Due South: The Minute After, part 1 of 4

[alex51324]

Title:  The Minute After
Author:  Me, Alex
Fandom:  Due South
Beta'd by:  chitown_brit
Rating:  NC-17 for the sexy sex (and a little bit of the violent violence.)  
Length:  41,346 words tota., give or take a few edits I might make in the subsequent parts before I post them.

Summary:  Fraser kisses Ray.  Ray kisses back.  What happens next?  Ray struggles with his feelings, confronts homophobia at work, and (in parts 2-4), investigates a gay bashing.

Note for my regular readers:  This is basically the same chapter that I posted last week, with some light editing.  The story is now finished, and the other parts will go live over the rest of this week.

********

Fraser stepped back, biting his lip. Not blushing, like when he was harmlessly embarrassed, but deathly pale, like all the color had drained out of him, turning him into a negative of himself. “Oh, God, Ray, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I--I’m going.” He turned and stumbled toward the door, utterly graceless--like some kind of baby moose or something--stopping only to grab his hat, and then to spin around and mumble, “I’m sorry!” over his shoulder, while fumbling for the doorknob.

It was the final “I’m sorry” that broke Ray’s trance. “Wait!”

Fraser stopped with his hand on the doorknob. His shoulders heaved once, and when he turned around, he squared up his feet, staring at the floor and clutching his hat hard enough to leave a dent. “Yes, Ray?” he said, his tone heartbreakingly desolate. Like he figured Ray was about to rip his heart out and hand it to him, and he knew he deserved it.

Boy, did Ray know that feeling. And he didn’t want to make Fraser feel that way. Hell, he didn’t want to make anybody feel that way, but especially not Fraser. But now that he had Fraser’s attention, he didn’t know what to do with it. “Wait,” he said again, more gently this time, trying to put everything he felt into the single word.

Fraser risked a tiny glance up at him before tucking his chin down against his chest again. “I shouldn’t have….please, if you…that is to say, if you’d be so kind as to forget I ever….I’m so sorry, Ray.”

Somehow, Ray knew he’d fetch back up there again. “No. I mean, I don’t want to forget.”

Fraser ducked his head even lower, somehow. “Understood. I’ll just--” He went for the doorknob again.

“No! God damn it, Frase.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. He might not know much, but he knew that if he let Fraser out the door before he managed to dig up some words out of the stew of arousal, curiosity, and good old fashioned terror that was currently passing for his brain, Fraser’d hightail it straight back to the frozen north before Ray could get his boots on. “I didn’t…you surprised me, that’s all.” Surprised, yeah. That was one word for what a guy would feel if he was chatting with his partner and trying to maybe dig up something to have for dinner, and all of the sudden his was grabbing him and kissing him.

A real kiss, right on the mouth, and Ray wasn’t underwater this time--he was next to the sink, but the faucet wasn’t even turned on. So, yeah, surprised.

Fraser glanced up at him again. Before he dropped his eyes again, Ray caught a glimpse of this hungry, hopeful, terrified look, like a skinny stray dog looking at a bowl of food that was his for the taking, he just had to walk past a bunch of people to get it, only they’d probably kick him to death first.

“It’s okay,” Ray said. But even though he was going back and forth between fan-fucking-tastic and no fucking way, he had yet to pass through okay on the way.

Fraser swallowed hard. “Okay,” he said tentatively, like he could maybe live with okay.

Ray couldn’t. “Okay,” he repeated. “Let’s…let’s try that again.” Because he couldn’t make up his mind without more evidence, could he? d

“Try…what?”

“You know.” He raised his hands and made a come at me motion. He couldn’t quite say kiss me again, you stupid Mountie. Just thinking about it, terror started to gain the upper hand. It wasn’t a kiss, really. It was an…experiment. Yeah, that’s it. If he did it again and hated it, it would cancel out the first time. And if he didn’t hate it--well. If he didn’t hate it, then he’d really regret it if he didn’t try it again.

Fraser nodded once and approached him tentatively, as if he wasn’t quite sure if Ray was going to sock him one as soon as he got in range.

Which was fair, since Ray wasn’t 100% sure about that either.

But he didn’t take a swing, and didn’t step back, either--even though he sort of wanted to--when Fraser got close enough to touch. It was only when Fraser turned sideways a little to step between his hands that he realized he was still holding them up from when he’d beckoned to him.

No wonder Fraser was looking at him like he’d gone unhinged. He dropped his hands as Fraser squared up in front of him, settled them on his--well, not his waist. Guys didn’t have waists, did they?

They were as close as dancing at an eighth-grade formal, and he could feel the heat of Fraser’s body all along his front. Fraser raised his own hands, hesitated, and put them on his--waist, or whatever it was.

When Fraser started leaning in, he shut his eyes fast.

Last time, Fraser had practically shoved his tongue down his throat, all heat and desperation. He was shyer this time, brushing Ray’s mouth with his closed one. Ray found himself responding--he didn’t let himself think that he was choosing to respond. He opened his mouth, letting Fraser in.

Fraser’s hand came up to cup the back of his head, twisting into his hair. The other hand slipped under his jacket, tracing a line of icy fire along his ribcage.

Pulling away from Fraser’s mouth just long enough to drag in a deep breath, he gasped, “Oh, God.” It was so fucking good, and why hadn’t he thought--why hadn’t he allowed himself to think--this was Fraser, his best friend in the world, and if there was one thing Ray knew about love, it was that best friends was the only way to go.

“Oh, Ray,” Fraser answered, and Ray almost succumbed to a fit of the giggles.

Instead, he leaned into the kiss and took a half-step forward, bringing his hardon up against Fraser’s hip.

Fraser had his own little freakout then, but it was Canadian-style, so muted Ray would have missed it if all of his senses weren’t hyped into overdrive. He stiffened and he took a step back and to the side, getting his lower body about as far as he could from Ray’s while still staying joined at the lips. But it only lasted a second, and then he stepped back up, letting Ray rub up against him like a horny dog.

And that was nice, it really was. But it couldn’t be doing much for Fraser, could it? That wasn’t buddies.

His hand went, all on its own, to Fraser’s fly. That sure as hell wasn’t a roll of quarters--or Loonies, either--so they were even-Steven there. But either he’d lost all coordination in his fingers, or Fraser’s pants fastened in some weird Canadian way Americans weren’t meant to understand. He was pretty good at unfastening bras one-handed, but he didn’t have any experience with Mountie pants.

Giving up, he just rubbed at it through the cloth. Fraser didn’t seem to care much--he gave an encouraging little buck of his hips, and kept kissing.

He didn’t have a lot of moves in that department, but he earnestly copied everything Ray tried, so that was okay.

