Now he had to tend to Neal — Neal who wasn't breathing. Peter bent over his partner and began to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He couldn't help but think how much like kissing this was, and how he wished all he had to do was kiss Neal to make him wake up.

The last thing Neal had said before the air was completely gone was, "I trust you." Just for an instant, Peter had thought he'd heard him say, "I love you."

With a gasp and a cough, Neal woke up.

"Attaboy, Neal!" Peter said as he stopped the mouth-to-mouth. "Breathe!" He put his arm around Neal's shoulders and helped him to sit up.

Neal touched his nose and mouth, then looked at his partner. "Peter, were you kissing me just now?"

Peter hoped he wasn't blushing. "No, I was giving you mouth-to-mouth." But I wanted to be kissing you just now. He often wanted to be kissing Neal. This was just one of the myriad of reasons he disliked Kate so much. Presumably, Kate had kissed Neal — and done a lot more than that, he was sure.

Neal was now breathing normally, so Peter reluctantly removed his arm from around his partner's shoulders. He offered to call an ambulance and get the paramedics to check Neal out, but Neal refused.

Now Peter had to tell Neal about Kate.

The next morning when Peter arrived to pick up Neal for work, Neal was still in his housecoat. This was nothing new; Neal could get dressed extraordinarily quickly. Peter had often had to stop himself from spying on him while he was getting dressed.

"How are you feeling?" Peter asked.

Neal took a sip of his coffee. "I'm fine. You saved me, Peter. I knew you would. Like I said in the vault, I trust you." He got up and handed Peter a cup of coffee. "You know, when I woke up in there with you leaning over me, I really thought you were kissing me."

Peter tried not to choke on the coffee he'd just swallowed.

"I was kind of disappointed to find out that you weren't, actually," Neal continued. He was now standing very close to Peter, totally encroaching on the other man's personal space.

Peter put the coffee down before he spilled it all over his clean shirt.

"I was so disappointed, in fact, that I kept dreaming about kissing you last night." He took hold of Peter's tie and pulled him closer. "So I decided that I wanted to know if kissing you in reality was as good as kissing you in my dreams." With that, he kissed Peter.

Peter thought his brain was going to explode out of the top of his head. He could hardly believe that Neal was actually kissing him. He was so surprised that he didn't respond right away.

When Peter didn't return the kiss, Neal stepped back. "I'm sorry, Peter. I shouldn't have done that."

"You're kidding, right?" Peter asked. Not waiting for an answer, he pulled his partner back to him and kissed him thoroughly.

When they finally broke apart, Neal took hold of Peter's tie again and started leading him inside to the bedroom.

"We do have to go work today, you know," Peter reminded him.

Neal grabbed the phone. "Call in sick," he said, handing it to Peter.

"For both of us?"

Neal grinned. "Tell them we had to give each other mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

END