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Apr. 16th, 2006 07:40 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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ds_flashfictionOkay, so I went a little crazy and wrote like 4000 words of crack. This is the longest thing I have ever written, and it's a miracle that I have any hair left. Have fun, and Happy Easter!
Title: Whatever Lola Wants
Rating: Probably PG-13 for language and innuendo
Length: 4300 words, unbeta'd
Warnings: slash, language, unlikely crossovers, and probably mangled French
Prompt : When raven-haired beauty Lola Vecchio visits her cousins in Chicago she meets Fraser and ROMANTIC SPARKS FLY!! Frannie is jealus and comes up with a plan to get her rival out of the way but it BACKFIRES in ways she could never have expected...because Lola is actually a WITCH! (Crossover with HARRY POTTER) for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
isiscolo
Whatever Lola Wants
by spainja
“Frannie. I need you to run a name for us.” Ray’s bony hip hit the corner of Frannie’s desk, nearly upsetting the bottle of white-out she had carefully balanced on a stack of files.
Frannie caught the runaway bottle with a well-practiced flick of her wrist. “Keep it quick, bro. I’m leaving in 30 minutes.” She flashed a seductive smile at Fraser, who was, as usual, attached to Ray’s side. And as usual, he was too absorbed in the file he was reading to notice her.
“What, sneaking out early? Got a hot date?”
“For your information, Ray, I’ve gotta take Ma to the airport. My cousin’s coming in for a visit.” She smiled sweetly at Ray. “You remember Cousin Lola, right, bro?”
Ray straightened up, crossing his arms defensively across his chest. “Oh, right, of course. Yeah, Cousin Lola.” There was a pause. Frannie could practically see the hamster running around on its wheel in his head. “Uh, Frannie. I, uh, don’t remember Cousin Lola.” He leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Was she in the file?”
Frannie rolled her eyes. “How should I know? Probably not. She’s actually like a fifth cousin or something. Besides, we haven’t seen her in like 15 years. She went away to some fancy-schmancy boarding school in England. Now she teaches at some other fancy-schmancy girls’ school in France.”
Fraser finally pulled his head out of the file and took an interest in the conversation. “How fascinating. Will we get a chance to meet her?”
Frannie thought back to the last time she had seen Lola, at her uncle Gary’s wedding. She had only a fleeting memory of a short, skinny girl with thick glasses, black frizzes escaping from tight braids, her knee socks pooled around her ankles.
“ Sure, Frase. Why not?”
~~~~~
The air conditioning in the International Terminal was on the fritz, causing Frannie’s hair to cling to the back of her neck. Her slacks kept sliding on the molded plastic seats, which probably dated from 1982. Frannie kept getting uncomfortable flashbacks to the snack bar at the Stardust Skating Rink, where she and Candi DeChirico had wasted most of sophomore year watching Jon Fulani beat his high score at Ms. Pac man.
Frannie's squirm down memory lane was mercifully interrupted by her mother's shout of "Lolita! Bella!" Frannie looked up to see a slim, dark-haired figure all but swallowed up in her mother's embrace.
Frannie stood and attempted to smooth the wrinkles out of her slacks. She walked over to where the hands on her mother's shoulders were now gesturing somewhat frantically. "Come, on, let her breathe, Ma," Frannie said, as Lola turned to her and…
Well, shit. Looked like little Lola’s all grown up.
Lola Vecchio was no longer the awkward scrawny little girl that Frannie remembered. Gone were the mismatched braids. Now her dark hair was pulled back into a loose bun with just the right number of wisps coming out to frame her face, giving her a soft, casual look. Instead of a too-short dress and droopy socks, Lola was now draped in a flowing blue skirt, a shimmery violet blouse, and a long overcoat that swirled around her ankles. She looks like a gypsy, Frannie thought, but she had to admit that the look was working for her.
The coke-bottle glasses were a thing of the past, as well. Her eyes were--
Oh, come on, thought Frannie. There's no way. Who the hell actually has violet eyes? But sure enough, Lola's eyes were pale blue darkening to violet around the rim of the iris, and fringed with long, thick black lashes. Those have gotta be contacts.
Said violet eyes widened as Lola held out her arms. “Frannie! So good to see you again, cousin!” Frannie swallowed her sigh, pasted a big smile on her face and returned the embrace.
~~~~~
Lola babbled perkily the entire ride home. How exciting it was to be in Chicago and how wonderful it was to see the family again and how she just couldn’t wait to see darling Maria and her lovely Tony and their precious angel children and dear cousin Ray…
Frannie and Ma exchanged a quick glance. "Um...Ray has his own place now. We don't see him at home much anymore."
"But I thought he owned the house."
"Oh, yeah, he does...but he has his own place, too. He said that our place was, you know, too noisy and stuff. You know, with the kids...and Tony...and...stuff. So he's got a little bachelor pad."
"Oh. But we'll see him for Sunday dinner, surely."
Frannie stared miserably out the windshield, but luckily Ma chimed in. "Oh, I should hope so! But you know, our Raymundo has been very busy with his police work lately. So maybe yes, maybe no."
~~~~~
Ray’s bony hip made a reappearance at 11:30 the next morning. “So, how’s our long-lost cousin?” His nasal voice had a way of piercing right through Frannie’s skull sometimes.
Frannie sighed, pushed back from her computer, and rubbed her temples. “Oh, she’s just peachy, Ray. Just like we remember, bro. Don’t you have some work to do?”
Ray backed of, hand held up defensively. “Whoa, just asking. Hey, I gotta run down to the state’s attorney’s office, pick up a few files. If Fraser shows up, tell him to hang tight—I’ll be right back.” He did not, Frannie noticed, look particularly thrilled about this task.
“Yeah, sure, Ray,” Frannie said, turning back to her computer.
She was so deeply engrossed in the lives and times of various scumbags that when the paper bag dropped onto her desk, she nearly had a coronary.
“Lunchtime, cuz! Your mom told me where the station is, so I thought I’d surprise you with sandwiches. Here, have a Rueben.”
Frannie bit her tongue, suppressing the urge to inform her cousin that not only did she hate rye bread, but corned beef made her gassy. After all, Lola was family. “Thanks, Lola,” she sighed, pushing the white paper bag away from her with the tip of her pen.
Lola was looking with excitement around the bullpen. “So this is where you work, huh? You know, I’ve never been inside an actual police station.”
Frannie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s a lot less glamorous once you’re used to it.” She had a sudden urge to get away from her cousin, so she stood and scooped up the deli bag. “Lemme go put this in the fridge for later. Be right back.”
It took her longer than expected to get back to her desk, what the fake blind people and their fake seeing eye dogs blocking the front stairwell and Officer Marshall mistaking her for one of the hookers in the corridor (please. Her shirt wasn’t that short) and avoiding Lt. Welsh, who was still pissed at her about the whole surprise birthday party thing (how was she supposed to know about his coulrophobia? She’d never even heard of coulrophobia. She was pretty sure he had made up the word.) When she did make it back into the bullpen, at first all she saw was Lola, gazing at someone just out of Frannie’s view, stars all but shooting out of those violet eyes. She looked as if she had just laid eyes on something otherworldly, something that was the most beautiful thing in the—oh, shit.