Another minute or two of that, and he started to wonder where they were headed. They had first base taken care of, and second didn’t seem to exist. They’d made a good start on third. What was the goal, here?

Fraser had started all this, so he ought to be the one leading, but he didn’t make any attempt to move up to the next level--whatever that was. Ray pulled his mouth away from Fraser’s long enough to ask, “Whaddya wanna do?”

Fraser kissed him again. “Don’t know,” he said into Ray’s mouth, and continued with something about, “Not much…experience…exactly, this sort…of thing.”

Ray drew back enough to look at him, squawking, “You think I do?”

But Fraser looked so alarmed at his withdrawal that he quickly closed the distance between them again, and Fraser’s response was so muffled Ray could only make out the word, “married.”

“Well, yeah,” Ray answered. He was married, had been for almost his whole adult life, which went to show you he wasn’t the one to ask what exactly came after kissing and groping when you were both guys.

Fraser answered something about “twice” and “arrest you after.”

Ray put that aside to think about later. “Okay.” Clearly, somebody had to take charge here, and if it wasn’t going to be Fraser, that left him. “Okay, I got it. I got us.” He went at the front of Fraser’s pants again, and finally Fraser took his hand off Ray’s head and helped him out.

Fraser must’ve known his way around American pants, because in a moment he had them both out. They’d make a hell of a picture, two grown men standing in the middle of the room, fully dressed--one in a red suit--with their dicks hanging out.

But one thing he knew about sex, if you weren’t ready to look like an idiot in front of the other person, you had no business having it. And he’d looked like an idiot in front of Fraser lots of times.

“I got us,” Ray repeated, gathering them both into his hand. Fraser’s cock felt good against his--hard, and hot, and--well, good. He tried a few experimental strokes--just like he was doing himself, but getting used to the strange double handful. Fraser gasped, like somehow he hadn’t quite expected that, or hadn’t expected it to feel good, or something. “It’s okay, you’re doin’ good, Frase,” he said, not sure why he was saying it. He brushed his thumb across both of their heads, earning another gasp and a full-body shudder from Fraser. “That’s it, you like that? Okay, come on, that’s good….” He kept up a good line of chatter as he stroked, not paying much attention to what he was saying. Just enough of a filter on to make sure he didn’t say anything really dirty, since he didn’t want to scare Fraser off.

He wasn’t going to last long. He hoped Fraser didn’t, either. With a girl, if you came first--well, their equipment took longer to warm up. As long as he didn’t roll over and leave her hanging, even Stella wasn’t bothered about that. But that was another thing that had to be different with guys. It would be easy to get competitive.

The thing to do, probably, was cheat. He gave Fraser’s cockhead a couple of extra swipes with his thumb. That must’ve been the “on” switch, ‘cause Fraser started talking then, even though all he could say was, “Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray,” and it was like that George Carlin bit about how fuck can be every part of speech, because in Fraser’s mouth, Ray meant a dozen different things, all of them filthy.

With a final, ecstatic, “Ray,” Fraser came, spurting all over his hand and belly. A part of his brain was shocked, horrified, repelled--but it was quickly outvoted by the part that was racing Fraser to the finish.

His knees went out from under him as he came, and he had to grab onto Fraser’s Sam Browne belt--with the hand that wasn’t full of come, and Fraser had better thank him for that later--to keep from going face-down on the floor.

Fraser--both hands fortunately jism-free--caught him by the elbows and held him up. “Are you okay?” he asked, suddenly all concern, as much as he’d been all lust a few seconds ago. He wasn’t even breathing hard, the bastard.

“Couch,” Ray answered, panting for breath.

Fraser backed him up to the couch and guided him into a controlled collapse, then sprawled next to him, legs apart, head thrown back. Now he was breathing hard, the freak. Trust him to have the post-orgasm slump only after he’d made sure his partner wasn’t going to end up with a concussion.

After a moment or two, Fraser dug out a crisp white handkerchief and offered it to him.

Ray stared at it dumbly for a moment, saw Fraser’s solemn expression, and cracked up.

Even while he was laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath, he knew it wasn’t that funny--the orgasm apparently hadn’t been enough to drain off all the tension and emotion of the last few minutes. But knowing that didn’t mean he could stop--or not for longer than it took to drag in a lungful of air, anyway. So he gave himself over to it, while Fraser--smiling slightly--caught his come-spattered hand and cleaned him up.

He was just starting to calm down--enough that he could take two or three breaths in a row between sobs of laughter--when Fraser raised their hands to his mouth and took an experimental lick from a finger he hadn’t cleaned yet. “Ew, God, that’s disgusting. Is there anything you won’t put in your mouth?”

Fraser met his eyes with a sheepish shrug, and Ray was off laughing again. By the time he finally wound down, he was sprawled across Fraser’s lap, his abdominal muscles aching, thinking that if Fraser made him laugh again, he’d probably puke.

Maybe Fraser knew that, because now he just patted Ray’s back in a way that was more soothing than hilarious. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, once Ray had been silent for a minute or two.

“Yeah,” he said, sitting up. Fraser was sitting on the middle couch cushion, so he scrunched himself up on the corner and stretched his legs across Fraser’s lap. “Yeah, I think I’m done.”

“Good.” The slight smile that was still on Fraser’s face slowly faded. “I guess we should, ah, talk.”

“’bout what?” Yeah, he was playing dumb, but sometimes it worked.

Fraser wasn’t having it. “What we just…did.”

“What’s there to talk about? There’s really only two ways it can go. One, we never do it again and pretend it never happened.” Fraser opened his mouth, but Ray didn’t let him say anything. “And since neither of us ran out the door as soon as we were done, I guess we’re not doing that.”

Fraser smiled tentatively. “So, ah, what’s the other one?”

“We don’t pretend it didn’t happen, and we do do it again.”

“Ah.” Fraser made some tiny adjustment to his belt. “So you….you do? Want to?”

Hadn’t he just said that? “I’m not a queer, you know.” It was a funny thing to say when you were snuggled up on the couch with a guy, but he felt like he had to say it.

Fraser looked away. “So you don’t.”

He sighed. “See, this is why talking is bad.”

Biting his lip, Fraser said, “So…do you mean we can do it, but not talk about it?”

Ray hadn’t gotten as far as figuring out that solution, but it sounded pretty good to him.

Before he could say so, Fraser continued, “I don’t know if I….” He went quiet for a minute, like he was thinking hard. Ray didn’t interrupt him. “No. I’m sorry, Ray, I can’t agree to that. I do--I do try not to do anything I’d be ashamed of afterwards, and I couldn’t…if that’s the way you feel about it, I couldn’t.” He blushed now, like refusing to be Ray’s dirty secret was somehow embarrassing.

