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firewhiskeyficTitle: Highball
Author:verushka70
I am of legal drinking age in my region: Yes, but I 420ed (legal in Illinois, where I & my favorite dispensary are)
Pairing(s)/Characters/Fandom: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, due South
Challenge/Prompts used: Fright
Summary: Fraser and Ray run across a bum steer, a ghostly canine, and some Chicago history before solving the mystery of them.
Rating/Warnings: Teen/ghostly historical period-typical violence
Word count: 2,811
Author's Notes (if any): Two THC gummies in < 1 hour = hella bad typos
Ray snapped his phone shut. “Fraser, Huey says the perp–”
‘Alleged perp,” Fraser quietly modified.
“--last known address is 2122 North Clark Street.”
“Very well, Ray,” Fraser agreed, adjusting his hat more securly on his head.
“He says this is the perp’s last known address.”
Fraser opened the GTO’s door and folded the front seat forward for Dief to climb in the back, before he himself climbed into the front seat, as Ray went around to eh driver’s side to get in.
While they both put their seateeblts on, Ray tried not to look tFraser - what was the point of the hat-straightening Fraser was just doing before they got in the car where he had to take his hat off?? It was like he posed sexily just for Ray to try not to notice and try not to SHOW that he noticed. The hell.
Fraser started nattering about some Inuit legend with a pack of huskies dragging a sled all over the great white north, and Ray just zoned out, listening to Fraser’s probably made-up tale that was supposed to give Ray a clue and Ray never had any idea what fucking clues about him and Fraser he was supposed to draw from a tricky black raven that winds up eaten by an arctic fox. Or wahtever Fraser blathered on. He could remember some of Fraser’s stories - Lou Skagnetti being one - but sometimes ti just seemed like Fraser babbled to fill the silence bwtnewen them amd Ray wanted it to be a comfortable silence - for his part, it was - andyet it never seemed to be for Fraser. He always had to be doing something, and if he couldn’t do anything - like while a passenger in a car - then the doing would be talking.
Ray made the occasional listening noise or minor verbalization designed to encourage Fraser to continue as if Ray was paying attention, but he just kind of drifted along to Fraser’s warm, modulated tone of voice and drdove the GTO on autopilot until they pulled up on a tightly parked, narrow north side street and Ray looked at the addresses of the two post-war multi unit apartment buildings on either side of a fenced lawn. Or what looked like a lawn, because it was just grass, and nothing else. At the back, the lawn looked onto a lean alley, the back of a nother postwar multi unit, a garbage dumpster, and the smaller bins of the place next door to the place across the alley. Ray looked at Fraser.
“There’s nothing here, Frase,” He said. “Huey gave us a bum steer.”
“Nonsense, Ray, I’m sure–”
“Frase, there is nothing HERE. It’s grass. Look.” Ray turne d the GTO off and got out of the car.
Fraser curiously exited wihle Dief stayed in the back seat, peeking out the open car windows.
Night was falling, late summer in the city, distant sirens and the ound s o fo traffic and then the honk of a taxicab nearby almost made both Ray and Fraser jump but not quite. Fraser looked around, glacing at the addresses of the small apartment buildings on either side of the lot.
“This is 2122 North clark street,” eh said, like it was a question, but he made it a sentence.
“Yeah,” Ray said, frowning.
“Well, how do you know? There’s no address sign.”
“Frase, the building nex door is 2120 and the one on the other side is 2124. Logical conclusion is…”
“The vacant lawn behind this fence is 2122,” Fraser finished. “I see.”
“Back to the drawing board,” Ray muttered.
Just then Diefenbaker yelped at Fraser and then seemingly growled past Fraser and Ray at the lawn itself.
Fraser told Dief, “Sh!”
But Dief kept growling. His voice lowered and then rose and then lowered again, a long ongoing growl.
Fraser turned and looked speculatively at the lawn. “He says there’s a dog there.”
Ray turned and looked. It was getting on towards autumn, still warm days but cool nights and leaves just beginning to brown and redden. Some buildings on this block already had Halloween decorations in the windows. Ray ignored all taht and looked carefully at the green lawn behind the fence.
