one place whereFraser had curves even better than Stella, then was mildlyshocked at himself for thinking that.

Fraser spread his legs, dropping them on either side of Ray'ships, and sat up a little and then... well, he *shimmied*, thatwas the only word Ray knew to describe the move Fraser made, andRay's fingers, instead of just squeezing Fraser's ass, which hethought was kind of bold to begin with, were actually... oh,shit... dipping in between the meaty parts, to the... place wherethere was a... space that went in, like a girl's, only...smaller. And tighter.

Fraser looked at him. He looked at Fraser. Then he moved onefingertip, just one, real slowly, real carefully, right overthat... place. Fraser closed his eyes, lowered his head, andsighed. And he started to tremble, just a little. And his dicktwitched.

Looked like Fraser liked that. Better do it again, make sure.

Two fingertips this time, still just rubbing real lightly,right there, where... no, he wasn't going to think about whatusually happened there. This wasn't about that. This was aboutgiving Fraser back a little bit of what Fraser had given him, andif Fraser liked having his fingers... there... well, okay.

The third time he did it, Fraser made a countermove, circlingone way while Ray's fingers circled the other and that must havefelt *really* good, because he made a little sound in his throat,and his hands clamped down hard on Ray's shoulders. Ray kept ondoing what he was doing, waiting to see what Fraser wanted next.He had a feeling Fraser knew. He hoped Fraser would let him in onit.

Still, he was kind of surprised when Fraser reached back andtook Ray's hands away from him. Shit. Maybe he'd done somethingwrong after all. *That* wouldn't surprise him. But no, Fraserdidn't seem to be packing up his toys and going home, he was...eww... putting two of Ray's fingers, the two that had just beenwandering around his ass, in his mouth.

Okay, it was official. The Mountie would stick *anything* inhis mouth.

Then Ray forgot all about that because he learned something hedidn't know about himself -- he liked having his fingers sucked.No, he *really* liked it. It made his dick throb. Made his eyesblur. Fraser sucked on his fingers like he was sucking on hisdick, and his dick *knew* that, wanted that mouth back on it,wanted some of that suck- suck on it instead of wasted on hisfingers.

But it didn't happen. Fraser was, for once, not paying toomuch attention to Ray, and even that was kind of cool. Veryguy-like, getting your own. He could get into that. With a finalswab-suck, Fraser tugged Ray's fingers out of his mouth and putthem back where he'd found them, right in the crease of his ass.

Oh. Okay. Didn't need that college degree after all, becausethere were only so many things wet fingers could be asked to dodown there, and so Ray did it, shutting out everything except thethought that oh, yeah, guys could get fucked, too, they justdidn't provide the water for the slide like a woman could. Itseemed a good bet, given the way Fraser'd pretty much takencharge, that this wasn't anything new to him, but better to makesure than fuss about it later. "Um, Fraser? You done thisbefore?" he whispered.

"Mmmm hmmmm," Fraser answered, and it wasn't"no", so Ray tickled him a little then pushed onefinger inside, going slower than slow, cuz even a wet fingerdidn't go in real easily.

No going back now, Ray, my friend: you've got your finger upFraser's ass.

Fraser straightened his back, right up into what could havebeen Mountie posture, except that he was naked, and sitting ontop of Ray, with a finger in his butt. And that move took awayRay's plan for going slow, took the plan right out of his hands,and put it right back in Fraser's... deep inside Fraser's...stretched right up all the way into Fraser's...

Fraser bucked against him, moaned, and sat down on him evenfurther, his hands now gripping the sides of Ray's ribs like he'dfly right off if he didn't have something to hang onto. Then helifted up, and when he came back down, Ray slid the other fingerin, figuring, hey, if he'd only wanted one, he'd only haveswabbed down one. Two could go even further. Did. God, it was hotin there. Snug, too. And ripply, kind of. Rougher than... andJesus, had he mentioned how hot it was in there? Hot out here,too. Hot. It was all just fucking hot.

Fraser lifted again, then came back down, just impaledhimself, and since Ray didn't have another wet finger to givehim, he moved the ones he had, rubbed Fraser inside best he couldgiven the *really* small space he was in.

Good move, it turned out. Fraser shivered all over and gasped,"Ah! Ray... do that again."

"What, this?" Ray said, stroking again, pressing inhard with the tips of his fingers. Fraser arched above him, hischin lifting as he moaned deep in his throat.

"Oh, that feels... I didn't know... ," Frasermoaned, rocking against him, forcing Ray's fingers against thesame place over and over.

"Thought you said you'd done this before," Ray said,and twisted a little on the sheets. That response-thing thatFraser had told him about had to be kicking in again -- he was hard before, yeah, but now he was hard and... and really ready,responding to... this. To Fraser like this. Responding toFraser's response. Helluva good deal.

Fraser breathed in deep, then spread his thighs wider, and Raytook advantage of the extra room to reach in even further. God,he couldn't believe how much he was enjoying doing this, stickinghis fingers in Fraser's ass. And no question that Fraser likedhaving it done to him; no, he didn't have to wonder a bit aboutthat, but his reaction made it seem like *something* was new."Fraser?"

A long pause, while Fraser swallowed hard and dropped his chinenough to look at Ray. Ray's fingers twitched at the look onFraser's face. He was, like, *gone*, eyes wide open and hungry,his mouth opening and closing, like he was trying to talk, buthad forgotten how. Holy shit. *He'd* made Fraser look like that.

"She didn't have... the advantage... of your...oooohhhh... long fingers," Fraser managed jerkily.

Ray jerked a little himself at that, stabbing his fingersinward accidentally, and Fraser flinched. "Sorry,sorry," Ray said, spreading his other hand on Fraser'sstomach and rubbing in little circles, while he withdrew hisfingers just a bit and went back to the stroking thing he'd justlearned.

"You let a woman do this to you?" he asked, tryingto decide if that was any worse than letting him do it. Kinkier,for sure, in a weird way. Men who liked men only had so manyoptions, but a man with a woman... well, put it this way -- intwenty years of doing Stella, he'd never had her fingers up hisbutt.

"I would have let her do anything," Fraser murmured,drawing Ray's attention back.

Okay, yeah, he'd been there. Probably if Stella had *wanted*to put her manicured nails up his backside, he'd have let her.But... wait a sec... hadn't he just spent like an hour wrappinghis brain around the idea that Fraser, poster child for manly menof the great outdoors, was... geez, what was the sensitivitytraining phrase of the week? He settled on gay, which didn'treally seem to describe Fraser particularly well, but he couldn'tcome up with an alternative that wouldn't get him a slap on thewrist if he said it out loud in the station.

He probably shouldn't ask. Fraser hadn't asked him anything.But they were here, and Fraser was about as open (God, in allkinds of ways) as he'd ever seen him, so...

"You like women, too?" he asked.

"Just one woman," Fraser gasped, and Ray could seehim sliding back toward his little pleasure zone. "I lovedone woman."

Just one woman. Just like him. Maybe he and Fraser had more incommon than he thought.

"Scarred you for life, huh?" Ray asked, and hethought he heard a low, almost bitter laugh from the writhing,sweaty, panting man he had skewered.

"In a manner of speaking," Fraser said quietly, andit looked like he might pull back, which Ray didn't really want,because, hey, he'd gotten this far, right? So Ray leaned upfurther, almost sitting up, with Fraser pretty much sitting inhis lap, reached for one of Fraser's nipples and bit down on itlightly. Yeah, that did it. There went the writhing, and with aswipe of Ray's tongue, there went the panting again. But hisbrain wouldn't turn off, had to know more, even as his bodyturned itself right on, revving up in the face of the lustfactor; funny how it worked like that.

"So you loved... uh... one woman," Ray persisted. "What about men? Have you loved any men?"

It wasn't any of his business, he knew that; but then hewouldn't have thought what Fraser felt like from the inside wasany of his business either, so he decided all normal bets wereoff for the duration of... whatever it was they were doing here,and besides, he really wanted to know. Fraser was like his ownlittle island, and Ray was suddenly really curious to know if anyships had ever docked there.

"I... oh, Ray, I... only ones I can't have," Fraserblurted out, then Ray guessed Fraser'd had enough of that topic,because he lifted Ray's head, latched onto his mouth and wipedevery unspoken word out with his tongue.

What a weird, connected circle: his fingers, stroking deep upinside Fraser, using every bit of technique he'd ever learnedfrom Stella and trying it out on Fraser; and Fraser's tongue,stroking deep inside Ray's mouth. Felt like Fraser was talking tohim, giving him instructions with his tongue -- how fast to go,how hard. Kind of nice, getting it in code like that.

That tongue felt... damn good.