Which wasn’t how Ray had meant it, at all. “Hang on, hang on. Nobody said anything about being ashamed of anything. How could you--I mean, that’s not it at all.” Then he had to stop and think about what he did mean. Fraser didn’t jump in to help him out, either, just watched him with this serious look that made Ray feel like whatever he had to say ought to be really important.

Exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. He knew--boy did he ever know--that he was good at doing. The physical stuff, especially, but he wasn’t too shabby in the romantic gesture department, either. But when it came to the deep conversation about What It All Means, he was bound to say the wrong thing, trip over his own tongue, and end up feeling stupid and useless. But trying to explain why he didn’t want to have the relationship conversation would only make the relationship conversation longer, so he might as well skip over that part and try to say what he felt.

As soon as he figured out what that was. “We’re buddies, right?” Might as well start with what he was sure of.

“Yes, Ray.” Fraser’s head went down. Defeated.

He’d fucked up already. But backtracking, pleading I didn’t mean it like that, never helped. Maybe if he just steamrollered on ahead, it would come out okay. Maybe. “Best buddies,” he added, in case that helped. “And we had sex.” Sort of, anyway. “And we’re gonna do it again. Maybe, uh, maybe lots.”

Fraser’s head came up, and he nodded once, hopefully.

“So when you have sex with your best friend….” The logical conclusion to that thought was coming up way faster than he wanted it to, not a steamroller, but a freight train. A train going full tilt took over a mile to stop; even if he bailed out now, Fraser would put it together soon--he’d know, then, and he’d also know Ray was too much of a pussy to say it, and that wouldn’t help at all. “Most people call that, um.” He gestured helplessly--he just could not say it. The word literally would not come out of his mouth. “Um, starts with L, rhymes with….” He couldn’t think of anything it rhymed with. “Uh, move, only not.”

Smooth, Ray. Very, very smooth. Right up there with a note that said “Do you like me (circle one) Yes or No.”

“Louvre?” Fraser said, brows drawn together in puzzlement. “Lmoove? Mloove?”

“Are you making fun of me?” Ray demanded. Fraser couldn’t possibly be that dense, could he? The RCMP had to have some kind of IQ requirement.

On the other hand, he was the one who couldn’t say a simple 4-letter word. If Fraser was dense, what did that make him? So dense that he didn’t even know the word for something that was beyond dense.

“No, Ray,” Fraser assured him. “I’m trying to figure out--oh!” He tilted his head to one side. “Ah…you mean, the, um.”

Maybe not the only one who was beyond dense. “Yeah, that one.”

It suddenly occurred to him that he was going pretty fast. He’d known from the first time he danced with Stella that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her--but that was 9th grade. Grown people usually took things slower, didn’t they? Hurriedly, he added, “I’m just, you know, thinking out loud.”

Fraser nodded. “Understood.”

But he wasn’t sure Fraser did. “Stella was my best friend, before.” He’d let that pass as before she divorced me, even though it was really more like, before she ripped out my still-beating heart, stomped on it, and shoved it down my throat.

Fraser lowered his head again. “I know you still love her.”

“I--” He couldn’t deny it. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. But it’s more like, the guy I was when we were teenagers, still loves the girl she was back then. And that guy--well, sometimes I want to knock some sense into that guy’s head, or at least tell him to be careful, keep something for himself, you know?” Now he was really being stupid--he’d be lucky if Fraser didn’t call the guys with the butterfly nets to come take him to the loony bin. “But I haven’t been that guy for a long time, and she hasn’t been that girl for--well, even longer, probably.”

Fraser was nodding like that made some kind of sense. “That sounds like a useful….” He sat back, smoothing his eyebrow with his thumb, looking at something off in the distance, something that wasn’t there.

“What?” Ray asked, alarmed. Fraser didn’t look like he was composing a mental list of Things That Were Wrong With Ray, but appearances could sometimes be deceiving.

He shook himself a little. “I just hadn’t thought about it that way before.” He smiled crookedly. “I guess you…you probably read about, in--in Detective Vecchio’s files.”

For a long moment, Ray was baffled. Fraser couldn’t mean he’d done this with Vecchio--and if he had, it wouldn’t be in the CPD’s files, anyway.

Then he remembered Fraser, mumbling into his mouth, only done this twice and as long as I don’t have to arrest you after.

Victoria. Fraser’s old flame--Fraser’s Stella, maybe, except without the best-friends part. And with an extra side helping of evil.

Except that thought was crowded out by another, even more pressing one. “So when you said twice you meant…twice. Not two relationships. Two….”

Fraser nodded. “Nights. But I can’t discuss it in any detail, Ray. A gentleman doesn’t--”

“She’s a bank robber! A jewel thief! A--Dief-shooter!”

“Well, yes, but I am none of those things.”

“I don’t need to--I don’t want to--hear the details. But you don’t owe her anything.”

“Oh, I think I do.” Fraser went quiet. “You see, I thought…I had never …felt that way…about anybody before her. And I’d started to think…I started to wonder if I could. Or if maybe there was something…something wrong with me. That I wasn’t able to…feel that way.”

He paused, and Ray nodded encouragingly. How on earth had Fraser made it through adolescence without falling in love, he wondered. And his next thought was, poor bastard. Because as much agony as he’d felt over Stella--wondering if she liked him back, if she’d talk to him, if she’d go out with him, if she’d do the things gentleman-Fraser wouldn’t discuss in detail--planning and scheming to get a look, a word, a touch--hating her parents and his for trying to keep them apart, hating school and friends and life because it kept him away from her--he couldn’t imagine how those years, without that, would have been anything but empty and barren and awful.

“I suppose that’s why I…why I held on to it for so long. I wanted it to mean…something it didn’t. It was just such a relief, to know that it was possible for me to…feel that way. So I owe her for that, anyway.”

“That wasn’t anything she did,” Ray pointed out. “It was something she took advantage of.”

“Maybe,” Fraser admitted. “But I did love her, and she felt…something… for me, and I’m still grateful for it.”

He shouldn’t have to be. No one--especially not a great guy like Fraser--should have to count a one-sided passion for a murderess as the peak emotional experience of his life. But he didn’t seem to love talking about it, and Ray wanted to ease back to less loaded territory, so he said, “And you never--I mean, there wasn’t anyone else? You didn’t, um, fool around with anybody?”

Fraser blushed and looked down. “Naturally, I’ve had…thoughts, about pursuing an intimate relationship, but before Victoria, I hadn’t met anyone that I felt I could give my whole heart to, and I felt it--inappropriate, to pursue a relationship on purely physical terms. And after…after, I was…reluctant to even consider giving my heart away again.” He glanced shyly up at Ray, wrapping one hand possessively around his ankle. “Until now.”

