Author's website: http://www.mindspring.com/~bluecham/

Disclaimer: I plead the fifth.

Author's Notes: I had to ask for someone, namely Kalena,to tell me if I needed a certain warning. She said pish-tosh, of course not, so thank you, Kalena. <g>

Story Notes:

This story is a sequel to: Talking to the Dog IV: Lending Aid and Comfort

Thanks to Speranza for one brief line in the narrative.

Talking to the Dog V: A Many-Splendoured Thing

"So, whattaya feel like for dinner?"

Fraser just smiled slowly, with a sidelong look at him.

Despite the blood running downhill this provoked--God, when that face out-and-out vamped--Ray still managed to laugh, braking for a red light. "Besides that, you big perv. Oh, yeah, I just bet you're hurting over there. Pawin' around on the Ice Queen like that, and her bein' injured and everything. Expected better of you."

Fraser sighed. "Ray..."

"I'm just kidding. God, you two must have hell tryin' to work together. That why she makes you make her tea in the morning, and shit like that? You guys need some kinda space?"

Fraser looked at him quizzically. "I think you're suffering from a misapprehension, Ray. No matter how...competent you seem to find me as a peace officer--"

"Freakin' *over*competent," Ray said, only half-disgustedly.

"--I happen to be assigned to office duty at the moment, just as she is; we're officially here in a purely administrative capacity. Making my commanding officer's morning tea, along with other such chores--which you seem to consider menial--is quite a normal part of such duty, and falls well within the parameters of acting as an aide and personal assistant, which is part of why Turnbull and I are here, and what do you mean 'hell trying to work together'?"

"You think other people can't see it? You and Meg got complementary hormones or whatever the hell it is that makes that happen."

"Makes what, specifically, happen, Ray?" Fraser wondered, turning a little in the seat to give his full attention to Ray. He sounded interested, if guarded.

"You know, the desperate need to boff a particular person until you both drop dead from it and you got no idea why you want that. It's not the kind of thing that just both of you being serious babes would explain. Never happened to you before?"

"I...there've certainly been cases of...mutual attraction in my past, but..."

"No, I don't mean that, you know what I mean. Good thing it looks like you both have the brains not to let your pants tell you it's love or anything."

Fraser looked embarrassed. "Ah. I see. Um, no, the inspector seems to be the sole such case in my experience to date. She has...a certain aroma...when I smell it--well, that's neither here nor there, especially since she's started wearing cologne to work, which seems to alleviate the problem to at least some degree. In fact, I suspect that may be why she started wearing it."

"You told her you like the way she smells? That's a serious I-want-in-your-pumpkin-pants line, Frase."

"I...did let it slip, in a way, yes."

"But she isn't wearing any cologne at the moment and she'd been sleepin' and was smellin' all warm and her, and you were right up in her face and you got a woody," Ray grinned.

Fraser gave him a sour look, but shrugged one shoulder in acknowledgement. "In a nutshell. Can I take it you've experienced this phenomenon?"

"Oh, yeah. My first partner. No idea what it was about him. I mean, I didn't hate him or anything, nice guy, okay guy, and good-looking, yeah. And we had some stuff in common. Just no reason I can think of to have totally lost my shorts like that over him as opposed to a lot of other guys I knew. But, man...we could not get near each other without turning into lust-crazed weasels. And I was still married at the time; you can imagine exactly how much I didn't like myself over the whole thing, even though I knew I wasn't gonna do anything about it. But he was even worse off than me--he'd always thought he was totally straight."

"Good lord. That must've been terribly disturbing for him."

"Yeah, he was not a happy guy. At least he didn't find some twisted way to blame me for it, like a lotta people might've. But he started practically running away whenever he saw me. I didn't even have to ask him what the problem was, we couldn't look at each other without it being completely obvious that we were both thinking the same thing. Kinda hard to work like that. We had to request new partners, and you better believe we had fun tryin' to come up with reasons for it that wouldn't show up on our records lookin' like 'does not work and play well with others'. Truth was no good, obviously."

"Obviously, quite. That must have been a difficult thing for a previously straight man to experience, not to mention how uncomfortable you must have been about it."

"Yeah. In general, though, I think it's harder on the women it happens to."

"Really." Fraser adjusted his posture slightly, cocking his head in his I'm-interested intense look. "Why is that?"

"They're raised different, kinda. I mean, it's okay to tell your son that Real Men are Loaded and go get 'em Tiger and all that, but you don't hear many parents telling stuff like that to their daughters. 'Get out there and fuck, Trixie, be a real woman!' So I think women're more likely to make more out of it than it is, so they don't feel like such total sleazebags. I mean, I'm a guy and I wouldn't wanna feel like that. Everything they get told says that if they wanna fuck, especially if they wanna fuck so bad they can't see straight, it better be love or they're the scum of the Earth." He shrugged. "Women gotta put up with a lot more bullshit brainwashing about it than we do, is all I mean."

"Understood. So...if the inspector..."

"If she gets all moony at you, that's probably why. So cut her some slack. And whatever you do, don't let your own hormones get the better of you. If you actually did anything significant with her God knows how screwed over the two of you might end up--"

"Um, we have kissed."

"Yeah? When? Standin' up? Wearin' pants?" Ray wagged his eyebrows suggestively.

Fraser gave him a spare-me look and said "Ordinarily I wouldn't discuss such things, but the location was rather public in any event, and you...you and I, well, actually, almost more difficult to keep my perspective about than the kiss, was...um...an incident involving the two of us being restrained in a train car and...um, a hairpin...I was forced to, ah, well, the details aren't really important at this juncture. Suffice it to say that as far as the kiss goes, we couldn't have progressed from it any appreciable distance, owing to where we were at the time."

"Which was?"

"The top of the train. While it was moving."

"I can see why that didn't go into Vecchio's report. Fraser, shit. No wonder you got no sex life. Now repeat after me: Never Get Into It On Top of a Moving Train."

"I admit I have made what could certainly be called unfortunate choices of venue in the past, but that particular kiss just...happened."

"Yeah, not even you would stalk a chick on top of a train on purpose."

"Are you done insulting my romantic prowess or should I find something else to do while you finish?"