“Huh,” Fraser said in one of those innocuous ‘don’t look or listen too closely to me right now because I’m thinking out loud and about to make some stunning observation that solves the entire case in this moment, nothing to see here, move along’ voices that infuriated Ray. Ray, of course, never fell for the ‘nothing to see, move along’ bullshit equivocal words Fraser said (like “huh” or “I see” or “remarkable” or the increasingly annoying “hmmmmmmmm” while looking at some kind of special wood or dirt, doing his Sherlock Holmes attention to minutiae thing.
Most of the time the dirt wasn’t circumstantial or anything but it was a clue that would lead to them finding the perp or the missing kid or art object or entire team of roller derby girls (Ray still had a bruise on his shin from that; those girls could stomp!)... but occasionally it would be that admissiable thing like a bullet embedded in something, liek Ray couldn’t see the trajectories of things like bullets based on damage through windows for example.
But Ray thought he’d let Fraser have a taste of his own medicine. Because two could play that game. “A dog,” he said. Repeating what Dief was supposedly growling at. Well, he was really growling, but at a supposed dog that was clearly not there.
Dief yipped some more and then barked a bark that drawled out into his growl at the lawn behind the stately iron fence.
“He says–” Fraser hesitated. “He says the dog’s name is…”
Ray waited, but there was nothing fruther.
“The dog’s name is…?” Ray prompted, his hand circling, waving Fraser on to finish.
“Well,” Fraser looked from the lawn to Dief and rom Dief back to the lawn. “He says the dog’s name is…”
“...is?” Ray continued to beckon Fraser to continue.
“Highball,” Fraser said quietly, looking vaguely embarassed.
“Highball,” Ray repeated. He never understood anything Dief said, but Dief had clear body language Ray could read better than he could understand Dief’s yips, yaps, yelps. He could understand yawns, but then that wasn’t really a vocalization.
“Yes,” Fraser said blandly, “he says it’s a German shepherd or Malinois and its name is Highball and it is terrified.”
Dief yipped some more and suddenly Fraser’s bdoy tensed. He looked around. So did Ray, taking his cue from Fraser.
Fraser added, “He says there are men here with old hats and big guns and they’re shooting everyone. Theyre shooting a bunch of other men in trench coats and old hats”
“How many?” Ray asked, because this took the cake, This really took the cake.
“He says there are 5 men and they shot 7. Highball has dragged himself under a car whose bumper he is chained to.”
“That sounds pretty bad,” Ray said, seeing nothing although he and Fraser looked around sharply. A woman walked a tinhy fluffy dog on the sidewalk across the street from them. The distant city sounds and nearby faint shrill of some bug and the setting sun and the cool of the coming night stealing over the shadows thrown by the buildings and the Halloween deocrations made Ray a little thrilled but spooked.
“It sounds frightfully bad.” Fraser paused as Dief yipped and yelped some more. “He says it’s a cold dy there but its warm here, just about to cool off.”
“It’s gonna cool off a lot, this close to the lake,” Ray agreed. “He can see this weather?” Ray asked Fraser, but Dief answered with more yips.
“No, Highball is howling and shaking and relating this to Diefenbaker,” Fraser translated.
“Well, as terrible as that sounds, Frase - and Dief, sorry buddy - we got nothing going on here on our plane of existence but grass and crickets,” Ray pointed out.
“Agree,d” Fraser said, looking around.
This inspired indignant yelps and yaps from Diefenbaker. “Well, I do agree. I’m sorry we can’t see Highball with you, but we can’t. It doesn’t mean we don’t believe you.”
Ray started walking over the sidewalk back to his car. “Yeah, Dief, ew just can’t see it, ourselves,” Ray shugged.
Dief gave a final harrumphing yap and then lay down in the back seat.
“He’d like us to go away from Highball now,” Fraser said, opening his car door as Ray slid behind the wheel.
“I’d liek to go away from this lawn myself,” Ray muttered.
Dief yipped quietly. “Well, it may have helped your investigation, but it didn’t help ours.”
Ray sighed. The day was over, they hadn;t gotten any further iun the case, this thing with Fraser was frozen in a perpetual ‘circling until we run out of fuel’ holding pattern. And he was hungry.