It was funny how much just saying something could feel like getting punched in the gut. Because he hadn’t thought about it before--certainly hadn’t thought about it before he invited Fraser to take that second kiss--but they had blown straight past any possibility of this ending well. He could still remember how it felt when he finally got it through his thick head that he and Stella were D-U-N done: if he thought about it too much, he could even call up the physical sensations of nausea and crushing despair.

And if this ended, Fraser was gonna feel like that. Hell, he would too. The only way to avoid it was to stick with him for the rest of their lives.

Yeah, definitely not something he wanted to mention twenty minutes into the relationship.

#

The next day, Fraser turned up at the precinct around mid-afternoon, Dief trotting at his heels. He was like a vision in red serge, except this time he had civvies on--a flannel shirt and jeans, which looked damn good on him too.

But Ray only had a second to appreciate the view, because it didn’t occur to him until he saw him that it was very possible Fraser wouldn’t realize he wasn’t supposed to kiss him or anything like that right there in front of everybody. He’d know better than to slip him the tongue and shove his hand down his pants, sure--Fraser lived in the world, he knew how you acted at work--but he might not entirely get that a peck on the cheek, a “Good afternoon, honey,” the kind of thing that would be perfectly okay if they weren’t both guys, wasn’t okay. Because Fraser lived in the world, but it was a world where everybody got the same fair shake, no matter if they were a slum dweller on welfare or a stripper or the ambassador from Bolivia. So in the crazy place that was Fraser’s head, it might not occur to him that if their pals at the 2-7 found out about their new relationship, their first reaction wouldn’t be to wish them every happiness.

But as it turned out, Fraser just said, “Hi, Ray,” and sat on the other side of his desk like always, and before Ray had a chance to decide if he ought to try to give him some kind of signal, he picked up the draft report Ray had just finished and started telling him--in his usual nice way--all the things he’d fucked up and ought to fix before he gave it to Welsh.

The rest of the day went like that, without Fraser doing anything weird and embarrassing--or anything weirder or more embarrassing than usual, anyway. And no new cases, or hot leads on old cases, turned up, so they actually got to knock off at a normal hour for once, around six. “You comin’ over?” he asked, paying much more attention than was really necessary to the stack of files he was straightening up.

Fraser nodded, his expression unreadable. “Sure.”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay.”

They went. As they got into the car, Fraser said, “Would you mind stopping by the Consulate on the way? I’d like to pick something up.”

“No problem.” Ray wondered what the hell the mysterious something was. Something to do with sex? If it wasn’t, would Fraser have said? If he wasn’t wondering if it was, would he have asked?

There was no way to know, and he certainly wasn’t bringing it up. When he stopped the car in the no-parking zone in front of the Consulate, Fraser said, “Dief, wait here. I’ll be right back,” before bounding up the steps and into the building.

Ray glanced at Dief in the rearview mirror. “What’s he up to, huh? Did he say?”

Dief calmly licked at his balls.

“Thanks, pal, that’s real helpful.”

Hell, maybe the whole reason Fraser hadn’t done anything weird and/or embarrassing was that he was regretting the whole thing. Maybe he’d decided that pretend it never happened was the way to go after all.

If that’s what he wanted, Ray wasn’t going to argue. (He told himself.) It would be easier that way. For everyone.

Fraser came darting back out of the big double doors, knapsack slung over one shoulder, and jumped into the car. “Sorry it took so long. Inspector Thatcher wanted to know where I was going.”

“Oh.” He put the car in gear and eased back out into traffic. “What did you tell her?”

“That I was fairly sure I wasn’t on duty this evening, but I’d be happy to consult the roster if she thought I was.”

Ray grinned. Pissy Fraser--it might have been worth finding an actual parking spot to have seen that. “Good for you. They take advantage of you in that place, you know.”

“Hm, yes. It’s terrible of them to provide me with gainful employment and a rationale for being in this country while allowing me considerable latitude to pursue investigations over which I have no conceivable jurisdiction. I should call the Hague.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” he muttered.

Fraser looked out the window and said, “It’s not an ideal posting. There are more ceremonial and administrative duties than I’d personally prefer. But it’s not as if the Chicago PD can hire me. So.”

That was another thing he’d been avoiding thinking about. That if they went with the till-death-do-you-part thing, instead of the crashing-burning-agony-heartbreak thing, the fact that they belonged to two different countries was gonna come up.

But they didn’t have to figure that one out today. “I guess you’re right. You spend as much time working for us as you do for them, and the CPD doesn’t give you a dime.” He didn’t want to ask Fraser why he put up with that arrangement, because what if the answer was that he was in that-word-they-couldn’t-say with a certain Chicago cop?

Worse, what if that wasn’t the answer? So he just said, “Guess we lucked out that way. Us Americans, I mean.” And he couldn’t quite figure out why they’re talking like they just met.

Except that he knew perfectly well why they were. Last night, after--after what happened--they’d had some food, hung out, like normal except for a goodnight kiss just inside his front door, before he drove Fraser home. But this was the morning after. Or the afternoon after.

So it was okay that things were a little awkward. They’d get past it. “Home again, home again,” he commented as he pulled up to the lot behind his building.

“Indeed,” Fraser said.

There wasn’t much else to say about that, so they trotted on up to the apartment.

He stopped just a step or two inside the door; Fraser, close on his heels, looked startled and almost bumped into him. “Door,” Ray said. “Shut it.”

Fraser motioned for Dief to go in ahead of them and shut the door, then looked a question at him.

Ray backed him up against the door and kissed that look right off of his face. Fraser responded enthusiastically, tongue probing, hands sliding under his jacket, dick sitting up and taking notice. When Ray broke it off, he licked his lips, pulled himself together with a visible effort, and said, “I take it you, ah, haven’t had, ah, second, ah, thoughts.”

“Boy have I ever had thoughts, Frase. Thoughts like you wouldn’t believe. C’mon.” He backed his way to the sofa, with a quick glance behind him to make sure Dief wasn’t in the way.

They sat down, side by side, Fraser’s thigh pressed up against his. No “I’m not a homo” space between them, ‘cause, Christ, they were. “I hoped you hadn’t,” Fraser confessed. “Although, of course, if you regretted--”

“I don’t,” Ray interrupted him. “Regret. I’m a little freaked out, okay? But no regrets.”

Fraser nodded. “Understood.”

“Cool.” Now that they were here, he wasn’t totally sure what to do next. Kiss him again? Grab his dick? Instead he nodded toward the bag and asked, “You stayin’ over?” ‘Cause if he didn’t have his toothbrush and jammies in there, Ray wasn’t sure what he could have.

