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If it hadn't been for the dog, everything would have worked out perfectly.

Sean Conlon had had his entire life planned out ahead of him. He had a job with benefits, he had an apartment, and he didn't have to deal with people. Well, most of the time.

It wasn't that Sean didn't like people; it was that people didn't seem to like him. He had been told it many times over the course of his life. He was obnoxious. He cursed too much. He had a problem with authority.

Sean didn't really care.

And his job let him be by himself for most of the time. Just him, and those fucking ugly shorts that they made mailmen wear. All he had to do was go along his route, and make sure that the mail got into the proper boxes.

And well, people expected the mailman to either be overly nice, or a total jackass who would go postal at any moment.

Sean was clearly among the latter.

He'd only been on this route for three weeks. It was in a fairly upscale neighborhood, the type of place that Sean would never be able to afford on a government salary.

It was also the type of place where everyone owned a damn dog.
Sean hated dogs. Even more then he hated people. Not that he hated people. Only people who were stuck working in crappy customer service jobs where they had to answer idiotic questions about the information clearly posted on a board behind them hated people.

Oh, right. That had been his last job.

Most of the mail delivery was fairly light along this part of the route. He almost didn't mind doing it.

Of course, there was that one house down at the end of the block. The asshole that lived there probably couldn't get any more mail if he tried. Sean knew that this... Anthony Higgins - which was the guy's name according to every single piece of mail that he got had a lot of money. Judging from the magazines that he got, he worked in some sort of business. Forbes, Esquire, even fucking Business Week.

Sean knew a lot about this guy.

It wasn't that he really cared. It was just that Anthony Higgins was the most fascinating person along his route.

He got a lot of letters. Mail from people whose return address read stupid things like "Blink" and "Dutchy." Who the fuck had names like that?

And of course, there was the fact that this Anthony was gay.
This fascinated Sean on an entirely different level altogether.
It hadn't been all that hard to put together. Sean wasn't stupid even if he was a mailman.

His friends had these ridiculously gay nicknames. There was no live in girlfriend or wife. All of the mail was addressed to Mister Higgins. He ordered a lot of clothing.

And then there was that subscription to The Advocate.

So to be fair, it had been kind of obvious.

Sean continued along the route, glaring at some of the dogs that were out in the yard. They were ugly pretentious dogs, the type of thing that you expected Paris Hilton to carry in her handbag, or that ugly old French women would dress up and parade around the streets of New York City like it was cool.

Anthony had a dog too. But it wasn't some crappy little girly dog; it was a fucking giant thing.

It made Sean wonder if Anthony was compensating for something.

Walking up Anthony's driveway, Sean was surprised to see a person lounging outside on the porch.

He was hot. And shirtless.

Sean had to hope that this was Anthony.

"Nice outfit," the guy said, his voice holding just a hint of a New York accent.

Sean approved; he'd grown up in Brooklyn. He'd already guessed that Anthony would have some connection with the city; a lot of his mail came from Manhattan. And not just the business stuff, the mail from his friends with the stupid nicknames.

Anthony just sat there, sipping on a beer, while his stupid dog lay at his feet.

Sean ignored him, and began to pull all the mail for the house out of the bag.

"What?" Anthony said, smirking again. "You too good to talk to me?"

Sean was annoyed at the questions, but there was something about the smirk on Anthony's face that held his interest

Anthony got up out of the chair, and this time it was Sean's turn to smirk. Anthony had been compensating for something, but it was just his height. Well, Sean hoped it was just his height.

Sean wordlessly started to walk past Anthony, who put a hand on his shoulder.

"Aren't you going to give me my mail?" Anthony said, a smile making his sharp features even more fascinating. "I mean, why should you have to finish walking up the driveway when I'm right here?"

"It's my job to put the mail in your mailbox," Sean told him, rolling his eyes. "Can't have you going to sue me for mishandling mail, now can we?"

"Just give me my damn mail, asshole."

So Anthony could give as good as he got. Sean just smirked and kept walking. The dog, which had previously been sitting crouched by Anthony's side, now got up and began to chase after Sean.

"Call off your damn dog!" Sean snapped.

"He's harmless."

The dog lurched forward and attached itself to Sean's ankle.

Sean let out a shout and a stream of curses as he tried to get the dog off of him.

"Down, Spot," Anthony said crossly, and the dog let go. "Sorry about that," Anthony said, almost sounding apologetic. "He's a bit overprotective. Besides, he was only playing."

