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WIP Amnesty, Day 8
Okay, today is the last but not least of the DS WIPs: the library AU.
This one is all![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fairmer's fault: back when I was working for her, when I had first gotten into slash and was prone to, uh, uncontrollably spewing forth my thoughts on N'Sync as freedom fighters in an unspecified South American country, or Casey McCall and his aplastic anemia, or what have you, she attempted once to shut me up by saying, "I challenge you to write an AU where they're librarians."
And of course this was like putting out a fire with gasoline. I said, "Well, that would work for Fraser, his grandparents were librarians, but Ray..."
"Ray can be the homeless guy who hangs out in the library."
"No!" I said. "No! That's too mean to--hmmmm..."
Ben glanced up at the sound of the door, but he caught only a glimpse of the visitor as he entered–-skinny and tall, wild blond hair, head and hands and face uncovered, wearing a coat too light for the weather coming in. He suppressed a sigh at the machismo of boys who somehow persisted in believing that *they* couldn’t freeze to death, and as he finished noting down Myrna’s long list of inter-library loan requests, he was already mentally rearranging his evening. He’d have to give the boy a ride home, not only to make sure he was safe in the coming storm, but to tell him graphic and nauseating stories about frostbite.
He helped Myrna on with her coat and muffler, politely ignoring all signals that she wished him to escort her home. She only lived around the corner, and he’d need to close up soon, and of course now there was the boy to think of. However small a town this was, Ben couldn’t very well leave the library untended, especially not when his latest visitor had settled himself near the magazine rack. He’d have to make sure the inevitable torn-out pages were returned to their place, this time, no matter how long it took the boy to get the hang of document tape. He could already feel his “The library is a way for everyone to share resources, not an opportunity to decorate your bedroom with pictures of snowmobiles,” lecture coming on. Closing the door behind Myrna with an outward smile and an inward sigh of relief, Ben headed through the closely packed shelves toward the table where his visitor sat, a stack of magazines beside him and one open on the table, just as he’d expected.
He hadn’t heard any tearing sounds, at least, so perhaps he’d arrived in time to prevent any damage to the collection. The boy remained intent, hunched over the table, flipping pages quickly but carefully, and Ben noticed the awkward motion of his cold-reddened hands, half-frozen fingers moving stiffly, careful not to tear the thin fragile magazine pages. His heart softened quickly, as it nearly always did when the willful destruction of library materials wasn’t at issue, and he shook away the lecture and moved to take a seat, companionable and non-confrontational, across the table.
His visitor looked up quickly, not quite jumping but obviously startled, and Ben thought for an instant that his first estimation of his age had been horribly, impossibly wrong; he looked so tired, and old, that Ben thought the man could have been his father’s age. But then the stranger visibly realized Ben was no threat. He relaxed, even smiled a little as he smoothed the page his hand had creased in his instant of panic, and Ben was able to see that they were nearly of an age. The lines of the stranger’s face were lines of worry, and he’d lost a good deal of weight recently, and had that crabbed look that people got when they encountered their first Arctic winter not altogether prepared, but the man was likely still somewhere in his thirties.
Ben cleared his throat. “Hello, there. Can I help you with something?”
“Uh,” the blond looked quickly down at the magazine, which he’d been paging through much too quickly to actually be reading, and said, “maybe. I’m looking for some song lyrics.”
Ben glanced down at the magazine again, but he hadn’t been mistaken. “You’re looking for song lyrics in *Northern Logger*?”
“Um.” The skin of his cheeks and ears were already bright with cold, but Ben could have sworn he flushed. “Well, I didn’t know where to look, and when you’re looking for stuff you got no idea about, it’s always in the last place you think of, so I figured I’d just start in the least likely place and maybe get lucky.”
He sat silent for a minute while considering that line of logic, if you could call it that, and then his training took over, and he said, in a not-quite-scolding voice, “In a library, the place to look for questions like that is the *librarian*, which in this case is me.” He extended a hand across the table. “Benton Fraser, Head Librarian.”
“Oh. Ray. Um. No title or nothing, just. Ray.” The hand in his was cold and chapped, and Ben shook it firmly, noting that Ray broke eye contact quickly, and that he had no last name, as well as no job description.
“Well, Ray, do you know the name of the artist or song?”
Ray looked up again, quickly, with relief in his eyes, and shook his head.