Fraser looked stricken. Like he’d been struck. “Oh, no. Ray, I didn’t think--did you want me to?” He looked toward the door. “I could--”

“No, no, it’s okay.” He wasn’t sure he was ready for that step, anyway. Fraser had crashed on his couch a few times before, but this wasn’t like that. “So what’s in the bag, then?”

“Oh!” He brightened, and pulled the bag onto his lap. “Books.”

“Books?” Fraser brought him books? Even Stella’s quest to Turn Ray Into Something Fit For Decent Company hadn’t started with a bag full of books on their second date.

Not that this was a date.

“Yes, Ray, books.” He opened the bag. “I think I mentioned I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing--”

“I know, and I said I don’t either, it’s okay,” Ray interrupted him.

“Well, yes, but you were married, for years, so you must know more about it than I do. And--”

“I was married, yeah, to a woman. It’s not exactly the same thing,” he pointed out.

“How different can it be?”

Ray stared at him. Fraser had that whole adorably naïve thing going, but he couldn’t possibly be that naïve, could he?

“I’m aware of the basic anatomy, Ray. But surely you know…you must know how to…well, I feel at a bit of a disadvantage,” he finished, and took out the books.

Ray had a fairly good idea of where Fraser was going by that point, but it was still a shock to see him--Fraser, the Super-Mountie from the Great White North--sitting there with a stack of sex manuals on his lap. And there was nothing subtle about these books: the one on top of the stack said The Joy Of Gay Sex right there on the cover. The one under that was even worse: the Joy thing at least had a plan cover. The next one had a guy on the cover with his shirt off, arms thrown over his head, back arched like he was--well, like something was going on just out of the frame, and the words “Gay sex” in big red letters. “Where did you get these?”

“A bookstore, Ray.”

“What bookstore?” He couldn’t quite imagine Fraser going to a sex shop, even if it was for reference books and not actual porno.

“Borders, on Michigan Avenue.”

That was a regular bookstore, where they had normal, non-sex books. “You just walked in and bought these?” He couldn’t quite imagine Fraser--anybody--doing that.

“The library didn’t have anything available on the subject. Evidently they have a problem with theft.”

Right, he went to the library. For sex books. Because he was Fraser. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s difficult to imagine why someone would steal from a library,” Fraser agreed primly. “When all that’s necessary to obtain books for free is to apply for a card and supply proof of address. But evidently--”

“Yeah, yeah, that wasn’t quite what I meant.” He took the books out of Fraser’s hands and put them on the table. “Look, we don’t need these.”

“We don’t?”

“No, we don’t. We’re both smart guys--” both guys, that was the important bit, wasn’t it? “--we can figure this out.” He and Stella hadn’t had more than a basic idea of what doing it was like when they started, and they’d been fine.

Of course, he’d learned when he started trying to date other women that he hadn’t so much learned how to have sex as how to have sex with Stella. But he didn’t want to learn how to fuck guys; he wanted to learn how to fuck Fraser. So that was okay. General knowledge wasn’t the point.

“I’m sure we can, Ray. But a little research will allow us to proceed more efficiently.”

“Efficiency isn’t exactly the most important thing here, Frase.”

Fraser looked away. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Ray.”

“You can’t. It’s not possible. I’ve got a dick, as long as it’s rubbing against something that’s warm and attached to you, it’s gonna be okay.”

“Okay isn’t enough. I mean--” He looked even further away, so Ray was looking at the back of his head. “You deserve more than okay .”

“So do you,” he said impatiently. “And it will be. But this isn’t something you research.”

“Why not?” Fraser turned back to look at him now.

“It just isn’t.” And here they were, talking again, when he’d figured out last night that that wasn’t the part he was any good at. Maybe he’d better just show Fraser what he meant. So he kissed him again, and that got Fraser where he wanted him, responding instead of thinking.

Matters progressed. Ray slung his leg over Fraser’s, straddling his lap on his knees, kissing him, sinking his weight into his hands on Fraser’s shoulders. Fraser’s hands settled on his pelvis; Ray jerked his hips, shaking Fraser’s hands down onto his ass. C’mon, buddy, you can do this. Show me what you want. Just let you body tell you.

And Fraser did. Pulled him down and in, lining them up, rubbing their dicks together like they had yesterday. He got them out again--just like yesterday, and Ray was going to have to learn how to open those damn pants--and this time it was his hand, stroking them, rubbing Ray’s tip with his thumb.

“Frase--” he gasped.

Fraser’s hand stilled. “Yes, Ray?”

And Ray knew, just knew, he was wondering if he’d gotten it wrong. “No, it’s fine, you’re good. Just--not gonna last long.”

Fraser nodded once. “Understood.”

And he must’ve, because he eased off, holding their dicks loosely, stroking slower. “Good, good, okay, doin’ fine,” he told Fraser, between kisses. What next? “Here, how ‘bout this.” He shoved his hand in between them; Fraser started to pull his hand away, like he thought Ray was taking over. “No, keep doin’ what you’re doin’, you’re good.” He found room to get his hand in between Fraser’s lags and grab his balls; Fraser gasped. “Okay?” They felt good in his hand, sort of warm and heavy and important

“Okay,” Fraser confirmed into his mouth.

He took his other hand off Ray’s ass and tried to get it in to grab his balls, but there just wasn’t room. “Too many hands down there, I think. ‘sokay, I’m good.”

Fraser gave a slightly disapproving, “Hm,” but put his hand back on Ray’s hip.

He wasn’t totally sure what to do with Fraser’s balls now that he had them, but he just sort of rolled them in the palm of his hand, and that got Fraser breathing hard and jerking faster, which had to be a good sign.

A minute later he started saying, “Ray, Ray, Ray,” again, and this time Ray caught on that must mean he was about to come, because he did, and he did that thing with his thumb again, so Ray did too.

He collapsed against Fraser’s chest, forehead on his shoulder, a rapidly-cooling wet spot between them on their bellies. He didn’t care. “See?” he asked. “No research necessary.”

“Research can be very useful, Ray, but we did manage just fine that time,” Fraser admitted.

“Yeah, I liked it too.” He rested for a minute, enjoying the afterglow, soaking up the heat and solidity that was Fraser. “You’re all messy now,” he observed when he finally picked his head up. Fraser wasn’t going to be too happy about besmirching the uniform with bodily fluids.

“So we are.” He tried to play it off like he didn’t care, but Ray could feel him getting antsy. “Are you going to laugh again if I take out my handkerchief?”

He considered. It hadn’t been that funny, really--it was just the situation, and the sheer incon--not-matching-ness of Fraser’s crisp white handkerchief, that usually didn’t see any more action than a weeping witness or a bloody nose. “I think I can handle it.”

