2nd Bad!fic Challenge by kinetikatrue

[kinetikatrue]

Title: The One in Which There Are a Unicorn and Some Rather Exceptional Pregnancies and Our Heroes Spend Most of the Story Not Having a Single Clue As to What Is Going On
Author: kinetikatrue
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ray Kowalski/Benton Fraser, Diefenbaker/???
Prompt: Ray Kowalski is a Chicago cop. He's also a Cylon. So when Ray and Fraser discover that Mayor Daley is sitting on his own personal hellmouth, and are cursed by Daley's Unicorn enforcer to have their fondest wishes granted?

Well, Cylon MPreg isn't so bad. But it's hell on Fraser and Dief. SO Ray is setting out to make contact with his fellow Cylons, and to get to use their high tech help to make sure everyone's babies are fine. When they become tragic victims of Pregnesia.

So now Chicago cop and occasional Cylon Ray Kowalski is expert at tackling impossible missions. But when a striking—and very pregnant—Mountie turned up in a car he was investigating, suddenly he was in over his head. Shaken and bruised, he couldn't remember what had happened to him or why he was terrified of going to the consulate. Ray made it clear he could be trusted, and vowed to protect him until he was safe. Hours turned to days as they searched for clues to their hidden pasts. Then a family came to claim Fraser, and a happy ending seemed imminent. But had Ray just delivered his Fraser to safety…or into the hands of a killer?

And how many puppies is Dief having? Why are they all born with Unicorn horns? For norabombay.
Notes: So apparently what I claim in my fic journal user info is true: there is no fic idea so cracked out that I won't try and make it actually work. Which is to say, for all that the stuff depicted within this story could not actually happen, given reality as we know it, I like to think that it makes some internal, logical sense. Also, sorry that it's essentially just two scenes. I REALLY want to write more now.


At first Ray thinks his car has been stolen, maybe by some kids out for a joyride, or something, which is a perfectly logical conclusion for him to have come to, thank you kindly, given that it is no longer parked down the street from the Chinese restaurant where he'd chosen to eat dinner. But then the APB turns it up parked in his usual spot outside his building, not a scratch on it, and that's just not normal. Things get really hinky, though, when he opens the door to his apartment to find a Mountie sitting on his sofa. A very slightly pregnant Mountie. A very slightly pregnant male Mountie. Which, wait, what?

He steps back outside, closes his mouth and the door, and then opens the door again and steps back in. There is still a very slightly pregnant male Mountie sitting on his sofa. And a . . . wolf, or at least a dog that looks a hell of a lot like a wolf, sitting on the floor at his feet. Ray's post-amnesia life has suddenly gotten really, really weird. Like the amnesia wasn't making things weird enough.

He's about to ask the guy what the hell he's doing sitting in Ray's apartment when the guy starts to speak, says, "I first came to Chicago . . . ." and stops, mouth half-open, apparently completely at a loss for how to continue. He rubs at his left eyebrow, tugs at his somewhat ill-fitting uniform, and then continues, "Actually, I haven't the faintest idea why I first came to Chicago, nor why I happen to be sitting on this sofa in this apartment, - except for what my instincts tell me, and they guided me here, so I choose to believe that this is a place my subconscious considers home." And then he shuts up.

And the hell of it is, Ray can't actually contradict him. He doesn't know a hell of a lot about his own life right now, much less what anybody else might feel about it. The people he has been in contact with so far have been, to put it kindly, cautious about giving him information about himself and the life he once lived. Some BS about letting him regain his memories naturally, whenever he's ready for them to return.

So the very-slightly-pregnant male Mountie could, in fact, be his roommate. His freakishly neat roommate, given how entirely un-lived-in the second bedroom in his apartment feels. His freakishly neat roommate who has apparently been on a trip and taken his entire stock of clothing and other personal items with him.

And then his brain catches on to, like, the actual content of the very-slightly-pregnant male Mountie's introductory speech and he has to say, "Wait, hold up. Did you or did you not just at least imply that you had amnesia?"

