ds_flashfiction | Gross Out challenge, by Chris (Reply)

Title: Deductive Reasoning
Author:

the_antichris
Pairing: F/K, sort of, Frannie/Welsh, sort of
Rating: PG
Word count: 1500-ish
Notes: Only vaguely fits the challenge, but that's OK, right? Thanks to

shoemaster for being around to field a last-minute flailing request for beta.

'Ah, Miss Vecchio. I am, as always, delighted to see you. Particularly if you have the York file.'

'Didn't your mother ever tell you patience was a virtue?' Francesca shot back, with an expressive movement of her hand - unfortunately, the one that was carrying the file. York, evidently, had had a long and flourishing career in the criminal underworld, Fraser noted, kneeling to collect the debris. As he straightened, Francesca brushed past him the customary few inches too close, excusing herself with the expected lingering pat to his arm.

This was one thing he'd never grown accustomed to about Chicago: the way people seemed to mistake him for a doll or toy, touching him without permission or hesitation - though, to be sure, he'd heard the same was true in the more tourist-frequented parts of Canada. The more obtrusively a uniform proclaimed its wearer to be a public servant, the more the public considered him their property; that Fraser served the public of Canada was evidently irrelevant.

Touch had always seemed to him a weighty thing, an act of deliberate intimacy. In speech one could equivocate, could obfuscate and misdirect, without going so far as to lie outright; touch - the tension of muscles, the heat of blood under skin, the odd, primitive sparking of attraction - allowed no such privacy. He spared a moment to contemplate the irony that Ray, who had, if anyone did, the right to breach that privacy, was forced to confine himself to a surreptitious overlapping of hands on the desk, a subtle alignment of thighs, while the general population treated Fraser as general property. Francesca, for instance, had no qualms about casual touch - or perhaps, from the way she studiously avoided brushing Lieutenant Welsh's hand as she handed over the remains of the file, she did. Simply not with him.

Two days later, after York's collection of antique mirrors had been distributed among its rightful owners (with nary a one broken, Fraser was foolishly pleased to see), Welsh called them into his office. An explanation of Ray's actions in commandeering the moving truck seemed in order, though surely, Fraser thought with a suppressed sigh, it could have waited till morning.

'Look, Lieu, this is how it was, okay? The guy was about to move the goods, we had to get to them. Two and two, put 'em together, makes four. All right?' Ray leaned forward for emphasis, the light from the desk lamp striking hidden bright notes from his hair.

Welsh's head sagged briefly onto his chest; Fraser braced himself for the return volley. The scene was rapidly becoming more fraught than the showdown with York, which, considering that that had involved an infinite recursion of distorted, water-spotted gunmen, was saying something.

The door banged open, followed, in order, by a a black-clad leg, a blue-clad shoulder and a battered tray.

'Coffee, Lieu?' Francesca asked. 'Bro? Fraser, I brought you tea.' She had; he could see the bag exuding brownish tendrils in the chipped station mug. Still, tea was tea, and he lifted it off its precarious perch as she delivered the coffee. Welsh must have grown reconciled to the cappuccino machine; he almost smiled as he took his drink, and released them with only an indistinct allusion to paperwork. In time, no less, for the dinner Fraser had thought lost to all hope. Ray caught his elbow and, with a nod to Welsh - answered by a flicker of fingers and a backwards-tilted chair - he wheeled to follow.

'Okay, Fraser. We're in, we get that tape, we're out, and no one mentions the Miyachi case, all right? Because I do not need to hear how we should have wrapped it up last week.' Ray bounced on his heels, as if practising the required turn of mental speed.

'Understood, Ray.'

'Right. Here we go.' A combative shrug, and Ray stepped forward. 'Frannie, you got that interview tape? Fraser wants to analyse the guy's singing voice or something.'

'Actually, Ray, I'm more interested in his dialect, which indicates-' But expediency, in this case, outweighed accuracy. Fraser cleared his throat.

'You forget your glasses or something? It's on the desk.' Francesca was leaning gracefully against the desk, her hip buttressing several of the less stable stacks of files; her impressionistic wave could have been meant to indicate any one of them.

Fraser raised an eyebrow - even Ray, who seemed drawn by some force not yet described by modern science to lean on any available piece of furniture, had never made an attempt on the Lieutenant's desk.