He dismounted--heh--and Fraser solicitously cleaned them up--him first--and tucked them away. “I’m going to have to have this uniform cleaned before anyone sees it.”

They stayed there on the couch for a while, not talking, not touching except where their knees and shoulders bumped up against each other, but it was comfortable. Good. Not awkward, even though it probably should’ve been. Fraser unbent enough to put his feet up on the table, which probably shouldn’t have seemed like a big deal from a guy who’d just been jerking off on his couch, but it kind of was.

When they’d rested enough--his brain was starting to come back online, and Fraser was looking around the room like his was too--he suggested, “Food? I don’t think I’ve got anything, but we can order somethin’. Pizza, maybe.”

Fraser cleared his throat. “Actually, Ray--” And for a second Ray thought he was going to say, “Thank you kindly for the sex, Ray, but I believe it might be prudent for me to return to the Consulate,” before he continued, “I hoped you’d let me cook for you.”

He blinked. “Okay. Yeah, sure. But we’ll have to go to the store, like I said, I don’t have anything.” He didn’t really--or maybe even really didn’t--want to get up and go back out, where he and Fraser were going to have to pretend like they were just buddies instead of buddies-with-sex, but if Fraser wanted to cook for him, Ray wanted to let him.

Fraser looked embarrassed and reached for his knapsack again. “I brought some supplies. I hope you don’t mind,” he said, like there was a chance Ray actually would.

“Frase. I don’t mind. You wanna cook for me, you get to cook for me. Easy as that.”

It wasn’t until Fraser beamed, picked up his knapsack, and headed for the kitchen that Ray started to wonder just what he was planning on fixing. Could be they were having pemmican. Could be even worse, although he wasn’t totally sure how.

But Fraser was taking out some normal-looking cans and packages and lining them up on the counter.

That was funny, too, because if it wasn’t going to be pemmican, he’d have somehow expected Fraser to be some kind of hotshot chef, with special knives and spices normal people had never heard of. But Fraser was just making steaks and some kind of rice out of a box. Normal bachelor food--maybe more trouble than he’d go to on a week night, but overall pretty average.

Of course, being that it was Fraser, he did it all with a sort of quiet competence that Ray personally found sexy as hell, but that was just about what you’d expect.

The food was good, too--which was also about what you’d expect. Fraser’d gotten the outside of the steaks nicely seared, so all the juices and flavor stayed in--which Ray knew, theoretically, was what you were supposed to do when you cooked steaks, but his normally didn’t turn out that way. “This is really good, Frase,” he said, even though he figured Fraser already knew that.

But Fraser blushed a little and said, “Thank you kindly, Ray,” and it occurred to him that what with Fraser being so goddamn perfect all the time, a lot of people probably didn’t bother to tell him when he’d done something right.

Wasn’t a mistake Ray wanted to make. Maybe Fraser was okay with being unappreciated at the Consulate, but it wasn’t gonna be that way here.

Going along with that, after they were done eating, he insisted on doing the dishes. Fraser would’ve done ‘em--not only was there the polite thing, but Ray was also starting to figure out he was so damn eager to please it practically hurt to think about what must’ve gone on to make him that way--but Ray didn’t want it to be like that, with Fraser giving and giving, and him sitting back and taking it.

So he washed the dishes, and put on a pot of coffee, and they went back to the couch. And this time he was the one saying, “Frase, we gotta talk about something.”

He’d managed to plan this out pretty good--he was sitting sideways on the couch, his legs thrown over Fraser’s lap, one of Fraser’s hands held loosely in his. With that kind of body language, there was no way Fraser could think, even for a second, that he was heading up on some version of it’s-not-you-it’s-me.

And it worked pretty good, ‘cause Fraser said, “All right, Ray,” nice and calm, no apologies, no stammering.

“Right, so here’s the thing. I hafta make sure you know. Cause maybe you do and maybe you don’t, but I gotta be sure, ‘cause it’s real important.”

Fraser nodded.

“At work. They can’t know about this. About us. Word can’t get around. And it’s nothing to do with bein’ ashamed of this, or bein’ ashamed of you. But cops do not like queers, and if we’re gonna stay cops and stay…you know, what we are--and we are, ‘cause both of those things are real important to me--nobody can know. Got it?”

Fraser went still, thinking again. And Ray wondered what the hell he was going to do if Fraser said, No, Ray, I’m sorry, but if this has to be a secret we can’t do it. ‘Cause he wasn’t throwing away his career, and he wasn’t throwing away Fraser, and if somehow that ended up being the choice he had to make, he’d just explode or something. But when he was done thinking, Fraser said, “Yes, I understand. But while I understand the need for discretion, I won’t--I’m not comfortable with prevarication.”

Ray took a minute to untangle that, and he thought he had it--but like he said, he had to be sure. “You wanna put that in words of one syllable for me?”

“I won’t tell anyone--that’s two syllables, Ray, I’m sorry--but if asked, I won’t lie, either.” He stroked Ray’s leg with his free hand. “If someone asked--I can’t imagine why they would, but if someone did--I’d have to say something like, ‘I can’t answer that.’ And that would be as good as confirming it. I know that. But I can’t lie about it.”

He sounded sorry about it, but real sure, too. Ray wasn’t totally happy with that--if someone asked him, he’d have no trouble saying flat out, “Having sex with Fraser? No way. We’re buds, but I don’t go that way.” But he wasn’t gonna ask Fraser to make that kind of impossible choice, between doing what Ray wanted and his sense of--well, honor, or whatever you’d call it. The way it sounded, if he did, he’d explode, and Ray didn’t want exploded Mountie on his hands. So he said, “That’s fair. But we’ve also got to make sure we don’t give anybody a reason to ask.”

Fraser nodded. “I understand. It’s largely the same way in the RCMP. Not as--overt, maybe. But I wouldn’t be doing my career any favors either, if--well. I’m sure my superiors could find a worse place to post me than Chicago.” He looked doubtful, and added, “Somehow.”

“It’s not just our careers, Frase. I mean, it’s that too.” God, it was so important that he understood this, and it was just the kind of thing that Fraser didn’t tend to understand. Or maybe that he understood, but ignored anyway--like the fact that you didn’t make friends with the guy who just tried to steal your car, or ask crack whores about their mothers, or lend money to strangers on the street. He had to know normal people, normal cops, didn’t do those things, but he did them anyway. And it usually worked out for him--but this was different. “You do this job, you have to know that the rest of the force has your back. Anything happens to you, you get shot, every other cop in the city’s gonna treat it like it was somebody in their own family got shot. You’re in trouble, every other cop, any other cop’s, gonna help you. You call for backup, backup’s gonna come. You don’t have that, you come down with a serious case of dead.”