Sure enough, backed up against the wall of the bullpen, his face turning red under Lola’s violet gaze, was none other than Benton Fraser. And he was looking back at Lola in a way that he usually reserved for Frannie.
That backstabbing, man-stealing witch!
“Canadien? Votre accent est très mignon!” Lola was saying, batting her thick black eyelashes at him.
“Eh, merci. Vous êtes très aimable.” Fraser punctuated this with a high-pitched giggle, a sound Frannie had never heard him make before.
Wonderful. Not only was Lola prettier and smarter and more exotic than Frannie, she could speak Fraser’s special Mountie language. This needed to end, now.
Frannie sucked in her stomach and squeezed herself into the 14 millimeters between Fraser and Lola. “Oh, hey, Frase. Long time no see.” She smiled winningly up towards him.
Fraser did that cute eyebrow thing. “Since yesterday, you mean?”
Lola quickly switched the glare aimed at Frannie into a more simpering expression aimed at Fraser. “Ah, connaissez-vous ma petite cousine Frannie?”
Fraser did that sexy neck-crack thing. “Oui, naturellement.” He glanced at Frannie. “Your cousin, I presume?”
Frannie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Fraser meet my cousin Dolores…”
“Ah, mais tout le monde m'appelle Lola,” the little witch murmured demurely.
“…who’s staying with us temporarily, for just a few days…”
“More like a week, really…”
“Before she jets back to Europe, where she lives, far, far away from here….”
“So I’ll have to have all my fun before then, now won’t I, mon beau ami…”
Enough. “Yeah, yeah, je suis le grand fromage.” Frannie grabbed Fraser’s arm. “Now why don’t we see if we can find those files you were looking for earlier. You know, that case with the guy? The guy with the hair?” She led a surprisingly pliant Fraser towards the bullpen door. “Au revoir, Dolores!.”
Over her shoulder she could see Lola’s increasingly pissy face. “But, Frannie! What about…uh, the sandwiches?”
Frannie flashed a mean little grin back at her cousin. “Keep ‘em. You look like you could use a sandwich.”
The glow from Frannie’s mini-victory lasted the rest of the day. It lasted through Fraser pulling away from her in the hall, insisting that he thought he heard Ray calling him (which was weird, ‘cause Frannie wouldn’t have thought that Ray would’ve made it back by then), it lasted through some hung-over drag queen puking in Frannie’s wastepaper basket, and it lasted through having to file endless badly-typed reports on an empty stomach. The glow didn’t fade until dinner, when having to face Lola’s glittering purple glare across the dinner table began to make Frannie feel less smug and more uneasy. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that Lola was plotting something.
Well, no sense being paranoid. Lola was only here a week. What could she possibly do?
~~~~~
Frannie was restocking the tampon machine in the second floor women’s room when she heard Lola’s voice in the hall. Frannie was already in a crappy mood that morning, what with oversleeping and almost missing the bus, plus getting crap jobs involving tampons, plus, oh yes, dealing with her oh-so-perfect man-stealing cousin. To top it all off, her prized picture of Fraser, the one she had so carefully liberated from her (real) brother’s desk, was missing, so she couldn’t even indulge in her morning Exercise of Inspiration. Having Princess Perfect show up at the station again was just icing on the camel’s back.
Frannie just dropped the open box of tampons in the corner of the room—honestly, if someone was desperate enough to use government-issue tampons, making them pay for them just seemed like added insult—and fled out into the hall. She stopped before rounding the corner and caught the tail end of the conversation between Lola and Fraser.
“…so sorry that Frannie couldn’t make it into work today, but she’s just not feeling…herself today, you know?” Frannie could hear a stuttered reply from Fraser—oh god, he was already speechless around her!—before Lola continued. “But she insisted that I come in and fill in on her behalf. I’m willing to assist in any position that she usually assumes…”
Frannie burst around the corner. “What do you mean, fill in for me! I’m right here, spit-for-brains!” She grabbed her cousin by the shoulder and spun her around. “You know, it’s a good thing you’re pretty, Dolores, because you don’t have the brains that god gave a sponge!”
Actually, Lola didn’t look so pretty right now. In fact, she was doing an excellent impression of a blowfish. Her weird purple eyes were wide with shock, and her cupid’s bow mouth kept opening and closing with no sound coming out. Little bubbles of spit were forming and popping at the edges. Frannie continued to aim her best deathglare at Lola. Behind her she was vaguely aware of Fraser backing away, saying something about finding Ray.
Finally, Lola found her words. “Frannie? You’re supposed to be…I mean, I thought you’d…are you sure you’re feeling all right? No dizziness...nausea…unwanted hair growth?” Her hand came up towards Frannie’s ears.
Frannie batted the hand away. “No, you freak. My head is fine, my stomach is fine, my ears are fine, my body hair is totally none of your business—hey! Are you checking out my ass?”
Lola snapped her eyes back to Frannie’s. “No! Of course not...I just thought…you might have a…” She faltered. “Um, you’re really okay, aren’t you? I could have sworn I did it right…”
Frannie gaped. “Oh my god! What did you do to me? Did you put Nair in my shampoo or something? Or…god, did you poison my coffee? You did, didn’t you! You totally put something nasty in my coffee to make me sick, or hairy, or…” She turned and slammed her way into the bullpen. “Fraser! Arrest her! She’s trying to poison me! “
Fraser was standing at Ray’s desk, phone in hand and a baffled look on his face. He seemed completely oblivious to what she was saying, which…well, really wasn’t anything new. “Frase?” she prodded.
Fraser looked at her. “Terribly sorry, Francesca. It’s the oddest thing. Ray hasn’t shown to work yet. I’ve been calling his apartment, but each time someone picks up, there’s no voice on the other end, just some odd hissing, and whining sounds—almost feline, honestly.”
“Feline?” Frannie jumped at Lola’s voice right behind her. That witch had followed her! Frannie dove behind Fraser’s back for protection. But Lola, for once, didn’t seem intent on ruining Frannie’s life. Instead, she looked worried and definitely unsure of herself. “You mean, feline like…a cat?”
Fraser cocked his head. “Well, yes.” He snagged his hat from the desk. “I’d better get down there to check it out. Just to make sure.”
Lola stared into space for a minute. Then she snapped out of it. “Uh…maybe I’d better come with you.” She hurried out the door after him.
Oh, hell no. There was no way Frannie was letting Lola alone with Fraser. “Wait for me!” she called as she followed them out the door.
~~~~~
Ray’s apartment was locked, of course, but apparently Fraser knew the landlady and within two minutes they were inside.