And the very-slightly-pregnant male Mountie rubs at left eyebrow again and says, "That would, in fact, be the case. In other words, yes. And I must say I'm finding it terribly inconvenient. Particularly considering the recurrent nausea and the apparently inexplicable weight-gain." He snorts, "I would almost wonder whether I might be pregnant were such a thing at all possible."

And then Ray has to rewind in his head, because wait - why had he immediately concluded that the curve of the Mountie's stomach should be attributed to pregnancy rather than, say, too much beer? After all, he has a very slight beer belly of his own. It's a common problem of the middle-aged male. Certainly far more common than pregnancy.

His brain apparently feels like insisting, however, because it chooses this juncture to spit up what might, possibly, be a memory. At least it feels like one. -

In it, he's standing in a room, maybe in a hospital, given how clean it is and how it's filled with complicated machines he doesn't know the names of.

In particular, though, he's standing in front of these three cylindrical machines on wheeled bases, with, like, transparent domed tops. Which look kind of like R2D2, except maybe a bit taller and thinner. Two of them are obviously just sitting there doing nothing, but the third is completely lit up, reading out all sorts of numbers and stuff on its displays and working on transferring something into it, if the tube that snakes out of the center of the dome and coils through space to the point where it's been inserted into Ray's stomach, apparently, is any sort of indication. For a while, it doesn't do anything but suck out a whole bunch of fluid, and, then, suddenly, a very, very tiny shrimp-like object goes shooting into the tube. Which Ray does not actually think he can look at. Nuh-uh. He has seen Alien, thank you kindly.

Instead, he looks up, and is confronted by a wall of glass. Beyond which is an immense field of black sky, scattered with what must be stars, completely alien in their brilliance. And, at the same time, completely familiar, completely like home.

And they're getting up close and personal, as far as stars go, unfiltered by atmosphere or any sort of pollution. Like, in outer space up close and personal, if the stuff on the Discovery Channel is anything to go by.

Which means that he is apparently in a hospital, in outer space, having an alien life-form (baby! says his suddenly entirely squirrely mind) sucked out of his stomach.

- It has got to be a dream. A very, very vivid dream. The things that are implied by it being real are not things that Ray can cope with right now.

"Pregnant, yeah, right. That's a good one." And then he passes out, apparently overtaxed by remembering something that cannot have happened to him. The last thing he sees before the darkness claims him is the Mountie rising from his couch, looking extremely alarmed. And he thinks: at least if he doesn't catch me, it won't hurt the baby when I fall.

***

So, anyway, some time passes. Ray gets a few more weird memories back. He and Constable Fraser (so identified by the ID cards in his belt-pouch) and Diefenbaker (so identified by the license in same) mostly hole up in Ray's apartment and eat pizza and Chinese and try to figure things out. And avoid talking to other people. Until they can't stand to be inside any longer. And then they go for walks. In other words: insert montage here.

***

And then, one day, Ray is sitting in the park, near the duck pond, playing chess with Constable Fraser, because apparently they both still remember how to play, all other sudden memory loss to the contrary, when he spots the blond guy in sunglasses feeding the ducks. The sunglasses are notable given how completely overcast the sky is, but just in a look-at-the-asshole-ish sort of way. It's what the guy's feeding the ducks that really gets Ray's attention, 'cos apparently he has an entire bag full of communion wafers. Which he feels like feeding to ducks. As the air around them grows tenser and tenser.

And then Ray gets a flash of, well, sense memory he guesses. If it's actually a memory at all -

The air is tense around them. They're standing in what looks like the basement of some sort of large building, maybe an apartment building, if all the electric meters on the wall are anything to go by. He's standing next to Constable Fraser, maybe a little bit behind him, and they're facing, facing down even, this super-pale blond guy, who has the kind of face they invented the term horse-y for. The blond guy is glaring at them, which seems about par for the course.