Ray grinned. Fraser was trying to look pissed, but all he could manage was amused and a little exasperated. "Nah, I'm all done. But y'know, you gotta defend your honor now."

"I do?"

"Mm-hm. Hey, I insulted your prowess. Now you'll just have to prove me wrong."

Fraser smiled, smoldering just a little. "And how do I go about that?"

Ray grinned. "You'll think of something. I got faith."

From the back seat, the snoring Dief muttered something about puking.

"Shut up, stupid wolf," Ray muttered back, but he was in too good a mood to care that much. "He really does snore."

"Well...yes and no. That sound is the result of a chip of bone that was knocked loose from the side of one of his nasal passages and became embedded in soft tissue, which then healed over it. When the tissues' muscular support is relaxed in sleep, it partially blocks his airway, resulting in that noise, which I suppose is snoring of a sort; but dogs and wolves can't truly snore, because they have no soft palate. Snoring unrelated to actual airway congestion occurs in humans when the muscles that support the soft palate relax and the palate descends to partially block the airway at a point lower down."

"That's why if you whack somebody snoring to make 'em turn over, they stop."

"That's right."

"Anyway, sounds like snoring to me. It's an obnoxious noise he makes when he sleeps sometimes, right? He's got no soft palate--that why he can't talk? In English, I mean."

"Ah...I'd never thought about it. It's at least one reason. But he lacks quite a number of the necessary components to produce human speech. Probably including the inclination."

"Yeah, probably. Uh, we're gettin' close to home and you never did tell me where you wanna stop for dinner."

"Why don't we order in?"

Ray returned Fraser's smirk. "Yeah, why don't we do that?"

They stopped by the consulate, since Fraser said he had to throw a package in the mail bin. When he came back into the foyer, where Ray was leaning on the reception desk--Diefenbaker was still snoring in the car--he was in a loose sweater and jeans, with his pack on his shoulder. Well, that was kinda that, Fraser was staying over. Fraser assumed he was staying over, and he assumed Ray didn't mind. This was good, good, good, all good, shut-up-dick-we-still-gotta-drive greatness. Proper preparation...he wondered just exactly what all Fraser might have in that pack besides a toothbrush and a change of shorts. And maybe dried meat in a bag.

"I wonder how Thatcher and T are getting along," Ray asked in an effort not to start drooling a freshet right down to the floor, when Fraser smiled at him as he leaned across Ray to pick up what was apparently the package he wanted to mail.

"They work together every day, Ray; they have a well-established rapport."

"Yeah, for working."

They started for the front door, Fraser pulling his keys out of his pocket. "It seems to translate to other types of interaction quite well. I was forced to look for both of them at the inspector's apartment once. It was the day after Canada day; they'd apparently been up watching the festivities on television. The TV was still on, and they were both asleep on the couch. He was curled up with his face in her neck, clutching a stuffed animal she'd given him for his birthday."

Ray tripped on the stairs and Fraser had to make a fast grab for him. As he got his feet back under him, Ray said "Okay, what happened to that no lying thing, Fraser? That is such a--"

"The stuffed animal was a white husky. She intended it, I believe, as a gag gift, but when he was quite sincerely thrilled with it, there wasn't much she could do but tell him she was glad he liked it."

Ray started to snort. "Callin' him a baby you, was she?"

"Something along those lines, maybe."

"Cuddling on the couch. Whoda thought."

"I think the cuddling part happened after they were asleep," Fraser amended, dumping the package into the mailbox on the corner. "Though neither of them seemed to take particular notice of their mutual position when I woke them up."

Fraser offered him a small comestible item from one of the cartons. "Mu shu?"

"None of your damn business," Ray grinned, and had to duck when Fraser threw the morsel at him.

"I think you've had a little too much beer," Fraser smiled. Ray smiled what he knew had to be a pretty damn fatuous smile back and got up to take his dead bottle and dump it in the trash. Fraser was continuing "So, what you're saying is it's a cultural nuance that I'm not grasping."

"No, I am not saying it's a cultural thing. Well, maybe it is a cultural thing, but not mostly. It's a me and Frannie thing, okay?"

"Well, it is usually a hallmark of male-male relationships, in the United States, to express affection through insults and jibes. When one party is female and the other male--"

"--then you are probably talking about a brother and sister," Ray cut him off. "She's my sister, remember? Frannie flips shit with Vecchio, doesn't she?"

"She's not really your sister, Ray."

Ray slumped a little. "But she's definitely hot."

Fraser let his smile become a somewhat--for him--evil expression, and tilted his head as though in idle thought. "Hm. Are you saying that your...ah...outwardly antagonistic relationship with Francesca is a result of...preventing any occurrences that might compromise Ray Vecchio's cover, rather than any actual dislike for Francesca?"

"If you mean, do we bitch and snarl so we won't, um, do other stuff--I never really thought of it that way, but yeah, maybe it started out that way; now it's just kind of our MO. But I do not wanna have to listen to you zinging me about 'Ray likes Frannie'. I do not like Frannie. Not that way. I just...like Frannie."

"It probably won't be me doing any zinging, Ray."

Ray glanced to where Diefenbaker was snoozing on a rug in the corner. His snoring had abated somewhat, at least. "Yeah, it probably won't."

"I wonder, though--why you think Turnbull and Francesca would--how did you put it--"

"I think they'd be cute together, that's all. I mean, they're cute separately, so why not together? And Frannie'd sure never have to worry about anything bad happening to her in a dark alley. Though if the two of them ever got into it, I'd pretty much have to put my bucks down on Frannie."

"True, that would scarcely be a fair fight. Tell me--do you often speculate on appropriate romantic partners for your friends and coworkers?"

Ray chuckled and came back, sitting down in the shifting light of the muted TV, on the floor next to Fraser, leaning against the couch. They hadn't cleaned up the dinner mess yet. He picked up the piece of pork Fraser had thrown at him and chucked it into a box full of used napkins. If Dief had been awake, he would have chucked it in his direction, but Ray wasn't gonna eat it himself. He knew how long it'd been since he'd vacuumed the rug. "Nah. Do I look like somebody's widowed aunt? Just thinkin' about Turnbull and the Ice Queen. She's 'out of his league', but he'll sleep on her shoulder?"

"They do have a rather unusual relationship."

