Disclaimer: Not mine, not a one.

Author's Notes: Thanks to spikedluv for the beta and for the unflagging support.

"So what'll it be, boys?" Hairy Louie smirked at the two figures bound before him and played absently with the gold tassels hanging from his nipples. "Death or dishonour?"

Constable Benton Fraser took a moment to frown thoughtfully as he considered his options, but the man kneeling at his side had no such restraint. "Death!" The muffled shout from under the black, nylon sack concealing Detective Ray Kowalski's head was perhaps a *smidge* more emphatic than Fraser thought was necessary, but sadly there was no doubting the sincerity of the proclamation. "Definitely the death! Just blow me the fuck away right *now*!" There was a pause before the black sack clarified warily, "With a *gun*, okay?"

Hairy Louie stared in more than a little surprise at Fraser's hurt face and then at the black sack concealing Ray's undoubtedly murderous one. "Really?" He looked between the partners and then leaned forwards towards Ray in a confiding manner as he muttered, "You know *which* Mountie we got here, right? It's the hot one, not the Special Ed one."

"Yeah, I *know* which Mountie it is, numbnuts." The muffled voice sounded even more annoyed as Ray strained at the cuffs holding his hands behind his back and flexed his shoulders. "And I am tellin' you that I want you to *shoot* me. Now! Shoot me, stuff me, stick me in a coffin marked doneski."

Fraser looked even more hurt and ignored the perplexed look on his captor's face to lean towards his partner as best he could and hiss, "Ray, as much as I admire your uncompromising attitude towards Mr Louie's nefarious demands, I do feel that perhaps a more...flexible...approach might work better in this situation." He looked around them at Hairy Louie's henchmen -- to a man dressed in black leather chaps and leering expectantly at the two helpless captives in their midst -- and frowned as he lowered his voice even further. "Perhaps due to your, ah, current visually challenged status you do not realise the severity of...."

"Fraser, I *get* it, okay?" Ray's voice sounded harsh and furious, with just the barest perceptible hint of panic underlying the abrasive tone, but he also sounded determined to stick to his decision. "I *know*. We fuck or we die. Well I choose death, okay? Totally, absolutely, do not pass go, death!"

Fraser swayed back into an upright position and glared at his partially concealed partner. "And I suppose I have nothing to say about this? My wishes aren't to be taken into account, apparently?" The black bag turned in Fraser's direction and the Mountie swore for a minute that he could almost *feel* the vicious glare that Ray was undoubtedly sporting under the cloth. "Frase, buddy; I love you, guy, but there are some things I don't do in the line of duty and *this* is one of them. Not *ever*." The bag turned back towards Hairy Louie and stated emphatically, "Kill me *now*."

Hairy Louie shrugged and said reluctantly, "Well, if that's the way you feel, but I think you're making a huge mistake here, kid." He gestured to his nearest henchman, who obligingly reached behind himself and fished a gun out of his leather chaps - Fraser preferred not to speculate where from. He'd gotten a look at the rear view when they had been escorted into Hairy Louie's office shortly after their capture, and as far as he was aware there was nothing holding the leather attire together in back but a waistband slung low around the hips and an extremely uncomfortable looking piece of leather floss that ran down the crevice of the buttocks and left absolutely *nothing* to the imagination as it disappeared between the wearer's legs. Hairy Louie sighed regretfully. "Okay, so we're just gonna shoot you now and...."

"Just one moment please!" Fraser waited to see that his request was listened to and then shuffled slightly on his knees until he was facing what would have been Ray's profile if he had been sans bag. "Are you *seriously* telling me that you would prefer to be shot and killed in this...establishment...rather than submit to a few moments of increased intimacy between us and weather any possible awkwardness together afterwards?"

The bag tipped to one side away from Fraser as his partner considered his words and then nodded up and down as Ray said with a great deal of unnecessary sarcasm, "Ye-es, that's what I'm sayin' here, Fraser. Fucking? Bad. Death? Grrr-eat!" The bag tilted once more as Ray chirruped gaily, "Death please!"