“And you think--and if the others know that you’re--that we’re--they’d let that happen?” Fraser was having a hard time wrapping his head around that, just like Ray’d thought he would.

“Yes.”

“But that’s not…I understand that many people would find this kind of…association…distasteful. But surely the fact that you’re a skilled detective, a good man--that has to count for more.”

“Not for everybody. I’m not sayin’ it’s right, I’m not saying that at all. But that’s the way it is. I’ve heard of it happening. Nobody I knew personally, thank God, but you hear about it. And another guy--this guy I did know, back at the one-nine. Uniform. He kinda kept to himself, didn’t have a ton of friends, but nobody had a problem with him, until one night somebody from Vice saw him goin’ into a gay bar. Few days later, everybody at the station knew. Everybody turned on him. His paperwork got lost--his perps got lost, sometimes--porno turned up on his desk--both kinds--somebody took a shit in his locker once--he came in the locker room, everybody left. You know. Went on for about a month, until one day he didn’t turn up, two, three days in a row. A couple of other uniforms went over to his place, found out he shot himself in the head with his service piece.” Ray shook his head, remembering it. He shoulda done something. He hadn’t joined in, but he shoulda at least said Hey, that’s not cool. “And you and me, we’re not gonna eat our guns if we get picked on. I mean, he musta had other problems, right? But nobody was sorry. Lot of people were glad, and they didn’t make a secret of it. Day of his funeral, everybody assigned to his honor guard called in sick.”

“That’s…vile, Ray.”

“I know it is.” He touched Fraser’s knee. “So you understand, what we gotta do and why?”

“The why, definitely. I’m not sure…what do we need to do differently?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We act any different--we even start avoiding each other or anything--people are gonna wonder why, and that’s exactly what we don’t need. You were fine today--perfect. We just keep on like that, we should be fine.”

“Ah.” Fraser nodded. “Understood.”

“Except one thing,” Ray had to add.

Fraser gave him his full attention.

“You think maybe anybody at the store sold you those books is gonna remember? ‘Cause I’m sure they sell a lotta books in a day, but you kinda stick out.”

Fraser blinked. “I wasn’t in uniform, as it happens.”

“Good, great. That helps a lot. And did you have, like, a conversation with ‘em? Tell ‘em you came to Chicago on the trail a’ your father’s killers, ek-cetera?”

“No, I didn’t. We just talked about the books. The young man highly recommended one in particular--”

Ray waved him off. “Okay, fine. Good. We’re okay, then. He talks about it, all he’s gonna say is he sold some gay sex books to a hot guy in a funny hat. He don’t know he sold ‘em to Chicago’s own personal Mountie.”

Fraser looked across the room to where his hat was sitting on the table by the door. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about my hat.”

Actually, Ray didn’t either. Handsome. Sexy. Cute, even. But not funny. “I meant funny unusual, not funny bad.”

“Ah,” Fraser said, with a smile that lit up his eyes. “Like us.”

Ray looked over at the hat. “Yeah, Frase, exactly like us.”

#

The next couple of days, they didn’t have time for any quiet evenings at home. They mighta had time for sex, but Ray wasn’t sure how Fraser’d feel about a quick grope in the car on the way home, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. ‘Cause if they could have sex any time--well, what was to stop them?

It started when they were working on a red-hot case involving some possibly counterfeit watches, and Fraser took a break from all the excitement to give some directions to a lost tourist.

Anybody else, that would be the end of that. But being as it was Fraser, the lost tourist turned out to be the daughter of the king--or emir, or whatever they had over there--of a small middle-eastern country, on the run from both a gang of kidnappers from a different small middle-eastern country and her own family, who wanted her to go into an arranged marriage with a prince from still a third small middle eastern country. (Ray hadn’t known there even were so many small middle-eastern countries, and couldn’t keep them all straight in his head. Eventually he had to make Fraser call them One-istan, Two-istan, and Three-istan, just so he knew who was chasing them at any given time.)

So by the time they’d blown up a car (not his, thank God), he’d gotten shot at, Fraser had deflected the princesses romantic interest, they’d arrested the kidnappers, he’d gotten shot at some more, and Fraser had convinced the king of One-istan to let his daughter go to medical school (in Canada, when he pointed out he didn’t really want his little girl living in what the folks back home considered the most sinful country on the entire globe) instead of marrying a guy twice her age who she didn’t know and had invisibly shepherded the prince of Three-istan into a romantic attachment with the older lady the kidnappers had brought along to chaperone the princess once they caught her--by the time all that had happened, Ray was totally over any lingering worries he might have had about the sex affecting their working relationship.

Best of all, they’d prevented all different kinds of international incidents, and wound up with the leaders of One-istan and Three-istan pronouncing themselves in personal debt to Canada and the United States, so both Welsh and the Ice Queen were pretty happy with them. Happy enough to overlook the exploding car incident--which hadn’t even been any kind of Ray’s fault, but he tended to get blamed for things like that, for some reason.

Better than best, it was late by the time they broke the case, and even later by the time they’d done as much of the paperwork as couldn’t wait until morning. Fraser’d reported in by phone, and everybody knew they’d been going like gangbusters for the last few days. It wasn’t gonna look funny to anybody if they went back to Ray’s place to unwind, and Fraser ended up crashing there.

Tired as they were, Ray was too hyped up to go to sleep any time soon--but he had a good idea of what might help. As soon as they got inside, he backed Fraser up against the door and kissed him. Okay, so maybe that was getting to be a pattern, this kissing against the door business, but they’d ordered a pizza from the car, and he didn’t want to get too comfy and then have to get up to answer the door and pay the man.

Maybe Fraser was worried about ending up in a rut too, ‘cause he did some kind of thing that wound up with Ray’s back to the door, and no clear idea exactly how it happened. And that was just enough of a wrinkle to keep things interesting--the solid wood door against his back, Fraser in front of him, right up in his space, hands planted on either side of his head. Like he couldn’t get out of it if he wanted to, which he didn’t, but just thinking like he couldn’t sent a shiver the whole way down his body.

Fraser sucked at his lower lip for a moment before releasing him to move down, across Ray’s jaw, down to his neck, until he was right at the jugular, the vampire spot, Ray’s blood beating just under his lips. “Mm, yeah,” he mumbled, moving his head a little so he could press his own mouth against Fraser’s temple. Fraser knew better than to give him a hickey, right?

If he knew what a hickey even was, yeah. And maybe he did, ‘cause he was just nibbling lightly, not getting enough suction going to leave a mark. So it was all good.

Good.