"Any relationship Turnbull is in is unusual, I bet."

"You're probably right."

"I just sometimes wonder why the Ice Queen snaps and rips you both new ones, then turns around and does stuff like that?"

"I would venture to say that any relationship Meg Thatcher is involved in is probably going to be outside the common curve as well. She--well, she and I--though I suppose more her--with Turnbull, we--"

"It ain't more with her. You do it too. That guy wouldn't last in the real world without some help."

"I beg to differ--or, rather, perhaps I should say that he has no difficulty obtaining any help he might need, which works for him as well in the 'real world' as elsewhere. The inspector and I may occasionally choose to...work around Turnbull's eccentricities rather than make issue, but, as with myself, you've had little opportunity to see what he can do in his normal environment. He's exceedingly personable, and he was apparently quite well-liked at his previous postings."

"Bet his old CO's are all bald, though."

Fraser smiled, with a well-maybe bob of his head, and went on "He often receives mail from his former coworkers--I know because I occasionally have to paw through the neatly-cornered stacks of it on his desk, looking for my own correspondence."

Ray chuckled.

"Also, his nieces and nephews, and doubtless his sisters, would seem to be quite fond of him; he gets a good few envelopes with Crayola-scented contents and such."

"You kinda wonder why he got into law enforcement. Doesn't seem like where his strengths are."

"No, I don't wonder, actually; he told me. His father, like mine, was a mountie, and Turnbull is the only son out of six children in his family. He's the youngest; his mother died from complications in bearing him."

"Whoa, shit. I can imagine a normal human might not be able to hack havin' six Turnbulls."

"In part, perhaps; I think it was more that he was a late baby, the child of his mother's last reproductive years, and she had already, as you say, been through considerable stress with pregnancy and childbirth. But his sisters apparently all resemble their mother. Much smaller than he is."

"So his Dad didn't want any girl mounties in the family, and T got stuck with it from the day he was born."

"His father is a very traditional man," Fraser nodded. "Turnbull told me about it one evening over dinner, when I inquired about his parents."

"Then he never had a chance at being anything but a mountie, did he?"

"Well, I admit that it seems, for a man with such gushing sentime--I mean, such obvious compassion and warmth, such, um...unbridled enthusiasm--"

"Good save."

"--such a person might find it a difficult path, and never to have had even the option of choosing another life may seem harsh...but I think I can say it's not a total waste. I don't think Turnbull's problem is lack of ability to perform a mountie's duties so much as...a priority conflict."

"You're fucking right it's not lack of ability. Those two guys aren't gonna be out of the hospital for God knows how long."

"A mountie's duties include avoiding the necessity of violence, Ray, on top of which, the larger portion of our--"

"I know, I know. By the way, speaking of those two guys Turnbull played Whack-a-Mole with, that was Frannie on the phone while you were in the can. Wasn't much she could tell me--not my case, and since it's gonna drag on, nobody wants to take any chances on technicalities throwing a wrench into getting the conviction. Anyway, that tentative ID on Turnbull's friends is all we're gonna know for a while. Won't be able to do anything with it until they're some sorta up and around; the one Thatcher took out lawyered up, so there's major blockage online there, but prints runs seem to make that one a guy wanted for assault. If the other two are the cronies of his they think, one of 'em's wanted for second-degree murder, too. One of his muggees died in the hospital."

Fraser briefly looked grim. "I'm not surprised, considering all the illegal weaponry found on them."

"I guess they picked the wrong nice-looking well-off couple strolling home from the theater to hassle, didn't they?"

"Definitely. I imagine Turnbull's mind will be relieved by the news. In any case..." he sighed. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this..."

"C'mon, c'mon. Let's hear it. This could be good."

He gave Ray an I'll-get-you-later look and said "What I was getting around to is this: If I had to choose one reason Turnbull will probably never advance far in the ranks of the RCMP, it would not be an aversion to violence--on top of his obvious hand-to-hand skill, I know his range scores, and he's quite a competent marksman; nor has he ever shown any undue hesitation about carrying or firing a weapon. He takes his oath to defend the public from the criminal element very seriously. No, the problem is more his...overweening attention to detail."

Now Ray's eyebrows went up. "'Overweening'? Too much attention to detail? I do not believe this. I am not hearing this."

"Ray, when anything--even precise attention to particulars of whatever kind--becomes a drag on a person's ability to move a task forward, rather than an asset to their functioning--"

Ray was wriggling in place, where he sat on the floor by the coffee table. "This is too cool, Supermountie admits there's such a thing as getting anal even when it comes to--"

"Will you stop calling me Supermountie?"

Ray paused at the quiet tone, took another look at Fraser, and stopped dancing. "Uh...yeah. I guess that's kinda assholish, isn't it."

"Yes, in a word."

"Yeah, okay, I got you--but the only reason I'm not gonna yank you is that you admitted that to me 'cause you care about T. I mean, you deserve a yank or several for doing that one-eighty."

"I admitted it because you care about him," Fraser said softly. "I wanted you to understand--I don't know if Turnbull will ever find total self-actualization in the RCMP; but I do know that as long as he's allowed to perform his duties to the best of his ability, he'll never truly be unhappy. He really does live to serve."

"For a guy who's really bad about people, you can be really good about people," Ray said softly.

Fraser smiled at him. "The same could be said of you."

"Or T."

"Or him."

"Not Thatcher."

"Not really."

"Frannie, though. I still say she and Turnbull could hit it off. He wouldn't mind this Italian babe micro-managing him. I think he'd love it, in fact. She could micro-manage him, he could micro-manage everything else, and they'd be happy as clams."

"You could be right."

Dief gave a small snore and shifted a bit, paws twitching.

Ray glanced over. "He loves her, too. I wonder why he's never made a pass at her, the things he'll go for. Frannie's better than a drinking fountain, I mean, you've gotta give her that much."

"He, ahm..." Fraser tugged at his loose boat-neck sweater collar, nearly turning the garment into an off-the-shoulder number, and cracked his neck real quick. "He doesn't do that. With humans."

"Uh...he got an offer on the beach just the other day. From a dog with her human, I mean."

"But he didn't take whoever made it up on it, did he?"

