Disclaimer:

Author's Notes: Just something that leaped into my head while I was trying to work on the tenth and final Dog story.

Story Notes: I'm not sure how to put this.there is no category for such a warning. Anyway, there's nothing very graphic. It's dialogue, mostly.

Panting, Frannie said "Uh...which of us was last one up?"

"You," Ray replied breathily, after swallowing once. He was stroking her sweaty back with an equally sweaty hand. Geez, she was so little. Littler than Stel, even. Fucked like she freakin' owned the place, though.

"Oh, right, right..." She had lifted her head to gaze blearily around them, failing to see what she was looking for. "Then I guess I pay for the room."

"Nah. I think you were headed toward the bathroom when I grabbed you, so we'll split it this time." They both chuckled at the thought of the grabbing. After exploding into the room like a couple of wild horses spurred into stampede by sheer blind horniness, they'd both gotten naked with no regard for the integrity of their clothes and Frannie had still been trying to get her left shoe off, hopping in place, when Ray had hit the bedspread au naturel and reached over and brought her down on top of him with a yank on her arm. She'd landed with her left tit practically in his mouth, and he'd made snarling noises while pretending to devour it, which made her laugh so hard he had to stop a second because he was laughing, too, as much at their mutual intense need for SEX as joining in with her amusement. She'd used the reprieve to yank the shoe off and get the hell out of her pantyhose, muttering something about how the things should only burn at the fourth level of hell so help her God.

"Uh, yeah, you wanna roll to the side, kinda, before I get up?" she said. If they ended up towelless, whoever was up last paid for the room. And got up for the towel.

"Yeah, but I'll get up. You get the worst of the mess all over you if you get up without a towel."

"You've definitely been married," Frannie smiled as they rolled; she took his weight on her right leg, and he eased himself up and off her.

He came back still wiping up before handing her the towel, half of which was still unsullied. He flopped down on the bed next to her while she mopped at herself, then dropped the towel on the floor and flopped back too.

"What the hell are we gonna do?" she sighed forlornly. "It's so unfair."

"What the hell can we do?"

"I don't know, hide his clothes or something."

Ray chuckled. "That'd only make things worse."

"Yeah. We could just steal all his civvies. It's not quite so bad when he's buttoned up to the throat."

Ray shook his head a little. "True, but...I kinda got a...thing...for his uniform."

"You poor bastard." She made a face.

He chuckled again. "You poor bastard. You gotta keep up the sashaying around him whenever he shows up, or people will notice. But he really likes you, you know."

"I know. But I think he loves you."

"He loves your real brother. Me he...I dunno. Accepts. I trust him and everything, and I guess he likes me okay..."

"I've seen him looking at you. You know, when you're not looking at him. Sometimes he smiles, kinda thoughtful-like," she said. "I'd kill for a smoke."

"Don't even say that. I've been nicking out ever since they told me your brother doesn't smoke and snatched the Camel right out of my mouth."

"I guess it's worse cold-turkeying."

There was a brief silence as they both finished getting their breath back. Ray cleared his throat and said "Um, you know I didn't mean that thing I said this morning, don't you?" He reached over and felt around for her hand, took it and squeezed it. "You ain't stupid. At all."

She squeezed back. "I know," she said softly. "We have to make it look real."

"I just about shit myself when you said the motel room thing." He chuckled.

She snorted. "I was feeling kind of evil."

"You're so pretty, Frannie," he said softly. "I don't know why he's not interested. But he should be."

"Thank you, and it's my brother," she sighed. "He'd feel like...I dunno, like he was in bed with his sister or something. His own sister, I mean. He sees me as...as a kid, as a little girl he should be...taking care of. He's really nauseated by the idea of going to bed with me."

"He's not nauseated, for God's sake," Ray scoffed. "Give yourself some credit. He's just uncomfortable, you're probably right about that. I understand the question's come up before and Frase pretty much ran like hell from your brother to keep from having to talk to him about it."

"I wonder if Fraser thinks I believe that speech he gave me. When I was still actually trying, I mean. With the leather corset?"

"Mm. Leather corset."

"He was letting me out painlessly, I mean, I'm not stupid, I figured that out halfway into it. I just...I guess it hurt less to pretend...we'd both pretend I believed him, pretend it was true, whatever exactly I dunno, but..."