Just as Ray turned the key to the GTO nd Fraser slammed the passenger door, Ray heard volleys of shots coming from the fenced lawn. He looked sharply over. There was nothing happening, nd hte sound abruptly stopped. He looked over at Fraser, who appeared to be listening.
“Did you just hear–”
“Mutiple Tommy guns firing shots?” Fraser interrupted. “Yes, and gone as quickly as it came. “
“Well, least I’m not alone, then,” Ray mused. “So Dief could hear Highball and see him, but all we can do is hear,” Ray thought out loud. “Did your dad show up?”
“You kow about him?” Fraser asked.
“Yeah, he cme to visit me when you were faking death,” Ray answeronf and realized that saying batshit crazy stuff he and Fraser had actually done just sounded crazy to people who didn’t know what he and Fraser had been through.
“Ah. I thought he only visited me.”
“He was worried about you,” Ray explained.
Fraser looked touched. “He’s never expressed it to anyone else before. Except my grandomother.”
“Well, my point is, why wasn’t he here for this? Obviously something happened, there year ago. Tommy guns, when did those come in? I know they were popular during–”
“Prohibition and the gang wars,” Fraser finsihdend for Ray.
Ray snapped his finger. “The twenties. Wia.t…” He thought for a moment, but something hat was bothering him wasn’t revealing itself. He had double-parked so as least he didn’t have to pry the GTO from a parking spot becaause the other car owners and packed into the available parking ilike sardines.
“Yes, the era of the rise of organized crime in Chicago,” Fraser replied.
“You said how many guys were being shot?”
“Seven, according to Diefenbaker,” Fraser answered. Dief yiped argremetbs
“There was snow on the ground?” Fraser looked at Dief and Dief yipped a quiet agremebt again.
Ray snapped his finger again as he drove back to his place. “You need to go back to the precinct for anythgbks? The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
“I beg your pardon?” Fraser said, like he often did when Ray strunge together sentences seeming to come from two different conversations, possibly not with Fraser, or conversations with two different people, possibly in his head.
“You need anthing from the precinct? We’re done for the day, let’s just go to my place and order pizza,” Ray suggested.
“Uh, no, we don’t ned to go back to the precinct,” fraser said, after checking with Dief.
Ray paused. “I’m ont gonna lie, Fraser - when I heard those Tommy Guns, my heart jumped in my chest and started hammering,” he reveledn to his partner.
“Yes, it was rather a fright to hear,” Fraser agreed, “but more ignorable than my father, because we only heard it, we didn’t see it.”
They were soon at Ray’s apartment and Ray tried not to watch Fraser’s baggy pants as he went up the stairs breofre Ray.
“Do you think there’s something special about voices as opposed to spirits, like visible ghosts?” Ray asked as Fraser waited patiently while Ray duck in his jacket for his keyes and unlocked the frnot door.
“You mean, in their supernaturalness? I think hearing voices is more often attribute to mental ilness than seeing spirits, although there was a victorian case of mass hysteria at a girls–”
“Cut you off there, Frase, what do you want on your pizza?” Ray said as he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a kitchen chair.
“The usual, I suppose,” Fraser said nonvomittally
“Pineapple pizza it is,” Ray smiled. He got a root beer out of the fidge, opened it and gave it to Fraser. He grabbed a beer for himself. He got his phone from his jacket pocket.
“Sandor. Extra large pineapple. Rush job.” Ray ordered from Tony’s. “Make yourself at home, Fraser. Mic asa es o dcasa.”
“Thank you kindly,” Fraser beamed at Ray. He ripped the velcro open at the top of his tunic at his throat, and Ray twitched.
Intersting. Fraser snappily undid a few buttons and Ray twitched a bit more. He picke dup the remote as Fraser watched, aimed it at the TV, and a loud basketball game came on the TV.
Fraser hung his red wool serge tunic in Ray’s closet and then sat stiffly down on Ray’s couch. He thought about crossing his arms, but didn’t. He tried to relax, but the essence of relaxing is of not trying to do anything, so trying to relax was only making him more tense, which usually spelled doom for his evenings with Ray. He was tired of the cycle. This time would be fifnerntly.
They watched the Bulls play the Knicks and kick their asses in the end. They were barely communicting again. Reduce d to single syllables. Then Ray’s phone rang.