"No. But I just kinda thought all dogs did that, if they did, y'know, that kind of thing much. Young dogs, at least."

"The particular breed seems to make a difference as well. But in any case, Diefenbaker...doesn't satisfy his...urges with humans. Or make the attempt, at least, since few humans would actually allow him to finish."

Ray snorted. "Yeah, and I sure wouldn't wanna know any of the ones who would."

"Um." Fraser picked at a bit of lint on the rug, then began to pile the supper trash together prepatory to tossing it out.

Ray eyed him. "What? What is this sudden weirdness on your face?"

"Nothing, Ray, it's just rather an uncomfortable subject. Diefenbaker has been my most constant friend for years, and--"

"And as you're so fond of reminding me, he's not human, sentient though he may be. He wouldn't have a problem talking about it, and you're about as squeamish as Ozzy Osbourne usedta be about bats. What gives? Did somebody hurt Dief for trying to hump 'em?"

"No, no, nothing like that. Though I suppose you could call it...sort of a traumatic experience."

"Traumatic how?"

"He was...embarrassed. A little. Not as much as--" Fraser cut himself off and started to get up, gathering white cardboard objects with busy sweeping gestures of both arms. "You know, Ray, there's really not much point to leaving the television on if neither of us are paying attention to it; it's quite a waste of electricity. Perhaps we should turn up the volume and--"

"Perhaps you should drop that crap and sit back down and tell me what your problem is. C'mon. I'm your buddy, here. Partners means sharing, you know?" Ray tugged entreatingly at Fraser's sweater, hoping Fraser would make the mistake of looking down at him; he was doing his endearing face at the moment. Fraser looked. Fraser caved.

Sitting back down, he resettled the supper leavings in a contained pile on the coffee table and said "If you must know...actually it's the kind of thing Diefenbaker would probably tell you anyway just to watch you, ahm..."

"Just to watch me...?"

"Well, as you'd probably put it, just to watch you freak out."

Ray's brows nearly hit his hairline. "Freak out? He humped the Chief Mountie, the Prime Minister, a priest, what?"

"Please try to remember that he was quite young at the time, and we weren't exactly...well, we spent quite a bit of time alone together, and...we had a..."

"Oh, you." Ray sniggered. "Could've figured. He loves you an' everything, and it's kinda like a hug to him, the way he talks about it, at least sometimes. Not with inanimate objects or...like turtles or anything, but..."

"...yes, it can occasionally be a sign of affection, as well as a simple release, if the, er, being in question is a known and liked, um, commodity."

"'Commodity?' Fraser...even you wouldn't use a word like 'commodity' to describe a humpee unless something was really weird. It wasn't, was it?"

"No, not for him."

At this, Ray threw a leg over both Fraser's to immobilize him, drawing a sigh of aggravation from Fraser, though both the mountie's hands did move to Ray's thigh to begin an absentminded squeeze-and-massage motion. Ray was smiling, only a little evilly. "Freaked you out, huh."

"Somewhat, yes. I wasn't sure how to handle it."

"You dumped him off and said no doggie humpee, right?"

Fraser was silent, looking sideways, hands still working Ray's thigh.

"Well?"

"Ray...Diefenbaker is...he's different. Though he is a wolf dog, he's not only a wolf dog, not to me."

"Me either, but he's never tried to make intimate with anything but my ear. With his tongue."

"You know what I mean. You remember our talk over breakfast in my office the other day?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Dief...I don't know if he's generally different, in a universal sense, or if he's unique, or if there are others like him, and all of them are to some degree--"

"Frase."

"Understood." Fraser sighed. "To put it as simply as possible...since he is sentient, and he is my friend, and he was young, and it is a perfectly acceptable expression of affection and such for his species, I...didn't know how to say no."

Ray was frozen a moment. His mouth opened, then closed, then he jumped up, eliciting a whuff of breath from Fraser as his knee used Fraser's belly as a launch pad; then he grabbed Fraser's shoulders and dragged him up and to the bedroom, shutting the door behind them.

"Okay. I am gonna say this once, and I want you to say not one goddamn thing but yes or no. Yes or no, got it?"

"Yes."

"You had sex with the furface."

"Ye--nn--I--"

"Yes or no."

Long pause.

"Yes. But to be more accurate, Ray, he had sex with me."

Ray's eyes became saucerlike. "You tellin' me there's a difference?!"

Fraser looked exasperated. "Certainly, there's quite obviously a difference. Diefenbaker...achieved sexual completion, whereas I never even started."

"You--you can talk to him! Why didn't you tell him to stop!?"

"I told you, Ray--he was very young, and very enthusiastic, and very happy to see me. I didn't want to hurt his feelings."

"Fraser! Frannie is young and enthusiastic and always happy to see you, but you wouldn't let her, and she's human!"

"That's exactly the point. Allowing Francesca to sexually satiate herself on my body as a gesture of greeting and affection would not be right for at least half a dozen reasons. But with Dief...don't you see, Ray? It would have been as if...as if Francesca were to hug me in pleasure at seeing me after a prolonged separation and I were to shove her away. It would have hurt her. It would have been...inappropriate."

"Fraser! Inappropriate is doin' it with a DOG, for Chrissakes!"

"Diefenbaker is different."

"Diefenbaker IS A DOG! What did you do? What did you--God, I don't even know if I wanna know--oh my God, is he not humpin' anybody else 'cause you're his regular leg? Oh, Jesus God." Ray went and fell down on the bed face first. "You're doin' it with him. That's it. You and the dog. God, all that talk he went into that first day about why would he stay here with you and how he couldn't explain what you are to him--"

"Ray! Calm down. Diefenbaker and I do not...do whatever it is you're thinking," Fraser said dryly, with a faintly disgusted expression. "I explained to him that...that sex among humans is far more ritualized and far less casual, that it...it can be a form of affection, but it...that while we also do occasionally have sex for the same reasons his species do, such as to alleviate boredom, and--it isn't--" he broke off and sighed. "Do you see why I had such a difficult time trying to think of a way to make him understand the difference in a way that would not hurt his feelings? On the surface of it, it doesn't sound that much different from human sexual instincts and customs, and in many ways, it isn't." He went to the bed and sat down next to Ray. "Please try to calm down and--"

"I am calm. I am calm. I am...okay." Ray sat up, still looking vaguely as though his mu shu might make a repeat appearance. "God, you fucked the dog. Okay, okay--" he held up a hand to ward off Fraser's glare and continued "Like I said, I'm thinking, it's just my GOD, Frase. Now, I am gonna shut up and you tell me what happened, all right?"