Rough, and not shy at all. No, not at all. In fact, once hehad his clothes off, Fraser was just not at all like he looked --kind of starchy and stiff. Well, okay, he'd give him the stiffpart; at least *part* of him was stiff. But Fraser was *into* it,into what he was doing to him, and so if you'd asked him a day ortwo earlier if he'd have thought what he was doing was gross,he'd have said hell, yeah, but now that he was *doing* it, andseeing how much Fraser liked it, and feeling how much Fraserliked it...

He decided Fraser could definitely walk and chew gum at thesame time, because somehow, he managed to keep one rhythm goingin Ray's mouth, a different, counterpoint rhythm to his hips onRay's penetrating fingers, and yet a third in the strong grip ofhis hand on Ray's dick, which was good because he'd been about toask for it, and he didn't really know how.

It wasn't even that gross, when, a couple of heart-poundingminutes later, Fraser arched his back, groaned out loud and cameon him, scorched him down without Ray ever touching his dick.Kind of amazing, watching that happen. Hadn't ever seen it fromquite that angle before, hadn't ever made somebody else feelquite that good, he didn't think.

His mind was still working on that when Fraser surprised himand pulled off his fingers. He maneuvered his way down Ray'sbody, and before Ray could even take a deep breath, he'd tuggedRay's dick into his mouth. The first lick told Ray last nighthadn't been a fluke. It wasn't just the novelty of it that madehim shudder when Fraser licked right *there*. Goosebumps don'tlie, and Ray had them from head to foot, everywhere except hisdick, which was happily, easily, enthusiastically thrusting intothe furnace of Fraser's mouth.

Human nature being what it was, and morning woodys being whatthey were, and Fraser's tongue being... Fraser's tongue... itdidn't take long. Three licks around the head, three swipes upthat vein underneath and a couple of strong sucks, and Fraser gothis morning dose of protein right there in the bed.

Swallowed it like syrup.

Stella'd never swallowed.

Not even once.

Fraser'd done it twice in twelve hours.

Fraser let him go with one last little dick-tingling lick andput his head down on Ray's stomach. They were breathing likethey'd just chased a suspect five miles, the whole room reeked of sex, and Ray felt better than he had in one year, three months,and twelve days.

After a minute or two, Ray worked up the energy to put hishand in Fraser's hair and shook him a little, wanting to tell himhow much he'd appreciated that, but Fraser didn't move. Fraserhad conked right out, with his hand still holding Ray's dick likea wet security blanket.

God, what a totally guy thing to do.

Get off and then drop off.

It made Ray smile. Yet another plus to sex with a man -- youdidn't have to apologize for sprawling unconscious thirty secondsafter you were done. No having to explain that that's just whatmen *do*.

Ray glanced at the clock. They had another good forty-fiveminutes before they had to get up. Let the man sleep. He decidedhe could do with another little nap himself. He closed his eyes,let his fingers stay trapped in the silk of Fraser's hair, andtried to go back to sleep.

Forget sheep; he'd just count his lucky stars.

***************************************

A new day.

A new Ray.

The man sitting across the kitchen table from him stirringchocolate candies one by one into a mug of coffee bore littleresemblance to the tight-faced, shoulders-hunched man who'd lefthim outside the club the night before. The habitual squint wasgone, leaving Ray's bright blue eyes wide open and... beautiful.The tight lines at the side of his mouth smoothed out to nothingwhen he smiled.

He looked... as if he'd finally had a good meal. As if he'dliterally been starving for touch, and Fraser had fed him. Hehoped Ray would let him continue to feed that need, but he'd makeno assumptions. No, he would wait for Ray, take his signals fromhim. Whatever Ray wanted, that's what he would do. In themeantime, he would focus his own energies on convincing himselfthat yes, all that had just happened; he hadn't imagined it.Dreamed it.

So far, there'd been little in the way of clues from Rayregarding how he felt about the precipitous change in theirrelationship. When the alarm had gone off, Ray had just pulledhimself away from all the places they were stuck together andpushed Fraser toward the bathroom, mumbling, "G'head, needcoffee."

Cold water on Fraser's face and hot water on the rest of himhad revived him, and he sent up quick heartfelt thanks to Ray forbringing him his slightly wrinkled uniform. He couldn't haveimagined walking out into the sunlit living room... naked...

Not in the daylight.

Not without a... reason.

Not that there had ever been a *reason*, per se... Not thatthat seemed to have stopped him.

The comforting habit of buttoning this, lacing that, bucklingdown, and strapping on had gone a long way toward restoring hissense of balance. Clothed, he felt more like himself again. Thefamiliar self, anyway. Not the self who had begged for Ray'sfingers inside him. Not the self who just grabbed at what hewanted, like a dog at a bone.

He hardly knew that person.

Although Ray hadn't seemed... displeased... to meet him. Onthe contrary -- Ray had given every appearance of taking himsurprisingly in stride.

Ray had greeted him in the kitchen with a grunt. He'd dressedin another pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and stood leaningagainst the counter, fingers drumming impatiently while he waitedfor water to heat. He'd poured Fraser a bowl of slightly stale,shockingly sweet cereal that Diefenbaker would probably haveloved but that made Fraser's teeth tingle, and poured milk overit after sticking his nose into the carton and taking a good longwhiff.

Now they sat, Fraser politely trying to choke down a fewspoonfuls of cereal, Ray stirring his coffee. The silence held noparticular tension, for which Fraser was grateful. It gave himtime to try to formulate possible answers to the questions hecould almost watch forming on Ray's face. The more coffee Raydrank, the more awake he seemed, and the more likely it was thatthis precious quiet time would come to an end. Two cups and ahandful of chocolate later, Fraser could see the synapses ofRay's quicksilver mind start to fire, and mentally bracedhimself.

"So," Ray said, more hesitant than Fraser hadexpected. "Um, you must be missing Vecchio pretty bad."

Fraser dropped his spoon, splashing milk on the table. Raytossed him a napkin, and he mopped up the spill. Of all thethings he'd prepared himself for, that wasn't one of them.

"Excuse me?" was the best he could do on shortnotice.

Ray took another sip of coffee, then put his elbows on thetable and leaned forward. "You said something about onlywanting guys you can't have --"

*Love*. He'd answered a question about *love.*

"--and you sure can't have Vecchio, cuz he's not here,and I know how tight you guys were; everybody said so... so Iadded two and two --"

"And came up with six," Fraser interrupted.

Ray's mouth snapped shut, then opened again with,"Huh?"

Not quite so awake after all. He'd have to speak slowly, makesure Ray understood every word.

"Ray Vecchio is a good man," Fraser said. "Andan excellent cop. I was proud to be his partner, and glad to behis friend, but there was never anything more than that betweenus. I never wanted there to be."

Ray looked surprised. Why would that surprise him? Did hereally think...

"You're not a substitute, Ray," he said quietly. Raycocked his head at him. "Not here. Not with this."

Ray looked at him steadily for a minute, then nodded.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

Fraser shored up his mental defenses again. The conversationfelt like walking across an ice field, littered with unexpectedrough spots and hidden crevices. "Of course."

"Had it been a long time for you? You know, since you..." Ray floundered. Understandable.

"Since I did anything more than... cope?" Fraseranswered, and earned a bark of laughter from Ray.

"Yeah, that," Ray said.

Fraser rubbed his eyebrow. "Over a year," headmitted.

"Yeah, me, too," Ray said, then added, "Stella.Duh."

Even though Ray hadn't asked, Fraser offered in return,"The woman who... with her fingers... that was the last timefor me." His face grew hot, and he quelled himself with anenormous bite of crunchy- sugary awfulness.

The smile that Ray had worn off and on throughout the morningdisappeared, showing those tense lines again around his mouth."She leave you? Or you leave her?"

"She left me. It was... complicated," Fraser said.

"Yeah, I hear that," Ray said. "And then, what,she turned you? You woke up one morning and decided 'I know --guys!' or something? Now why didn't I think of that?"

Fraser squirmed a little in his wrinkled uniform. Two options:honesty or prevarication. He settled for a mixture of the two."It's not that simple, Ray."

Ray stood and reached for his half-empty bowl, then went tothe sink to wash the dishes. "I guess not. But guys are...easier, right? It's different."

Here was another chance to tell Ray how little he actuallyknew of such things, how his heart had only taken him to doors hecouldn't enter. Another risk that Ray would see just howcomplicated this was for him, being with him like this. He wasn'tready for that.

"I don't think I know enough to say," he finallysaid.

Ray looked at him over his shoulder and flicked water on him."Come on, Fraser, don't give me that Mountie run-around.Just tell me."

Fraser took a deep breath and found a truth he could sayeasily enough. "Every person is different, Ray."

Ray turned off the faucet and spun around, wiping his hands ona towel. "But come on, you've got to admit it's easier toknow what men are looking for. I mean, women... God, you neverknow what they *want*."

His own experience had taught him that it wasn't easy to knowwhat *anyone* was looking for, man or woman, but he found himselfagreeing. "I do think," he said slowly, "that mentend to be more... straight- forward." Ray nodded firmly, asif Fraser had confirmed something he'd thought all along.