Frannie had only been in Ray’s apartment once, in that case with the thing, but she could tell that he’d really let it go downhill since then. Actually, it looked like the place had been hit by a tornado, or at least a very angry animal. Newspapers were shredded all over, plates had been knocked off the table and were broken on the floor, the curtains over the windows were shredded. And frankly, it kinda smelled like cat piss.
Frannie held her nose. “Did Ray get a cat?” Beside her, Diefenbaker growled low in his throat.
“Not that I’m aware of,” answered Fraser. He stepped gingerly into the living room. “Ray? Ray, are you here?”
From the corner came a low whine. Dief jumped forward to check it out, his growls getting louder. He stuck his nose under a rolltop desk—and promptly backed out with a yelp. As the wolf backed off and buried his nose under his paws, from under the desk leapt the most pissed-off cat Frannie had ever seen.
Its yellow hair stuck up straight from its lean body. It leapt up onto the counter, knocking down a couple of porcelain canisters. Pale blue eyes shone at them, promising death—or at least a good clawing—to anyone dumb enough to approach.
Lola approached the cat. Fraser grabbed her shoulder. “Stay back,” he cautioned. “It could be rabid, or scared, or…” He broke off as Dief made an odd whine from the corner. “That’s ridiculous, Diefenbaker. What do you mean, it’s Ray?”
Lola’s face went ashen. “Oh, shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Frannie could feel Fraser’s attention suddenly snap fully on Lola. Damnit. But when he spoke, his voice was not exactly tender and loving. “Lola. What did you do?”
~~~~~
So apparently, all those times that Frannie called Lola a witch? She wasn’t actually wrong. Turns out Lola had learned a lot more in her fancy British boarding school than how to look hot and steal Mounties. She had also learned how to turn people into really cranky animals.
“Yes, but why did you want to turn Ray into a cat? You’ve never even seen him…um, in a really long time,” Frannie asked as Ray-the-Cat hissed at them from atop the stereo.
“See, that’s what I don’t understand, either,” sighed Lola. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I wasn’t aiming for him.”
Fraser raised his eyebrows. “Then whom, pray tell, were you intending to target?”
Lola glanced sheepishly over at Frannie. Frannie felt the rage rise. “You little wit--ugh! You tried to turn me into a cat? I’m gonna rip your hairs out one by one!” She flung herself at Lola, only to be stopped by Fraser’s strong arms. She was so mad, she couldn’t even enjoy it.
“Francesca, please. Depilation won’t help resolve the situation. Now, Lola, can you think of any reason why your, ah, spell, may have targeted Ray instead of Francesca?”
“I really don’t know. Maybe it’s the consanguinity factor—the spell may have gotten confused and affected someone who was related to Frannie?”
Frannie and Fraser shared a quick look. “Perhaps,” hedged Fraser. “Might there be another explanation? What type of spell was this exactly?”
Lola sighed. “It’s a variation on a love spell. You use an image of the object of your affection, cast the spell, and it takes your biggest rival out of the running.” She scowled at the cat, who glared back at her. “Or, apparently, said rival’s brother.”
Fraser’s brow wrinkled, and there was an odd look in his eye. “By ‘rival’, you mean…could it be the person who spends the most time with your…ah…”
“Stalkee?” Frannie offered, sweetly.
Lola snorted. “Well if that isn’t the mortar calling the cauldron black!” She turned her big violet eyes back to Fraser. “No, it goes after the girl who has the strongest feelings for him—who loves him the most, I guess.” She chewed on her lower lip. “I just can’t figure out why it didn’t work.”
“Um, ‘cause you’re a moron, maybe? Right, Frase?” She looked over to Fraser for support, but he was staring at Ray-the-Cat, and didn’t even seem to hear her. “Fraser?”
Fraser suddenly snapped out of it. “Lola. Can you change him back?”
Lola blinked. “Well, sure. I mean, it’ll wear off in 24 hours, anyway, but it’s not that hard to reverse. We just need to put the cat in an enchantment circle and…” She blathered on about herbs and wands and spells for a bit, until Fraser interrupted her.
“Very well. Let’s get to it, shall we?”
~~~~~
While Fraser worked at getting Ray-the-Cat down from the shelves (Frannie got to hear him swear for the first time ever when Ray took a swipe at his cheek) Lola and Frannie mopped up the mystery puddles on the floor (ew) and drew a salt circle on the floor. (Well, Lola drew the circle. Frannie mostly watched and made sarcastic comments about Darrin and Endora.) Dief, for his part, stayed hidden under the kitchen table, munching on some crullers that Ray had knocked down. Finally they were able to tempt the cat into the circle with some M&Ms so that Lola could pull out a wand (No. Really. A freakin’ wand) and ZAP!
When the sparklies cleared, the cat was gone. In the circle crouched a very confused, very naked (ew. Did that man ever eat?) Ray Kowalski.
Lola gasped. “Oh shit! We’ve got the wrong man!”
Frannie sighed. “No, that’s Ray. He’s…changed a bit since you last saw him. Uh…puberty was rough on him.”
“Ray?” Fraser asked gently.
Naked Ray blinked at them for a second, then turned and dashed into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
“Ray!” shouted Fraser.
“Fuck off!” came the muffled answer.
“Oh, dear,” said Fraser. He turned to Lola and drew himself up to his full Mountie height. “I hope you see the consequences of your actions here, Lola.” He glanced at the bedroom door a second before continuing. “The Inuit have a saying that I feel applies to this situation. You see…” He trailed of briefly, staring back at the door. “You see, when the muskrat and the polar bear…” He stopped, and seemed to think for a minute. “Ah. That is…would you ladies excuse me for a second? I need to go see if Ray…if he needs some assistance…ah, getting dressed?”
Frannie raised her eyebrows. “Uh, sure, Fraser…” but he was already halfway to Ray’s door. “We’ll just…wait outside, then?”
“Excellent idea. We’ll meet you there,” he replied distractedly.
Frannie glanced at Lola, who shrugged. Together, they headed downstairs.
~~~~~~
Frannie plopped down onto the top step outside Ray’s building. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose—she could feel a slight headache coming on. When she opened them again, Lola was staring at her. “What?” she snapped.
Lola blinked. “It’s just that…you both seem to be handling this magic stuff surprisingly well. Most Mug—regular people would be totally freaking out right now.”
Frannie waved her hand with what she hoped was an air of jaded sophistication. “Please. I’ve survived a Voodoo curse, Fraser coming back from the dead, and working with Tom Dewey. This is nothing.”
Lola looked dutifully impressed. They sat in silence for a little while longer.
Finally, Frannie stretched and cracked her back. “Jeez, it’s been forever. Where are those guys? How long does it take Fraser to get Ray into some pants?”
Lola shrugged. Then her eyes got wide, like she’d just had an idea. “Hang on.” She rummaged around in her purse until she triumphantly pulled out a small, cloudy grey globe.
“What’s that?” asked Frannie.