"You can't have it both ways," Sean said. He glared at him, although it was true that his ankle didn't hurt as badly as it could have. The damn dog hadn't broken the skin.

"Let me get you something for that," Anthony offered.

"Fuck you, and your damn dog too. I could have it destroyed, you know."

"Thank you, Miss Gulch."

"What?"

"The Wicked Witch of the West? You know you've..." Anthony trailed off, and Sean just looked more annoyed.

"Whatever," he said crossly. Dropping the mail on the driveway, he turned and headed back to his truck.

~*~

Sean wasn't actually going to press charges, although he thought about it. All that would do would be to fucking piss Anthony off, and Sean was pretty sure that the guy had enough money to fight Sean and win. And Sean hated to lose. There were other ways to get even for something like that.

Sean knew enough about Anthony by this point to figure out what would irritate him the most. Anthony soon began to get mail from all sorts of groups that he would rather have died then associate with, at least if Sean had guessed right at all.

Of course, Sean hadn't counted on the fact that he would have to deliver all of this mail, which totally sucked. Anything that increased the amount of work to do was never a good idea.

Still, the idea of making Anthony miserable was always entertaining. If only he could convince himself that doing this extra work was worth it.

The more he thought about it, the more he was determined to figure out some way to make Anthony's life miserable. The problem was that everything he could think of required spending some sort of money - money that he just didn't have.

So he had to reject a few plans - having a blow up doll sent to Anthony, supposedly sent by one of his correspondents, having a subscription to the Family Research Council purchased in Anthony's name, and various others.

He really would have given anything to see the look on Anthony's face upon receiving a catalogue for midget porn.

Still, nothing made him happy.

And nothing could clear the image of the shirtless Anthony from his mind.

It was driving him crazy.

How could he get a crush on a freaking stock broker? It was beneath him.

But still, the guy had been hot.

He wasn't sure why he was so upset that his plans to annoy Anthony were failing. It was either the fact that he had just made more work for himself, or the fact that he hadn't had the opportunity to see Anthony shirtless again.

He was pretty sure that it was the latter, and that was pissing him off to an extraordinary degree.

His revenge schemes had failed miserably. Sean hated being defeated.

~*~

A few more weeks passed before Sean saw Anthony again. He was delivering mail to Anthony's and his stupid bag was essentially overflowing with junk mail, most of which Sean supposed Anthony was just throwing away unread, when he noticed that there was a really nice car in the driveway. It was a freaking Porsche. Such a car could only belong to Anthony.

Or possibly some guy that he was dating.

For some reason, Sean felt immensely angry.

Marching up the driveway, he deposited the mail in the mailbox and continued up to the door and rang it twice. When there was no answer he began to pound angrily on the door. He was sure that there were some people passing by who probably thought that he looked like an idiot, but Sean honestly didn't care.

The door finally opened, and Anthony stood there, and Sean's jaw dropped.

Yeah, seeing Anthony clad in just a towel, absolutely sopping wet was going to be in his fantasies for quite a while.

"What do you want?" Anthony demanded, looking pretty annoyed.

"I..." Sean was sure that if he'd been thinking clearly he'd have been able to come up with some sort of witty retort. That was just what he did. But right now he was busy watching some water drip down Anthony's chest and onto his stomach until it got absorbed by.... So tempting.

He took a step forward, not even knowing what he was doing.

"So what was so important that you had to get me out of the shower?" Anthony was continuing to say.

"I... I...." Sean was stuttering. He hated that.

"If you're going to ask me out, you could have just done it like a normal person instead of signing me up for all those crap magazines. Seriously, we're not in grade school anymore."

Sean glared at him, his anger at being mocked temporarily overriding the hotness that was Anthony Higgins.

Anthony was still speaking. "You know, you should probably tell your coworkers not to gossip as much. I mean, really. They seem to love to gossip about you. And since I've been trying to figure out if you were a homophobic asshole, or you just liked me, they were a lot of help. Although, from the look of your shorts, I would have guessed it's the second one even without their help."

Sean really hated those stupid tight shorts that they made the mailmen wear right now.

"So if you're going to kiss me," Anthony was saying. "Just do it."

Sean didn't need to be told twice.

~*~

Sean woke up in Anthony's bed the next morning, his arms wrapped around his new lover. The damn dog was sitting on him.

Everything would have been perfect if it wasn't for that damn dog.

Author's Note-This is entirely Angel of Harmony's fault. We were chatting while I was at work, and somehow we came up with the idea that Spot would make an excellent mailman. Thus, this fic was born. You can blame her for any random insanity.