Ray stamped his feet, perhaps to get the circulation going again. He looked very cold as he leaned against Fraser for warmth. "Y'know, when I told Dad I was going off to the academy, I said being a cop was an alright living. Was I wrong. Spending a winter night in a box in an alley does not work for me. Feel like I should be begging for spare change."

"We've done stakeouts before."

"In the car. Heat, tunes, padded seats. I'm sitting on a crate inside a bigger crate. My ass is numb, I'm freezing, and I'm bored." Ray fidgeted some more. "Hey, ya told me this guy's thing was that he was always where people least expected him, which was right where he'd last been, right? What if he now realizes that people expect him to go back and decides he's not gonna do that?

One could always trust Ray to ask the questions no one wanted to answer. "Well."

"That what I thought." Ray blew a bubble; it popped with a small explosion of sound and a stronger breath of peppermint. At Fraser's wince, Ray said, "Sorry, way louder than I expected. Won't do that again. How many days are we gonna wait here 'fore the brass decides the old dog learned a new trick and pull us off alley-sitting? Nah, never mind. Yer not brass; how would you know? Being cooped up like this just makes me crazy. And whiny. Sorry."

Fraser couldn't help thinking that his Rays were very much alike in some ways, even as that alikeness held difference. //That sounds strange and convoluted enough, even as it's true, to be something my Ray could have thought up.// They complained to alleviate boredom, yet their fits of temper-laden whining didn't feel the same. So different and so alike.... //I'm dwelling on the past again.//

"I understand," Fraser said in his distraction and, lost in thought, asked aloud, "Ray, why is that you rarely use my first name?" At Ray's look of remorse, Fraser amended, "It's not a criticism, not at all. I'm just curious in my student-of-human-nature way."

"You never said. Would have called ya by yer first name if I knew ya wanted me to. Really. 'Sjust me being undercover and doing as the Romans do. Everyone calls you 'Fraser,' so I figured that's how ya wanted it. You come off as being the formal type."

"'Come off'? Are you saying I'm not?"

"You have yer moments."

Fraser couldn't help smiling at that. "But some people call me 'Frasier.'"

"Some people are wrong and mispronouncing yer name. Frasier's a TV character, while yer you. Some cops just prefer doing the last name thing. Ray did."

"Ray?"

"Rachel. She hated it and wanted to be called 'Ray.' Yeah, another one, right? But I'd been there years longer than she had, and we kept getting paired up on assignments, and we had a lot of things in common--"

"I'm trying to imagine that. I'm afraid I'm failing." Fraser smiled as he anticipated the colorful torrent of words sure to follow.

"Yer funny. Both of us had that kick-'em-in-the-head attitude, a thing for dancing, nervous energy. My old lieutenant used to joke that he could power the whole city if he just hooked the two of us up to the power grid. We talked with our hands a lot. Stuff like that. Funniest thing was that if you put us in a room together, we became more like one another, ya know? Damn, we had a blast messing with people's heads. So there we were, both of us Ray, and people couldn't get over getting the both of us anytime anyone said our name." Ray smirked. "Of course, *we* were fine with it and knew who we were, but everyone else had trouble. So our Lieu there had everyone call her 'Walker.' She kinda liked it and was used to it from when she was working off the G.I. Bill, so everyone at the precinct but me went with it.

"What I'm saying is that with everyone calling you 'Fraser,' and you never saying anything different to me, I did it too. You tell me what you wanna be called, and I'll use it."

"But, Ray, this woman you just mentioned...."

"Yeah?"

"I assumed... Well, from what you told me of your circumstances when you accepted the assignment to become Raymond Vecchio, I assumed...."

"What, that I had no friends?" Ray looked rueful. "I guess I can understand you thinking that. I had friends, before and after the divorce. Well, before was what friends Stel let me keep. Wait, that's not fair; I coulda told Stella to shove it but didn't, so it was my choice. I drove off Ray for a while to make Stella happy, said I couldn't socialize after work no more. Ray was pretty good about it eventually, but she was enough like me to barely be able to hold herself back from punching me out at the time. Self-control for us meant that she just mouthed off as I talked, then walked away saying I could get back to her when I got my balls back from my wife." Ray grinned.

"Ray!"

"Direct quote, I swear. She was one of those one-of-the-guys types, just not enough one of the guys to make Stella happy, ya know? But maybe Stella just wanted to push me into saying 'no' to her, wanted to see if I had some backbone. I never did.

"Then Stel divorced me, and it was like I was in a glass box with my misery. I couldn't touch nobody, and nobody could touch me. Thought I was protecting myself and others. I still had friends, and they tried to help me, but I couldn't *feel* them anymore."

"I never see you with anyone from your old life now. You're forced to be around Stella."

"Yeah, well, I have the undercover thing."

"Ray."

"Okay, okay. Couldn't ya let me keep some of my delusions? Some?"

"No."

Ray shook his head. "Pay and pay...."

"Ray!"

"Okay, my friends and why I don' go see 'em. Aside from the earlier stuff I did to try to keep Stella, I pulled some other shit on them. When I was a mess from the divorce, I didn't always keep it to myself all sullen-like, though I did that too. I lashed out at people sometimes, lashed out hard and nasty. Especially at Ray. You'd think she was the representative for all womankind the way I snarled at her. It was so damned unfair of me, and I couldn't even try to excuse it with saying she was anything like Stella, because she wasn't, never was. I don't deserve those friends."

"I'm sure they understand."

"It's been about two years."

"I doubt they will have forgotten you."

"Was that a compliment or a crack?"

"Compliment. You should reinitiate contact with them."

"Fraser...."

"Promise me you will? If not for yourself, then for me. I'm burning with curiosity about your female doppelganger."

"Hello?"

"Your other Ray."

"Gotcha. Yeah, okay, I promise. Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye."

"That's... disgusting."

Ray seemed to move closer, to radiate more energy at Fraser. "Well, that's the depth of my commitment to you. Or a sign I should be committed. So, what *should* I call ya? Benton? Ben? Anything ya want, I'll do. If you wanna be Skippy or Jo-Jo the Dog Faced Boy, I'll use it."

Ray had every right to ask, considering Fraser had brought it up, yet it made Fraser feel uncomfortable to think about it. Ray calling him "Ben." The thought of becoming even closer with this man who'd somehow gotten under his skin so easily and immediately left him terrified and burning with longing all at once. Two years hadn't blunted the edge of his fear.

"You can call me 'Fraser' or 'Frase' as you usually do."

"But-- Then-- Why did you--" Ray shook his head. "Okay, but yer a freak. Sometimes I really don't get you."

*********************THE END************************

More Viridian5 stories can be found in The Green Room at http://members.tripod.com/~drovar/viridian/
Fandoms represented: due South, X-Files, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, Two Guys and a Girl (was Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place), Once a Thief, Angel, Hard Core Logo, X-Men, Doctor Who