Before Fraser could continue, Ray took a look at the clock onthe stove and said, "Shit, I gotta get a shower or I'm gonnabe late. I'll drop you at the Consulate on my way in, okay?"

"That's fine, Ray," Fraser said, wondering if theywould leave things in this... limbo.

Ray turned when he got to the doorway, then shifted from onefoot to the other, obviously uncomfortable. Fraser waited aspatiently as he could, but he could feel his toes tapping insidehis boot, a small outlet for a whole body's worth ofanticipation.

"Was this, uh, was this a one-time thing? I know guys...do that... sometimes. I know that," Ray stuttered.

Fraser sucked in a breath and felt another flush creep up fromthe collar of his uniform. "It can be whatever you want itto be, Ray," he answered.

The smile flashed again. "Okay," Ray said easily,and disappeared from view.

Okay? What did *that* mean?

They didn't touch on the topic again until Ray pulled upoutside the Consulate, where Fraser had exactly twenty-threeminutes to get into a clean, pressed uniform, feed Diefenbaker,gather the day's mail, and prepare Inspector Thatcher's morningcup of Earl Grey.

Ray put the gear in park and tapped his fingers on thesteering wheel. He coughed once, then said, staring out thewindshield, "Um, thanks, Fraser. That was a... well, thatwas a really long year. Plus some."

"As I'm sure you could tell, Ray, it was entirely mypleasure," Fraser said, staring out at the hood with thesame degree of fascination.

"And you... it's okay? Doing this like this?"

"I'm not sure--"

"It just seems real simple, Fraser, you know, like *not*complicated for once. I mean, it's *you*, right? I know you. Justnow I know you better than before," Ray said, his wordsalmost tripping over themselves.

"Considerably," Fraser said, thinking what a vastunderstatement that was.

"Yeah." A beat of silence, then two, and then Raysaid, "So, we're cool?"

He knew what Ray meant. He'd been quite clear about hisromantic motivations. He had none. No aspirations. No intentions.No hopes. Ray and love were... quits. There was little room fornegotiation or interpretation there. What they had was simply anextension of the yin and yang of their working relationship,taken to new, delightful levels. Nothing more. There could benothing more.

He repeated it once, for good measure. There would be nothingmore.

It would be enough for him.

It would have to be.

He would *make* it be enough.

"We're... we are indeed cool," he said after aminute, and beside him, Ray exhaled slowly, as if he'd beenholding his breath waiting for the answer.

"I'll see you after work, at the station, okay?" wasall he said, though, and after agreeing Fraser got out of thecar. He watched Ray's car disappear from view, feeling as if he'dleft a dream world behind, then turned and went inside theConsulate, where the real world would no longer wait.

***************************************

He'd better watch it.

He'd better shake off the haze and buckle down and pay someattention, that much was clear. Because he'd been at his deskfive minutes tops when he realized that Huey was staring at him,and that made no sense until he realized he was humming --something he used to do, all the time, actually, but not here.Not lately.

Not since the Good Old Days with Stella. Man, it *had* been along time, hadn't it? He used to sing in the shower, hum at thebreakfast table, dance on the stairs. Christ, what a loser. Toodumb to know it was all going to go splat one day; humming"Stella By Starlight" on the way to work every day likelove conquered all and all that crap.

That was before he got his teeth kicked in and his nuts tiedup in knots and Stella by any light at all had lost her glow.

Yeah, it had been a hell of a long time since he'd felt likehumming.

Not that this was the same thing. No, this wasn't like *that*."Fraser by Starlight" just didn't sing with the samekind of swing. This was just...

"Song," he mumbled towards Huey's squint, "onthe radio. This morning. Coming... driving in." He madehimself stop there, because since fucking *when* did he everexplain himself to Huey? Might as well be wearing a goddamnsandwich board: 'End of the World Must be Here, 'Cuz I Just GotLaid'.

Fuck.

And it was all up and down from there. Up: he *had* justgotten laid. Had, in fact, pretty much come his brains out. Therewas nothing like it in the world -- nothing like it to put alittle extra bounce in his step, mellow him right out and makehim prone to smiling at nothing. Down: bouncing and mellow andsmiling was *not* what people expected of him. So he had to keepthat under wraps, or people might start wondering, and wonderingled to asking. And asking would be bad.

Up: guys were different. He and Stella had always had a goodtime in bed, no problem, but all of that stuff seemed lessimportant than the rest of it -- all the little questions thatadded up to one *big* question: did he have what it took to keepher happy? And the answer to that one had been clear enough. Butapparently, all Fraser needed to be happy was... Ray, naked andwilling to feel good. And it didn't get any easier than that.

But... Down: guys were... guys. That was such a loaded truththat he couldn't look at it for long -- if he paid too muchattention to that, he'd lose his happy thoughts and come rightdown off the ceiling, and start thinking about what he might doif Fraser wanted him to put any other... parts... up his ass, orwhat parts Fraser might want to put in *his* ass, and then it'dbe everybody out of the pool. So he pushed it away, but itwouldn't really stay gone. Kept sneaking up on him when he didn'texpect it.

Up. Down. Up. He rode the rollercoaster all day until he foundhimself watching the clock as it edged closer to the time Fraserwas due, and made himself stop. No point in it, when he couldn'tdecide whether to be freaked out about it, or glad about it, orif maybe it was just no big deal.

The third time his pen went sailing off across the roombecause he was fiddling with it nervously rather than actuallyworking, he jumped up from his desk and went to the bathroom,determined to try to pull himself into some version of normal.

He could do that. He could take where he was and bring normalright into it; he could get himself there. Normal would be betterthan down- up-down. An even keel would be a good thing rightabout now. Right. All he needed to do was figure out what the fuck 'normal' was.

While he washed his hands and splashed water on his face, hetried to break it all down into pieces, like clues from a crimescene. Normal, with Fraser, was good -- getting stuff done,eating together, talking. Up, with Fraser, was... God, the sexwas a *big* up. Down, with Fraser, was... well, worrying aboutstuff that hadn't happened yet, that might not ever happen, whatdid he know? Besides, he was a big boy; he could always open hismouth and say 'no', right?

He ignored the little voice inside that poked him and told him how 'no' hadn't been part of his vocabulary when Fraser wassucking him like a Hoover.

Hard to say no to *that*. Still, didn't mean there had to beany serious butt-pirating going on, did it? No. That wasn't...normal. He wasn't up for that. No way he was down with that.

So.

They'd keep things normal as they could, work like they alwaysdid. They could make this work. They could keep the ups *up*without jumbling the mix; he felt pretty good about that. Goodenough to hum a little on his way out of the men's room.

He'd have fun with Fraser, and be partners and buddies and goahead and let stuff happen... to a point. Stay in the safe zone,draw a little line. Keep it fun. Stop worrying about what mightor might not happen, because, well, that decision's already beenmade. Just the fun stuff, the safe stuff. *That* was normal,right there.

Keep it in the safe zone.

Fraser could probably get behind that.

And that little bathroom break seemed to do him some good,because he stopped clock-watching and started doing some actualpolice-type work, and time passed faster than he'd thought itwould. So when he heard, "Hello, Ray" coming fromsomewhere in front of his desk, it startled him. Startled himhard, in fact, and though surprise didn't usually give him a hard-on, today was a day for firsts, and there was another one.

Just meant he wasn't going to be polite and stand up to greetthe man. No point advertising.

"Hey," he said, waving his hand at the chair infront of his desk. "Have a seat."

Fraser settled across from him, looking like... normal.Perfect, in other words. Pressed suit. Combed hair. Posture likea girl with a book on her head. Worlds away from sweaty, nakedFraser, with his swollen up mouth and his sleepy eyes. You'dnever know to look at him. Never know what was simmering there,just under the surface. All it would take was one hand --unbuttoning his jacket, reaching down his pants -- and he bet hecould have that Fraser back.

Christ.

So much for the even keel concept.

He blinked at Fraser, then scooted his chair further under hisdesk, hiding himself from the waist down. Fraser could probablytell by looking at his face, but nobody else knew him as wellas... Fraser did.

Now his ears felt pink. Fucking great. How was he supposed towork like this? How would they ever get anything done? Thisdidn't feel anywhere *close* to normal. He tapped his pen on thepapers in front of him, drawing Fraser's eyes to the desk.

"Any news from the robbery at the club?" Fraserasked. The question was normal enough, sure, but Fraser didn'tsound quite like his normal self, and that actually somehow madehim feel a little more steady.

Robbery. Right. Ray shuffled through the folders on his desk.He'd read that; he knew he had. In one eye, out the other.

"Um, yeah," he said, his fingers finally lighting onthe right file. "We're interviewing witnesses againtomorrow. The DJ thinks he can describe one of them."

"That's good news," Fraser said.

"Yeah," Ray replied, and then couldn't think ofanything else to say.