Fraser nodded, relieved. "Thank you. What happened...well. The first time, we--"

"THE FIRST TIME?!"

"Ray, Diefenbaker is far from completely deaf. Remember that he was able to detect the vibrations of your phone ringing and understand what I was saying through the machine merely by placing his better ear directly next to the speaker while you were still obliviously sleeping, so please keep your voice down. Didn't I hear something about you shutting up and letting me tell you?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it." Ray fell over backward on the bed, covering his eyes with both hands.

"The first time, I was...ah, in a bit of a quandary. He was...talking to me, and then he was...well, on top of me."

"On TOP--" Ray clamped a hand over his own mouth.

"I happened to be reclining on my bedroll at the time," Fraser said dryly, "leaning on one elbow, so technically it was not my leg, it was my hip. He was exclaiming how happy he was to see me--actually he wasn't quite that articulate; he was more repeating my name over and over, and adding things like 'love you' and 'missed you'..." Fraser trailed off, his gaze going down to his hands in his lap. "He was very young. I held out my arms to him and hugged him, and, um, there we were, and...then I realized what was happening."

The silence stretched long enough that Ray risked prompting "Yeah. Happy happy, and you notice he's humping you. Kinda hard to MISS something like that, isn't it, though? You coulda just let him go the first you felt that push-push-push happening, couldn't you?"

"He's a wolf dog, Ray. He wriggles when he's excited, you know that, even if he's not...um, pushing. In fact, I'm rather abashed to say that I was so pleased to see him that I was sufficiently preoccupied I didn't realize the difference until he...well, as I said, he was talking to me..."

"Oh God. Oh my God. Oh don't say it."

"All right. I won't say it."

"He was doin' love grunts!?"

"Not...well, something like that."

Ray thought of the way Dief's yogurt-slurping noises had translated in his head and grabbed the nearest pillow to smush over his own face. "Oh God."

"With my name involved, and...things of that nature."

"I'm gonna throw up."

"Ray! You're the one who wanted to know. I never would have told you unless Diefenbaker referred to it, which I must admit that, knowing him, he probably eventually would have."

"I let him sleep in bed with me. Oh God."

Fraser snatched away the pillow, obviously truly pissed this time, only on Diefenbaker's behalf. "Ray, Diefenbaker would never do such a thing with you. He is fond of you, and often expresses affection physically without any sexual connotation, just as humans do. I don't want this making you reluctant to touch him. Do you have any idea how badly he'd be hurt by that?"

Ray took a few deep breaths. "Okay. Yeah. I got you. I'm just...this is weird, Fraser!"

"I'm quite aware of that, but in view of my being able to communicate the way I do with Dief, one must admit it would eventually become an unavoidable possibility."

"I bet I coulda avoided it."

"And Dief could, and will, now, as well. It was different then. So, shall I continue or not?"

"You might as well tell me the rest. I couldn't get any worse heebie-jeebies than I've got now, I'm willing to bet."

Fraser sighed, shook his head, and continued. "I...well, to be blunt, I kept holding him and let him finish, because I was quite...taken aback, and...couldn't think of what else to do in so short a time, other than, as I said, roughly push him off of me, and I couldn't have done that, Ray--I simply couldn't."

"So what happened then?"

"Nothing, really. We lay there a moment, and he asked if I'd been to breakfast, and I said no, and he got up and I changed clothes, and we went. He behaved no differently--except for his continuing general exuberance for the rest of the day at being in my company again--and, so, neither did I. I hoped it had...been a freak occurrence."

"But it wasn't."

"Well...I wouldn't say it ever became a habit, but it did happen again."

"More than once?"

"Yes."

Ray screwed his face up and rubbed his forehead. After a minute he managed "You said he was embarrassed."

"When I asked him...when I told him, about it not being something...although I didn't do it while he was...what I mean is, I wasn't so crass as to bring it up while he would have been feeling vulnerable. I had to wait until it was...well, if we'd been two humans, I would say that one does not bring up issues of concern about sex with one's partner during sex, or just before or after it. One discusses that sort of thing in a nonsexual situation. One's partner would feel understandably hurt and angry otherwise--as I said, it's a very vulnerable time."

"But a dog? They'll do it with beach balls."

"But I wasn't a beach ball. As I said before, he didn't ever simply relieve his sexual urges on me, for what specific reason I don't know. When he did it...or, I suppose, when we...did it, it--"

"Oh, God."

"--it was about me, and him. I'm not saying he considered me his mate; certainly he didn't, neither then nor now. And he wouldn't have been as upset as a human would if I'd gently stopped him when he actually began to...hump, but try to see how confused, and unsure of how to handle things, anyone in my position would have been. Against any halfway rational expectation, we could talk with each other. What that meant to me was...impossible to explain. He'd saved my life, he was my best friend. I loved him. However, unlike with humans, who would have understood if I'd said I loved them, but didn't want sex with them--even if they were disappointed--he, on the other hand, would have been baffled, and hurt. To him it would have been a rejection of his simple affection, as I said before."

"I know, but his wasn't the only species with, with what'd you say, instincts and customs and stuff they do, the way they handle it. Your species has that stuff too. Why didn't what you thought about it matter?"

"It did matter, most certainly, and that was the basis of the explanation I eventually gave him. As I said, I waited until we weren't...it wasn't..."

"You guys weren't havin' a tender moment or anything, humping or not, I got it. What finally made you get up the guts to tell him it was weirdin' you out bad?"

"Actually, he's the one who provided me the opening to broach the subject. He was unsure why...why I...what I was..." Fraser swiped his thumbnail at an eyebrow, cleared his throat, and tried again. "He'd been assuming that I was getting some kind of sexual gratification out of our...encounters, as well as the emotional pleasure of the general physicality, because, as I said, he was young, and didn't know what to expect to see in a..."

"...a human guy gettin' his rocks off."