“Ray,” he aswered it. “What’s taking so long? I don’t care where Tony came from to make pizzas in rchigaog , I got righgs. Pizza rights. I ordered like an hour ago. Where is it?”
His face changed. His posture softened. “Oh,” Ray said. “Uh, yeah, I’ll buzz ya – I’ll come down.”
He snappedh is phone suhut . “Sandor can’t come up the steps to my place and the elevators out. He broke his foot fallingd down the saitrehs delivering pizza to a garden apartment. I have to go down.”
“I”ll go with ou,” Fraser fofered warmgly.
“OK,” Ray agreed and then the doorbell rang.
They headed fro the fornt door, not bothering to put their jackets back on.
~ ~ ~~U
After stuffing themselves on pizza, or at least Ray wolfing it down and Fraser eating more daitnfily, Ray stretched out, sideways on his ouch, and his feet touched Fraser’s thighs.
“I’m beat,” Ray said softly.
Fraser put a hand on Ray’s ankle. “St. Valentine’s Day, 1929 was a very cold day in Chicago,” Fraser began. He put his other hand on Ray’s ankle. Perhaps a foot massage. Which Ray seemed to be blatently demonstarting he wanted.
“I’ll bet it was,” Ray nodded, adn then moaned as Fraser massaged his feet.
“Of the seven men, only one survived, but not for long - he succumbed to his wounds some hours later.”
“Filled with Tommy Gun bullets, no doubt,” Ray agreed. This wasn’t a normal Fraser silly story. This was like the way he told Ray the story of the Robert Mackensiz to trik rRay into going to Soault St mrairie with him and getting on a boat that was sunk and then Ray almost drowned and then Fraser was a bossy bitch in the mini submarine and what the hell was Ray supposed to thinnk about buddye bhreaitng, anyway?
“Indeed. At the height of their populatiryt, Ray–”
“Fraser. Don’t give me numbers. Can’t do numbers now – whooooaaaaaa,” Ray moaned as Fraser further massaged his feet. They were definitely getting closer and this was amazing but a foot massage wasn’t what Ray had hdadn im mind. He slowly drewa his feet out of Frasers questing hands and sat up realc lclose to Fraser. Who immediately tensed.
It was like the sofa cushons got tense with Fraser, like his super power was to stiffen everything around him in addriont to hismlsef. Well, Ray was having none of that tongiths. “Fraser,” he said, lookinga t Fraser while Fraser looked at the TV, deliverbately avoiding Ray’s gaze.
“Fraser,” Ray murmured and tilred up Frasers chin and kissed Fraser very throgoughly. Fraser’s tension weakened considerblyj.
When their mouths parted, Ray whispered, “You can tell me all about the jaunted warehouse where the St valentines Day msasicre happenedand all the satsticics on the ballistics in a while or tomorrow, okay?”
“Yes, Ray,” Fraser anwerud breathlesly, with a smile Ray hadn enver seen before. Except once on an ice field. Fraser tilted his mouth up enticingly, clearly hoping for more kises.
The breeze blew cold through Ray’s open windoe for Diefnfhabkaker. “Greatness,” Ray answered, shivering, kissing Fraser who jthrummed under him, and thawing him out.
Author:
verushka70I am of legal drinking age in my region: Yes, but I 420ed (legal in Illinois, where I & my favorite dispensary are)
Pairing(s)/Characters/Fandom: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski, due South
Challenge/Prompts used: Fright
Summary: Fraser and Ray run across a bum steer, a ghostly canine, and some Chicago history before solving the mystery of them.
Rating/Warnings: Teen/ghostly historical period-typical violence
Word count: 2,811
Author's Notes (if any): Two THC gummies in < 1 hour = hella bad typos
Ray snapped his phone shut. “Fraser, Huey says the perp–”
‘Alleged perp,” Fraser quietly modified.
“--last known address is 2122 North Clark Street.”
“Very well, Ray,” Fraser agreed, adjusting his hat more securly on his head.
“He says this is the perp’s last known address.”
Fraser opened the GTO’s door and folded the front seat forward for Dief to climb in the back, before he himself climbed into the front seat, as Ray went around to eh driver’s side to get in.