Fraser just sat and looked at him, and as Ray watched, hisears got pink, too. Yeah, he wasn't the only one having aproblem. But that was okay. That was actually... good.

And maybe that was normal, too. Maybe it was too much toexpect them to just sit there and pretend they hadn't slobberedall over each other.

Maybe he needed to come up with some new definitions ofnormal. Either that, or they needed to get way over themselvesand just *deal*.

"How 'bout you? How's things at the Consulate?" Rayasked.

"Fine," Fraser said.

Stiff. God, they were stiff together. He was searching foranother line to throw when Fraser leaned infinitesimally closerand said, "I found myself... distracted... from mywork."

Under the desk, Ray's dick throbbed. Status there: normal.

"Yeah?" Ray asked, and was surprised to hear hisvoice crack.

"Yes," Fraser said slowly. "I kept wonderinghow things were coming along... here."

The case. He was talking about the case. If Huey werelistening in -- which he wouldn't be, cuz why would he? -- that'swhat he'd think. Welsh wouldn't think a thing hearing theirlittle conversation.

But Ray *knew* what Fraser meant.

Nobody knew Fraser like... he did.

He reached for his jacket, shouldering it on and buttoning itbefore he pushed back his chair and stood.

"Let's get out of here," he said."Dinner."

Fraser stood when he did and said, "Indeed," and Raywondered for one knee-wobbling moment if maybe Fraser could*smell* it on him -- excitement, nervousness, all of it. Probablynot, it was probably just a stupid thought, but it stuck. . Hewaved Fraser ahead of him, willing his body to cooperate longenough to get out of the station and into the car. From there, hefigured he was safe.

Safe. Keeping things safe. They didn't have to go any fartherthan he wanted to; Fraser had said so. What had he said? Right,right. It could be whatever Ray wanted it to be. So that probablymeant it *didn't* have to be whatever he *didn't* want it to be,either.

Keep cool. Keep safe. You don't have to do anything you don'twant to do.

He repeated the mantra under his breath as he followed Fraserout the door, stopping halfway to adjust the bulge reforming inhis pants.

***************************************

"Anything..." Ray panted, his body twisting in themidst of the rumpled, damp sheets. "Anything, Fraser,just... do something."

Fraser drew in a deep breath. Oh, but Ray didn't... *couldn't*mean that.

After all, there had been a certain level of reserve toovercome. Ray had appeared remarkably calm, self-contained, allevening. Through an unhurried dinner and over a surprisinglylucid conversation about the night club robbery and several othercases, Ray had seemed much like his usual self -- a littlefrenetic, darting from subject to subject as if reading aconversational map upside down -- but seemingly normal. Fraserhad mostly listened, nodding from time to time, answering anydirect question, but willing to follow Ray's lead.

He hadn't asked the one question that burned in his mind,searching every nuance instead for some subtle clue to an answer-- and finding none that he could interpret with any certainty.He couldn't bring himself to ask if Ray still wanted what he'dwanted before -- their conversation this morning had pointed inone direction, but Ray'd had an entire day to reflect on it sincethen, an entire day to allow any possible regrets to develop. Andit was entirely possible that Ray might be indecisive, in whichcase Fraser actually *asking* the question might very well tipthe balance.

So he didn't ask. He just let Ray talk about what had,amazingly, for him, become trivialities, and did his best torespond appropriately.

In a way, being able to speak so easily of ordinary things wasa relief. He wasn't sure one night of satiation would have beenworth the price if Ray had balked, backed up, or any of the otherthings Fraser had worried about during the interminable day, whenhe wasn't sweating inside his uniform remembering all the thingsthey had done together that might *cause* Ray to reconsidertheir... liaison. He'd spent much of the day in a fog, hisusually focused mind blurred with images, remembered sounds, hissenses still swimming at the slightest reminder of the eveningbefore.

So at least he had the consolation of knowing that, even ifRay didn't wish to continue their physical intimacy, at leastthey could have this. This partnership. And that was somethinghe'd never esteem lightly.

He forced down his food, more for the energy it would give himthan any appreciation of the flavor. Lingering uncertainty overthe next step they might or might not take plagued him, and kepthim from bringing up anything even remotely personal, even afterthey returned to Ray's apartment.

Even after Ray invited him to take off his jacket. And hisboots. And his socks.

Even then, it was likely that Fraser wouldn't have initiated*anything* were it not for the fact that Ray's attention keptwandering from the basketball game they were ostensibly watching;were it not for the fact that it had finally been absolutelyclear that Ray was erect inside his jeans.

And still, there were doubts. Perhaps there were questions heshould have asked, that should have been asked when they werestill clothed, but in the moment all he'd been aware of was thefact that Ray wanted to be touched. To touch. Ray... wanted. Ray hadn't played coy. Ray had, once again... responded.

All it took was turning his body, turning towards Ray, atentative, careful encroachment into the space polite people keptsacred. He turned and leaned, and Ray mirrored him, leaning rightas Fraser leaned left, and just that easily, their mouths hadcome together, fitting like a tongue in a groove. Just that fast,Fraser left behind the complex mesh of doubts and dove headfirst,straight through heart- poundingly intense relief and on into yetanother of his daydreams -- Ray, moaning into his mouth, hishands reaching for Fraser's head, tilting him to the angle hewanted, stroking deep in Fraser's mouth with his tongue, pantinginto his mouth. Just one kiss. Just one, which had led to two,then three, until Fraser had all the answer he could have wantedand couldn't tell where one kiss ended and another began, and Rayonly broke away to protest the lack of maneuvering room on thecouch.

Which had brought them here, to Ray's bed, for the secondnight in a row. Which had brought Ray against him like awhirlwind of fevered touches and half-heard whispers of urgency.A nearly overwhelming onslaught of desire, under which all of hisown uncertainty seemed to have eroded as if it were nothing morethan an evanescent qualm.

It was tempting to satisfy Ray quickly, to ease that blatanthunger with all the skill and expediency at his disposal. Itproved to be *more* tempting, however, to draw things out, toallow himself the pleasure of experiencing Ray's hunger as hisown. And so he indulged his craving for the touch, taste, andscent of Ray without allowing either one of them release, whichhad led to his current predicament.

"Fraser..." There was nothing, in either hisexperience or the realm of fantasy, to adequately brace him forthis -- Ray, dissolute and imploring, wearing nothing but his ownsweat-moist skin as he writhed salaciously against the sheets.Such abandon immediately ushered in a host of thoughts of what he*could* do, if he dared, and a deep shudder gripped him. Oh no.Not that. He couldn't ask that of Ray. Not in his current state.

"I'm *dying* here, Fraser--"

Fraser shivered again, staring at the flushed length of Ray'serection. No, not that. But perhaps... he could ask... he couldtake... just a little?

"You should try to slow your breathing, Ray," hesaid, amazed at how even his voice sounded. "After all,hyperventilation isn't--"

"Fuck that," Ray snapped. "I've got a woody Icould use for a hammer and I'm ready to go hump a greasedknothole, and I *will* if you don't... don't... ooh. Oh..."

Ray's erection was still wet from being well-licked earlier.Fraser's hand slid and gripped there easily while he loweredhimself down Ray's body, moving between his thighs, and histongue skimmed lower, seeking and teasing, lower, and lower stilluntil Ray stiffened underneath him, hands grasping urgently athis hair. "You can't... Fraser... don't, that's gross...stop it," he panted, but Fraser kept going, relentless,ignoring the sting of Ray's hands yanking at his hair inuncoordinated jerks. He stayed where he was, holding Ray open,sampling, licking softly until Ray relaxed abruptly under histouch, his hands going lax in Fraser's hair, and he heardwhimpers issue from above: "Jesus, okay, okay, don't stop,ummm, do *not* stop that." Then he lapped at him with thebroad flat of his tongue until Ray cried out and bucked wildly,sighing a broken stream of 'yeah's as Fraser reveled in the factthat yes, even this intimate caress could be accepted; was, infact, welcome.

There was an edge to this, something dangerously sensual thattingled through him as he fluttered his tongue against twitchingmuscle. Ray's wantonness was an addictive thing, an unexpectedand nearly shocking freedom that was... compelling, utterly so;and therefore a threat to whatever poor command he might haveover his own desires.

His self-discipline seemed to have met its match in Ray'ssurrender. He couldn't think of another word that fit more aptly.Ray, despite his superficial reserve, and the time he took eatingdessert, and the questions he'd asked about their cases, and theagonizing minutes he'd spent watching basketball, went up in hisarms like a flame at the first touch. Wherever Fraser took him,he... went. Willingly. Openly. Kisses and touches were acceptedand returned as they relearned the territory discovered sorecently. The luxury of being horizontal, the room to stretch andbreathe, the ease of already knowing some of what Ray wanted...it all made him want *more*.

He wanted... everything.

Unacceptable. To risk that was to risk... everything. Therehad to be a line, a boundary firmly drawn, and he would have tocount on his own sense of discipline not to violate it. This farand no further. No further than this.