"Well, I'd like to see you in that outfit. Any chance?"

"I'd have to steal it from my sister and alter it back. After it registered a zero on the mountie meter I never wanted to see it again."

"Oh. Well, if you ever get the chance. Hey--I know, I'll be a typical guy and get you one of those gift certificates to a lingerie store."

"The typical guy thing is to give those to their girlfriends or wives. I don't know if fuck-buddies count."

He squeezed her hand. "You're more than a fuck-buddy, Frannie. Undercover sucks and I got, like, almost no friends. I know the fibs came to you to take the aide job and help me out with the cover assignment...but before that, when all you knew was you were losing your brother, and...you were so great. You tried to help me feel comfortable."

"I could...I guess I could tell you didn't know how to face us, face his family--this fraud, you were thinking. I didn't want you thinking that. You were there to help protect him, you were giving up whatever life you had--"

"The life I had'd just died a horrible death, so I wasn't giving up much. Stel got our life in the divorce."

"I didn't know that at the time. You...seemed shy. Like you really didn't want to offend us. But we should've been thanking you."

"So I'm more than a fuck-buddy, too?"

"Stupid question, Ray. I don't do fuck-buddy. Friends...yeah, friends. We're friends who, uh, do this."

"I know. You're not...um..."

"A slut."

"I wasn't gonna say that. I know that word isn't fair."

She ignored that. "I admit it's kinda convenient for us both, but that doesn't mean you aren't my friend. Even if we have to...act like we have to act around other people."

"Brother and sister."

"Bitch, snarl, shit-flip, shit-flip..."

"You and Vecchio did a lot of that, I know."

"It's how we show we love each other in my family."

"You guys must love each other plenty."

"We do," she sighed. "We do." She made a move of her hand to her mouth, made a face, and Ray grinned; he was controlling the same hand movements himself. "Kill for a smoke."

"I said shut up about that, please."

"Right. Sorry. Just...I know Fraser likes pretty brunettes. Would you say I'm a pretty brunette?"

"I would say you are a staggeringly gorgeous fuckable brunette. I'm not just saying that 'cause we're already fucking, either."

"Then what did--why did--that monster from hell and not me? Why her and not me?"

"Mm. The monster, yeah." Ray sighed. "It's hard to know what to even think there. Lots of speculation, not much in the way of hard cold stuff, you know? But I know this; Fraser must care about you to trust you with that kinda stuff. He's never talked to me about her. The monster, that is. I appreciate your telling me about it. It's...the kind of thing I need to know. For the job, and for...just for. You didn't betray his confidence there, you knew you could trust me."

She sighed. "I kind of did, Ray. He never told me about her. My brother did, in pretty good detail. Needed to talk. He...you know he..."

"...accidentally shot Fraser. Yeah. Aiming for the monster. He musta forgot--in the heat of thinkin' she had a gun trained on him--the way Fraser can jump."

"Only thing I could figure. Anyway, my brother...doesn't talk very well. A lot, and loud, but not well. But he can talk to me. We needed each other, growing up, before our so-called father died. Ray's the one who told me the way Fraser...lost his mind, lost himself, over her. Over a monster..." she shook her head in pained bafflement.

"In case you hadn't noticed, Fraser is shitty about knowing what's good for him. He's great at knowing what he wants, but he sucks at wondering why, or thinking about why. No introspection happening in that head, or not much."

"Yeah. Men."

"Hey."

"Present company excepted. To a degree."

"Be nice to me or I won't let you fuck me." He made a raspberry on her shoulder and she laughed out loud.

She then went on "Anyway, if I'm so fucking attractive, and I'm obviously fucking willing--though I gotta play the part a little more than I really want to; I mean, I'm not stupid. By this point, I'd have given up, if it weren't for the whole cover thing--obviously given up, I mean, inside I haven't got a lot of hope or you and I wouldn't be making like bunnies. I got standards, you know."

"I can take that real good, or real bad, one way or another."

"Take it real good, Ray, save us both a lot of anguish."

