Rayage
by Te
November 1999

Disclaimers: All hail Alliance! All hail Alliance!

Spoilers: Doubtful. Small, if any.

Summary: A couple of Ray snips. 

Ratings Note: PG-13, tops.

Author's Note: I was bored today. Real bored. 

thete1@earthlink.net
*

OK, so, I hate Vecchio. 

The real Vecchio, that is, not me, except for sometimes.
Only not really because those depressive types get 
really annoying after a while. Raimundo Vecchio, of 
the eight hundred dollar suit and the 'Benny' and the 
stupid little Hitler mustache. 

Fake, yet.

He couldn't even grow that little bit of hair by 
himself. You know why? I'll tell you why -- he's got no 
balls, none at all. 

You can tell. 

No, I don't know how, you just can. 

That's Fraser's blood he's wiping off his face, like it 
don't matter. Looking down his nose at me -- not like 
he has a choice -- and practically ignoring Frase.

Frase. Who's looking at him like Sparky used to look 
at me after I came home but before I gave him a 
biscuit. This is so far from copacetic I think I'm 
gonna puke. 

If God is kind, it'll land on those pussy-looking 
pointy shoes. 

*
Your skin is so close to mine it seems to know 
my name -- "blind man" by Paul Gross and David
Keeley
*

I'd wear him like a coat if I could... and that thought 
makes me smile 'cause this is where he would 
mention some painfully useless fact about just how 
one would prepare a human skin for leatherwork or 
something. 

And I'd think about asking him why he'd know 
something like that and then I'd decide not to.

Save it for some rainy day when I'm feeling bored 
and reckless. 

That's the difference between him and Frase, I think. 
They're both full of mind-numbingly long and 
detailed stories, but Turnbull's are always just 
disturbing enough to be interesting. 

I think sometimes he saves his best stuff up for me. 
Every once in a while, when I'm well into my 
patented 'you are the biggest freak on the planet' 
face, I'll see the corner of his mouth twitch. See a few 
little cracks of amusement form in that cheerful 
face. If I'm quick, I'll see something glitter in his 
eyes for just a heartbeat, and then he plays his 
game and I play mine and whenever Frase is done 
with the Ice Queen I check out.

The first time I actually said good-bye to Turnbull 
instead of just walking out he looked... shocked. The 
second time, too. The third time he stammered out 
something incomprehensible. The fourth time he 
just nodded at me and gave me a smile so warm I 
had to grin right back. 

One day, my day off, I dropped in with some 
take-out. Planned to surprise Fraser for lunch, get 
some Distract the Mountie points. 

OK, so it's a weird game, but it's mine.

Anyway, he wasn't there. Turnbull was, and 
devoured the sesame chicken. And the fried rice. 
And the dumplings. Turned out he'd never had 
Chinese before. Not *ever*. Can you believe that? 
The flavors blew his mind and it was so fun to 
watch that I let him do his thing.

It's like what makes going to those crappy kid 
movies with your nephews cool, I think -- you get 
to live someone else's joy. I kept the egg rolls, 
though. 

So basically, we've been slowly working our way 
down the menu of the fourth (sixth? who knows) 
Number One Chinese Restaurant in the area. The 
seafood dishes aren't so great, but they do some 
beautiful things with pork and chicken.

He gave me a goodbye hug one night instead of a 
clap on the shoulder. 

I don't get hugs so often these days, but the old 
instincts are still there -- I hugged him right back. 
Scratchy wool on my cheek -- the man is huge -- big
arms around me, mild sweet scent all around me, 
and so much *warmth*. And I thought to myself, I 
make him happy. 

A little Chinese food, a little conversation and 
suddenly I have the world's largest and most 
cheerful Mountie wrapped around me like the 
best down blanket in the world. 

Except down is soft and he isn't. 

So it wasn't too long before I started getting my 
hugs whenever I could. Fraser caught me at it once, 
gave me a funny little look. 

Later he went on for about a year about the 
primate's need for physcial contact. Later than that, 
Turnbull went on for about a year about the 
experiments performed on rhesus monkeys to prove 
the hypothesis about the primate's need for contact. 

We hugged some more, I went home and had some 
predictable nightmares and woke up laughing at 
myself.

It wasn't that the dreams were funny or anything, it 
was just that this wasn't the first time Turnbull -- 
Ren -- has told me things that put my head in 
unhappy places. I was laughing because I knew it 
wouldn't be the last time.

And because I was still only making him pay with 
hugs. 

Heh. I'm an idiot sometimes, you know it?

end.