Lola sat down next to her. “It’s a…oh, let’s just call it a crystal ball. It lets me look in on people in close proximity.” She shook the globe gently and it began to glow a pale gold. “I use it to keep an eye on my students when I have to run to the WC.” She frowned a little. “And to figure out who keeps stealing my lunch from the faculty lunchroom.”
Frannie narrowed her eyes at Lola. “Isn’t that, like, an invasion of privacy?”
Lola sighed. “Oh, well, if you insist…” She began to tuck the globe back into her purse.
Frannie stopped her with a hand on her wrist. “Well, since you’ve already turned it on and everything…”
Lola smirked at her and shook the globe again. The two women leaned closer together as the golden fog inside began to resolve itself into images. Frannie could see a window frame, and Ray’s blond shock of hair, and—was that a leg?
“Oh for cripes sake,” said Frannie. “Ray’s not even dressed yet! You’d think he’d at least—“ and then, suddenly, both women went still.
“Oh,” said Frannie in a very small voice.
“Oh,” said Lola.
A few moments passed.
“I, uh, didn’t know that was possible to do. Without dislocating something, I mean.”
“Oh, no, I’ve done that before. It’s easier if you do yoga.”
“Oh.”
A few more minutes.
“I—don’t think we should be watching this.”
“Yeah,” said Frannie. “But you know…it’s kinda hot.”
Lola looked at her, appalled. “Frannie! He’s your brother!”
Frannie snapped out of it. “Oh! Right!” She closed her eyes. “Turn that thing off.”
They sat quietly for a minute.
“Well, on the bright side, at least I know that my spell worked after all,” said Lola.
Frannie groaned and stood up. “I need a drink. Wanna go get a drink?”
“Oh, good god yes,” answered Lola.
~~~~~~~~~~
Much later, there were Cosmopolitans. Frannie told Lola the whole voodoo story, including the grass and the cow’s blood and the cursed coffee machine. Then Lola told the story of her ex-boyfriend, who, if you believed her, was actually a werewolf.
“Is that why you dumped him?” asked Frannie, gazing at Lola through the fog of three (five?) Cosmos. “’Cause, yeah, I can see that. I mean, Dief’s cute and all, but he can get kinda smelly. Plus, you’d have to lock up the doughnuts.”
“Nah, that wasn’t it. He spent all his time mooning over some old love of his in jail…”
Frannie burst into giggles. “You said ‘mooning!’”
“…and I finally got sick of it and told him to lope off back to England.” She frowned as she swirled the pink liquid around her glass. “Besides, our cycles never fully matched up, so three weeks out of every month one of us was in a pissy mood. It was…” she waved her hand in an elegant swirl in the air. The flame of the candle on their table turned pink. “…untenable.”
Frannie stared moodily at the rose-colored flame. “Yeah.”
Lola’s big, violet, slightly unfocused eyes turned to her. “Frannie, I’m sorry that I tried to steal your boyfriend. And that he turned out to be…you know.”
Frannie gave her a brave, if watery, smile. “That’s okay.” She sat up straighter. “You know, it really is reassuring, in a way. I mean, all this time I thought there was something wrong with me, like, am I not pretty enough, am I too subtle, why doesn’t he like me?” Her smile turned more smug. “But it turns out, hey! It’s not me after all! It’s him!”
Lola beamed back at her. “Yeah! He’s the mixed up one! We’re the normal ones!”
Frannie raised her glass. “To the normal Vecchio women, and the hot men who will never deserve us!”
Lola clinked her glass against Frannie. “To us!”
Title: Whatever Lola Wants
Rating: Probably PG-13 for language and innuendo
Length: 4300 words, unbeta'd
Warnings: slash, language, unlikely crossovers, and probably mangled French
Prompt : When raven-haired beauty Lola Vecchio visits her cousins in Chicago she meets Fraser and ROMANTIC SPARKS FLY!! Frannie is jealus and comes up with a plan to get her rival out of the way but it BACKFIRES in ways she could never have expected...because Lola is actually a WITCH! (Crossover with HARRY POTTER) for
isiscoloWhatever Lola Wants
by spainja
“Frannie. I need you to run a name for us.” Ray’s bony hip hit the corner of Frannie’s desk, nearly upsetting the bottle of white-out she had carefully balanced on a stack of files.
Frannie caught the runaway bottle with a well-practiced flick of her wrist. “Keep it quick, bro. I’m leaving in 30 minutes.” She flashed a seductive smile at Fraser, who was, as usual, attached to Ray’s side. And as usual, he was too absorbed in the file he was reading to notice her.
“What, sneaking out early? Got a hot date?”
“For your information, Ray, I’ve gotta take Ma to the airport. My cousin’s coming in for a visit.” She smiled sweetly at Ray. “You remember Cousin Lola, right, bro?”
Ray straightened up, crossing his arms defensively across his chest. “Oh, right, of course. Yeah, Cousin Lola.” There was a pause. Frannie could practically see the hamster running around on its wheel in his head. “Uh, Frannie. I, uh, don’t remember Cousin Lola.” He leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Was she in the file?”
Frannie rolled her eyes. “How should I know? Probably not. She’s actually like a fifth cousin or something. Besides, we haven’t seen her in like 15 years. She went away to some fancy-schmancy boarding school in England. Now she teaches at some other fancy-schmancy girls’ school in France.”
Fraser finally pulled his head out of the file and took an interest in the conversation. “How fascinating. Will we get a chance to meet her?”
Frannie thought back to the last time she had seen Lola, at her uncle Gary’s wedding. She had only a fleeting memory of a short, skinny girl with thick glasses, black frizzes escaping from tight braids, her knee socks pooled around her ankles.
“ Sure, Frase. Why not?”
~~~~~
The air conditioning in the International Terminal was on the fritz, causing Frannie’s hair to cling to the back of her neck. Her slacks kept sliding on the molded plastic seats, which probably dated from 1982. Frannie kept getting uncomfortable flashbacks to the snack bar at the Stardust Skating Rink, where she and Candi DeChirico had wasted most of sophomore year watching Jon Fulani beat his high score at Ms. Pac man.
Frannie's squirm down memory lane was mercifully interrupted by her mother's shout of "Lolita! Bella!" Frannie looked up to see a slim, dark-haired figure all but swallowed up in her mother's embrace.
Frannie stood and attempted to smooth the wrinkles out of her slacks. She walked over to where the hands on her mother's shoulders were now gesturing somewhat frantically. "Come, on, let her breathe, Ma," Frannie said, as Lola turned to her and…
Well, shit. Looked like little Lola’s all grown up.
Lola Vecchio was no longer the awkward scrawny little girl that Frannie remembered. Gone were the mismatched braids. Now her dark hair was pulled back into a loose bun with just the right number of wisps coming out to frame her face, giving her a soft, casual look. Instead of a too-short dress and droopy socks, Lola was now draped in a flowing blue skirt, a shimmery violet blouse, and a long overcoat that swirled around her ankles. She looks like a gypsy, Frannie thought, but she had to admit that the look was working for her.