Fraser untucked his shirt, skated his hand under it, stroking along his belly. Ray leaned into him, thinking Fraser was heading down into his pants, but he headed up, instead, stroking his chest, circling a nipple with his fingertips, and holy shit, it turned out there was a second base after all. It was obscene how little bits of flesh that any guy could show off in the street could feel that good. “Oh, God, good.”

He scrabbled at the front of Fraser’s tunic, hoping to return the favor. He managed to get one button undone and shove his hand inside, but, shit, there was still Fraser’s undershirt in there. He stroked experimentally at a nipple anyway, and Frase gasped into his neck, “Ray, Ray, Ray, love you, Ray.”

Ray took a deep breath, and--nearly had a heart attack when someone pounded on the door against his back. He jumped away like a scalded cat, shouting, ‘What the fuck--?”

“The food, I think,” Fraser said quietly.

“Oh, right. Coming!” he called, glancing over himself and Fraser. He was fine, everything still buttoned up, shirt was untucked, but that wouldn’t look suspicious. Fraser, on the other hand, while still fully dressed, had a swollen-lipped about-to-be-fucked look to him. Hell, maybe he looked the same way. “Go in the kitchen a minute,” he hissed. If he didn’t open the door too far, the pizza guy could think he had a girl in here, and that would be fine, just fine.

With a terse, “Understood,” Fraser beetled off for the kitchen, and Ray opened the door. “Hey,” he told the guy, getting out his wallet. “We kinda forgot you were coming. What is it, fifteen?” He handed over a twenty and accepted the pizza box. “Keep it, thanks.” He shut the door, threw on all the locks, and carted the pizza to the couch. “All clear, Frase.”

Fraser came back, carrying a couple of plates, a beer, and a Coke.

“Oh, good idea, thanks.” They didn’t really need the plates--as far as Ray was concerned, pizza was meant to be eaten straight out of the box--but whatever. He popped open the beer and slapped a couple of slices on the plates while Fraser sat down.

On the far end of the couch.

Stiffly.

Oh, shit.

There was still just enough time for this to be a simple misunderstanding, though. “Hey, buddy, you know I was ‘what-the-fuck’-ing about the guy knocking on the door right on the other side of my head, right? Not about the--you know. What you said.”

Fraser said, “I know,” but unbent a little.

“Then what’d I do?”

“Nothing, Ray. It’s not your fault.”

At least he was admitting there was an it. Now it was just a matter of asking the right question to get him to say what it was. “What’s not my fault?”

“Anything.”

“I got it, but there’s some specific thing that’s bugging you right this minute that isn’t my fault, and I wanna know what it is.”

“It’s nothing you need concern yourself with, Ray.”

“Yeah, it is. Something’s bugging my--” He fished for a word “--buddy, it concerns me.”

Fraser sighed. “Having to hide in the kitchen from the delivery boy. It--bothered me.” He looked away, blushing around the ears. “We weren’t even doing anything.”

“Did you get a look in a mirror while you were in there? You sure looked like you were doing something.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. Downright pornographic.”

Go figure--that made him happy; he slid on over and ate his pizza, pressed up against Ray’s side.

After he finished his first slice and tossed the crust to Dief, he reached for his Coke, and--deliberately--stopped his hand, and grabbed Ray’s beer instead, and took a long pull. And that, too, was downright sexy, Frase’s mouth on the lip of the bottle, sucking down beer that tasted like Ray.

Putting it down, he looked sheepishly at Ray, who grinned back and said, “Good, huh?”

“Indeed.”

They ate another couple of slices each, finished the beer, and another one that Ray brought them. He had most of a six pack left, so they could’ve each had their own, but there was something weirdly intimate about sharing a drink like that. And since they’d already been swapping spit the fun way, you couldn’t really say there was anything unhygienic about it.

Then, full and a little sleepy under the buzz, they sat on the couch and made out for a while. Best date he’d been on in years. He wanted to say--what Fraser had said earlier--but when he pulled his mouth away from Fraser’s long enough to try, he found out he just couldn’t.

Instead, he blurted out, “I got you a toothbrush.”

Fraser looked confused. “I have a toothbrush. A perfectly adequate one, I had thought.”

Like maybe he thought Ray was trying to tell him somethin’ was wrong with his oral hygiene.. Jeez. “No, I mean--for here.”

He smiled slowly, like ice melting. “Understood.”

#

He woke up the next morning--shit, almost the next afternoon--with a sleepy Fraser draped across him. God, he’d forgotten how nice it was to sleep with somebody else. Alone, you had to figure out something to do with all your limbs, and once you’d come up with something, you really couldn’t tell if it was gonna work. With somebody else, all you had to do was figure out the one right way you’d fit together, like puzzle pieces. His left arm was numb where Fraser was laying on it, but he didn’t care one bit.

Last night had been good, too. They’d tried some different stuff. Fraser’d put him up on his hands and knees, and at first he’d been like, Uh, no, buddy, way too soon--but it turned out Fraser just wanted to rub up between his thighs, which he thought--well, okay, whatever floats your boat.

But it had turned out to be great. Fraser’s cock slid along the back of his balls, and he’d held Ray’s cock so that every thrust drove him into Fraser’s hand. Fraser’d been warm and solid and oh-so-fucking-heavy on his back. Gave him enough of an idea of what actual fucking was gonna be like that he was starting to look forward to trying it, a little bit.

Well, maybe even a lot.

He was still thinking about that when he realized Fraser’s eyes were open, looking at him. “Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey, yourself,” Fraser answered, propping himself up on his elbow. Blood rushed back into Ray’s left arm, pins and needles all the way.

“We should probably try to make it in to work sometime this week,” he observed reluctantly.

“Probably.” Fraser sounded just about as reluctant, but rolled off of him a moment later. “Unless--do you want the first shower?”

It occurred to Ray that they could maybe shower together. To save time, like. Only he knew perfectly well that showering together never saved time, and while two guys who had just averted several international incidents could get away with being late to work, they couldn’t quite get away with not even showing up until everyone else had gone home. “You go ahead,” he yawned. “But if I fall back asleep, get me up when you’re done.”

It didn’t occur to him until Fraser was gone that there was a dirty way he could’ve taken that.

Unfortunately, he didn’t. Even though Ray pretended to be asleep when he came out of the shower.

So he took his own shower, feeling a really wussy thrill of pleasure when he saw the second toothbrush sitting next to his in the glass. Fraser was just getting back from walking Dief when he came out, and they downed a couple of slices of cold pizza, standing up in the kitchen. Christ, it was like they lived together. Just like. And how great would it be, if they really could--but they couldn’t. A night and morning like this, every now and then, was going to have to do it for him. No point cryin’ over what you couldn’t have, especially when what you could have was pretty damn good.

On to part 2