"Oh fuck... Fraser..." Ray's voice was low, roughwith lust, and Fraser felt the erection in his grasp throbfiercely. Ray's hips lifted and sank in rhythm, seeking, wantingtwo things at once, a silent plea for more, and Fraser admonishedhimself to go *no further*.

...Until he *felt* Ray start to come. And then he completely,unquestionably, failed.

He breached Ray's body with his tongue, thrusting in as deeplyas he could and using all his strength to hold Ray still becauseRay went wild, groaning out something that sounded like a potentcombination of astonishment and ecstasy, gasping, blissfulsurprise that made Fraser's heart pound in his chest. He held Raythrough it, slowed the strokes of his hand gradually until Raymerely twitched, and then gently withdrew, easing back onto hisknees.

Ray looked... conflicted; entirely enervated and drenched insweat and semen, yet glaring at him balefully, as if somehow thecircumstances were all *his* fault. "You," Ray started,but then had to stop for oxygen replenishment.

"Yes, Ray." He kept his voice as level as he could.If he'd... gone too far, if he'd transgressed, he'd need all thelevelness he could muster.

A deep, deep breath. "You just teased the *fuck* out ofme, Fraser."

Ah. Well, that was rather... undeniable. Muscles he hadn'tknown were tense abruptly relaxed. "Yes. Yes, I suppose Idid."

Ray drew one arm across his sweaty forehead, and sighed."You're in big trouble, Fraser."

Truly dismaying, the lack of control he seemed to have here.He *shouldn't* be smiling at that, and yet, it was impossible notto. "Am I?"

"Oh yeah." Ray made a spasmodic attempt to sit up,then flopped back down onto the bed and went back to glaring."Oh. Yeah. As soon as I can move, I'm gonna give you theworld's most amateur blowjob. Trust me, you'll be sorry."

The fact of Ray's novice status was nowhere near sufficient tokeep Fraser from swallowing convulsively at that. His face grewhot. "Ray, that's... I'm sure you... there isn't any--"

"Don't try to sweet-talk me, Fraser," Rayinterrupted, levering himself up slowly to a kneeling position,his head lowered threateningly. "You made, uh, that is...you made me come in my bed and now you have to lie in it, how'sthat?"

He was still trying to formulate the best possible response tothat when Ray jumped him.

Amateur, yes. But there was something achingly sweet aboutthat, about the clumsiness of his mouth, about the way he triedto swallow him whole before coughing him back up, about theenthusiasm he brought to bear in place of experience. In fact,that enthusiasm quite effectively undid Fraser, more than anycommensurate amount of experience ever could have.

It was as if, once Ray had decided to jump in, there seemed tobe no point in only going halfway. Of course, that shouldn't havesurprised him -- no, with Ray there were no half measures. Atleast not in this. Ray, for all he protected his heart, seemed tohave placed no such limits on his body. He responded toeverything Fraser did; if not whole-heartedly, then whole-bodily.

And in return, Fraser clamped down on the things he wantedthat he couldn't have. It took effort, yes, but he'd hadpractice.

Years of practice.

He loosened the noose of control only at the very last minute,gasping out a warning that Ray heeded -- proving that, even if hewasn't an especially quick study, at least he was a goodlistener. Fraser spared him the decision of whether to spit orswallow, and only gave in to his urges for the briefest ofmoments: holding Ray's head close to him, feeling stubble scourthe skin of his hip, petting and petting and petting that softhead and letting all the words drift loosely through his mindthat he couldn't possibly allow from his mouth.

Instead, only a mopping up process was required, which Rayprovided with more nudges and choking laughter and comments aboutwhere in the hell he'd been storing all that, and didn't he knowit was bad for his testicles not to get some relief now and then?

Fraser had just stretched, and yawned, his body utterlyunaccustomed to pleasure and satisfaction two days in a row. Itwore him out.

When Ray dropped back down beside him, Fraser reached for himinstinctively, drawing him close as he had the night before,turning so they lay chest to chest, arms finding comfortablespots to rest, legs twined together. He breathed Ray in -- thelingering scent of their mutual arousal, the muted smells of soapand shave cream. Things he had never known he was missing waftedinto his nose and buried themselves deep inside. Into the softdown of his drowsiness came a moment's sharp thought: was itbetter to know or not? Better to have experienced this...connection... once and live on its memory, or would it have beenbetter to never know, and therefore never have the need to missit?

It seemed too harsh a thought to survive the warmth embracingthem, and Fraser pushed it aside by pulling Ray closer, buryinghis face in Ray's throat. Ray drew back briefly, then put a handon the back of his neck and held him there, as if that had beenwhere he'd wanted Fraser's head all along.

"This is...this is good, Fraser," Ray murmured.

Fraser didn't answer. Couldn't, over the sudden tightness inhis throat, so he nodded, knowing Ray would feel it.

"What you did, you know, with your tongue?" Ray saidquietly.

"Yes, Ray, I'm sorry, I know you said to stop, butI--" Fraser stammered, only to be cut off by Ray's voice,low and rough.

"I never felt anything like that. Ever. But... I mean,*there*? You really *like* that?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," Fraser said firmly. He would have raisedhis head then, the better to gauge Ray's true reactions, but Raywouldn't let him. Ray pressed his head firmly into his neck, andFraser subsided eventually.

"I spent the whole day worrying about how to make thisnormal," Ray said after a minute. "But that was... thatwasn't normal, Fraser."

Oh, how he longed to see Ray's face. There was no accusationin Ray's tone. No censure. Just astonishment... and wonder.Still, he knew abnormal wasn't generally considered a goal tostrive for, so he apologized one more time.

"Ray, I didn't mean --" and once again, Ray shushedhim.

"No, hang on, Fraser. Don't split your seams," hesaid, shaping his hand to Fraser's skull. "I'm trying to saythat... I've been normal. I've done normal, and if what we'redoing isn't normal, then... I guess I don't want to be normalanymore." He paused, and Fraser felt his fingers movethrough his hair. A caress. A definite caress.

"This feels too good," Ray whispered.

Indeed. It felt too good. Too good to be real. Too good tolast.

Too good to just be the physical relationship Ray wanted andnothing more.

And too good to stop, he admitted, even as his heartprotested. He had, as was always his wont, succumbed to theallure of an unattainable man. The fact that Ray had opened hisdoor, and his arms, and his bed to Fraser did nothing to placatehis aching heart.

Stop, he admonished it. His heart always wanted more. Always.His heart never listened to his head.

Perhaps it would listen to his body, which seemed to beentirely in favor of continuing this... he had no name for it...of continuing until either Ray came to his senses, or he droveFraser out of his. Perhaps he could learn not to want so much.Perhaps that could be taught.

Ray seemed to have honed that particular skill; perhaps Raycould teach him.

***************************************

Two weeks now, doing a guy, and what had he learned?Newsflash: he liked blowjobs.

Getting 'em. Giving 'em.

Whatever.

Blowjob. Sucky-sucky. Playing the skinflute. Knees-bentzipperworship.

Any way you put it, it had always been something he'd had alot of enthusiasm for, something that had always perked him rightup in every sense of the word. A *good* thing. A 'buy me a lottoticket 'cuz this is my lucky day' kind of thing. The kind ofthing he could really get behind.

Until he had tried being on the other end of it, that is.

And it wasn't even the *doing it* part of doing it -- well,yes, the words 'safe zone' had floated through his mind, but hey,he'd figured, he'd have Fraser's dick in his *mouth*, how muchmore safe could he be? -- no, it wasn't putting Fraser's dick inhis mouth that was the hard part. It was what the hell he wassupposed to *do* with it once he had it there.

All of a sudden, every professional porno queen he'd ever seengobbling cock achieved the rank of 'major-league sports hero' inhis mind, once he really got a grip on what a fucking *challenge*it was. Of course, Fraser had been really good at it right out ofthe gate, but that was Fraser for you, anyway.

Who knew where Fraser had come by his know-how, but somebodyout there deserved a Teacher of the Year Award.

It just seemed... so *wrong*... to gag when you were downthere and doing it -- the times Stella had gagged he'd made herstop. And yeah, sure enough, Fraser had tried to make *him* stop,but... well, he might have his lips wrapped around a guy's dickbut he was no fucking *pussy* thank you very much, Fraser, andthis was... a personal challenge: Ray Kowalski vs. The One-EyedCanadian Monster.

He'd won that first bout. Barely. And been really, reallytempted to never risk a rematch.

But eventually of course he did, because he *liked* lickingFraser, and Fraser got off on being licked in a way that justrevved his motor like nobody's business, and getting revved up byhorny Fraser was turning into the best hobby he'd ever had. So afew days later he'd tried it again and hey -- whaddya know -- notso hard, that second time.