"Well!" Fraser glowered at Ray. "What happened to partnership? Supporting and backing each other up throughout every hardship? Weathering every storm and gritting our teeth in the face of adversity, knowing that as long as we remain together we shall ultimately emerge victorious from every danger we face?"

"Gee, I don't know, Frase." Ray's biting tone was so cold that one could almost imagine that a pressing need for insulated clothing and snow shoes were on the horizon. "Maybe all that went out the window when we got snatched in the middle of a fuckin' *gay* bar, someone stuffed my head in a fuckin' *bag* and then told me I was gonna hafta have your *dick* up my ass to fuckin' get out of here *alive*!"

"I see." If Ray's tone was cold, then Fraser's was positively arctic. "So you are quite happy to take a *bullet* for me, but the thought of...."

"Takin' anything else? Yeah, *not* gonna happen." The bag swung emphatically from side to side. "No Canadian sausage is comin' anywhere near *this* outlet, pal!"

Which was, of course, the moment that the Duck Boys, Welsh and a grinning group of uniforms burst into Hairy Louie's office at the top of The Pink Flamingo club to rescue their two undercover officers who had gone missing two hours previously, but had still both retained the state of the art tracking and listening devices cunningly disguised as belt buckles, which would now prove their worth when they helped convict Hairy Louie of a multitude of crimes, not least of which was pissing Ray Kowalski off beyond all human endurance and immortalising his Canadian sausage line for all time in the Chicago PD Hall of Worst Undercover Jobs in the World *Ever*.

~*~*~*

It had taken Fraser quite some time to track down his partner once the formalities of booking an ageing queen, twenty-seven leather chap wearing heavies and two screaming transvestites in for processing had been completed, but finally the Mountie's persistence paid off and he located his partner just down the corridor from the mortuary sitting in an unlit office and glaring furiously out of the small, dirty window. Fraser paused for a moment by the open door and then cleared his throat when it became apparent that Ray hadn't heard the rather heavy footfalls he was obliged to make in the unfamiliar black biker boots that had been part of his cover that evening. "Ray?" Fraser frowned when Ray continued to face away from him to stare out at the night sky, and then stepped hesitantly into the small office and shut the door behind him. "Ray, are you alright?"

Ray startled slightly, but stayed facing the window and away from his partner. "Sure, Fraser. They about done upstairs?"

Fraser frowned slightly at the unfamiliar emotionless tone from his normally volatile partner and said slowly, "Yes. All the suspects have been properly cautioned and are being assigned officers to conduct their preliminary interviews. Lieutenant Welsh has sent me to find you so we may conduct the interview for Hairy Louie."

Ray nodded sharply, turning from the window and keeping his face turned away from Fraser as he started across the room. "Right, okay, let's go him then, buddy."

"Ray, wait." Fraser grabbed rather clumsily for his partner's arm as Ray brushed past him in the close confines of the office and said urgently, "Ray, don't you think we should talk about what happened earlier tonight?"

Ray jerked away as though he had been burned. "No!" He stepped backwards as Fraser instinctively moved forwards to check his retreat and his hands flew up defensively. "I just wanna go get that scumbag and then go home and forget this day *ever* happened, okay?"

"No, it is not *okay*." Suddenly seething with anger again, Fraser made another determined grab for Ray's arm and this time held on tenaciously through his partner's attempts to shake him off. The gloom of the office made him uncharacteristically reckless in the face of his and Ray's obviously turbulent emotions, and he ignored the warning tensing of muscles under his fingers to give the wiry arm he held a firm shake. "Ray, this cannot be allowed to fester between us. It is quite apparent that you are vastly uncomfortable with what nearly befell us earlier, and whilst I am quite obviously unsettled with your rather...extreme...abhorrence to becoming intimate with me, I believe that given a little time we can once more...."

"Jeez, Fraser, shut *up*!" Ray succeeded in wrenching himself free and backed up in two quick steps to take himself out of Fraser's immediate reach and plaster his long, lean body up against the office wall. "Is that what you think this is about? That fat bastard wanting us to fuck? That ain't it at *all*, okay?"

Fraser blinked, wrong footed in the extreme. "It's...not?"