'Ah-'

Francesca put a hand to her forehead, an operatic gesture bleached of its artifice by long practice, Fraser imagined; he was familiar enough with the Vecchio household, though her impatience had never before been turned on him. 'Fraser. Ray. This is the desk. This is the tape. See?'

Fraser had received considerable training, formal and otherwise, in the art of deduction, seldom though his official employers seemed to remember it, and it had acquired the status of habit, even instinct, which was to say that it required a conscious effort to turn off. Certain observations of the past weeks twisted and pivoted in his mind's eye, snapping into place with a certain mechanical inevitability. The other eyebrow rose, seemingly of its own accord, before he caught himself.

'Thank you kindly, Francesca.'

Francesca's resilient optimism and Welsh's weary integrity were, when he thought about it, oddly suited; an unorthodox match, perhaps, but it had long since been borne in upon Fraser that his ideas of the orthodox were not themselves precisely usual. Francesca had a sweet face, a quick mind and a warm heart; she deserved someone who would appreciate her qualities all the more for the contrast to their surroundings; police stations brought out the drabness in humanity, the grit that fouled the gears, but Francesca had never allowed that to touch her.

In any case, he was scarcely one to talk about orthodoxy, not while the electric, surprising joy of Ray's existence still - always - hummed beneath his skin.

The tape, in a neatly labelled envelope, lay on the desk. Ray retrieved it, Fraser followed him out, and the door closed quietly behind them.

He tried to recall, sometimes, the moment when attraction and liking had tipped over into love, but with desire for once pulling in concert with duty, the change had come too swiftly to leave him more than scattered images - a breaking smile, a hand on his neck. A kiss.

They'd sat like this on a hundred evenings, before, during and after the first headlong discovery of each other. The difference now lay in the weight of Ray's arm across his shoulder, the subtle warmth of his breath on Fraser's cheek, the hand on his jaw drawing him in for unhurried kisses; the pleasures of nearness and inconsequential talk remained the same.

'Did you know about Francesca and the lieutenant?' Fraser said into a momentary silence. It seemed important to acknowledge a similar instance of good fortune, though his mood was one he would have liked to share with the world.

'Huh?' Ray's fingers traced patterns on his neck, his ear, his scalp. 'No, what?'

'They're...' A suitable word for the Lieutenant's romantic involvements seemed as elusive as one that could encompass what Ray meant to him. 'Well. Involved.'

Ray lurched to his feet, raking his hair into spiky disarray. 'Fraser, that's... You're talking about my boss.'

'Hmm?' Fraser shifted. The air on his newly exposed skin felt unpleasantly cold.

'You want to think about-- Nah, Thatcher's kind of hot, that doesn't count. You want to think about Frobisher getting funky with some Mountie chick? I do not think so, my friend.'

Well, put like that... 'No.'

Ray leaned over the couch, placing his hands deliberately either side of Fraser's shoulders. Fraser's skin prickled in anticipation; he closed his eyes, letting his mouth fall open in a gesture which usually elicited some kind of exclamation from Ray, profane or otherwise, followed by an eager, open-mouthed kiss. This time, however, he remained tantalisingly out of reach.

'Nuh-uh.' He tapped Fraser's knee for emphasis; Fraser's pulse thudded in response. 'You ever want me to get it up again? Stop. Talking. About my boss's sex life.' His face was scant inches above Fraser's now, but still out of reach. 'We clear.'

Fraser nodded, as an alternative to lunging up for a kiss. 'Yes, Ray.'

'Okay.' Ray straightened, grinning, and fell back onto the couch with a jolt. 'Unless you wanna have a threesome with Frannie?' He punched Fraser's shoulder, inviting a laugh. 'Could be cool. Bet you she's open-minded after all that psychology.'

Ray was running a finger over Fraser's lower lip, teasing. Fraser bit down gently. 'Ray?'

'Mm?'

'If you ever want me to, ah, get it up again?'

Ray murmured something interrogative, sliding his hand down to Fraser's waistband.

'Don't mention Francesca. Besides...' Though this could have gone unsaid, if the look on Ray's face hadn't been so comical. 'I think Lieutenant Welsh might object.'

END