So he did it again, and again, night after night, and damn ifhe couldn't make Fraser come like a freight-train doing that,which was seriously cool. And somewhere around the fifth time hetried it something happened -- not just getting off on Fraser'sdesperate sounds anymore, or trying not to smile when Frasergrabbed the sheets so hard he thought they'd rip. Fraser hadcupped his head, so gently, not tight at all, and Ray held stilland let Fraser rock up into his mouth, over his tongue a little,and *wham*! Everything seemed to fit together just like *that*,and suddenly there was some connection between his mouth and hisdick that left him wide-throated, that had him humping the bedlike he couldn't stop.

He couldn't stop. Fraser came in his mouth, and he came on thesheets, and that was, like, a whole new thing and maybe it shouldhave freaked him out a little but *Jesus* it felt good, so in theend he blew off any questions he might have had about how hissafe zone was doing, and just let it ride.

And after that one thing led to another, the way stuff alwaysdid, and he followed his body and followed Fraser and every nightit got easier, and hotter, and finally one night Fraser let *him*ride -- splayed out on top of solid Mountie muscles in theclassic sixty-nine position (which turned out to be a hell of alot more classic when there wasn't a big height difference tobother with), giving as good as he got. Well, almost as good. Asgood as he could give, anyway.

The hardest thing was to stay still. The first time he'd triedit, it had taken his body about ten seconds to figure out thatFraser didn't seem to mind no matter how hard, or deep, or fasthe went, and that was un*fucking*believable, to lay there on topof Fraser and screw himself senseless in Fraser's hot, silkythroat, and he'd lasted probably fifteen seconds total.

Which was kind of embarrassing.

So the next time he stayed still, as still as he could, andtried to distract himself with all the nifty things he could dowith Fraser's equipment. Still, it seemed like Fraser had anunfair advantage -- some kind of weird Canadian politeness thing,probably: never come before your partner. And if he'd wanted tohear some long, boring lecture about voluntary and involuntaryreflexes, he would have asked. But he didn't. So he wouldn't.

But he did get the bright idea, while licking long swipes downthe length of Fraser's dick and trying to stay still, to maybe domore than just say a silent 'hello' to Fraser's ass on everyupstroke. So he got his fingers nice and wet and then put themwhere they'd do the most good, and -- wow, just like magic --Fraser went kind of quietly nuts and groaned in a way that Rayhoped wasn't a sound of suffocation, and sucked and bucked andwriggled and lifted both of them up off the bed and came onesplit second before Ray did. Victory.

And at last, a level playing field. Because Fraser neverpassed up a chance to tease him, or at least it felt that way,but Ray had long fingers and Fraser really appreciated it, lovedit, would go off just like a rocket if he was touched right, andso finally Ray had found it -- an evil secret weapon that evenSuperFraser couldn't withstand. Pretty goddamn cool.

They'd been messing around for a good solid two weeks, movingfrom one spine-tingling, I-can't-believe-I'm-doing-this thing toanother when, during another hornier-than-thou sixty-ninesession, Ray noticed the way Fraser's thighs just *quivered*every time his fingers pushed inside, the way Fraser's cockthrobbed against his tongue at the same moment, and withoutstopping to think he backed off, holding tight to Fraser's dickand talking into it like a microphone, wiggling his fingers andwatching Fraser twitch.

"Fraser?"

"Mmmf!" *Oooh, steady, Ray. That vibration does*not* mean 'let's get funky in Fraser's mouth', whatever it mightfeel like.*

Ray swallowed, held himself still, and licked the tip ofFraser's dick gently. Wiggled his fingers again. Heard Fraserpulling in urgent breath through his nose.

"Um... I think I wanna fuck you. Would that beokay?"

"*Mmmf*!!" Oh, *bad mistake*, there. Because he wasstill holding Fraser's dick right in front of his face, and whilehe'd gotten used to Fraser coming in his mouth (as weird as thatwas), Fraser coming in his *nose* and on his *chin* andpractically in his fucking *eye* was a real shock. He tried tosay something and couldn't, had to just roll away groping for asheet, a piece of clothing, anything to get this stuff off hisface, and then Fraser was there with a pillowcase and about azillion words of intense, horrified apology, and then there wasnothing else in the whole world he could do but *laugh*.

Hard. Hard as he could ever remember laughing.

And eventually, after about six billion more 'I'm so *sorry*,Ray!'s, Fraser joined in.

***************************************

If he'd ever been more mortified he couldn't remember theoccasion. Was, in fact, having trouble remembering much ofanything beyond the erotic blast of the previous few minutes. Hisworld, which had at one time encompassed a vast wilderness,seemed to have narrowed to the width of a queen-size bed.

Ray wouldn't let him retreat, wouldn't let him duck away andhibernate with his mortification. Ray, who, before Fraser hadreached for him in a moment of singular capitulation, had alwaysbeen so tense, so self- conscious, was now laughing helplessly,naked, his face dripping wet strings while he tried to controlhimself enough to clean up the mess Fraser had made.

A mess. A wonderful mess, but a mess nonetheless.

Fraser found himself laughing with him because, as with somany things with Ray, he couldn't help himself.

Yes, there was no other way to describe it. This was,indisputably, a mess.

Strange, he'd never thought of himself as an opportunisticindividual before. Of course, that had been before Ray...welcomed him, before providence or destiny or whatever served forfate in his life had so casually tossed him this complex gift. Somuch of everything he'd ever wanted, so close to fulfillment of ahundred closely guarded desires, blocked from perfection only bythe daily awareness that it might all be withdrawn at any moment.

That however easily Ray had bestowed that gift, it could justas easily be taken away.

He could clearly imagine dozens of scenarios, perhaps ahundred, which would necessitate the end of... this. So many, butone in particular haunted him, tinged with the dread ofinevitability. At the start of their physical relationship, Rayhad clearly stated his conviction that he was done with love, andwas therefore entirely unwilling to attempt another romanticalliance. However, experience indicated that Ray was a changeableindividual, moreover, that he was generous, prone to affection,and deeply, earthily physical. Those facts combined to suggest apowerful likelihood that Ray might see his... liaison with Fraseras a successful 'test run' -- as *proof* that he could maintain aphysical relationship without heading down whatever path had ledhim to disaster.

In essence, it seemed certain that, sooner or later, Ray wouldawaken to his own limitless opportunities. And while that was a*good* thing, it also meant the certain end of what had been themost wonderful, rewarding, contented period Fraser had everknown.

It went without saying that, in light of those thoughts, themost rational course of action would be for *him* to withdraw,perhaps with some carefully placed words of encouragement forRay, drawing his attention to the fact that, with such a generousheart and warm disposition, all things were possible. To call anend to it before he went any deeper into his own helplessattachment.

But of course he couldn't. Perhaps it would be prudent, but itwould also be nearly impossible -- the height of folly -- toimagine that he could give up one moment, one kiss, one touchwhich Ray might willingly offer him. A flat impossibility.

And so it was equally impossible to entertain the notion ofrefusing Ray anything he asked for -- including the casuallyworded request Ray had just made. Even though that act had takenon a talismanic, nearly legendary quality in his own mind -- theapex of his longings, of *connection*, something as deeplydesired for its intimacy as it was feared for its possiblerepercussions.

He would be... ruined, after that (not that he wasn't already,but like many things there was always a matter of *degree*),ruined for any hope of... solace. Eventual or otherwise.

All of which simply comprised another truth to bear, anotherwrinkle in the fabric of his existence which would never besmoothed away. A silent companion as he wiped Ray's face untilRay batted him away impatiently, as he kissed Ray soundly, as hehappily absorbed the shiver that resulted from bending to oneround ear and whispering the portion of truth he could part with.

"That would be *wonderful*, Ray."

***************************************

Apparently, he just wasn't cut out to be a safe zone kind ofguy.

Because the only thing that really seemed to hold hisattention as he rummaged in his bedside drawer for hand lotion,as he got Fraser nice and slicked-up and got himself as smearedas he could get without going over that ooh-that-feels-damn-fineedge, was the thought of how *good* this was gonna be.

So it was past that line he'd set -- so what? He'd come upwith that whole 'line' thing based on a stupid idea anyway: theidea that there might be *anything* he could do with Fraser thatmight not be what he wanted. But, as it turned out, *everything*he did with Fraser felt good, good, good, and now he'd get to trythis new thing, and he'd be willing to bet a year's pay that*this* was gonna be good too.

It was obvious (*really* obvious) that Fraser wanted it. And*he* wanted it. And so it would be good.

But none of that stopped him from wondering, even while he hadthree lotion-coated fingers as deep as they'd go in Fraser's ass,even though Fraser seemed pretty happy about it, pushing down onhis hand and getting -- oooh -- seriously into it; none of thatstopped him from wondering whether it might not... hurt. Like,maybe a *lot*.

Lotion or no lotion, three fingers were a tight fit. Waytight. That meant 'be careful', because the only other thing hecould do was wish that his cock was smaller, and that was, like,*sacrilege*. No way. So he'd just have to be careful.