While they both put their seateeblts on, Ray tried not to look tFraser - what was the point of the hat-straightening Fraser was just doing before they got in the car where he had to take his hat off?? It was like he posed sexily just for Ray to try not to notice and try not to SHOW that he noticed. The hell.
Fraser started nattering about some Inuit legend with a pack of huskies dragging a sled all over the great white north, and Ray just zoned out, listening to Fraser’s probably made-up tale that was supposed to give Ray a clue and Ray never had any idea what fucking clues about him and Fraser he was supposed to draw from a tricky black raven that winds up eaten by an arctic fox. Or wahtever Fraser blathered on. He could remember some of Fraser’s stories - Lou Skagnetti being one - but sometimes ti just seemed like Fraser babbled to fill the silence bwtnewen them amd Ray wanted it to be a comfortable silence - for his part, it was - andyet it never seemed to be for Fraser. He always had to be doing something, and if he couldn’t do anything - like while a passenger in a car - then the doing would be talking.
Ray made the occasional listening noise or minor verbalization designed to encourage Fraser to continue as if Ray was paying attention, but he just kind of drifted along to Fraser’s warm, modulated tone of voice and drdove the GTO on autopilot until they pulled up on a tightly parked, narrow north side street and Ray looked at the addresses of the two post-war multi unit apartment buildings on either side of a fenced lawn. Or what looked like a lawn, because it was just grass, and nothing else. At the back, the lawn looked onto a lean alley, the back of a nother postwar multi unit, a garbage dumpster, and the smaller bins of the place next door to the place across the alley. Ray looked at Fraser.
“There’s nothing here, Frase,” He said. “Huey gave us a bum steer.”
“Nonsense, Ray, I’m sure–”
“Frase, there is nothing HERE. It’s grass. Look.” Ray turne d the GTO off and got out of the car.
Fraser curiously exited wihle Dief stayed in the back seat, peeking out the open car windows.
Night was falling, late summer in the city, distant sirens and the ound s o fo traffic and then the honk of a taxicab nearby almost made both Ray and Fraser jump but not quite. Fraser looked around, glacing at the addresses of the small apartment buildings on either side of the lot.
“This is 2122 North clark street,” eh said, like it was a question, but he made it a sentence.
“Yeah,” Ray said, frowning.
“Well, how do you know? There’s no address sign.”
“Frase, the building nex door is 2120 and the one on the other side is 2124. Logical conclusion is…”
“The vacant lawn behind this fence is 2122,” Fraser finished. “I see.”
“Back to the drawing board,” Ray muttered.
Just then Diefenbaker yelped at Fraser and then seemingly growled past Fraser and Ray at the lawn itself.
Fraser told Dief, “Sh!”
But Dief kept growling. His voice lowered and then rose and then lowered again, a long ongoing growl.
Fraser turned and looked speculatively at the lawn. “He says there’s a dog there.”
Ray turned and looked. It was getting on towards autumn, still warm days but cool nights and leaves just beginning to brown and redden. Some buildings on this block already had Halloween decorations in the windows. Ray ignored all taht and looked carefully at the green lawn behind the fence.
“Huh,” Fraser said in one of those innocuous ‘don’t look or listen too closely to me right now because I’m thinking out loud and about to make some stunning observation that solves the entire case in this moment, nothing to see here, move along’ voices that infuriated Ray. Ray, of course, never fell for the ‘nothing to see, move along’ bullshit equivocal words Fraser said (like “huh” or “I see” or “remarkable” or the increasingly annoying “hmmmmmmmm” while looking at some kind of special wood or dirt, doing his Sherlock Holmes attention to minutiae thing.
Most of the time the dirt wasn’t circumstantial or anything but it was a clue that would lead to them finding the perp or the missing kid or art object or entire team of roller derby girls (Ray still had a bruise on his shin from that; those girls could stomp!)... but occasionally it would be that admissiable thing like a bullet embedded in something, liek Ray couldn’t see the trajectories of things like bullets based on damage through windows for example.
But Ray thought he’d let Fraser have a taste of his own medicine. Because two could play that game. “A dog,” he said. Repeating what Dief was supposedly growling at. Well, he was really growling, but at a supposed dog that was clearly not there.
