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Disclaimers: Everyone belongs to someone else (Haggis, Alliance Productions, etc.) and I'm all alone in the world.

Other: Nothing in particular happens. Ray is thinking about Fraser. You'll be glad to know that this is another short one.

Author: annezo @ fastmail . fm

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DREAMS OF BRASS

Well? Now what? Ray stared at the ceiling. Actually, he stared in the general direction of the ceiling, seeing nothing in the dark room. It was a favorite trick of his from childhood. Looking for a safe place to hide, he had discovered that he could go to bed, cover the windows so that the room was completely black, and hide in plain sight.

This...whatever it was, between him and Fraser. Maybe he was hiding from that this time.

He'd left the other man less than an hour before. He wondered what Fraser was doing right now? Laying in another dark room, thinking of Ray and wondering how that night was going to change things?

Not Fraser. His partner was probably asleep. Ray couldn't imagine anything interfering with the Mountie's precise routine.

Except a Chicago cop. Ray couldn't stop the grin that spread over his face. He'd certainly managed to throw a monkey wrench into Fraser's world earlier that night. One kiss, and Fraser had looked pleased, his arms locked around Ray's waist like they belonged there. Ten, fifteen, kisses later, Fraser had been anything but calm. With his hair messed up and falling down over his forehead and his heavy uniform jacket unbuttoned to let Ray's hands explore the territory inside, Fraser had looked....

Ray thought about it. Fraser had looked a lot like one of those men. Impossibly handsome, half-dressed in a variety of uniforms, they had smiled an invitation to sin at a fourteen year-old Ray from the tattered pages of a discarded magazine. He'd found those few pages, still bound together by flimsy metal staples, and taken them home with him, pushed by some impulse he didn't quite understand.

For months he'd told himself it was the uniforms. He'd fantasized about himself as a Marine or a pilot, pretending that it was the uniform, the job he was admiring, and not the acres of strong, muscled flesh exposed by unbuttoning and unzipping. There had even been a cop, dark-haired and tall, one hand deep inside his pants and a look of dreamy eroticism on his face that had fascinated Ray for hours.

The dreams had always taken the same form. Ray had joined the academy, the training camp, the school, whatever was necessary. And the man from whichever picture he had chosen showed up as the instructor. The instructor always noticed Ray, singled him out for encouragement, and said that Ray was the best in the class. After that, he'd offer extra lessons and Ray, eager to earn his own crisp uniform, would always agree.

And there they'd be. Alone in the man's office, on the obstacle course, or in a car. That varied according to the uniform. And things...went downhill from there. Young Ray wasn't sure what he wanted from the man. The extra lessons always turned into some kind of wrestling or hand-to-hand combat lessons. And young Ray would lose himself in that part of the dream...stretching out the fantasy as he pictured himself and the Godlike instructor rolling on a mat, or crouched hip to thigh behind a thicket of brush. Always touching, moving. For as long as he could stand it before he rolled onto his stomach to hide from himself, and the darkness, the pressure of his hand upon his erection jerking him to orgasm.

It had been five years before he'd understood why the sight of a man, any man, in a uniform did that to him. That had been college. In spite of the plans for his future, with Stella, two kids and mortgage waiting in the background, Ray had taken one look at Gerry and fallen hard. And that uniform had been nothing more than a crisp, white lab coat.

Everything he'd dreamed, all his half-formed fantasies had been poured together into the stocky body of one horny undergraduate who shared Ray's lab table in Chemistry and, almost before Ray knew it was happening, Ray's bed at night. And in the afternoons, In the evenings. Any time they could expect that Ray's dorm roommate would be out of the way for a safe thirty minutes or more.

Ray had never even thought about love. He was already in love, and it wasn't with a man. Gerry was...something else entirely. Something raw and physical and satisfying that Ray carried through the hours of their separation.

When it ended, he wasn't devastated by the loss of Gerry from his life. Their affair had been a consuming obsession of the body, not an entanglement of the heart. He missed his friend, but not as much as he missed the eager warmth of Gerry's body. The discovery of Starline Park and one or two other shadowy corners of the city filled most of the need.

The Police Academy had been a challenge. But Stella was there, and what Ray felt for her was strong enough by then to keep him faithful. Faithful right until the day the divorce was final, when Ray had 'celebrated' by getting drunk and taking himself back to Starline Park.

That phase had ended quickly. Ray was still a cop, and he had a lot to lose by being discovered in one of the infrequent sweeps the uniformed police made through the area in response to complaints of the neighbors.

A few, rare encounters, with either men or women, had been the extent of his sex life after that. Until now.

Now, there was Fraser. Between them, the uniform and the calm air of authority and expertise had been pushing Ray's fantasy buttons since the first day he'd been assigned to work with the Mountie. If Fraser had only looked like...Ray didn't know. If Fraser had been ugly, or even just ordinary, instead of having an amazing resemblance to the policeman in that long-gone picture, maybe none of this would have happened.

Or, maybe it would have. Ray occasionally wondered about things like destiny, or fate. How unlikely was it that he would be here, impersonating another cop, and assigned to work with a man who looked like every masculine wet dream Ray had ever had, all poured into one bright red uniform?

That uniform. Ray moaned, his hand automatically wrapping around his erection as he rolled onto this stomach. That damned red uniform, with brass buttons glittering in any available light and filling Ray with the desire to feel those buttons digging into his skin as their wearer held Ray and....

"Aaauugh...." Ray's cry was muffled by the pillow. His hips bucked erratically for a few seconds, prolonging the pleasure of his orgasm.

Shit. He waited while his heartbeat resumed its normal, steady pace and his breathing slowed to normal. Why in the hell was he laying here alone, instead of in Fraser's bed?

Ray, I think we should consider carefully before we do anything irrevocable.

He could hear Fraser's voice echoing in his head. They had...not really argued, but something close to it for an hour. No sooner would Fraser convince Ray, than some touch, something Ray did with his hands or with his mouth would shake Fraser's own conviction and in a minute they would be arguing on the other side, with Ray trying to convince Fraser that they needed to step back and think and Fraser the one unable or unwilling to control his need.

Ray still couldn't remember what it had been that had finally separated them and eventually sent Ray home through the deserted city streets to his lonely bed.

He pulled the blankets up around his shoulders and sighed. Okay. We're being sensible. That's what you did when you grew up, right? You thought first. Then you acted.

Ray still had a problem with that thinking first thing, but he was working on it. He groped for the bedside clock, checking to make sure he'd turned on the alarm. It was late, and he needed to get to sleep.

They'd talk about it tomorrow. He smiled to himself in the darkness. And then they'd have sex.

He wondered if he'd be able to convince Fraser to wear the uniform.

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The end