He grinned. "You got it. High standards, I fit 'em. But something else about Fraser--you may have noticed that he fixates on the most hopeless cases to help. He'd help anyone who asked, and he'd help anyone a little if there was a little help right there he could do...but he mostly only really throws himself into what most people consider the hopeless cases, because they're hopeless. Because he knows nobody else will help them, that the rest of the world has given up on them--even if the rest of the world is sad about it, they've still given up. Fraser puts his all into helping them, into having faith in them, 'cause no one else will. He...had to believe she...loved him. That she was..."

"Yeah, I get you. But that..."

"Monster. I know. I think he's got kind of a what did you call it, when you were toting that book around, wearing yellow..."

"If you're trying to say he's got some kind of self-destructive thing happening--my brother, and you, have talked about it at length already. Where I, and half of Chicago, can hear. I get the idea. But that doesn't explain why he won't go to bed, or even get interested, in either of two perfectly good, reasonably attractive people who love him."

"I think you hit it."

"We love him?"

"Yeah. We don't desperately need him, we love him. Or maybe it's the way he loves us. Like you said, like a little sister, and me, like...well, like a friend. I just don't turn his crank, that's all."

"Ray, I've seen you do the look. You don't do it very often, but I've seen it. A tree would fuck you if you gave it that look. If he loves you, and you deliberately tried--"

"I have deliberately tried, and we ain't talking 'tree'. We're talking 'mountie whose entire wad is probably retractable'."

She snorted. "Hee. That's a good one."

"And who believes that all women are our sisters. Whether that's good or bad for my getting in bed with him, I don't know."

"I still don't believe that wasn't a joke. He has a sense of humor, you know."

"I know. Turnbull and his cardboard box. He can even get a little, kinda silly, you know. He just uses his sense of humor right when I'm not in the fucking mood to appreciate it is all. Like when I'm gonna be sleepin' on the wooden floor."

"I tried to make that a little easier for you..."

"Frannie, I appreciate you wanted to be entertaining, but I was gonna get little sleep enough without watching the two of you scooting around the perimeter of the floor in your sleeping bags like a couple of inchworms all night." Frannie laughed again, with a couple of snorts. "Hey, I was up for it."

"And it would've been hilarious if I'd been in a better mood."

"So you dumped me off home. Thanks."

Ray sighed. "It was dangerous, too, Frannie, in case you forgot. I don't want anything happening to you. I know you're an active part of the cover, and I'm not telling you 'don't do your job', but you aren't a cop. I'm supposed to cover that nasty dangerous shit."

"I remember."

"Yeah. By the way...'allure'?"

"What'd you want me to say, 'Yeah, people follow me, I bought a bottle of those pig pheromones'?"

Ray laughed. "God, I wish I had a cigarrette."

"Shut up with the cigarrettes."

"Right."

"Cuddling's good, and I wouldn't ordinarily give up the cuddle time for anything...I miss...you know..."

"Yeah. I been married, too."

"But he was in shorts and everything..."

"I got you. You maybe wanna fuck some more?"

"Really be good. And we left a little early for lunch. I'll say I needed my brother to drive me by my salon to pick up some of my nail polish. Only place that stocks my color. The right color is so important--"

"--and it's all the way accross town, Frannie," Ray fake-raged, jabbing her in the sternum with a finger for additional emphasis, grinning.

"Bitch, bitch, bitch--is it so much to ask, is it so much to ask a brother to do a sister a favor!? Everything I do for you, everything--mmph--" Their brief and unseriously-taken rehearsal was cut short by Ray rolling on top of Frannie, then getting rolled over on himself when she responded with sudden enthusiasm. He caught the edge of the bedtable and pushed them back the other way just in time.

"Oops--sorry--"

"Don' be, don' be, I like gettin' jumped, just don' quit that--oh yeah..."

"Ohhh, you are the bestest friend I ever, ever had--"

"Yeah, love you too, don't stop that, oh yeah, bestest friends. Bestest fr--oh god..."

"Ray?"

"Mm?

"What if...he does...you know...one of us gets lucky?"

That pulled Ray from his sex fugue for a moment, and he considered, and said "'Fraser, I love you, and this is the best thing that ever happened to me. An' we can make it even better--see, I got this friend...'"

Frannie grinned.

End Special Friends by Blue Champagne: bluecham@tds.net

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