The coke-bottle glasses were a thing of the past, as well. Her eyes were--
Oh, come on, thought Frannie. There's no way. Who the hell actually has violet eyes? But sure enough, Lola's eyes were pale blue darkening to violet around the rim of the iris, and fringed with long, thick black lashes. Those have gotta be contacts.
Said violet eyes widened as Lola held out her arms. “Frannie! So good to see you again, cousin!” Frannie swallowed her sigh, pasted a big smile on her face and returned the embrace.
~~~~~
Lola babbled perkily the entire ride home. How exciting it was to be in Chicago and how wonderful it was to see the family again and how she just couldn’t wait to see darling Maria and her lovely Tony and their precious angel children and dear cousin Ray…
Frannie and Ma exchanged a quick glance. "Um...Ray has his own place now. We don't see him at home much anymore."
"But I thought he owned the house."
"Oh, yeah, he does...but he has his own place, too. He said that our place was, you know, too noisy and stuff. You know, with the kids...and Tony...and...stuff. So he's got a little bachelor pad."
"Oh. But we'll see him for Sunday dinner, surely."
Frannie stared miserably out the windshield, but luckily Ma chimed in. "Oh, I should hope so! But you know, our Raymundo has been very busy with his police work lately. So maybe yes, maybe no."
~~~~~
Ray’s bony hip made a reappearance at 11:30 the next morning. “So, how’s our long-lost cousin?” His nasal voice had a way of piercing right through Frannie’s skull sometimes.
Frannie sighed, pushed back from her computer, and rubbed her temples. “Oh, she’s just peachy, Ray. Just like we remember, bro. Don’t you have some work to do?”
Ray backed of, hand held up defensively. “Whoa, just asking. Hey, I gotta run down to the state’s attorney’s office, pick up a few files. If Fraser shows up, tell him to hang tight—I’ll be right back.” He did not, Frannie noticed, look particularly thrilled about this task.
“Yeah, sure, Ray,” Frannie said, turning back to her computer.
She was so deeply engrossed in the lives and times of various scumbags that when the paper bag dropped onto her desk, she nearly had a coronary.
“Lunchtime, cuz! Your mom told me where the station is, so I thought I’d surprise you with sandwiches. Here, have a Rueben.”
Frannie bit her tongue, suppressing the urge to inform her cousin that not only did she hate rye bread, but corned beef made her gassy. After all, Lola was family. “Thanks, Lola,” she sighed, pushing the white paper bag away from her with the tip of her pen.
Lola was looking with excitement around the bullpen. “So this is where you work, huh? You know, I’ve never been inside an actual police station.”
Frannie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s a lot less glamorous once you’re used to it.” She had a sudden urge to get away from her cousin, so she stood and scooped up the deli bag. “Lemme go put this in the fridge for later. Be right back.”
It took her longer than expected to get back to her desk, what the fake blind people and their fake seeing eye dogs blocking the front stairwell and Officer Marshall mistaking her for one of the hookers in the corridor (please. Her shirt wasn’t that short) and avoiding Lt. Welsh, who was still pissed at her about the whole surprise birthday party thing (how was she supposed to know about his coulrophobia? She’d never even heard of coulrophobia. She was pretty sure he had made up the word.) When she did make it back into the bullpen, at first all she saw was Lola, gazing at someone just out of Frannie’s view, stars all but shooting out of those violet eyes. She looked as if she had just laid eyes on something otherworldly, something that was the most beautiful thing in the—oh, shit.
Sure enough, backed up against the wall of the bullpen, his face turning red under Lola’s violet gaze, was none other than Benton Fraser. And he was looking back at Lola in a way that he usually reserved for Frannie.
That backstabbing, man-stealing witch!
“Canadien? Votre accent est très mignon!” Lola was saying, batting her thick black eyelashes at him.
“Eh, merci. Vous êtes très aimable.” Fraser punctuated this with a high-pitched giggle, a sound Frannie had never heard him make before.
Wonderful. Not only was Lola prettier and smarter and more exotic than Frannie, she could speak Fraser’s special Mountie language. This needed to end, now.
Frannie sucked in her stomach and squeezed herself into the 14 millimeters between Fraser and Lola. “Oh, hey, Frase. Long time no see.” She smiled winningly up towards him.
Fraser did that cute eyebrow thing. “Since yesterday, you mean?”
Lola quickly switched the glare aimed at Frannie into a more simpering expression aimed at Fraser. “Ah, connaissez-vous ma petite cousine Frannie?”
Fraser did that sexy neck-crack thing. “Oui, naturellement.” He glanced at Frannie. “Your cousin, I presume?”
Frannie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Fraser meet my cousin Dolores…”
“Ah, mais tout le monde m'appelle Lola,” the little witch murmured demurely.
“…who’s staying with us temporarily, for just a few days…”
“More like a week, really…”
“Before she jets back to Europe, where she lives, far, far away from here….”
“So I’ll have to have all my fun before then, now won’t I, mon beau ami…”
Enough. “Yeah, yeah, je suis le grand fromage.” Frannie grabbed Fraser’s arm. “Now why don’t we see if we can find those files you were looking for earlier. You know, that case with the guy? The guy with the hair?” She led a surprisingly pliant Fraser towards the bullpen door. “Au revoir, Dolores!.”
Over her shoulder she could see Lola’s increasingly pissy face. “But, Frannie! What about…uh, the sandwiches?”
Frannie flashed a mean little grin back at her cousin. “Keep ‘em. You look like you could use a sandwich.”
The glow from Frannie’s mini-victory lasted the rest of the day. It lasted through Fraser pulling away from her in the hall, insisting that he thought he heard Ray calling him (which was weird, ‘cause Frannie wouldn’t have thought that Ray would’ve made it back by then), it lasted through some hung-over drag queen puking in Frannie’s wastepaper basket, and it lasted through having to file endless badly-typed reports on an empty stomach. The glow didn’t fade until dinner, when having to face Lola’s glittering purple glare across the dinner table began to make Frannie feel less smug and more uneasy. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that Lola was plotting something.
Well, no sense being paranoid. Lola was only here a week. What could she possibly do?
~~~~~
Frannie was restocking the tampon machine in the second floor women’s room when she heard Lola’s voice in the hall. Frannie was already in a crappy mood that morning, what with oversleeping and almost missing the bus, plus getting crap jobs involving tampons, plus, oh yes, dealing with her oh-so-perfect man-stealing cousin. To top it all off, her prized picture of Fraser, the one she had so carefully liberated from her (real) brother’s desk, was missing, so she couldn’t even indulge in her morning Exercise of Inspiration. Having Princess Perfect show up at the station again was just icing on the camel’s back.
Frannie just dropped the open box of tampons in the corner of the room—honestly, if someone was desperate enough to use government-issue tampons, making them pay for them just seemed like added insult—and fled out into the hall. She stopped before rounding the corner and caught the tail end of the conversation between Lola and Fraser.