"Aptly put. He asked me if I'd...well, he was just curious, really. He wanted to know why it seemed so...quiet. And I told him that I...that it wasn't a sexual experience for me. He was, to put it mildly, surprised and upset."

"He...apologized and stuff? He think he'd been--doin' something you didn't want? Oh, man, that's rough--"

"No, he didn't think he'd assaulted me, not that sexual assault is the same sort of trauma for many other species as it is for humans in any case. I'd never simply asked him to stop, after all, which I could easily have done if I'd felt...violated in any way, so it never occurred to him that I might have. No, it was more...he wanted to know what...what he could do for me. He was very contrite, very apologetic about my not having...ahm, had the same kind of fun as he had. He said one thing he did know was that humans used their tongues, like certain other species, and that he'd be happy to--"

"JESUS, FRASER!" Ray clutched the other pillow to his face and rolled clear off the other side of the bed.

"He said he liked my smell there in any case," Fraser sighed in resignation, not even making a gesture toward trying to get Ray to quit cowering. "And that he knew from it that my taste there would be quite pleasant as well. That actually hadn't occurred to me, since Diefenbaker is far more restrained and polite than many dogs about what, ah, you--" they both knew this meant the real Ray Vecchio, "--used to call 'goddamn crotch sniffing'."

"Dief. Offered. You. A. Blow. Job." Ray's voice was strangled.

"Not quite that. He couldn't have put me in his mouth without a great deal of danger, after all, but that's--"

"I get the idea!"

"He also said he'd enjoy it if I wanted to simply get--"

"Don't! Just stop! Too much information! He wanted to make it up to you, I got it! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I got it. Oh God. So that happened. Then what?"

"Well, ahm, that was where I began to explain that humans, at least in my culture, usually did not view sex as casually as the canine-lupine species, or most other species, for that matter, do, and that we didn't use it as a form of greeting, or...well, that was where it got complicated."

Ray sighed tiredly. "You did some kinda decent job, at least. Me and him had a little talk on the beach that made it sound like he saw where you were coming from."

"I see. In that case, to make a long story short, I made him understand that while I loved him dearly, I would prefer that we not express our feelings in that particular way."

"And that's when he got embarrassed."

"Yes, but certainly not anything like as embarrassed as a human would have been, though it's difficult to see how such a situation could arise between two humans."

"It can. Ask Stella sometime. Then again, don't. So he...felt bad..."

"He said he was sorry he'd made me uncomfortable, and promised not to do that again. That's...basically the end of the story. Well..."

"C'mon, spit it out, get it over with."

"I suppose that's when our more serious dialogues on interspecies difference, and living comfortably together, started. Neither of us took as much for granted any more; we both realized there were many things that either of us might simply not see at all, that could be serious problems. Our...bond, our communications skills together, developed accordingly."

"So not doin' the nasty brought you closer together."

"In a way, but I suppose it could have been the resolution of any sort of interspecies misunderstanding that could have brought our attention to the possibility of such difficulties, and convinced us that we shouldn't simply keep silent and go along. That we needed to talk about things."

"Yeah..." Ray kind of groan-sighed and crawled back up from behind the bed. "Like I said before, partners means sharing."

"And you were most certainly correct, Ray."

Fraser reached over and helped Ray roll into him, coming to a halt kind of plastered up against Fraser's body. They dumped the pillow out of the way so Ray could rest his face on Fraser's chest.

"Am I making too big a deal about this?" Ray wondered in a small voice.

"I would say so. Dief is not, after all, an ordinary wolf dog. And it was a simple misunderstanding between friends."

"There's nothin' ordinary about either of you," Ray said resignedly, coming to rest curled up around Fraser. "But nothing simple, either."

"Would you have us any other way?" Fraser began kissing a gentle, soft line along Ray's cheekbone.

Ray mmmed in response, then said "Yeah, but you can't have everything."

Fraser gave Ray's ear a completely token bite, with a little growling sound. Ray grinned and made a token bite back at Fraser's throat. "You know, we haven't cleaned up the supper stuff. Dief'll get into it."

"Then Dief can put up with--"

"He'll get the toots."

Fraser, in the act of rolling over on top of Ray, paused.

"Yeah, that'll stop anybody in their tracks," Ray snickered. "Clean it up? Then little stop in the shower, get clean, early bedtime, maybe?"

"That sounds wonderful." Relaxed happiness had by now replaced the agitation in Fraser's gaze. He leaned over and kissed Ray, soft, but deepening slowly.

Ray, eyes closed, let out a sigh of hedonistic satisfaction as Fraser pulled back a bit, then leaned up and licked Fraser's cheek. A little startled, Fraser jumped. "What was that?"

"It's kissing. I'm being interspeciesly tolerant. C'mere." Ray began licking up along Fraser's jawbone toward his ear.

Laughing, Fraser squirmed. "That tickles."

"You like it?"

"Yes." Fraser laughed again. "Though I must admit there's a marked difference from the way I like it when Dief does it."

"Well I'm glad to hear that, for God's sake. C'mere again--hey--c'mon," Ray cackled as they pretend-struggled around on the bed.

"I thought you said we should clean up the supper things and shower first," Fraser cackled back at him.

Ray rolled over on top, as they kind of rocked back and forth, bracing each other in a cooperative effort in the rolling. "I'm not done being tolerant." He leaned down and licked Fraser's nose; Fraser laughed again and they did another roll--misjudged this one slightly and they went whump onto the hardwood floor, Fraser flat on his back, Ray managing to save the other man's head from banging on the floor just in time.

"Sorry."

"No, I think I have to take the blame for--erf--that one," Fraser said, as Ray helped him sit up. "Must be more careful...I suppose this is as good a time as any to take a break."

"Not a long one. We just gotta get those boxes picked up. Come on." Ray got up and held a hand out to Fraser, who stood up too. "How's your back?"

"Fine. My shoulders hit first. It wasn't much of a fall. Well then, let's get the front room shipshape and...um..."

Ray grinned. "Don't worry. Someday they'll come up with a name for fooling around that you can say without blushing."