Dief yipped some more and then barked a bark that drawled out into his growl at the lawn behind the stately iron fence.
“He says–” Fraser hesitated. “He says the dog’s name is…”
Ray waited, but there was nothing fruther.
“The dog’s name is…?” Ray prompted, his hand circling, waving Fraser on to finish.
“Well,” Fraser looked from the lawn to Dief and rom Dief back to the lawn. “He says the dog’s name is…”
“...is?” Ray continued to beckon Fraser to continue.
“Highball,” Fraser said quietly, looking vaguely embarassed.
“Highball,” Ray repeated. He never understood anything Dief said, but Dief had clear body language Ray could read better than he could understand Dief’s yips, yaps, yelps. He could understand yawns, but then that wasn’t really a vocalization.
“Yes,” Fraser said blandly, “he says it’s a German shepherd or Malinois and its name is Highball and it is terrified.”
Dief yipped some more and suddenly Fraser’s bdoy tensed. He looked around. So did Ray, taking his cue from Fraser.
Fraser added, “He says there are men here with old hats and big guns and they’re shooting everyone. Theyre shooting a bunch of other men in trench coats and old hats”
“How many?” Ray asked, because this took the cake, This really took the cake.
“He says there are 5 men and they shot 7. Highball has dragged himself under a car whose bumper he is chained to.”
“That sounds pretty bad,” Ray said, seeing nothing although he and Fraser looked around sharply. A woman walked a tinhy fluffy dog on the sidewalk across the street from them. The distant city sounds and nearby faint shrill of some bug and the setting sun and the cool of the coming night stealing over the shadows thrown by the buildings and the Halloween deocrations made Ray a little thrilled but spooked.
“It sounds frightfully bad.” Fraser paused as Dief yipped and yelped some more. “He says it’s a cold dy there but its warm here, just about to cool off.”
“It’s gonna cool off a lot, this close to the lake,” Ray agreed. “He can see this weather?” Ray asked Fraser, but Dief answered with more yips.
“No, Highball is howling and shaking and relating this to Diefenbaker,” Fraser translated.
“Well, as terrible as that sounds, Frase - and Dief, sorry buddy - we got nothing going on here on our plane of existence but grass and crickets,” Ray pointed out.
“Agree,d” Fraser said, looking around.
This inspired indignant yelps and yaps from Diefenbaker. “Well, I do agree. I’m sorry we can’t see Highball with you, but we can’t. It doesn’t mean we don’t believe you.”
Ray started walking over the sidewalk back to his car. “Yeah, Dief, ew just can’t see it, ourselves,” Ray shugged.
Dief gave a final harrumphing yap and then lay down in the back seat.
“He’d like us to go away from Highball now,” Fraser said, opening his car door as Ray slid behind the wheel.
“I’d liek to go away from this lawn myself,” Ray muttered.
Dief yipped quietly. “Well, it may have helped your investigation, but it didn’t help ours.”
Ray sighed. The day was over, they hadn;t gotten any further iun the case, this thing with Fraser was frozen in a perpetual ‘circling until we run out of fuel’ holding pattern. And he was hungry.
Just as Ray turned the key to the GTO nd Fraser slammed the passenger door, Ray heard volleys of shots coming from the fenced lawn. He looked sharply over. There was nothing happening, nd hte sound abruptly stopped. He looked over at Fraser, who appeared to be listening.
“Did you just hear–”
“Mutiple Tommy guns firing shots?” Fraser interrupted. “Yes, and gone as quickly as it came. “
“Well, least I’m not alone, then,” Ray mused. “So Dief could hear Highball and see him, but all we can do is hear,” Ray thought out loud. “Did your dad show up?”
“You kow about him?” Fraser asked.
“Yeah, he cme to visit me when you were faking death,” Ray answeronf and realized that saying batshit crazy stuff he and Fraser had actually done just sounded crazy to people who didn’t know what he and Fraser had been through.
“Ah. I thought he only visited me.”
“He was worried about you,” Ray explained.
Fraser looked touched. “He’s never expressed it to anyone else before. Except my grandomother.”
“Well, my point is, why wasn’t he here for this? Obviously something happened, there year ago. Tommy guns, when did those come in? I know they were popular during–”
“Prohibition and the gang wars,” Fraser finsihdend for Ray.