“…so sorry that Frannie couldn’t make it into work today, but she’s just not feeling…herself today, you know?” Frannie could hear a stuttered reply from Fraser—oh god, he was already speechless around her!—before Lola continued. “But she insisted that I come in and fill in on her behalf. I’m willing to assist in any position that she usually assumes…”
Frannie burst around the corner. “What do you mean, fill in for me! I’m right here, spit-for-brains!” She grabbed her cousin by the shoulder and spun her around. “You know, it’s a good thing you’re pretty, Dolores, because you don’t have the brains that god gave a sponge!”
Actually, Lola didn’t look so pretty right now. In fact, she was doing an excellent impression of a blowfish. Her weird purple eyes were wide with shock, and her cupid’s bow mouth kept opening and closing with no sound coming out. Little bubbles of spit were forming and popping at the edges. Frannie continued to aim her best deathglare at Lola. Behind her she was vaguely aware of Fraser backing away, saying something about finding Ray.
Finally, Lola found her words. “Frannie? You’re supposed to be…I mean, I thought you’d…are you sure you’re feeling all right? No dizziness...nausea…unwanted hair growth?” Her hand came up towards Frannie’s ears.
Frannie batted the hand away. “No, you freak. My head is fine, my stomach is fine, my ears are fine, my body hair is totally none of your business—hey! Are you checking out my ass?”
Lola snapped her eyes back to Frannie’s. “No! Of course not...I just thought…you might have a…” She faltered. “Um, you’re really okay, aren’t you? I could have sworn I did it right…”
Frannie gaped. “Oh my god! What did you do to me? Did you put Nair in my shampoo or something? Or…god, did you poison my coffee? You did, didn’t you! You totally put something nasty in my coffee to make me sick, or hairy, or…” She turned and slammed her way into the bullpen. “Fraser! Arrest her! She’s trying to poison me! “
Fraser was standing at Ray’s desk, phone in hand and a baffled look on his face. He seemed completely oblivious to what she was saying, which…well, really wasn’t anything new. “Frase?” she prodded.
Fraser looked at her. “Terribly sorry, Francesca. It’s the oddest thing. Ray hasn’t shown to work yet. I’ve been calling his apartment, but each time someone picks up, there’s no voice on the other end, just some odd hissing, and whining sounds—almost feline, honestly.”
“Feline?” Frannie jumped at Lola’s voice right behind her. That witch had followed her! Frannie dove behind Fraser’s back for protection. But Lola, for once, didn’t seem intent on ruining Frannie’s life. Instead, she looked worried and definitely unsure of herself. “You mean, feline like…a cat?”
Fraser cocked his head. “Well, yes.” He snagged his hat from the desk. “I’d better get down there to check it out. Just to make sure.”
Lola stared into space for a minute. Then she snapped out of it. “Uh…maybe I’d better come with you.” She hurried out the door after him.
Oh, hell no. There was no way Frannie was letting Lola alone with Fraser. “Wait for me!” she called as she followed them out the door.
~~~~~
Ray’s apartment was locked, of course, but apparently Fraser knew the landlady and within two minutes they were inside.
Frannie had only been in Ray’s apartment once, in that case with the thing, but she could tell that he’d really let it go downhill since then. Actually, it looked like the place had been hit by a tornado, or at least a very angry animal. Newspapers were shredded all over, plates had been knocked off the table and were broken on the floor, the curtains over the windows were shredded. And frankly, it kinda smelled like cat piss.
Frannie held her nose. “Did Ray get a cat?” Beside her, Diefenbaker growled low in his throat.
“Not that I’m aware of,” answered Fraser. He stepped gingerly into the living room. “Ray? Ray, are you here?”
From the corner came a low whine. Dief jumped forward to check it out, his growls getting louder. He stuck his nose under a rolltop desk—and promptly backed out with a yelp. As the wolf backed off and buried his nose under his paws, from under the desk leapt the most pissed-off cat Frannie had ever seen.
Its yellow hair stuck up straight from its lean body. It leapt up onto the counter, knocking down a couple of porcelain canisters. Pale blue eyes shone at them, promising death—or at least a good clawing—to anyone dumb enough to approach.
Lola approached the cat. Fraser grabbed her shoulder. “Stay back,” he cautioned. “It could be rabid, or scared, or…” He broke off as Dief made an odd whine from the corner. “That’s ridiculous, Diefenbaker. What do you mean, it’s Ray?”
Lola’s face went ashen. “Oh, shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Frannie could feel Fraser’s attention suddenly snap fully on Lola. Damnit. But when he spoke, his voice was not exactly tender and loving. “Lola. What did you do?”
~~~~~
So apparently, all those times that Frannie called Lola a witch? She wasn’t actually wrong. Turns out Lola had learned a lot more in her fancy British boarding school than how to look hot and steal Mounties. She had also learned how to turn people into really cranky animals.
“Yes, but why did you want to turn Ray into a cat? You’ve never even seen him…um, in a really long time,” Frannie asked as Ray-the-Cat hissed at them from atop the stereo.
“See, that’s what I don’t understand, either,” sighed Lola. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I wasn’t aiming for him.”
Fraser raised his eyebrows. “Then whom, pray tell, were you intending to target?”
Lola glanced sheepishly over at Frannie. Frannie felt the rage rise. “You little wit--ugh! You tried to turn me into a cat? I’m gonna rip your hairs out one by one!” She flung herself at Lola, only to be stopped by Fraser’s strong arms. She was so mad, she couldn’t even enjoy it.
“Francesca, please. Depilation won’t help resolve the situation. Now, Lola, can you think of any reason why your, ah, spell, may have targeted Ray instead of Francesca?”
“I really don’t know. Maybe it’s the consanguinity factor—the spell may have gotten confused and affected someone who was related to Frannie?”
Frannie and Fraser shared a quick look. “Perhaps,” hedged Fraser. “Might there be another explanation? What type of spell was this exactly?”
Lola sighed. “It’s a variation on a love spell. You use an image of the object of your affection, cast the spell, and it takes your biggest rival out of the running.” She scowled at the cat, who glared back at her. “Or, apparently, said rival’s brother.”
Fraser’s brow wrinkled, and there was an odd look in his eye. “By ‘rival’, you mean…could it be the person who spends the most time with your…ah…”
“Stalkee?” Frannie offered, sweetly.
Lola snorted. “Well if that isn’t the mortar calling the cauldron black!” She turned her big violet eyes back to Fraser. “No, it goes after the girl who has the strongest feelings for him—who loves him the most, I guess.” She chewed on her lower lip. “I just can’t figure out why it didn’t work.”
“Um, ‘cause you’re a moron, maybe? Right, Frase?” She looked over to Fraser for support, but he was staring at Ray-the-Cat, and didn’t even seem to hear her. “Fraser?”
Fraser suddenly snapped out of it. “Lola. Can you change him back?”
Lola blinked. “Well, sure. I mean, it’ll wear off in 24 hours, anyway, but it’s not that hard to reverse. We just need to put the cat in an enchantment circle and…” She blathered on about herbs and wands and spells for a bit, until Fraser interrupted her.
