M/M relationship definitely present and intended, but no visible sex. All characters are the property of others, intended for personal entertainment only, not for profit.

This follows "Willing." With the exception of one item, I saw everything mentioned below while shopping for a gift recently.

Taking Inventory
By Que

"I can't believe Ma sent us out shopping for baby clothes." Ray whined a little as he walked into the children's section of the most expensive shop in the mall.

"Ray, you did say you weren't able to get most of Emily's clothes, since Ms. Chapin's aunt hadn't taken everything out of her apartment yet. And you were the one who chose not to have them sent to you."

"Well, yeah, did you see that stupid frog thing? How much better could the rest of her stuff have been?" The question seemed rhetorical so Fraser didn't try to respond. "What I can't believe is Ma letting us, no forcing us, to do this alone with just a list of instructions.

Fraser stood quietly listening to Ray's outburst. "We're adults, Ray. How difficult could it be?"

Ray's mood changed quickly as he pulled a tiny t-shirt off one of the racks. "Cool. Look, Benny. A Riv shirt!"

The white t-shirt was covered with green cars which did look, a little, like the Riv. "Ray, that's a boy's shirt. I believe you are looking in the wrong place."

"Yeah, so? It'a a Riv shirt. What difference does it make where I got it? Who says girls can't wear car shirts, anyway? Don't be so gender biased, Fraser. I'm buying it. Maybe two of them, she seems to get dirty a lot."

Fraser sighed. "Whatever you think, Ray. I had no intention of discriminating. It's a very nice shirt," he added, wondering silently if the tendency to get dirty could be hereditary, like green eyes. If that could be correct, Ray should probably get a few of the car t-shirts, since they'd be destroyed quickly anyway. Well, at least there seemed to be several of the shirts, they didn't appear to be particularly rare or hard to replace.

Fraser looked absently at the girls area and noticed a red dress with white fuzzy dogs sewn on the collar and around the bottom. He pulled it out. "What about this one, Ray?" Fraser's face showed no sign of amusement, or anything else.

"Yeah, that's pretty funny, Frasier." Ray didn't smile. "Maybe we should split up, so we can get this done more quickly. We'll just get everything on Ma's list and some other stuff and not worry about each other's choices. Oh, and remember it's getting cold soon. Ma said we should get some cold weather stuff."

"All right, Ray." Fraser walked off stifling a laugh.

Francesca passed them in the hall as they carried four very large packages into their bedroom. Both Ray and Fraser had noticed her new effort to accept the changes in their relationship and attempted to meet her half way.

"Ray, what did you buy?" She stared at the size of the bags in shock. Fraser excused himself to rescue Dief from one of Ray's nieces, who was busily tying ribbons into his fur and gluing them in with hair spray. Probably Franny's hair spray.

Ray entered the room, followed by Franny, and opened three of the bags, dumping the contents on the bed.

Franny laughed. "Oh my God, Ray! Did they have anything left in the shop? It's a good thing you didn't make it to the toy store."

"Cute, Franny. And for your information, we did make it to the toy store. That stuff is still in the Riv." Ray fidgeted, thinking he would wait until everyone was asleep to finish emptying the Riv.

Franny looked more closely at the items Ray had spread across the bed, trying hard not to laugh out loud as she noticed two clear trends. "Ray, let me guess, you and Benton conducted some sort of weird divide and conquer mission in the baby shop. Were there any sales associates left conscious when you finished paying?"

Her brother just looked at her as if he wished her mother ship would come back and pick her up. "Benny and I separated to save time," he informed her, thinking that should make things perfectly clear.

"Well, Ray, I'd be happy to help you do inventory."

"Yeah, looks kinda like the inside of your closet. Huh, Franny? The clothes aren't even much shorter."

Life seemed to be returning to something like normal, now that they could argue like this. She ignored him and began separating the clothing into piles. There were multiples of almost everything. Most of the clothes seemed to be normal baby items, but there were more of them than triplets would need. Three t-shirts had green cars printed on them. She counted twenty-four pairs of socks and thirteen t-shirts in addition to the special car ones. There were ten sets of overalls, none with animal prints, and seven sets of tiny jeans with snaps in the back. After pulling several items out of Ray's large pile and separating them into categories, Franny began to notice some interesting color choices. For one thing, there was a total absence of pink, her favorite color. She found the red dog dress, although she guessed they might not be dogs exactly, and placed it in the stack with the car shirts. They just seemed to belong together. There were ten other baby dresses, three of them plaid, and five were very expensive silk. One of them was an impressive light grey with a large white collar.

"I had no idea it was possible to buy silk baby dresses, Ray. I wonder who else but you would actually do it?"

"Shut-up, Franny."

She continued digging through the original stack, which didn't seem to be shrinking very quickly as she tossed things into smaller piles, until she came to the coats.

"Ray, you bought a one year old baby four coats, " she said in amazement. She then held each up and looked at it closely. The first looked normal enough, it was bright blue, apparently intended for snow, and had a matching bottom. The second was a dark blue coat with a hood, which looked equally normal. Then there was the grey one, which looked as if it cost more than the dresses. This was getting better, she thought. Ah, yes, a red one. Really red, and long, with black trim. What, no hat?

Fraser entered the room just as Franny turned away from the bed and shouted, "Ma! Come see what Ray did!" Ray was suddenly reminded of the time when Franny was five and he had inadvertently tried to flush her pink teddy bear.

Mrs. Vecchio came into the room and saw the clothes spread everywhere. "Raimondo, do you have another child I don't know about? She is a baby, caro, she won't stay the same size forever." Then she turned to Fraser. "Benton, I cannot believe you let him do this."

"Ma they're clothes. Nobody wears clothes for more than a few months." Fraser's eyebrows rose, but he remained silent. "Anyway, I told you I didn't know what to buy."

"Yes, Raimondo, I see that now. Well you won't have to go shopping for a few months." She smiled slightly, looking a little closer at what they had bought. "Dinner will be ready in an hour, Francesca, Benton, Raimondo. Perhaps you can get a little of this put away before then." She left the room, still smiling and headed for her own bedroom.

Franny had found and opened the fourth bag. "Oh, shoes! At least you didn't forget her feet. You could only find fourteen pairs?"

"Shut-up, Franny." Ray was hissing now.

She turned to Fraser instead, as she held up a pair of tiny brown leather shoes by their strings. "Wow, Benton! I had no idea you could buy baby hiking boots!"

Mrs. Vecchio heard Franny's last comment as she entered her bedroom and quickly closed the door. Several minutes later, after regaining her composure and wiping away the tears, she began to wonder whether Raimondo and Benton had brought everything in from the car. This was going to take some adjustment.