"No!" Ray scrubbed a hand over his spiky hair and spat in frustration, "Jesus, Fraser, you think I care about that? Fuck, this happens all the time with guys undercover in gay bars. Half the goddamned gay cops in this place caught the clue bus when they got busted by the slime of the week and had to boink their partners to buy a few extra minutes waitin' for the cavalry to save the goddamned day!"

"Wha...?" Fraser's jaw dropped and he blinked in astonishment. "*Really*?"

Ray threw up his hands in exasperation. "Sure. It's the oldest story in the book. Guys under pressure, all that hot, sweaty skin, danger everywhere they turn, barriers torn away in the heat of the moment, taboos being broken all over the shop...."

Fraser swallowed heavily and desperately tried to get a lot of highly inappropriate images out of his suddenly fevered mind.

Oblivious, Ray carried on. "And I always figured that was the way it'd probably go down with us too, y'know. Heat of the moment, last desperate confessions...."

Fraser swallowed again. Okay, so maybe the images weren't *that* inappropriate after all.

"But, I mean, *look* at us, Frase." Ray's tone turned from challenging to almost pleading in the space of a single heartbeat. "Seriously, *look* at us."

Fraser would much rather have concentrated on the really stimulating pictures in his mind and the much more interesting idea of making them a reality, but in an effort to oblige his partner he swallowed one more time and looked down first at himself and then at Ray. Both of them were wearing jeans and t-shirts and the aforementioned heavy biker boots. Alright, so Ray's jeans were a little lower cut than usual and perhaps the blond detective's t-shirt was a *little* pinker than he might have normally worn, but Fraser's dark navy blue one really was quite fetching and Fraser felt personally that the dark lines of kohl rimming Ray's currently wild eyes added a certain mystique that wasn't entirely unflattering on the blond man. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Ray. What is it I am meant to be seeing?"

"Christ!" Ray shoved away from the wall in a sudden burst of energy, and pressed himself up into Fraser's personal space to hiss in his face, "I can take the having to shake my ass for five fuckin' nights runnin' as a fuckin' go-go boy, okay? I can take the whole pretending to be your bitch and makin' like some fuckin' *moron* because it helped us get in with that whoring, murdering, drug-dealing bastard and get him the *fuck* off the streets." Ray sucked in a breath and pressed impossibly closer, unknowing or uncaring that Fraser was once more gripping his biceps in hard hands and staring at him like he'd lost his mind. "I can take bein' fuckin' dragged around like a some kind of *damsel* when our cover gets blown and bein' mauled by those freaks in the leather, and I can even fuckin' deal with havin' a fuckin' *bag* slapped over my head...."

"Well, Ray, if you hadn't tried to bite Hairy Louie on the leg...." Fraser's reproving comment was lost as Ray shoved forward again and sent them careering back against the door with a crash.

Ray didn't even notice. "But the one thing -- the absolute *only* thing -- I cannot stand about this whole fucked up night was that our first time was gonna happen and I was wearing a goddamned I. Love. *Britney* t-shirt!" He tried to step back from Fraser and spat in disgust, "With *sequins*!"

Fraser hung grimly on as Ray tried to shake loose and gave one hard yank to pull his partner flush against his body as Ray frowned in annoyance when he realised he wasn't being turned loose. "You mean that your objections tonight, your *extremely* passionate protestations, were for nothing more than you were wearing the wrong kind of *clothes*?"

Ray stared at Fraser, half hidden in the shadows, and blinked at the furious shaking in the other man's voice and the tense line of his jaw. "Uh, yeah. What did you think...?"

"For God's sake, Ray!" Fraser turned them abruptly and slammed Ray up against the door, holding him there with one hand on a bony shoulder as the other hand reached in determination for the hem of the shirt in question. "Then just take the bloody thing *off*!"

A shower of sequins burst into the air as the t-shirt was quite literally ripped from his body and Ray started to laugh helplessly as Fraser's mouth descended towards his, lips parted in eager anticipation. "Oh yeah, oldest story in the...mmmph!"

~*~*~*

The End