And Constable Fraser (not yet pregnant) is apparently being very much himself, annoying the blond guy by discoursing at length on a topic meant to bore and/or displease him. The first bit Ray gets is, "Unicorns are, well, lie-detectors, in essence. They are intrinsically able to sense purity . . . of intent. The legends concerning virgins are simply a corruption of the truth - a misunderstanding, if you will, brought about by the fact that virgins did (and still do) often happen to be pure of heart and intention. Though not all of them are, of course, nor do they have a monopoly on the state."

"Very good, Constable," the blond guy says. "You have a commendable understanding of the true nature of my species, for a human." He says the last bit with a kinda nasty smirk, like Fraser may know a lot, but the guy knows something Fraser's gonna wish he's known once he finds out.

"But, hey, wait, what about the horn? And, like, the hooves? And the coat like new-fallen snow and mane like distilled moonshine and shit?" Ray hears himself ask.

"Well, Ray, as you can see, he already has the white-blond hair and the pale skin - immature unicorns are often mistakenly identified as albinos - and, I expect, were he to remove his shoes, we very well might discover hooves rather than feet. But, as you may have inferred, he is, as yet, quite young for a unicorn - and, thus, unlikely to have even the faintest stub of a horn for another couple hundred years. He is already entirely amoral, however, and has been since birth. We would do well to be careful of him and his intentions." And Fraser is not smirking, at all, except for how he is totally radiating smugness.

Ray snorts - Constable Fraser's cracked his head one too many times if he thought Ray wasn't planning on treating this guy and his intentions with the utmost caution, like a hand on his gun and an eye on the exits kind of caution.

The blond guy, who is not so much just a slimy minion type so much as a no-interests-before-his-own magical creature slimy minion type, just looks like he sucked on an unexpected lemon, but subtly, like just around the eyes and the corners of his mouth. His voice is even and slick, though, when he says, "Remarkable. I do believe such a rare depth of knowledge should be . . . rewarded."

And then Ray feels the air around them . . . twist, and his body kind of tingles, and the guy smiles and is suddenly gone. Ray looks himself over as best he can, but can't spot anything obviously wrong, so he figures maybe it was all down to the guy's stupid vanishing trick and, like, static electricity or something, from standing so close to all the electric meters or whatever.

He doesn't know, though, and he hates that, so he says, just a little bit sarcastic, "And he didn't even say goodbye."

"Actually, he did." Constable Fraser replies, straightening up and handing a slip of paper to Ray.

So Ray reads it: May your fondest dream come true. And, just, really? The guy goes in for lines straight out of fortune cookies? -

The air around Ray is twisting again, but, like, bigger. Or more. Or. Ray doesn't even know. He has never needed to know before. At least not that he knows of. And that's, like, half the problem right there.

So Ray follows his instincts and tackles the guy - the unicorn - and the twisty feeling twists, well, kinda sideways. And something slots into place. What? Ray seriously does not know. And then Ray is lying on his back, looking up at the suddenly no-longer-overcast sky. And there's a plush unicorn the size of a small child sitting on the ground beside him.

So Ray's body decides that right now is a spectacularly good time to pass out. Again. He's sure that Constable Fraser will deal with it just as well as he's dealt with it all the other times it's happened over the course of the past couple weeks.

***

After this, there's still stuff with, like, the Hellmouth, and Victoria and her evil plans, and their respective cases of amnesia, and their pregnancies, to deal with. But it all gets dealt with eventually. The Mayor goes back to having the ordinary sort of minions. And Ray figures out where he stashed his incubator. And all the babies get born safely (a bit of last-minute surgery aside). And Dief's pups (none of which have horns) really enjoy playing with the stuffed unicorn.

Comments

[kinetikatrue]

The unicorn is actually the first thing I had for this. Or, well, the fact that unicorns don't start out looking like shiny white horses with horns, anyway. It's also the first bit I started writing, once Fraser started spouting off unicorn trivia in my head. So, y'know, I'm kind of partial to it myself. <3

I am also quite pleased to have my writing style described as evil, though I have to admit that this is not a fic I could have written in due South without having spent as much time in Bandom as I have. Haha. Bandom has totally done a number on my style!