I woke up to a blur of bright red. Red meant stop, red meant danger... Red meant Fraser, and there he was. Sleeping next to me.

The thought put my heart in my throat. He was here, still, right now.

I tried to move closer to be sure, but my body went on strike. How it could feel like lead *and* overcooked spaghetti at the same time, I didn't know. Hard to say why I hurt so much and felt so weak. It could have been the many near drownings, all the bloom-close- kick-him-in-the-head for what seemed like hours, almost reaching escape velocity at the end of a hopped-up fire extinguisher, plunging back to earth by hitting the water in a belly flop, or all the panic attacks from the times I nearly died. Or all of the above.

But I felt good too, even if it was only in-my-head good. Fraser and I were partners again, a duet again. Having our connection go online in that hold after being dead for so long had been pure magic. Oh yeah, and we found the gold, put a very bad man away, ended the ghost ship Robert Mackenzie's reign of terror, and saved an ecosystem. Seriously not bad at all.

I managed to get an arm and leg to cross the picket line so I could roll closer to Fraser. Yeah, it was him: his weight, his heat, his scent. Maybe this made me a sick man, but I could have known just from scent that he wasn't wearing *his* Mountie uniform, just something loaned to him. Y'know, when you spent a lot of time with a guy, you... Eh, even I couldn't believe that one, and I wanted to.

He was really here, with me, in my own bed. That, or I'd hit my head in the Harry Allen, and this was some really fun dream Somebody Up There let me have before I died.

Nah, my dreams weren't this real. Fraser smelled like old metal, tar, gunmetal, and gunpowder. The hold... I wished I could see better, because the way he'd sounded as he caught the gun and started to fire like the crack shot he of course happened to be had made me want to watch. Made me want to do a lot of things... He sounded like pure confidence, joy, and *rightness*. And like pure sex. Yeah, I wanted to do a lot of things hearing him, but one of the few I could do in public would be put my hand over my heart and sing a stanza of "Oh, Canada." Even if I didn't know the words. For one dizzy moment, I felt a surge of misplaced patriotism and wanted to be a Canadian. Then, I remembered the politeness and licking everything bit and came to my senses.

Fraser using a gun the right way, to shoot with. Rowrrr. Of course that had left me helpless against the Jedi Mountie Mind Whammy. Come to the Canadian Side, Ray. Give in to your lust...

If only, right?

I was only human. Press your ass up right against me in some tiny sub, and you got my attention. Decide to trust my judgment, and you had me locked in: mind, body, and soul. Yours.

If you wanted me.

Which maybe he didn't.

My reaction to him in the sub had to be obvious, even if he hadn't said anything. Him to me... I didn't know. He had a great ass, but it couldn't tell me that much.

Yeah, our time in the hold proved we were a partnership again, a duet. Melody and harmony working together the way they should. Refusing our transfers said that we wanted to keep on working together. None of that told me if he wanted to play with me too.

Wait, that didn't sound right. Well, I know what I meant.

And what if he did want me that way, the way I wanted him. If I didn't die of shock and happiness, there I'd be on cloud nine until... Until. With Stella, she'd loved me until one day she just didn't anymore. I never saw it coming. That could happen with Fraser too.

It would kill me.

Or what if we fell out of harmony again, and it took another few near-death experiences to get what I was talking about through his cute but sometimes thick head? What if I couldn't get through at all? I didn't think I could survive another string of days like the one I just had, with my heart breaking and breaking and breaking some more.

I mean, he took me to the point where my head and heart were so screwed up that I *hit* him. I always talked a good game, made threats, but that was all pose because I didn't hit people I loved. Never. Shit, I sounded like I was blaming the victim. Not so. My fault, all mine.

Just thinking about it made me wish he'd hit me back harder than he had.

I set all that aside with all the other things I refused to think about, because I had him here right now. My bad thoughts seemed to have made me instinctively--heh, Mr. Instinct, that's me--burrow into him for comfort, and his arm had moved to drape over my waist. He brought me home, then fell asleep beside me. I was sleeping with Fraser, and I hadn't even been awake for it.

Some people looked... I don't know, *vacant* when they slept, like the body was there, but the mind had taken a lunch break or something. Fraser didn't; you could tell he was still in there. He just looked... undefended somehow. The drawbridge was down, and the castle was ripe for the picking, and how perverted am I? At least my mind didn't spit out the word "plundering" there.

He looked rumpled and cute and unguarded and so close. Then his tongue darted out to slick his lower lip, and I was lost. I had to kiss him, and if he felt it and asked later, I'd say that he should have known this kind of thing would happen when he had such full, shiny lips and fell asleep next to someone. Blaming the victim again. Well, that's if I was brave. Otherwise I'd claim sleepkissing and hope it stuck.

His lips felt right and good under mine. I expected him to taste funky--I mean, I watched him taste a few poisonous chemicals in the hold, and man, maybe I should have thought of that before I started this, but it didn't matter now--but he just tasted like... himself, I guess. Even the morning mouth wasn't too bad. All that stopped mattering when his tongue slipped into my mouth and his arm tightened around me. We shared air all over again, with the same weird mix of gentleness and desperation, and this time I could say for sure that, yes, Virginia, he did have his tongue mapping out my teeth.

Extra lung power or not, Fraser finally let my lips go so he could breathe. I was having problems in that area myself. "Are you asleep, Ray?" he asked. His eyes looked dark and stormy.

"Yeah. Can't you tell?" I gasped as I shivered.

"I can't move."

There went one dream. After that kiss, I really hoped he would take advantage of me, since I wouldn't be much help in my condition. I mean, I was so beat I was barely getting it up, not that I'd ever be sharing that tidbit with anyone. What happened to that whole Super Mountie deal?

"I can't move either, Fraser." This would be funny one day. Just not right now.

"So I can't leave, and you can't leave."

I smiled, and something about the look on my face made his eyes get a sexy, predatory gleam. Okay, maybe this had possibilities after all. We had to perk up sooner or later. "Someone will look for us eventually."

"'Eventually' can be a very long time," he said as he nuzzled my ear. Yeah, he could move a little, better than I could.

Aw, hell. I already know I'm a masochist.

*********************THE END************************

More Viridian5 stories can be found in The Green Room at http://members.tripod.com/~drovar/viridian/