Hoping this wasn’t going to turn into one of those “It was a brown book, about this big,” discussions, he said a little desperately, “A style? Time period?”
Ray shook his head again, harder this time, perhaps a little frustrated, which hadn’t taken long. “No, I just. Heard it on the radio, hell, maybe it was a tape, I dunno. I only remember a little. Um. Something like, *da-dum I left a settled life, I threw it all away.*”
Not hard to see why that line might have struck him, but Ben ignored Ray’s hand, tightening into a fist, then deliberately relaxing, and nodded. “You have a good memory for rhythm. The first two words are *Like them*. The song is “Northwest Passage,” by Stan Rogers, and I don’t have a printed version of the lyrics anywhere, but I could write them out for you.”
Ray nodded, staring down intently at an article comparing various styles of chain flail. “Um, I thought there was something else, in the chorus, about somebody named Franklin? And his, um. His hand, or something, but maybe I heard that wrong.”
Ben frowned at Ray’s hesitancy, and found himself wishing he knew the man well enough to know what he was getting at–-come to that, he could wish he knew the man *at all*–-and why it seemed to trouble him so to ask a simple question about a song.
“No, Ray,” he said, when Ray finally looked up at him, causing him to realize he’d been silent too long, “you heard correctly. The chorus says, ah.” He hesitated, schooling himself to say the words without the melody to move them, “‘For just one time, I would take the Northwest Passage, to find the Hand of Franklin, reaching for the Beaufort Sea.’ It’s in reference to Sir John Franklin, an Arctic explorer who sought a sea route across northern Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He and his men were lost, and their remains have never been found, though many people have mounted expeditions to find them.”
Ray had looked up halfway through, and then maintained eye contact, listening intently. He also seemed to relax a bit without actually glazing over, so Ben had probably gotten the level of explanation right–-as much information as he needed, but not so much that he got bored. It had been one of the harder things for him to learn, but these days he felt he’d mastered it, though it was sometimes hard to gauge for strangers. Ray nodded when Ben fell silent, then looked back down to his copy of *Northern Logger*. After a moment, he turned a page, and Ben said, “Was there anything else you needed?”
Ray looked up at him, and then around the room, taking in the shelves and the makeshift librarian’s desk as though he were seeing them for the first time. “Uh, not really. Is it–-do I need to go, then?”
He was half-standing as he asked, reaching under the table for what proved to be a green army surplus knapsack, half-empty by the way it hung. Ben was briefly mesmerized by it, studying for a moment the frayed pocket-edges, the marker-doodled decorations, the Canadian flag patch secured with safety pins at its corners, and then met Ray’s gaze again. The redness of cold had faded from his ears and cheeks, and he looked grey with fatigue under the fluorescent lights, and Ben wondered how he hadn’t seen it sooner. He’d been familiar enough, once, with the sort of people who stopped into a library on a cold day and were in no hurry to leave again so long as they were left alone. “Why did you come in here, Ray? Not for song lyrics, you could have asked anyone that. Half of Canada can sing that song in their sleep.”
Ray dropped his eyes again, looked to the door, to the shelves, as though there might be some escape, and then he sighed, squared his shoulders–-they were sharp shapes, under the insufficient padding of his coat, and he wondered where Ray had come from, that made him think that was winter gear–-and met Ben’s eyes with a self-deprecating half-smile. “Church social hall, people coming and going. Usually that means a luncheon or something, and I can cadge a sandwich or a donut and coffee. But then it was warm, and I thought I’d just sit a while. I won’t bother you anymore,” he added, swinging his bag up onto his shoulder. “Past time I was finding my next ride anyway.”
Ben stood as well, and caught Ray before he’d gone more than one stride, grabbing his elbow. “You won’t.”
Ray’s eyebrows went up, and he looked amused. It was a good mask, and Ben wondered how long he’d been working on it. “I won’t what, Benton Fraser, Head Librarian?”
“You won’t find a ride, Ray. There’s a storm blowing in, it’s going to be a complete white-out in a few hours. No one’s driving anywhere now but home to sit it out.”
