Steve?

by Basingstoke (bas@yosa.com)

Notes:  For Fuzzi, who rules.  Thanks to Jeannie Marie for the canon help. 
This is my first DS story and I'm very open to feedback and criticism, so please tell me if I got something wrong!

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"Benny?"

"Yes Ray?"

"Quote me one more airplane statistic and I won't be responsible for my actions."  Ray kicked his bags under the seat and glared at Fraser.

"But--"

Ray clenched the arm rest and leaned a little closer, frowning with his eyebrows. 

Fraser leaned back, his eyes widening.  "Understood."

"You'll have to forgive me a little irrational paranoia after crashing bloodily into the Canadian wilderness."  Ray pulled the newspaper from under his arm and looked at the headlines.  "Anyway, I'm in no hurry."

"There wasn't *much* blood.  But no, neither am I."  Fraser leaned back and closed his eyes.  He was midly doped up on pain medication and had been fading in and out since their rescue.

The headlines were always the same, even in Canada.  He didn't particularly want to read about politicians or kittens or the Middle East.

So he shoved the paper under the seat with his bag and looked over at Fraser, who was leaning back in the seat with the fresh head bandage tied at a jaunty angle.  Ray didn't have the slightest idea how Fraser managed to look jaunty rather than like an escaped mental patient.  But there you are.  Well-groomed, that was Fraser.  Or maybe the word was "tidy."  Or maybe--oh, hell, there wasn't a word.  Having a word for it would imply that there was more than one person in the world like Fraser.

Fraser's eyes opened and he smiled at Ray. 

"So Benny."

"Yes Ray?" 

"Who's Steve?"  That had been bothering him all the way from Goose Neck Lake, or was it Frozen Caribou Carcass.  Something like that. 

"Steve?"  Fraser's voice and eyes were pure innocence, but something lurked in the curl of his mouth.

"Yeah, Steve.  You called me Steve."

"I did not."

"You did."

Fraser's brow creased.  "When?" 

"When do you think?  When you were hit on the head!" 

"Ah."  Now he was smiling again. 

Ray waited.  "So?"

"So what, Ray?"

"So who's Steve?"  This was not going to turn into Twenty Questions.  This was not.

Fraser chuckled a little bit, looking at the back of the train seat.  Then he chuckled a lot.

Ray held onto his temper with both hands.  Head injury, dammit, can't shake it out of him...  "So?"

"So?"

"Steve, Fraser!  Stay focused!"

"Steve Fraser?  I don't believe there have been any Steve Frasers in my family, although the genealogy is of course shaky in places.  There is after all an entire branch of the family in Scotland, and another in Hungary--and the story behind that is very interesting, as you might imagine--"

"BENNY!"

Enormous, blinking eyes, slightly dilated from medication.  Nasty head wound.  Ray held onto his temper.  "I'm not asking about any Steve Fraser, I'm asking about Steve that I don't know the last name of."

"If you don't know his last name, then why are you asking me about him?"

Ray lost his temper.  "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you!  You are deliberately trying to drive me out of my mind, after carrying your heavy Canadian ass halfway to Alaska!"

Fraser looked shocked and contrite.  "Well I'm very sorry, Ray, I must have misunderstood your question.  It's certainly not my intention to drive you insane."

Ray looked out the window on the other side of the train, watching the trees zip past.  "Forget about it."

"Modern medical research has shown fairly conclusively that psychotic breaks stem from a combination of internal pressure and genetic predisposition, so I rather doubt that you were in any real danger, Ray."  He paused, and a thought struck him.  "Unless of course there's a history of mental disturbance in your family?"

"Not until you came along, Fraser."

"Pardon?"

"Nothing."  Ray rubbed the back of his neck, wondering how long the ride was.  No, wait, he knew.  Too long.

Fraser gazed at the back of the seat with a soft, unfocused stare.  The medications must be kicking in.  "And I think you'll find that we were not in fact headed toward Alaska, although of course I could be wrong..."  He yawned. 

"Whatever you say."

Fraser leaned his head back and closed his eyes.  Ray gave in.  "So who's Steve?"

"Steve?" 

Ray very carefully did not explode.  "Tell me about the guy you used to know named Steve."

"Oh."  Fraser's voice trailed off.  "Steve..."  He smiled.

"Yeah.  Steve." 

Fraser started chuckling again. 

"Fraser, I'm a little worried about this habit you're getting into of laughing at nothing."

He just shook his head.  "Ah, Steve.  Oh my, the things we used to get into.  That time with my grandmother's..."  He trailed off and started chuckling again, his shoulders shaking.

"Fraser?"

"Yes Ray?"  Fraser wiped his eyes, his shoulders still shaking with mirth.

"When we arrive and your head heals up?"

"Yes Ray?"  He turned toward Ray, looking earnest.

"I'm kicking your ass."

Fraser blinked.  "Understood."  He settled back into his seat.

Ray frowned and elbowed Fraser's arm.  "What do you mean, 'understood'?"

"Well, I understand that my behavior this past day or so has been rather...erratic...and I understand that you are likely feeling some hostility towards me for my part in events.  So, essentially, it's...understood."  His eyes flicked to Ray and back to the seat in front of him.

"You don't understand nothing."

"I believe you mean 'anything,' Ray, and, er, what *do* you mean?"

Ray reached over and turned Fraser's chin toward him.  "I mean I'm not mad about dragging your butt over ten miles of frozen wilderness *or* the plane crash *or* getting your freaking man, I'm mad that you won't stop laughing for even ten minutes to tell me who the hell Steve is, since that's been bugging me ever since Dead Goose Lake!"

Fraser's eyebrows nearly touched the bandage.  "Ah."

"Yeah, ah."

"Well, I certainly have no objection to telling you, Ray. Although I believe the story includes some caribou and more than a few Inuit."

Ray let go of Fraser's chin.  He wasn't quite smiling.  "Go ahead anyway."

"You're soliciting an Inuit story?"

"Yeah, and you'd better jump for it, because it won't ever happen again."  Now he was smiling, unable to help himself.

"Well then.  It was the summer between high school and the Academy..."  Fraser had his storytelling voice on, and that was enough to set Ray grinning all over again.  He settled into the seat, squirming a little to ease sore muscles. 

No good.  He couldn't get comfortable.  Ray finally slid the arm rest between him and Fraser up into the seat, shifting sideways to rest his shoulder against Fraser's.  He stretched his aching legs out into the aisle.

"Ray?"

"Just getting comfortable.  I haven't used some of those muscles since the Academy." 

"Ah."  Fraser hesitated, then slid his arm behind Ray's back and around his waist, giving him more comfortable support. 

Ray settled against his friend.  "Keep going."

"Well, as I was saying.  We had to covertly borrow my grandmother's knitting needles for the plan to work, which was quite an undertaking all to itself..."

Ray's hand rested over Fraser's and he could feel the pulse in Fraser's thumb, strong and steady.

He leaned against Fraser's shoulder and listened to the story.  Yeah, it sounded like this one would eat up a few hours.  Easy.

"...we had managed to tie ourselves to the tree, you see, and the knitting needles were in a terribly unfortunate position against the bark..."

Things were fine.

end.

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all feedback and criticism are welcome.
bas@yosa.com
www.ravenswing.com/bas/

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