The shared shower was a warmly sensual experience, beyond even the plain fact of being in the shower with Fraser, with this minor god--with his friend, his friend he that he trusted, loved. Ray would have thought that Fraser in the shower would be the get in, get wet, get soaped, get rinsed, get out kind of guy, but if he was, he obviously considered this shower to be a more special occasion. Ray had held the curtain aside as Fraser finished disrobing, not hurrying, his eyes averted a little shyly from Ray's nakedness, though they'd already seen each other than way more than once.

Ray held out his hand with an encouraging smile; Fraser stepped over the tub's edge and in, letting the curtain fall again behind him. They moved close, stood under the water together, arms loosely around each other as the spray, and heavier, smoother cascades of clear warm water, bathed their shoulders--Ray's left and Fraser's right, dripping slowly, sliding down to enwrap the rest of their bodies. Ray was lulled and aroused at once at the tenderness of their embrace, and the water's heat running in soft, dancing rivulets down him, all over, water following each curve and angle; somebody somewhere had said that water's was the most intimate caress, and he guessed they were right.

They'd hardly gotten there before Ray felt his eyes closing, and he sighed with a feeling of dreamy unreality. Here. Naked. With Fraser. He could happily have stood there all night, his hands gently stroking and exploring that flawless, pale skin.

Fraser touched him, slowly, with care and attention. He wore a look of fascination and wonder, his eyes soft and deep in the steamy swirls of the dim light. The color of the air was warmed a little by the pale beige of the shower tiles, and the cream color of the curtain, imparting a hint of clean gilt to Fraser's skin, deepening the pale gold of Ray's own. Fraser's palms and fingers traced patterns that followed the contours of the slimmer body, not light enough to tickle, not heavy enough to be demanding; only a deeply attentive caress. Fraser's eyes were lidded heavily, enough to indicate that most of his attention was taken up with touching; though his eyes moved along with the touches, preceding them by a little, telling him where and how to curve and shape his hands along with the body he was learning more precisely than he ever had, in no hurry. His smile was slight, relaxed, quietly enraptured. His lips were impossibly red and moist, water-softened and full, his fair skin flushed, hooded eyes bright.

"You're beautiful," Ray whispered, before he realized he was going to.

Fraser looked up at him, eyes widening. "...beautiful...?" he wondered softly, shaking his head a little in puzzlement. The water slicked his hair down, bringing those classic bones into full relief. Ray reached up and stroked the thick, soft hair back with a few slow, deliberate touches, using his thumbs to catch at loose dark curls, barely spiraled by the water, letting them fall across Fraser's cheeks, ears, forehead.

He nodded, unable to repeat the words he hadn't meant to say, still meaning them. Fraser, like this--relaxed, finally, and naked--he wasn't a small man, but he appeared smaller, without his uniform or even the heavy casual clothes he wore when he wasn't in the serge; proportional, slimmer, though still muscular. Pale, long neck arching over a classically perfect clavicle, moving down into shoulders and chest that were strong and well-padded with muscle, without being bulky at all. "Graceful," Ray whispered, and let the word slip out again, in a whisper. "Beautiful. Fraser, what do you see in me? No, don't answer that. Dumb question. I don't care, as long as you do."

The slow smile that blossomed across Fraser's face wasn't shy at all, only shining, touched, a little abashed, perhaps, at such warm words from his ordinarily caustic-lipped friend. "I see you," he said simply. "I see my friend. I...see bravery, and constancy, and...everything. Anything."

"Anything? From me?"

"In the sense of...possibilities. For both of us. For everything around us."

God, Ray was thinking, feeling his eyes saucer-round again, was it really okay to say anything, anything at all, to each other? To be so open? Really okay to hear words like that, okay to believe? "Do you...um, so in these possibilities, you maybe think it's possible we could kiss for a while? 'Cause I really...oh, Frase, I really wanna do that." Ray suddenly felt weak, and a little on the verge of a tear-closed throat. "I wanna feel you." The catch in his breath startled them both, Ray more than Fraser. "Close. To me. Close with me. Frase..."

Their touching had been so gentle, exploratory--just then, Ray was fingertip-stroking Fraser's face and chest and shoulder reverently, while Fraser held and petted Ray's other hand, absorbing the details of the soft-skinned, long-fingered appendage, turning it carefully in his hands to map out the bones of the slim, hard, strong wrist--that they hadn't gotten more than about half hard. Ray's cock began firming up more now, though, and he reached down and tentatively touched Fraser's, encircled it in his palm and fingers, felt the vulnerable heaviness of the flesh in his hand.

Fraser's eyes closed, and he moaned, very softly. "Ray..." it was so quiet Ray couldn't even hear it over the quiet watery sounds of the shower, but he could feel it, they'd moved closer when Ray touched Fraser there, he could feel the soft exhalation of breath on his cheek.

He tilted his head a little, and their lips touched, water-slick, deeply sensitized by the moisture, each drop of water that fell where they touched a separate little splash of tactile cool, leaving a moist warmth behind. They let their mouths slide lightly across each other a few times as their bodies came close, pressing lightly, more firmly, erections sliding against sleek bellies. Ray's hands found the smooth concavities of Fraser's hips and stroked a swirling pattern inside, before reaching higher, to his waist, and letting his hands slide up that broad, smooth back, with all its springily muscular ripples and indentations; the graceful slope and insway of his spine, and then back down to fan his fingers over the firm glutes. He squeezed very gently, massaging, swirling his thumbs in a soothing pattern.

Fraser let out a fluttery rush of breath and his arms slid tightly around Ray's waist, pressing his groin to Ray's, using the pressure of Ray's hands to make it steady and sure. Their kiss deepened, soft moans coming from both throats, deep, content sounds.

"Mm," Ray sighed as their mouths separated just enough for it. "There's something I been wanting to do..."

Fraser nuzzled him. "Tell me."

Ray couldn't keep from smiling at the nuzzle, and nuzzled back, kind of Eskimo-kissing with their cheeks and lips as well as just their noses. "It's kinda stupid."

Fraser backed up his head a bit to look at Ray. "Tell me," he repeated softly, an invitation, not a demand.

"I'd...I kinda wanna wash your hair for you." Ray studied the space where their chests met, a small smile of minor embarrassment on his face.

"Mmmm..." Fraser was now nuzzling into Ray's neck. "That sounds wonderful."

"Really?"

"Mm-hm."

