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Official Disclaimers: Everyone belongs to someone else (Haggis, Alliance Productions, etc.).

Unofficial Stuff: Nothing happens; no sex, etc. The good news is that it's a very short story.

Author: AnneZo @ fastmail . fm

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Turning on the fan didn't really help much. Anyhow, every time Ray reached for the button, Fraser gave him one of those looks. One little fan wasn't going to drain the car battery in ten minutes, but there was no way to convince Fraser of that.

So, Ray rolled the window down. He rolled the window up. He turned on the fan until he couldn't stand the weight of his partner's accusing stare any more. Then he turned the fan off and rolled the window down. Then it was time to argue again, so he had to roll the window back up.

"This is stupid." Ray fiddled with the steering wheel impatiently. "We're gonna sit out here all night on some bum tip from a wino, and in the meantime our guy's probably on the other side of town, shaking down street mimes or something."

"Officer Hewey's information is that the perpetrator is set up for a 'meet' in this location, sometime before midnight." If Fraser was aggravated at having had to repeat that four times in the last hour, it didn't show.

Most times it was okay working with Fraser. More than okay. Fraser was the best partner Ray had ever had.

But there were times.... Times like tonight when Ray felt restless and reckless. Times when it wasn't comfortable to be cooped up for hours on end with his straight-laced partner. "I hate stake-outs," Ray complained. He knew he was acting up, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.

The tension of the stake-out, the possibility of violence when, and if, their suspect showed up, the boredom of waiting and waiting, the weird way Fraser was acting....

Ray's brain stumbled over that thought. How was it possible for Fraser to be weirder than usual? How could you tell?

He took a sharp look at his partner. Fraser's face wore its usual calm, polite expression. You really had to pay attention to tell that his eyes were just barely unfocused and that his mind was a long way from the steamy inside of Ray's car.

"What are you thinking about," Ray demanded.

"Chance."

"What?"

"Chance. Accident. Coincidence."

"Okay, I got it," Ray interrupted. "I know what chance means, okay, Fraser? I'm asking you what you're thinking about chance, you know?"

"Ahhh." Fraser nodded. "You were inquiring about the context of my thoughts?"

"If that's what you want to call it." Ray waved aside Fraser's fussy obsession with words and plowed ahead. "What are you thinking about?"

"Ray Vecchio."

The words were a wash of ice down Ray's spine. "You heard from him?"

"No."

That was a relief. Kind of. "Then why were you thinking about him?"

"He is my friend, Ray."

"You spend a lot of time thinking of absent friends?" Ray snapped the fan another speed higher. "We got work to do, Fraser. You should be concentrating on that."

"You said nothing was going to happen."

"It could."

"You've said it four times in the last hour. The suspect has not appeared, and you don't believe he is going to."

"I know what I said." Ray glared at the quiet street. "But I've been wrong before. I was just....blowing off steam, okay? Letting off the tension, right? At least I'm not sitting here thinking."

"It would be very difficult to stop thinking entirely, Ray. A natural consequence of the human reasoning ability is that the brain has a tendency to continue to...."

"Give it a rest, Fraser." Ray wasn't in the mood for lectures on things that were both obvious and beside the point. "I just meant that maybe there was more important stuff you could be thinking about than some guy who left you behind without a second thought, you know?"

"I am convinced that Detective Vecchio has given a great deal of thought to his family, his friends, and his co-workers."

"Maybe." Ray shifted, then moved the seat back a few notches to give his legs more room.

"As, for instance, I'm certain that you occasionally think of your former life."

Ray could feel his muscles clenching, his jaw going tight.

"Don't you?"

Ray looked away, watching his breath steam the window next to him. "I think about the job. This one."

"But surely not twenty-four hours a day," Fraser insisted. "There must be moments, hours even when your thoughts turn to the past."

"I'm undercover, Fraser. Remember?" Ray heard the edge in his own voice. "I'm on the job twenty-four of seven. I'm acting."

Something in the air changed. There was tension that hadn't been there a few minutes before.

"It would be virtually impossible to act every moment of every day." Under Fraser's usual certainty was a hint of something else.

"It's the job," Ray said stubbornly. From down the block, headlights flared a warning and went black. Their man was on his way.

"But there are some parts of your new life that are real, that are not an act." Fraser had to have seen the signal. He saw everything. "There must be times when you are being yourself."

A dirty, dark car, almost invisible in the deserted street, rolled into an empty parking space next to an alley.

"Like what?" Now there was a different, more familiar tension as the adrenaline started to flow. Ray watched three men get out of the car and head toward the alley. A figure separated itself from the shadows. Hewey's snitch, earning his keep.

"Like our partnership. Our friendship. Is that an act?"

The suspect's trunk was thrown open and heavy boxes were being transferred to the sidewalk.

A pale blue light flashed from a window nearby. It was a go. Someone had confirmed the identities of the men they were watching.

Ray felt for his gun automatically, his mouth going dry. "Ready?"

Fraser put his hand on the door handle and nodded. "Ready, Ray."

"On three," Ray told him. Fraser's last question surfaced in his brain. "No."

"No?" Fraser looked at the street, then back at Ray. "But we always go on three."

Sometimes you had to say things that didn't need words the rest of the time. "It's not an act." Ray rested his hand on Fraser's shoulder. "Us. Being partners. Friends. That's real."

Fraser's eyes sharpened into focus and he gave Ray a rare, open smile. "Is it?"

The pleasure, almost relief in Fraser's face was dizzying. "It's real," Ray promised.

Fraser leaned over to touch Ray's shoulder. Just as Ray slid his hand up to give his partner's neck a friendly, reassuring squeeze.

If Fraser had just kept still, it would all have been so simple. So much less confusing than the warm heat of Fraser's mouth against Ray's as their heads collided in the center of the car. A heat that flared into brilliance as their mouths somehow forgot to separate. Amazingly soft, receptive lips moved and parted under the pressure of Ray's and for a few shocking seconds, it wasn't even possible to pretend that they weren't sitting there, kissing.

The pressure eased. There was a moment to breathe. Almost enough time to start thinking again and then Fraser leaned in against Ray, or the other way around, and Ray's arm slid around Fraser's shoulders.

There it was. They were kissing. Again. And the heavy weight of Fraser's hand slid from Ray's shoulder down to his chest, then to his waist.

A noise, a muffled shout from the street and they jerked back to reality. On cue, they both turned, threw open their car doors, and ran toward the suspects. One of the men raised a gun...Ray saw a glint of metal, then his own weapon was in his hand and he was taking aim, squeezing the trigger, and watching the wall next to the gunman splinter as Ray's shot missed by a bare inch.

Another of the three fired and from Ray's left someone else answered the shot with one of their own. Then there was a confused shouting, the pounding of feet on the pavement, and a second later it was all over.

The suspects, with no urge to try a suicide stand against eight of Chicago's finest, threw down their guns and were surrounded.

The next half-hour passed in a blur. Ray moved, talked, and answered questions as though seventy-five percent of his brain wasn't still locked into that second when he had found himself unexpectedly...accidentally...kissing his very male partner. His very male, very...straight partner?

Ray was pretty much straight, most of the time. And for sure Fraser was straight. If he'd been any straighter, he would have been two-dimensional.

So, it wasn't kissing. Whatever it was, it wasn't kissing. They'd been doing something else. It was probably some obscure Mountie kind of stake-out ritual.

As soon as they were alone, Fraser would tell Ray all about it.

And then.... And then they'd see.

****

The end.