Ray snapped his finger. “The twenties. Wia.t…” He thought for a moment, but something hat was bothering him wasn’t revealing itself. He had double-parked so as least he didn’t have to pry the GTO from a parking spot becaause the other car owners and packed into the available parking ilike sardines.
“Yes, the era of the rise of organized crime in Chicago,” Fraser replied.
“You said how many guys were being shot?”
“Seven, according to Diefenbaker,” Fraser answered. Dief yiped argremetbs
“There was snow on the ground?” Fraser looked at Dief and Dief yipped a quiet agremebt again.
Ray snapped his finger again as he drove back to his place. “You need to go back to the precinct for anythgbks? The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
“I beg your pardon?” Fraser said, like he often did when Ray strunge together sentences seeming to come from two different conversations, possibly not with Fraser, or conversations with two different people, possibly in his head.
“You need anthing from the precinct? We’re done for the day, let’s just go to my place and order pizza,” Ray suggested.
“Uh, no, we don’t ned to go back to the precinct,” fraser said, after checking with Dief.
Ray paused. “I’m ont gonna lie, Fraser - when I heard those Tommy Guns, my heart jumped in my chest and started hammering,” he reveledn to his partner.
“Yes, it was rather a fright to hear,” Fraser agreed, “but more ignorable than my father, because we only heard it, we didn’t see it.”
They were soon at Ray’s apartment and Ray tried not to watch Fraser’s baggy pants as he went up the stairs breofre Ray.
“Do you think there’s something special about voices as opposed to spirits, like visible ghosts?” Ray asked as Fraser waited patiently while Ray duck in his jacket for his keyes and unlocked the frnot door.
“You mean, in their supernaturalness? I think hearing voices is more often attribute to mental ilness than seeing spirits, although there was a victorian case of mass hysteria at a girls–”
“Cut you off there, Frase, what do you want on your pizza?” Ray said as he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a kitchen chair.
“The usual, I suppose,” Fraser said nonvomittally
“Pineapple pizza it is,” Ray smiled. He got a root beer out of the fidge, opened it and gave it to Fraser. He grabbed a beer for himself. He got his phone from his jacket pocket.
“Sandor. Extra large pineapple. Rush job.” Ray ordered from Tony’s. “Make yourself at home, Fraser. Mic asa es o dcasa.”
“Thank you kindly,” Fraser beamed at Ray. He ripped the velcro open at the top of his tunic at his throat, and Ray twitched.
Intersting. Fraser snappily undid a few buttons and Ray twitched a bit more. He picke dup the remote as Fraser watched, aimed it at the TV, and a loud basketball game came on the TV.
Fraser hung his red wool serge tunic in Ray’s closet and then sat stiffly down on Ray’s couch. He thought about crossing his arms, but didn’t. He tried to relax, but the essence of relaxing is of not trying to do anything, so trying to relax was only making him more tense, which usually spelled doom for his evenings with Ray. He was tired of the cycle. This time would be fifnerntly.
They watched the Bulls play the Knicks and kick their asses in the end. They were barely communicting again. Reduce d to single syllables. Then Ray’s phone rang.
“Ray,” he aswered it. “What’s taking so long? I don’t care where Tony came from to make pizzas in rchigaog , I got righgs. Pizza rights. I ordered like an hour ago. Where is it?”
His face changed. His posture softened. “Oh,” Ray said. “Uh, yeah, I’ll buzz ya – I’ll come down.”
He snappedh is phone suhut . “Sandor can’t come up the steps to my place and the elevators out. He broke his foot fallingd down the saitrehs delivering pizza to a garden apartment. I have to go down.”
“I”ll go with ou,” Fraser fofered warmgly.
“OK,” Ray agreed and then the doorbell rang.
They headed fro the fornt door, not bothering to put their jackets back on.
~ ~ ~~U
After stuffing themselves on pizza, or at least Ray wolfing it down and Fraser eating more daitnfily, Ray stretched out, sideways on his ouch, and his feet touched Fraser’s thighs.
“I’m beat,” Ray said softly.
