ds_flashfiction | Oh, What A Dirty, Dirty Challenge by damned

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Water Cure by damned_colonial, for the Dirty, Dirty Challenge.

900 words, more or less. F/K.

Thanks to fairestcat and commodorified and those on #discourse for encouragement and nitpicking. Somehow this challenge collided head-on with the discussion I was having with someone the other day, saying that in Due South, curtainfic is usually plumbingfic... and here's what happened.

"There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them." -- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"I stink." Ray slammed the wrench down on the porch with a thump and pushed himself up onto his feet.

Fraser looked up from his book with a half-smile. "I would have described it more as an alluring musk."

"No, no, no." Ray paced the porch erratically, arms folded tightly across his chest, and Fraser suddenly regretted his attempt at a joke. "I mean I suck. This sucks. I can't do this." He kicked at the pile of pipes and some of them clattered down onto the ground. "The fucking threading's wrong and the nearest hardware store's two hundred miles away and you know, plumbing should be better than curtains, right? But as much as I freaking hated those colour swatches the last time around --" he punctuated the statement with another kick at the pipes -- "at least there was a shower."

Ah. It had been four months, and Ray had been settling in well, considering, but the lack of indoor plumbing seemed to bother him just as much as it had Ray Vecchio. And, like Ray Vecchio, he had chosen to do something about it; though instead of catalogues he had gone straight for the hardware, spending hours poring over plans and pump specifications with the staff in the store in Yellowknife -- approximately one hundred and eighty miles away, in fact -- and bringing home an impressive array of parts which were now, apparently, frustrating him.

"And if I have to look at that dinky little tub one more time I am going to scream, Fraser, I swear to God I will. And what do you mean, alluring musk?" Oh dear. "Because musk is for oxes --"

"Oxen, Ray."

"-- or muskrats or that disgusting cologne my Uncle Paulie used to wear, and if you're saying I stink, I swear I will..." Ray looked at Fraser then, still sitting on the front step, his book folded closed with his index finger marking the page, and Fraser could see him consciously try to get his anger under control, shaking his shoulders and loosening his hands. "I hate that tub," he said. "I'd rather do that thing with the snow."

The last of the snow had melted two months ago and there wouldn't be more for another month or two yet, but if Ray was prepared to consider rolling in it to get clean as Fraser had done on their quest, while Ray sat by the fire protesting that no sane person should do that when it was cold enough to -- "freeze your nuts off" had been his way of putting it -- then he was obviously in desperate straits.

"Hmmm," Fraser said, and ducked inside and gathered up a few things, tucking them into a knapsack while Ray continued to seethe and sputter. When he went back outside, Ray was on the subject of pizza (of which he felt there was not enough) and daylight (of which there was entirely too much, in his opinion.)

"Follow me, Ray."

"What? No. Where are we going?" He followed, despite his protestations, as Fraser led him away from the cabin and into the shade of the trees. "I'm serious Fraser, I need my beauty sleep, the only time I should be seeing three a.m. is from the other side, you hear me?"

"On the contrary, I find you quite beautiful with any amount of sleep."

"Yeah? Yeah, well... shit, Fraser, it's just driving me insane."

"Understood. Mind your step."

They clambered down an embankment and over some rocks and Fraser found the path he was looking for. Another few hundred metres, with Ray muttering all the way, and Fraser nodding from time to time but forebearing to comment.

"... and I don't know about you, but I could just do with a ballgame, you know? Like, a few thousand people all crammed in... hey!"

They had arrived. Fraser dropped the knapsack and started taking things out of it. He looked up at Ray, who was squinting at him suspiciously.

"Take your clothes off, Ray."

"No way. This is going to be cold, I just know it. You want me to freeze my ass off, Fraser?"

"Take your clothes off," Fraser repeated. "I assure you it won't be cold." He started undressing himself, leaving his shirt and jeans and hiking boots in a pile on a rock, and Ray grudgingly followed him.

"Did I mention mosquitoes yet?" Ray asked through the muffling cloth of his tshirt as he pulled it over his head. "You guys could export insects, you know that? Shit." He slapped at a bug that had landed on his chest the moment it was exposed.

There were no insects once they were in the water, though, and it was warm, fed by a hot spring. Fraser should have thought of it earlier, and chastised himself for his oversight.

"Come here, Ray. I'll scrub your back."

Ray picked his way cautiously through the shoulder-deep water then settled against Fraser and began to relax, letting his protestations and complaints die away as Fraser soaped up the washcloth he'd brought from the cabin and began to use it to massage away Ray's tension.

"OK, this is good," Ray said at last, murmuring against Fraser's chest. "Will there be pizza afterwards?"