“Very well. Let’s get to it, shall we?”
~~~~~
While Fraser worked at getting Ray-the-Cat down from the shelves (Frannie got to hear him swear for the first time ever when Ray took a swipe at his cheek) Lola and Frannie mopped up the mystery puddles on the floor (ew) and drew a salt circle on the floor. (Well, Lola drew the circle. Frannie mostly watched and made sarcastic comments about Darrin and Endora.) Dief, for his part, stayed hidden under the kitchen table, munching on some crullers that Ray had knocked down. Finally they were able to tempt the cat into the circle with some M&Ms so that Lola could pull out a wand (No. Really. A freakin’ wand) and ZAP!
When the sparklies cleared, the cat was gone. In the circle crouched a very confused, very naked (ew. Did that man ever eat?) Ray Kowalski.
Lola gasped. “Oh shit! We’ve got the wrong man!”
Frannie sighed. “No, that’s Ray. He’s…changed a bit since you last saw him. Uh…puberty was rough on him.”
“Ray?” Fraser asked gently.
Naked Ray blinked at them for a second, then turned and dashed into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
“Ray!” shouted Fraser.
“Fuck off!” came the muffled answer.
“Oh, dear,” said Fraser. He turned to Lola and drew himself up to his full Mountie height. “I hope you see the consequences of your actions here, Lola.” He glanced at the bedroom door a second before continuing. “The Inuit have a saying that I feel applies to this situation. You see…” He trailed of briefly, staring back at the door. “You see, when the muskrat and the polar bear…” He stopped, and seemed to think for a minute. “Ah. That is…would you ladies excuse me for a second? I need to go see if Ray…if he needs some assistance…ah, getting dressed?”
Frannie raised her eyebrows. “Uh, sure, Fraser…” but he was already halfway to Ray’s door. “We’ll just…wait outside, then?”
“Excellent idea. We’ll meet you there,” he replied distractedly.
Frannie glanced at Lola, who shrugged. Together, they headed downstairs.
~~~~~~
Frannie plopped down onto the top step outside Ray’s building. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose—she could feel a slight headache coming on. When she opened them again, Lola was staring at her. “What?” she snapped.
Lola blinked. “It’s just that…you both seem to be handling this magic stuff surprisingly well. Most Mug—regular people would be totally freaking out right now.”
Frannie waved her hand with what she hoped was an air of jaded sophistication. “Please. I’ve survived a Voodoo curse, Fraser coming back from the dead, and working with Tom Dewey. This is nothing.”
Lola looked dutifully impressed. They sat in silence for a little while longer.
Finally, Frannie stretched and cracked her back. “Jeez, it’s been forever. Where are those guys? How long does it take Fraser to get Ray into some pants?”
Lola shrugged. Then her eyes got wide, like she’d just had an idea. “Hang on.” She rummaged around in her purse until she triumphantly pulled out a small, cloudy grey globe.
“What’s that?” asked Frannie.
Lola sat down next to her. “It’s a…oh, let’s just call it a crystal ball. It lets me look in on people in close proximity.” She shook the globe gently and it began to glow a pale gold. “I use it to keep an eye on my students when I have to run to the WC.” She frowned a little. “And to figure out who keeps stealing my lunch from the faculty lunchroom.”
Frannie narrowed her eyes at Lola. “Isn’t that, like, an invasion of privacy?”
Lola sighed. “Oh, well, if you insist…” She began to tuck the globe back into her purse.
Frannie stopped her with a hand on her wrist. “Well, since you’ve already turned it on and everything…”
Lola smirked at her and shook the globe again. The two women leaned closer together as the golden fog inside began to resolve itself into images. Frannie could see a window frame, and Ray’s blond shock of hair, and—was that a leg?
“Oh for cripes sake,” said Frannie. “Ray’s not even dressed yet! You’d think he’d at least—“ and then, suddenly, both women went still.
“Oh,” said Frannie in a very small voice.
“Oh,” said Lola.
A few moments passed.
“I, uh, didn’t know that was possible to do. Without dislocating something, I mean.”
“Oh, no, I’ve done that before. It’s easier if you do yoga.”
“Oh.”
A few more minutes.
“I—don’t think we should be watching this.”
“Yeah,” said Frannie. “But you know…it’s kinda hot.”
Lola looked at her, appalled. “Frannie! He’s your brother!”
Frannie snapped out of it. “Oh! Right!” She closed her eyes. “Turn that thing off.”
They sat quietly for a minute.
“Well, on the bright side, at least I know that my spell worked after all,” said Lola.
Frannie groaned and stood up. “I need a drink. Wanna go get a drink?”
“Oh, good god yes,” answered Lola.
~~~~~~~~~~
Much later, there were Cosmopolitans. Frannie told Lola the whole voodoo story, including the grass and the cow’s blood and the cursed coffee machine. Then Lola told the story of her ex-boyfriend, who, if you believed her, was actually a werewolf.
“Is that why you dumped him?” asked Frannie, gazing at Lola through the fog of three (five?) Cosmos. “’Cause, yeah, I can see that. I mean, Dief’s cute and all, but he can get kinda smelly. Plus, you’d have to lock up the doughnuts.”
“Nah, that wasn’t it. He spent all his time mooning over some old love of his in jail…”
Frannie burst into giggles. “You said ‘mooning!’”
“…and I finally got sick of it and told him to lope off back to England.” She frowned as she swirled the pink liquid around her glass. “Besides, our cycles never fully matched up, so three weeks out of every month one of us was in a pissy mood. It was…” she waved her hand in an elegant swirl in the air. The flame of the candle on their table turned pink. “…untenable.”
Frannie stared moodily at the rose-colored flame. “Yeah.”
Lola’s big, violet, slightly unfocused eyes turned to her. “Frannie, I’m sorry that I tried to steal your boyfriend. And that he turned out to be…you know.”
Frannie gave her a brave, if watery, smile. “That’s okay.” She sat up straighter. “You know, it really is reassuring, in a way. I mean, all this time I thought there was something wrong with me, like, am I not pretty enough, am I too subtle, why doesn’t he like me?” Her smile turned more smug. “But it turns out, hey! It’s not me after all! It’s him!”
Lola beamed back at her. “Yeah! He’s the mixed up one! We’re the normal ones!”
Frannie raised her glass. “To the normal Vecchio women, and the hot men who will never deserve us!”
Lola clinked her glass against Frannie. “To us!”
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Date: 2006-04-17 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-04-17 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 01:17 am (UTC)Everyone is perfectly in character, especially Frannie, who's a comic device all by herself. Enough. “Yeah, yeah, je suis le grand fromage.” Frannie grabbed Fraser’s arm. (At a glance, the French all seems perfect, by the way.) Ray's thought processes described as a hamster on a wheel, Frannie's getting mistaken for a prostitute, Frannie's being jealous that Lola got the same reaction from Fraser that he always had to Frannie--and Frannie's not realizing that reaction isn't favorable. Hee!