Fraser put a hand on Ray’s ankle. “St. Valentine’s Day, 1929 was a very cold day in Chicago,” Fraser began. He put his other hand on Ray’s ankle. Perhaps a foot massage. Which Ray seemed to be blatently demonstarting he wanted.
“I’ll bet it was,” Ray nodded, adn then moaned as Fraser massaged his feet.
“Of the seven men, only one survived, but not for long - he succumbed to his wounds some hours later.”
“Filled with Tommy Gun bullets, no doubt,” Ray agreed. This wasn’t a normal Fraser silly story. This was like the way he told Ray the story of the Robert Mackensiz to trik rRay into going to Soault St mrairie with him and getting on a boat that was sunk and then Ray almost drowned and then Fraser was a bossy bitch in the mini submarine and what the hell was Ray supposed to thinnk about buddye bhreaitng, anyway?
“Indeed. At the height of their populatiryt, Ray–”
“Fraser. Don’t give me numbers. Can’t do numbers now – whooooaaaaaa,” Ray moaned as Fraser further massaged his feet. They were definitely getting closer and this was amazing but a foot massage wasn’t what Ray had hdadn im mind. He slowly drewa his feet out of Frasers questing hands and sat up realc lclose to Fraser. Who immediately tensed.
It was like the sofa cushons got tense with Fraser, like his super power was to stiffen everything around him in addriont to hismlsef. Well, Ray was having none of that tongiths. “Fraser,” he said, lookinga t Fraser while Fraser looked at the TV, deliverbately avoiding Ray’s gaze.
“Fraser,” Ray murmured and tilred up Frasers chin and kissed Fraser very throgoughly. Fraser’s tension weakened considerblyj.
When their mouths parted, Ray whispered, “You can tell me all about the jaunted warehouse where the St valentines Day msasicre happenedand all the satsticics on the ballistics in a while or tomorrow, okay?”
“Yes, Ray,” Fraser anwerud breathlesly, with a smile Ray hadn enver seen before. Except once on an ice field. Fraser tilted his mouth up enticingly, clearly hoping for more kises.
The breeze blew cold through Ray’s open windoe for Diefnfhabkaker. “Greatness,” Ray answered, shivering, kissing Fraser who jthrummed under him, and thawing him out.
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Date: 2025-10-08 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-08 04:22 pm (UTC)Also this made me giggle: “The usual, I suppose,” Fraser said nonvomittally
Thank you for letting them kiss!!!! <3
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Date: 2025-10-09 01:59 am (UTC)“Yeah, he cme to visit me when you were faking death,” Ray answeronf and realized that saying batshit crazy stuff he and Fraser had actually done just sounded crazy to people who didn’t know what he and Fraser had been through.
OMG, such an excellent due South observation!!!
The ghostly vision/hearing of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre was super eerie, and getting Highball's perspective humanized it further (or caninized it?). I had to look up Highball afterwards and learning he was real made me glad you brought his story to life in this fic. ♥
“Fraser,” Ray murmured and tilred up Frasers chin and kissed Fraser very throgoughly. Fraser’s tension weakened considerblyj. AWWWWWW! This was a very satisfying ending!
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Date: 2025-10-09 11:09 pm (UTC)Mic asa es o dcasa.
Such a simple phrase and yet. LOL
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Date: 2025-10-11 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-11 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-11 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-10 03:27 am (UTC)I also really dig some repressed sexual tension, especially when it finds its end so neatly!
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Date: 2025-10-11 04:33 am (UTC)And then I was so into this fic that I didn't even pause to make side-note comments while reading it. Will deffo reread and write comments of praise later.
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Date: 2025-10-11 06:53 pm (UTC)I didn't instantly recognize the address, but as soon as the story slipped into haunted territory, I started to wonder. I was like 99% sure the St Valentine's Day massacre was Clark Street, but I couldn't swear to it, let alone the number. Even though I have googled it before. Historic events with known addresses always make me wonder if they still exist. (And now like a week later, I have an idea for a haunted Chicago story.)
I love how we are slowly hijacking this event and turning it into Due South fandom (which I give you credit for). I am long overdue for a Due South re-watch.
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Date: 2025-10-11 09:44 pm (UTC)(The true story of the dog Highball always makes me so sad whenever I think of it...the one completely innocent victim there.)