"I mean, it feels good, getting your hair washed, at least by somebody bein' careful, and you got such thick glossy gotta-touch-it hair, I just..."

"I'd love it," Fraser whispered, with a lazy sensuality Ray had never heard in his voice before.

"Um...okay then. Here, back up in the water..." He turned them so that Fraser's back was to the nozzle and shower knobs and such, and tilted his head back, careful that the water didn't run--at least not much of it--into Fraser's face. He reached for the shampoo--he used that extra-body kind, which he figured Fraser didn't exactly need, but once wouldn't hurt, he was pretty sure, Frase's hair was short enough right now that those curls shouldn't go totally out of control.

He got Fraser's head all wet, then moved him so that the warm water still spilled across him, but left his head out of the stream. Fraser's lithe, muscular body was deeply relaxed, weight canted on one hip, balancing himself easily with one hand against the shower wall, the other hand resting familiarly on Ray's hip.

Ray used his long, mobile fingers to good purpose in the dark, sleek mass. "Feel nice?"

Fraser just made a bedrock-deep sound that seemed to indicate that yes, it felt nice, and then he kept on making smaller versions of the noise, in response to Ray's ministrations. Ray made sure to concentrate on rubbing any tension he could find out of Fraser's scalp, working it out of the top of his neck where it joined in the back, running his hands down the upper trapezius briefly.

"Oh, Ray...that is..."

"Good?"

"So good," Fraser sighed, with an almost childlike expression of close-eyed pleasure on his face.

Ray smiled. "Happy to be of service. Time to rinse, now, tilt your head back, I'll keep the suds out of your eyes..." Fraser sighed contentedly and leaned back, resting his other hand on Ray's opposite hip too, now, to keep balanced; Ray threaded his fingers through the thick, dark, wet, shining mass and stroked lightly and rhythmically, a gentle one-two sweeping back from Fraser's forehead, encouraging the departure of the pale, sliding shampoo suds and giving Fraser a final tension-dissipating scalp massage, as well as making sure the soap stayed out of Fraser's face.

When he was done, he used the loose, fingers-threaded-together clasp he had on the base of Fraser's skull to slowly and gently lift his head, using his thumbs to wipe any drips off to the side before they got past Fraser's eyebrows, which actually did a pretty good job of shielding his eyes from the water all on their own. "Conditioner?"

"Um..." Fraser had to think a moment, blinking, then said "I don't, usually, just--"

"I know, Brylcreem or whatever that stuff is. But...?" Ray grinned and prompted.

Fraser smiled back. "But do I look like an idiot? Please."

"You got it, Benton buddy." Ray squeezed some of the excess water from the short curls, and then smoothed the lightweight, slippery stuff through; he gave Fraser the rinse routine one more time, then said "All done. Feel good?"

"Wonderful," Fraser whispered. His eyes were dilated, and he seemed half in another world.

"Then...could I maybe wash the rest of you, too?" Ray cocked his head, using his I'm-a-stinker-but-you-love-me-'cause-I'm-so-cute expression.

Fraser smiled, a world of affection in his eyes. "You don't need to convince me. I realize I can come off as...a bit of an..."

"Of an I'm-perfectly-capable-of-washing-myself spoilsport," Ray supplied.

"But after what you just did, only a fool would turn down an offer like that."

Ray grinned. "Cool."

Starting at the top, Ray worked Fraser over with a thorough delicacy, using his hands, the shower tuffy, and a bar of unscented castile soap; he used his hands a little more than he had to, massaging the already lax muscles, prompting groans of contentment from the other man. When Ray had made it down past Fraser's waist, then slid a hand behind Fraser's knee and lightly lifted one of his feet to rest on the tub edge, Fraser didn't even murmur, just reached up to hold the shower nozzle with one hand so he wouldn't slip. Hey, the rest of him meant...the rest of him, after all. Ray used his hands for the delicate areas, too; hey, no tuffies near any soft pink parts. Their cocks had both relaxed to about half-hard, and Fraser stayed about there as Ray washed gently and thoroughly.

And it was nice. For them both. He could feel it, though them both. Fraser, made soft vocalizations, his eyes closed, carefully turning and shifting to give Ray easier access. And it felt good to Ray, who was lost in appreciation, intoxicated on the sheer beauty in front of his eyes and in his hands, on making somebody else feel that good, and the easy way Fraser--Fraser, whose normal mode of dress consisted of a uniform that included a standard poker up the ass and a tunic that could deflect small-caliber bullets--was simply accepting it, with every evidence of warm content.

When he was done rinsing Fraser, Ray just kind of slithered around him, a human eel, wet and warm. "I wanna grow gills," he sighed plaintively.

Fraser laughed softly. "I know what you mean. But we'll run out of hot water, and I haven't done you yet." He rearranged them a bit, looking around for the shower caddy. "What did you do with the shampoo? I think I'm going to like this."

Ray thought about Fraser's hands and purring wolf dogs and inspectors and trembled all over. "Oh my God," he whimpered. "I'm a dead man. Shampoo there, conditioner there, soap and tuffy on the shelf, and don't spare the horses, Frase, I'm passin' out just thinking about it. Do me, baby."

Fraser smiled at him, turning him where he could wet his hair in the shower stream. "One thing you can never be faulted for, Ray, is a tendency to indecision. Now, close your eyes and just lean back, I won't let you slip..."

"Frase? I love you."

"I love you, too, Ray."

"Fraser?"

"Mm-hm." Fraser shifted against him under the sheet. They were both naked and warm and relaxed and a tiny bit damp around the edges and approaching unconsciousness.

"Marry me."

"Okay."

"Can I climb inside you and never come out?" Ray started a slow slurping sucking on Fraser's shoulder.

"Sure, but you'll have to show me how one goes about that."

"I'll figure it out. Give you a report in triplicate."

"I'll look for it in my in-box." He pulled Ray as close as could comfortably be and seemed to fall asleep. Ray licked him a couple more times, intending to see if Fraser could be wakened by the right stimuli, but before he could get that far, he was asleep too.

In the warm front room on his rug, Dief snored contentedly on.

End Talking to the Dog V: A Many-Splendoured Thing by Blue Champagne: Bluecham@mindspring.com

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