I don't know what else to quote, because there are so many wonderful lines! I guess a few of the lines that broke me up the most:
When the sparklies cleared, the cat was gone. In the circle crouched a very confused, very naked (ew. Did that man ever eat?) Ray Kowalski.
That reaction to Naked Ray has to be absolutely unique in fandom! ROFL!
“Besides, our cycles never fully matched up, so three weeks out of every month one of us was in a pissy mood.
Mwahahahahaha!
Oh, and this reaction to the Fraser/RayK love scene is also unique and wonderful:
“I, uh, didn’t know that was possible to do. Without dislocating something, I mean.”
“Oh, no, I’ve done that before. It’s easier if you do yoga.”
Love it! And the two cousins getting drunk and commiserating over falling for the wrong guys...how great is that? This is just outstanding. A great plot, great characterizations, and hilarious to boot. What a great read.
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Date: 2006-04-17 02:08 am (UTC)Oh, good! I was a little worried when I saw that everyone else had done *deliberate* badfic, but I'm glad you liked mine.
In the hands of a real badfic author, Lola would have been one-dimensional and boring, but here she's great, and I really liked her!
Yeah, I was trying to put a twist on the Mary Sue idea by using the POV of someone who *hated* the Mary Sue. It was kinda fun.
especially Frannie, who's a comic device all by herself
The scary thing I learned by writing this fic is that apparently Frannie and I have *very similar* thought patterns. She is eerily easy for me to write.
(At a glance, the French all seems perfect, by the way.)
Oh, good. I used a translation program. I speak Spanish, which gives me just enough knowledge of French to know that I'm probably doing it wrong.
That reaction to Naked Ray has to be absolutely unique in fandom! ROFL!
Well, see [BLASPHEMY ALERT!] I didn't really find RayK that attractive when I first saw him. He has since grown on me, but it's easy to slip back into that mindset when I need to. And I figured that Frannie might not be as hot for her fake brother's bod as Fraser is.
Thank you so much for your insightful comments!
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Date: 2006-04-17 05:26 am (UTC)Plus, then Lola didn't turn out to be Mary Sue, after all. Great twist.
The scary thing I learned by writing this fic is that apparently Frannie and I have *very similar* thought patterns. She is eerily easy for me to write.
That IS scary! Hee!
Oh, good. I used a translation program. I speak Spanish, which gives me just enough knowledge of French to know that I'm probably doing it wrong.
LOL! Did you translate from Spanish to French? That might work much better than English to French in one of those programs.
Well, see [BLASPHEMY ALERT!] I didn't really find RayK that attractive when I first saw him. He has since grown on me, but it's easy to slip back into that mindset when I need to.
Heh, that IS blasphemy! LOL! I first saw him when he first appeared (in BDtH), and I was all bent out of shape about Vecchio just vanishing, and it took me a few eps to get used to RayK's "grunge" Gen-Xer clothes (remember, at the time, that was a fairly new look, and those of us older than Gen-Xers were fighting it all the way, dammit).
Still, I instantly realized, Oooh, now this show is seriously slashable! Whereas I hadn't seen it that way before. But I didn't fall headlong into this fandom until last summer and then when I watched all the eps again, I fell hard for RayK (and CKR)! Of course now...I even like Ray/Ray and F/K/V fic, but you'll notice that for me, RayK is the common denominator.
And I figured that Frannie might not be as hot for her fake brother's bod as Fraser is.
Oh, we know she's not, so that's exactly in character. I love that scene in "A Likely Story" where she's in the breakroom reading Cosmo (or something like it) and Ray asks her what women find attractive in men. And while she's answering he's wolfing down a sandwich in a very disgusting manner. Pure comic genius.
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Date: 2006-04-17 11:05 am (UTC)No, although that's not a bad idea. It would have helped with the masculine/feminine issues.
it took me a few eps to get used to RayK's "grunge" Gen-Xer clothes (remember, at the time, that was a fairly new look, and those of us older than Gen-Xers were fighting it all the way, dammit).
Huh. I never thought about that. I didn't see the show until about 2 years ago, so Ray's clothing looked perfectly normal to me. It was Vecchio's wardrobe (particularly season 1 Vecchio) that gave me fits--it just screamed "early 90's bad fashion" to me.
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Date: 2006-04-17 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-04-20 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-04-20 10:21 pm (UTC)Yeah, I've had that song stuck in my head ever since I got the prompt. Luckily, it's a fun song.
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Date: 2006-04-17 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 10:22 pm (UTC)Thank you so much!
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Date: 2006-04-18 08:54 am (UTC)And I admit that I am giggling at the badfic entries, but I'm enjoying the cracky-but-clever goodfic entries more, so there.
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Date: 2006-04-20 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-18 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 10:29 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2006-04-20 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 10:31 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2006-04-20 04:30 am (UTC)::tries to stop giggilng so she can leave a coherent comment... nope::
hee...
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Date: 2006-04-20 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 10:32 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2006-04-21 09:44 pm (UTC)And someday, I fully plan on using this threat:
I’m gonna rip your hairs out one by one!
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Date: 2006-05-01 12:24 am (UTC)“Francesca, please. Depilation won’t help resolve the situation.
Because leave it to Fraser to focus on the most inane detail in the situation.
“The Inuit have a saying that I feel applies to this situation. You see…” He trailed of briefly, staring back at the door. “You see, when the muskrat and the polar bear…” He stopped, and seemed to think for a minute. “Ah. That is…would you ladies excuse me for a second? I need to go see if Ray…if he needs some assistance…ah, getting dressed?”
I love Fraser visibly floundering for a story that will explain that he needs to pin their cousin/fake-brother down and fuck him. And just completely failing.
am I not pretty enough, am I too subtle, why doesn’t he like me?
Oh Franny. I can assure you, you are not too subtle. I love this so much.
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Date: 2006-05-01 03:00 am (UTC)also
Besides, our cycles never fully matched up, so three weeks out of every month one of us was in a pissy mood
pure gold. ;)
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Date: 2006-05-04 05:43 am (UTC)none other than Benton Fraser. And he was looking back at Lola in a way that he usually reserved for Frannie.
"Squirrel in the headlights"? That's such a poignant reminder of the depths of her delusion. The description of Ray as a cat is hilarious, I love the biggest-rivals spell set-up, and much of this is just eerily convincing:
Fraser’s brow wrinkled, and there was an odd look in his eye. “By ‘rival’, you mean…could it be the person who spends the most time with your…ah…”
“Stalkee?” Frannie offered, sweetly.
He glanced at the bedroom door a second before continuing. “The Inuit have a saying that I feel applies to this situation. You see…” He trailed of briefly, staring back at the door. “You see, when the muskrat and the polar bear…” He stopped, and seemed to think for a minute.
And of course, the toast at the end - cheers!
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Date: 2006-08-01 10:59 pm (UTC)