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ds_flashfictionTitle: Side Effects
Author: WriteDragon
Rating: T
Word Count: ≈2000
Pairing: None
Characters: Benton Fraser, Margaret Thatcher
Tags: humor, out of character/OOC, medication side effects
Summary: “Call me Meg, Sweet Cheeks.” In which Margaret Thatcher is not quite herself.
Front Note: Side effects may include: decreased inhibition, odd food cravings, giggling, dehydration, and tracheal meerkat colonies. The tingling tells you it’s working.*
End notes: *Sincere apologies to the “Cheating Death/Prescott Pharmaceuticals” segment of the erstwhile “The Colbert Report”.
Written for the Out of Character challenge on ds_flashfiction, August 2019.
————-
“Yo! Fraser!” Inspector Thatcher shouted from down the hall.
Fraser looked up to see her sauntering towards his desk, her heavy black bag slung over her shoulder.
“Sir?” His hand hovered over the paperwork he was filling out.
“Yeah, you. Studley Do-Right,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “And don’t call me Sir. I hate that. Call me Meg, Sweet Cheeks.”
Fraser set his pen down and rubbed his ear, unsure if he had heard her correctly. “Yes Sir. I mean, Meg. If that is what you prefer.”
“It is. Frankly I’m sick of all the formality around here.” She picked up a pencil from his pencil cup and ran her fingertips suggestively up and down it before sliding it, even more suggestively, back into the cup.
Fraser cracked his jaw.
“What the hell are you still doing here, anyway?” She angled her body and perched one hip on the edge of his desk, then bent towards him, giving him a full view of her cleavage. “Five o’clock was three minutes ago.”
Fraser swallowed. “I was just finishing my 10989-B form.”
“It can wait,” she said, “hell, you can throw it in the garbage for all I care. And get out of that uniform. You look like a starched radish.”
Fraser stared at her, dumbstruck.
“Did I stutter?” Thatcher said.
“No, Sir.”
“Meg,” Thatcher corrected him, scowling.
She stood up, scratched at her left underarm, sniffed, and shrugged as if to say, “It’ll do.” Then she reached around to tug her underwear down from where it had crept up into the seat of her pants.
“Wedgie,” she said, by way of explanation. “Lock up after me. Or don’t, I don’t care,” she turned on her heel, heading for the front door of the Consulate.
Fraser stood up, grabbed his hat, and ran after her.
“Ah … Meg,” he called out.
She stopped just short of the door, turned to face him, put a hand on her hip, and raised an eyebrow.
“What now, Gorgeous,” she leered at him, “miss me already?”
Fraser coughed so hard that Thatcher came over to him and whacked him on the back several times.
“You ok there, Lover-Boy?”
Fraser sputtered again then finally caught his breath.“Would you like me to,” he took a deep shuddering breath and coughed once more, “would you allow me to escort you somewhere? Home, or perhaps to the nearest hospital?”
“Why the hell would I want you to do that, Fraser? You coming on to me? Not that I mind,” she said, tossing her hair and winking.
Fraser tugged on his collar. “No, Sir!” Then, quieter, “Absolutely not. I am concerned that you might not be feeling well.”
Concerned was an understatement. In the span of thirty seconds, Fraser had sped away from “concerned,” blazed through “disturbed,” flown past “worried,” until finally settling on “alarmed.” Had she been drinking? Drugged? Was she suffering a severe case of burnout?
“Never felt better,” she said, waving a hand in the air and giving her wrist a twirl. “Turnbull gave me a little pinky-linky pill for my headache and now I’m hunky dory.”
Well. That explained it.
She giggled. “You’re the hunky one, actually, which I guess makes me dory,” she snickered again. “A little boat, that’s me,” she said. She spun around and pranced towards the door, rocking from side to side and singing.
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the Fraser — Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily ...” she fumbled in her bag for a second, “Oh look, here is my taser.”
“Please,” he said, coming up alongside her. He rested his palm on her arm and cautiously removed the taser from her hand before she could — accidentally or otherwise — use it on anyone.
“Allow me to drive you somewhere,” he said, slipping the taser back into her bag. “I consider it part of my job to ensure your safety at all times.”
He would definitely have to have a word with Turnbull about giving Inspector Thatcher any form of medication in the future.
“It is part of your job, numbskull.” She reached a hand to his face and caressed his jaw. “Such a pretty, pretty numbskull you are …” She cupped her hand around the back of Fraser’s neck and leaned forward. He could feel her hot breath on his lips.
Fraser leaned backwards and turned his face away before she could make landfall.
“Yes, Sir,” he nodded, blushing. “I mean, yes, Meg.”
She pulled back, frowning at the rebuff, and stared hungrily at him for a moment. She slowly raked her gaze down his body to where his hand rested on her forearm.
“Fine. You can take me somewhere if you absolutely must. But get your hand off my arm and put it someplace interesting.”
Fraser jerked his hand away, swallowed, then rubbed an eyebrow.
“I’m not certain what you mean.” He was absolutely sure, however, that he did not, in fact, want to know what she meant.
Meg grabbed his hand and slapped his palm firmly onto her own butt. “There!” She said, grinning.
Fraser’s face turned crimson and he quickly slid his hand up to her lower back. When Meg pouted he said in his most reassuring voice, “We wouldn’t want to appear unseemly in public.” He prayed that she wouldn’t argue.
“Unseemly shmeemly,” said Meg, but she allowed him to guide her outside without further resistance.
When Fraser paused to lock the Consulate’s main doors, she traipsed down the steps, skipped along the sidewalk to the car, and waited for him.