"I'll... uh... be careful," he told Fraser. Just incase Fraser was worrying about it. But Fraser only nodded,panting and flushed, half- erect again already and spread out onhis back on the bed with that do- me-do-me-do-me look on his faceagain, waiting.

Waiting for him. To go ahead and... right.

Ray swallowed. Okay, so maybe he was a *little* nervous.

"I'll be careful..." that seemed like an importantthing, whether he was telling Fraser or himself, but then heleaned forward and felt Fraser's furnace-heat against him, andFraser's strong, solid legs wrapped around him and he could*feel* Fraser wanting this, lifting up for him, wanting it... andthis was the right thing to do, hold on, feel, point himselfstraight for where Fraser was hottest, and...

Push. So he pushed. A little. Fraser sighed, sweating now andso easy to slide against, easy, and relaxed, Ray felt him relax,and he thought he'd stopped pushing but apparently he hadn'tbecause hot-*hot*-tight- slippery suddenly squeezed him and hewas *inside*, at least halfway in, and gasping.

"Fraser --"

"Don't stop, Ray. Please. Just... don't."

So he didn't stop, and even though this was different his hipsremembered how to do this, this going *into* thing, and ohh, itjust didn't get any better than this, any better than snug insideand moving -- but then it did get better, three slow strokes andFraser was at full-mast, looking lost in it, looking wild andmessy and hot. And one more thrust, fast and hard this time and*just like that* Fraser lost it and shot all over their bellies,groaning so loudly it hurt his ears.

"Jesus, Fraser..." Ray pushed forward and stayedthere, trying hard not to think about Fraser coming twice beforehe came even once, or about Fraser coming just from being fucked,because if he thought about it he'd go off, and it might be niceif *one* of them had some kind of self-control.

The thing was, this had always been about... him, about taking-- a guilty kind of taking. Stella came when he went down on her,or when he was inside if he touched her just right and managed towait her out. And yeah, he'd always felt like a total studafterwards but it was nothing like *this*, like Fraser coming soeasy and shaking and moaning the roof down, and making him feellike he was the fucking *champion* of... of fucking, orsomething.

It was embarrassing and stupid, how much he got off on that,and his face burned -- more heat, more warmth when there wasalready so much, almost too much. The muscles in his arms werestarting to go weak and achy, everything in him just wanting himto give up, give in, let it go -- but he wouldn't, didn't. Andfrom somewhere he found the strength to hold himself up so thathe could keep on, thrusting again and half- crazy with it butkeeping on, focusing on the ache in his shoulders to keep himselfdistracted while he kept on... being a fucking champion. Oh yeah.

And Fraser wasn't exactly making it easy on him. Fraser hadsettled down to a steady, horny-sounding murmur in which Raycaught his name but not much else, and had gone back to thatdark-eyed Mysterious Stranger look, the one that meant he was*really* turned on. Thing was, though, that particular strangerhadn't really been much of a stranger anymore, considering whatthey'd been up to for the past couple of weeks; and now he wasn'ta stranger at all, what with the way Ray was doing his level bestto screw him through the mattress.

"Fraser." He said it just to say it, just to makesure it was all real. He found he couldn't stop, though, oncehe'd started, and boy, that seemed to be the story of his lifelately but... what the hell. "Fraser, Fraser,Fraser..." He kept it quiet, as quiet as he could, anyway.Eventually it stopped making sense to him, eventually it becamejust a sound, *the* sound, the sound of this, of where he was, ofall things good... hot... wonderful. His lips were numb withsaying it but that was okay because the rest of him felt *so*good, *so* fucking good.

"Harder, Ray." He couldn't answer that but shook hishead, no, not harder, no finish line, not yet, but Fraser'sthighs locked around him and gentle hands found his nipples,gentle at first and then harder, yes harder, he could *do* harderbecause he *had* to with wicked, electric pleasure shivering allover him like this -- fucking Fraser's tight, round ass just ashard as he fucking could.

His arms gave out, but that was okay because landing on Frasermeant that he had a shoulder, a neck to occupy his mouth with,something to sink his teeth into because he was making some*serious* noise now, seriously out of his mind embarrassingnoise. And when he bit down on Fraser's neck Fraser *heaved*under him and twisted his nipples one last time and that was it,he came howling like an animal, pushing and pulsing and shakingand coming *hard*, everything around him gone except... Fraser.

Fraser, who was whispering 'yes' and squeezing him andshuddering and maybe coming *again*, he couldn't tell. Jesus.

Ray kept his eyes closed until it was quiet, until his bodyfelt like a body and not a gazillion separate blissed-outmolecules. Then he kept them closed for a little longer, becausethat had been... intense, intense in a way he hadn't quiteexpected, and anyway there was no law against keeping his damn eyes closed, so he just did.

He kept them closed until his dick slipped slowly out ofFraser, and Fraser made some kind of deep sound in his throat,something that sounded almost like it was supposed to make sense--

But probably not, because Fraser was out, down for the count.Mumbling in his sleep. He did that a lot.

Okay, so some things hadn't changed. Ray had to smile at that.The smile stayed with him while he eased himself out of the bedand made his slow way towards the bathroom on legs that felt likenothing more than stretched-out pencil erasers, but then heswapped the smile for a wince while he cleaned up -- sensitive.Ow. Man, if *he* was sensitive, Fraser must be...

The smile came back to him when he wobbled into the bedroomagain, however. He decided Fraser must not be aching too bad; notand be sleeping *that* deep already. Fraser always seemed so...contained, when he was awake, but he seriously made up for itwhen he was asleep. Bed-and-cover hog -- and right now, a reallygoddamn *messy* one, at that.

Ray shivered. He was wet, and it was cold in here, but as soonas he eased himself up close to Fraser the Furnace that would allbe taken care of. He slipped into the bed, thankfully rememberingto snuggle up to the non-messy side of Fraser, and closed hiseyes.

It felt... wonderful. Ray sighed. He'd been so *wrong*, aboutso many things -- freaked himself right out when there was noneed for it, because Fraser was... good, a good guy, a goodfriend, a great partner, and a fucking nuclear meltdown betweenthe sheets. Always good. And that had... changed him. Not justbecause of the guy thing, although that was certainly amindblower, but because of the friend thing too -- they werestill friends. Working together, sleeping together, and it wasall... good. Not scary, not cold, just one thing leading toanother, and it all worked. And that meant... that meant...

Well, he didn't know what it meant, exactly, but it felt likeif he gave it a chance, he might figure it out. Like somethingwas right there, staring at him, if he'd just open his eyes and*look*.

'Safe' had turned out to be one of those relative terms. He'dbeen wrong -- dead wrong -- about the sex thing. What if he'dbeen wrong about all the other stuff, too? What if what he'dthought he didn't want anymore had snuck up on him, wearingemergency signal red and size eleven boots?

It wasn't that much of a stretch, really, to think about. He'dnever had a fucking lick of control when it came to that shit.The only way he'd managed to keep himself under wraps for thatlong year was by not letting anybody get close enough to evenmake him *think* about starting anything.

Except Fraser. Fraser got close. Worked with him. Played withhim. Teased him and touched him and got sarcastic with him whenhe did dumb stuff. Did things to his body he didn't even knowcould be done. Things that made him feel...like maybe it wasn'tjust the feeling outside that was so good. The feeling *inside*was good, too.

Feeling. Something he'd sworn he'd never do again.

But he'd been wrong about so many things. Maybe he'd beenwrong about... that... too.

***************************************

If Fraser had thought concentrating on his work was hardbefore, it was almost impossible the morning after Ray... hecouldn't even think the word, but he could remember with perfectclarity every moment of how it had felt. He could still feel Rayinside him. When he walked, even just sitting at his desk, everyminute of the day the dull ache inside reminded him, and hereveled in it, in the physical echoes of the best night of hislife.

It had been better than he'd imagined. Deeper. Stronger. Anexhilarating, explosive, gut-deep connection he'd never formedwith anyone before, not even Victoria. To be opened up like that,opened and... penetrated.

His pen slipped on the paper, and he realized unless theConsular General in Ottawa had a code reader, he'd be unable todecipher anything Fraser had just written. He was useless here,and it was almost the end of his shift anyway. Perhaps Ray coulduse his help; they seemed to get more accomplished together thanapart.

He wondered if their physical closeness had in some waytranslated to other aspects of their lives because they hadworked better in recent weeks than at any other point -- andthey'd always worked well together, their differencescomplementing rather than hindering their efforts. They seemed tobe firing on all cylinders, or, as Ray put it, they were in thegroove.

Indeed.

Fraser realized as he walked from the Consulate to theprecinct that he had, for the first time in a long time,something in his life besides work. Work had filled his emptyspaces adequately, providing activity and some measure ofsatisfaction, and an equal measure of interaction - - all thathuman beings generally required. But Ray had given him more thanthat, more than the basic requirements. At its simplest level,when he was with Ray, he didn't feel alone.

