Author's website: http://www.trickster.org/kass/

Disclaimer: Boys are theirs, words are mine.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Sihaya Black for beta.

Story Notes: Written in response to the "kaleidoscope eyes" challenge at livejournal community ds_flashfiction.

It was still early when I bid my date adieu. I didn't relish the notion of returning to the Consulate this soon. Turnbull might still be on duty, and would no doubt ask how the evening had gone.

I was less apprehensive about admitting the failure to Ray, so I stopped by his building. His lights were on, so I walked up. Surely there was nothing untoward in stopping by a friend's house on a snowy evening, and if he were otherwise occupied I would excuse myself and walk home.

Ray greeted me warmly, which dispelled my fears of the unannounced visit being an imposition. Still, I could tell something was off from the moment he opened the door. His body language was...odd. He stood closer than usual, and his gestures were more expansive. It didn't take long to recount my evening, and by the time my embarrassingly short story reached its end, I had realized that Ray was decidedly not sober.

"You know what your problem is?" Ray's speech wasn't slurred, but I suspected it should have been, given the number of empty Amstel bottles on his countertop. I wondered what had been the occasion for his intoxication. Something to do with his ex-wife, perhaps.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The reason the dates aren't going anywhere," he clarified.

I almost said, 'But I always take them out for a meal,' but restrained myself. This drunk, Ray was unlikely to recognize the teasing.

"They're the wrong women." With this pronouncement, he sat back on the sofa, arms crossed.

"Well, that's helpful."

Ignoring my sarcasm altogether, Ray continued. "You've gotta look outside the box, Fraser."

"Box? What box?" Ray's bizarre leaps of logic don't always make sense to me even when he's sober.

"You're looking at the package. 'S the wrong way to go about it."

Ahh. "Are you suggesting that I place too high a premium on physical attractiveness?" The notion rankled.

"It's not just that. You gotta look inside," Ray said. His voice was decidedly earnest. "Find someone who cares for you."

"I don't see how a woman who doesn't know me yet could possibly fit those criteria--"

Ray interrupted. "Like me."

Was it my imagination, or was Ray sitting nearer to me on the couch than he had been before?

"I beg your pardon?" Desire was threatening to ignite, and I was quashing it as ruthlessly as I could, because I knew Ray could not mean what it sounded like he meant.

Which made it all the more astonishing when he twined his arms around me and opened his mouth to mine. He tasted of beer and his mouth was hot and for an instant I couldn't help savoring the kiss.

It was with some difficulty that I disentangled us. "Ray," I said, as he grinned up at me, lopsided, on the verge of toppling into my lap. He reached for my chest.

"Ray!" As firmly as I could, I detached his hands and put them back on his person.

"What?" He sounded put-out.

"You're heterosexual," I pointed out.

"I'm open to possibilities."

He leaned my way again and it took some effort to hold him upright. "I think you'd regret this tomorrow."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Fraserrrrr," he sighed. "I wanna."

Between his closed eyes, unguarded expression, and pleading tone, he was the picture of anguished desire. Something in me thrilled at the sight.

"You've been drinking."

"I've wanted this for ages."

It was a non sequitur, but I was disinclined to point that out.

"I can make up my own mind," he argued. "I'm a big boy."

Half a dozen inappropriate responses flitted through my mind. Before I had settled on an answer Ray had climbed onto my lap.

The kiss was sweet and hot and dirty. Ray's weight pressed deliciously on my groin.

As if from a great distance, I heard myself groan. This was not the turn I had expected the evening to take. With what was left of my mind, I struggled to hold on to the mantra which had kept me from pushing this boundary before: I would be foolish to squander the closeness of our working partnership, our friendship, in pursuit of mere physical pleasure...

Ray's hips were moving over me, his own drunken weaving dance. He nuzzled his way down my jaw towards my throat and I could feel my control eroding.

"Ray..." I had intended the word as a protest, but it sounded more like a plea.

Fast, he scrambled off of me and landed on the floor between my feet. Relief warred with frustration.

And then his hands were working at the fastenings of my trousers. He was biting his lip in concentration, trying to undo belt and buttons.

"I want to suck you," he said. My imagination caught fire. To my mortification, I gasped and arched into his hands and shuddered to climax before he could put his mouth on me.

I tipped my head back onto the edge of the sofa and closed my eyes, overwhelmed. My body was thrumming with aftershocks; my head was spinning; somewhere in the pit of my stomach I was terrified of how Ray would react when he came to his senses.

I felt him rise and stand over me. After a long moment I took a deep breath and looked at him.

His shirt had come untucked on one side, and his lips were wet. His left hand was hooked into his waistband, thumb inside a belt loop, and his right hand stroked up and down over his crotch. Despite myself, I felt my libido stirring.

"Come to bed," he said.

My reasons for arguing seemed further away every minute. "I can't."

"You want to."

Something in me snapped. "Of course I want to! You're my best friend and you're beautiful and I want to make you scream."

He grinned. "I like screaming."

"Ray--"

He sighed, theatrical, and suddenly his posture changed. Not sultry anymore: now he was just standing in front of me, looking down.

"I'm not going to regret it." His voice was quiet.

"You don't know," I began.

"Do too."

"And I don't believe you really want--"

"You want to," he said again.

"We're not talking about what I want."

"You know how long it's been since somebody wanted me?" He didn't pause long enough for me to answer. "God. You...see me. And you still..." He ran one hand through his hair, looking frustrated. "I don't know what you see in me, but I want to be the guy you want."

"You are." The words almost hurt. I felt as though the entire world had receded to this: two men, two feet apart, staring at each other in a darkened room, hurtling headlong into the unknown.

"And I think I love you."

I had not believed words -- those words, in particular -- had the power to steal my breath anymore. Not after Victoria. And yet Ray's pronouncement, shaky as it was, caught in my heart and lodged there.

"C'mon, Fraser. Please."

I couldn't say no. When I stood, he flowed into my space. The kiss was even better: maybe we were improving with practice. I murmured that I loved him too, pressing the words onto the sensitive skin beneath one ear, and he shivered.

And then I was following him into his darkened bedroom. "You're gonna have to show me what we're doing," he said, shimmying out of his shirt.

"Gladly."

I was about to reach for him when he jerked back. "Wait -- hang on a sec."

He returned with a tumbler of water and a pair of aspirin. "Hangover cure," he mumbled, around a mouthful of pill. After he swallowed, he grinned at me. "I think I'm gonna like this. I want to feel good enough in the morning to do it again..."

(1318 words)

End In Amstel Veritas by Kass: kass@trickster.org

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