“You’re driving,” she said as he approached, and threw her keys at his head.
Fraser barely escaped getting stabbed in the eye by a set of flying keys. Luckily his superhuman reflexes kicked in and he caught them at the last second. That, at least, was a relief — he wasn’t going to have to fight her over who was driving. She was clearly in no condition to operate heavy machinery.
“Where shall I take you, Meg?” He asked, after seeing to it that she was safely buckled into the passenger seat.
“Your place, Fraser. I want to see your bedroom.”
Fraser stared at her. “I … I sleep in my office.”
“Right. I forgot. My place, then. You can see my bedroom,” she smirked and fluttered her long dark lashes at him.
Fraser rubbed his eyebrow, tugged at his collar — it really was dreadfully tight — and started the car. He drove as fast as he dared without breaking any important traffic laws.
Halfway to her apartment, she yelled, “Stop the car!”
Fraser pulled to the curb as quickly and safely as he could manage. “What’s wrong?” He asked, studying her face for signs of distress.
“There!” she said, pointing to a hot dog vendor parked on the corner. “Get me one of those. With lots of raw onions.”
Fraser stared at her. She hated raw onions. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve got a craving. Now scoot. Before I get old, Fraser. Chop chop.”
He turned on the car’s emergency flashers, took the keys with him, and bought her a hot dog with extra raw onions. She gobbled it down, smearing mustard over her cheek and dribbling it onto her white silk blouse.
“Aw shit,” she said, rubbing at the stain with the napkin Fraser handed her. “Oh, screw it,” she shrugged her shoulders and licked her fingers clean. “I never liked this shirt anyway. It’s thin and shows too much boobage.”
Fraser started the car, clenched his fists around the steering wheel, and locked his gaze on the road, relentlessly stomping down thoughts of breasts and thin, low-cut silk shirts or anything else of that nature.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they reached her apartment building. He helped her into the elevator, where he fended off multiple pawing passes until they reached her floor.
After three tries with different keys, her arms draped around his neck and nearly pulling him down, he managed to get the door unlocked.
Once safely inside her apartment, she looked longingly into his face and asked, “Can I smell you? I want to smell you.”
Good grief. He wasn’t sure how to handle this. Under the circumstances, maybe it was best to acquiesce, so long as she didn’t ask for anything more than that.
“Very well,” he said, standing ramrod straight.
Meg buried her face in his neck. “Mmmm,” she mumbled into his skin, “Oooh. You smell good,” she said. “I always like the way you smell. Did you know that?”
“Thank you,” he replied. “I was unaware.” After an awkward pause he said, “You smell lovely yourself.” And of onions, but he didn’t mention that.
“Fraser …”
“Yes?”
“I feel kinda …”
“Yes?”
“Kinda tingly. All over … do you feel tingly?”
“Not as such, no,” he said.
She swayed dangerously into his arms, where she promptly passed out. Thank God. He hauled her unceremoniously into a fireman’s carry and took her to her bed, where he laid her on her back. He slid off her shoes and pulled a blanket over her.
Fraser wandered around her elegant, minimalist living room for several minutes, unsure of what to do with himself. He was determined to stay with her in case she needed help and wanted some way to pass the time. In one corner of the room stood a small bookshelf, where he found a worn copy of Master and Commander. He thumbed through the book and read the back cover blurb. Satisfied that this would suffice, he settled on her beige leather sofa to read while she slept.
An hour later, Meg came out of her bedroom, yawning and rubbing her temples. When she spotted Fraser on her couch she gasped.
“What on earth are you doing in my apartment, Constable?”
He set the book down on the glass-topped coffee table and stood up.
“You don’t remember, Meg?”
“That’s Inspector to you, Fraser.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I asked you a question,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
Fraser paused, unsure how much information it was prudent to reveal.
“Before I answer that, might I ask, how much do you remember?”
She closed her eyes and thought for a moment.
“Well, I was getting ready to leave for the day and …” she blushed, and looked away. “I’m so thirsty,” she said, changing the subject and heading for the kitchen. “And my breath is a level 1 biohazard,” she added, smacking her lips and grimacing. “But that’s none of your concern.”
Fraser rushed to the cabinet to get her a glass but the glare she shot him stopped him in his tracks.
“That will be all, Constable.”
“Are you certain you are feeling better now? Quite yourself again?”
“Other than being dehydrated and having had the most terrible nightmares, yes, I’m fine.”
“Nightmares?”
She filled a glass with water and drank it down. “I dreamt you … we …” she stared straight at him, a silent but clear warning not to say anything. “Well, what I dreamed doesn’t matter. You can leave now.”
“If you’re absolutely sure you are fully recovered ...”
“Out, Fraser. And I want your 10989-B report on my desk by morning.”
“Yes, Sir. As you wish.” Fraser turned to leave.
“Fraser?”
“Yes?”
“Not a word of this to anyone. And remind me to give Turnbull a reprimand for providing unauthorized medications to personnel.”
“Understood.”
“And Fraser?”
What now? Another rebuke? “Yes, Sir?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For getting me home safely and not taking advantage of me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Goodbye.” He nodded and touched the brim of his hat.
As Thatcher shut the door behind him, he could swear he heard her mutter under her breath, “Oh, well. Maybe next time.”
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Date: 2019-08-20 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-20 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-02 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-02 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-03 01:15 am (UTC)Anyways, delightful fic! And I particularly liked the "Studley Do-Right" line, the "starched radish" line, and the rowboat song being the Fraser River instead of the stream.
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Date: 2019-09-03 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-24 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-24 08:29 pm (UTC)