So as long as Ray was willing to give what he could, Fraserwas willing to... take it.

Perhaps it was the folly of having come to some internalresolution -- the fates liked nothing more than toying with asettled soul. Perhaps it was simply imagining the possibility ofRay moving on that conjured the means to make it happen. Whateverthe cause, the result was still a shock: Fraser walked into thestation just in time to see a familiar scene -- Ray standing overa petite brunette, his head tilted as he listened to what she hadto say.

The witness from the club. Looking... not at all trashy. Shelooked, in fact, rather smart. Like someone someone else mightlike to get to know better. The look on her face was familiar,too. She liked Ray. Was interested in him, was, at this moment,leaning toward him, her face -- certainly prettier without theheavy makeup -- tilted up coquettishly, her eyes wide.

Once again Fraser found himself standing in a room, watchingthe man he loved fall under a spell.

Seeing them together felt like getting a faceful of coldwater, and he moved (again, such a familiar thing to do) so hecould see Ray's face. He needed to see for himself thetransformation, the transition, had to scald himself with theactuality of Ray's arousal. Then it would be real. Then he couldaccept it. So he moved closer, took a steadying breath, andlooked.

Ray looked... like he was listening. He nodded at somethingthe woman said, then scribbled in his notebook. He looked...normal. A detective at his work. From this angle, Fraser couldsee that he wasn't even standing as close to the woman as it hadfirst appeared.

Fraser resisted the first trickle of relief and dropped hiseyes to Ray's groin, assessing. Nothing. No evidence of arousal.Not even when he squinted. Ray was keeping it strictlyprofessional, and it didn't seem to bother him in the least.

Yes, strictly professional. The difference between strictlyprofessional and intensely personal became clear when Ray liftedhis head and saw Fraser. His eyes... lit, he stood up straight,and he smiled. A beautiful smile.

Just beautiful.

Fraser blamed the sudden weakness in his knees on the longwalk from the Consulate and the previous evening's... exertions.

By the time he got his breathing under control, Ray had turnedback to the witness, jotting additional notes and nodding somemore. Then he shook her hand, pointed her toward the exit, andsaid goodbye.

Fraser remained rooted to the spot while Ray came over to him.Ray clapped him on the shoulder and said, "I think we'regetting somewhere. One of the guys was wearing a t-shirt with alogo on it -- what a loser, you believe that? -- and sheremembered what it said. So we got a good lead."

"Good," Fraser said, pleased when the word came outwithout cracking.

Ray went to his desk and put down his notebook, then looked athim hard. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing," Fraser said, still trying to come toterms with the fact that Ray had stared temptation in the faceand turned away from it. Turned toward *him*. "That is, I'mglad the witness was helpful."

"About damn time," Ray grumped, shuffling papersinto a somewhat neater pile. "I can't believe how much timewe've spent on that stupid case."

Stupid... it was stupid to push, but Fraser had to be sure."Will you be seeing her... the witness... again?"

Ray's hands stilled on the paper, and he looked at Fraser forso long he started to feel uncomfortable. "In court, maybe.Otherwise, no."

This time, relief made him light-headed. He'd had no right toask. They didn't have that kind of relationship. He knew that.But he'd asked. And Ray had answered. And it seemed to be... allright.

"You ready to go?" Ray asked. "What're you in the mood for? Tuesday's manicotti night at Donato's."

Fraser let himself be turned, encouraged toward the exit. Hehoped his confusion wasn't visible to anyone besides Ray, whoseemed to be treating him like he was a little bit slow, which heindeed felt himself to be.

Tuesday meant manicotti. With Ray. Thursday would probably beChinese take-out. With Ray. Saturday usually included abasketball game, or bowling. All of it with Ray.

He and Ray were... together... in every way, every day.

Surely that counted for something.

He was glad when Ray headed towards the street rather than theparking lot, happy to walk to the restaurant. The early eveningair felt good, just cold enough to be bracing, and movement, anymovement, felt better than sitting still.

Ray seemed to have something on his mind. Twice he started tosay something, then stopped. It was only when they had reached arelatively deserted stretch across from the park that Ray finallyspoke up.

"I got a question for you," he said, sounding verymatter-of-fact, but it was easy enough to hear the uncertaintyunderneath. Fraser wondered if he'd read Ray wrong, if in factthere had been something more to his conversation with thewitness than he'd admitted. He held his breath.

"Um, when you were... " Ray stopped, cracked hisneck. "When you've done this before, did you... damn, how tosay this... did you go back and forth?"

Fraser stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. A darkstorefront reflected Ray's image, so he could see two of themfacing him -- both extremely uncomfortable. "What do youmean?"

"You know," Ray said, jamming his hands in hisjacket pockets. "Poker and pokee?"

It took Fraser a minute to realize that whatever Ray wastrying to ask him, it had nothing to do with a witness, or a case. It took him another minute to realize he wasn't talkingabout the card game, but about... He was asking about what Fraserhad done... with other men.

A misapprehension that Fraser had let stand too long. If theywere going to be... together... like this, then Ray deserved thefull story.

"Ray," he said, tugging at his collar, "Ihaven't done this before."

Ray shifted his balance to his other foot. "What,switching off?"

Fraser couldn't believe they were standing outside, on apublic sidewalk, talking about... this. Fortunately, the onlyactivity was across the street in the park, well out of earshot.

"Any of it," he admitted, then took a deep breathand said, "I haven't been... involved... with any othermen."

Both Rays, real and reflected, looked at him with narrowedeyes. "No way."

"It's true," Fraser said, stepping a little closer.

Ray dropped his voice, as if he, too, had just realized wherethey were, and said, "But I thought... you know... "

"My... feelings... for others were never returned, and soI never... " Fraser's voice trailed off as he realized whathe was saying -- the one thing Ray had insisted he didn't want.

"But you're so *good* at it," Ray said, disbelieftingeing his tone. "How'd you get so good at it?"

The flush he'd managed to keep at bay swept up his neck andinto his face. Perhaps Ray had missed his slip; he seemed to beconcentrating, as always, on the physical. "Well, I'vethought about it. A lot."

Ray grinned, a surprisingly flash of light in the increasingdark. He looked over at the park, then back at Fraser. After aminute, he shrugged and said, "So I'm the only one? I'm itfor you?"

Oh, there were so many ways he could interpret that. As hadhappened so often in recent weeks, they seemed to have fumbledtheir way to a critical place, with the only options being movingforward or moving back. Each and every time, they had, throughdesire and urgency and surrender, moved forward. And each andevery time, moving forward had made it... better.

Fraser summoned a memory of the light in Ray's eyes at thestation before, of that smile, then straightened his shouldersand said clearly, "Yes, Ray. You're it for me."

Ray rocked on his heels, a little smile playing across hismouth. Fraser had said all he could, more than he should. Now hecould only wait, let Ray have *his* say. When Ray turned in thedirection of the restaurant and cocked his shoulder at Fraser,they started walking again. The activity made waiting easier.

They were almost to Donato's, back in the hustle and bustle ofevening in a neighborhood, when Ray leaned toward him and saidunder his breath, "You remember what you said once, aboutyou and guys you can't have?"

Fraser glanced around him. No one was paying them the leastbit of attention. "Yes," he said. His heart pounded inhis throat, as if it would leap out to make its own case if itcould.

Ray kept his eyes forward, his feet moving, and Fraser walkedin cadence with him. Easy -- it was so very easy to do that.

"You can have me," Ray said quietly. "If youwant."

"I want," Fraser said fervently, and Ray laughed alittle.

And still, Fraser felt an urge to move forward, just thatlittle step further.

"*More* than want," he stressed, unable toarticulate any better than that, but wanting to be sure Rayclearly understood that what they had went well beyond thephysical. "It's more than want."

Ray turned to meet his eyes and nodded. "Yeah, I figuredthat out," he said, and then he flashed that smile, the newone. The beautiful one. "More's... fine."

Heat and warmth combined inside, residual embarrassment beingtrampled by the slowly dawning realization that they had just...well, it wasn't a romantic declaration, but then where wouldeither of them have learned how to do that? No, it was likeeverything else between them -- half spoken, all felt.

And plenty good enough.

Ray bounced a little, executing a dance step on the sidewalk."So you'll do it?" he asked.

"Do what, Ray?" Fraser said, finding it hard toconcentrate when Ray... moved... like that.

"The old switcheroo," Ray said patiently, reachingout to hold open the door to the restaurant.

"I will if you want," he said, brushing against Rayas he entered the warm spicy air.

"I want," Ray said, throwing his words back with awicked grin.

Fraser firmly clamped down on the impulse to nudge Ray upagainst the wood paneling in the entry and give him exactly whatthey both wanted, and wondered what Mr. Donato would think ifthey ordered their manicotti to go.

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