The mask slipped, and Ray looked quickly away to the door, as if he were trying to work out how far he could get on foot, where the last likely-looking shelter had been. Ben tightened his grip. “You can stay with me,” he said, and Ray turned his head slowly to meet his eyes. All expression had left his face, except for a glimmer of wariness in his eyes, and Ben kept talking. “I’ve got a place a little way out of town, nothing fancy, but it keeps the cold out, and you’re welcome to come. It gets boring, being there for days on end, and Dief isn’t much of a conversationalist.”
Ray didn’t ask any questions–-who Dief was, or why he should trust Ben enough to go to some secluded place out of town with him, for instance–-just nodded. “I haven’t got any money,” he said, after a moment, tugging gently free of Ben’s hand. “But if there’s anything I can do,” he spread his hands, tilted his hips and chin in a subtle but unmistakable gesture of putting himself on display, “just say the word.”
Ben’s eyes, despite his best intentions, skimmed over Ray’s body, from his wind-ruffled blond hair, standing nearly on end, to his scuffed and muddied boots, and when he met Ray’s eyes again, he could feel a blush threatening on his own cheeks. He turned away, toward the desk, and gestured toward the children’s section. “Thank you kindly, Ray. If you could alphabetize the Teen Fiction paperbacks, it would be a great help. We’ll need to close up soon, and those are always a disaster area.”
He looked back when Ray cleared his throat, looking genuinely amused this time. “You know, when I said anything, I meant, *anything*. Right?”
Ben nodded shallowly, smiling enough to show Ray he hadn’t been offended by the offer, though he certainly had no intention of taking advantage. “I know. But what I really need just now is someone with two hands and a working knowledge of the alphabet. If you don’t mind?”
“Nah,” Ray said, moving in the direction Ben had indicated with a puzzled smile and a slight redness at the tips of his rather attractive ears. He lowered his bag from his shoulder to dangle from one hand as he walked, though he carried it with him to the shelves rather than setting it down. “By author’s last name?”
“Yes, thank you.” Ben continued on toward his desk, finishing up the last bits of data entry and then shutting down his computer. Small sounds carried from Teen Fiction–-the thump of books being moved around, and then the sound of Ray humming the ABC’s to himself, and the slide of paper against paper as a book was put away. Ben had always been inclined to think of other people as intrusions into his bookish domain–-Dief being a silent four-legged exception who admirably proved the rule–-but he found himself smiling every time he heard Ray hum half the alphabet as he worked. Ben told himself that it was because Ray was reducing the chaos rather than contributing to it, and hoped fervently that that actually was the case. He secured his laptop in its case, and then moved quietly among the other shelves, straightening books and returning strays to their homes.
When he reached the test-prep books, he was able to peer across a short gap to where Ray was perched on a wooden stool, the strap of his bag wrapped around his ankle, sorting books. He did seem to be reading the spines and humming the alphabet in reassuring sequence, so things were likely being put away correctly.
Just then he heard the soft impact of paws several feet away, and looked up to see Dief, leaping from shelf to shelf in a fluid ripple of white and grey, ending up atop the shelf where Ray was working. He struck a suitably threatening pose on its edge, back arched, fur fluffed to maximum size, whiskers and face tufts fairly twanging, fangs and claws on full display. Ray looked up at the sound, startling as he had at Ben’s approach, then settling onto his stool again. He held up both hands, fingers spread, palms facing Dief, and spoke softly but distinctly. “Not armed, okay, cat?”
Dief drew his paw back fractionally, a tiny concession, and Ray nodded slightly. He kept his eyes on Dief and, moving slowly and so that everything he did was visible to the cat, reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a waxed paper packet. When he unfolded it, it proved to hold half a donut, covered in powdered sugar. Ben’s stomach clenched to see this man–-surely hungry, and with no explicit promise of being fed, nor any reason to believe one if he had it–-hold his bit of hoarded food out to Dief, who, being the greedy wildcat he was, ate it in three quick snaps. Ray crumpled up the empty wrapping and held out his hand, palm up, wiggling his sugar-dusted fingers.
Dief tilted his head and merely looked for a moment, and Ben was tempted to warn Ray not to tease the cat, or Dief to let Ray alone, but then Dief hopped down, to a shelf, and down further, to Ray’s knee, and delicately licked his fingers clean, laying one paw, claws retracted, daintily in the palm of his hand. As the arch of his back relaxed, Ray cautiously lifted his free hand and smoothed it down Dief’s spine, and Dief butted him gently, then abruptly jumped down and trotted off.
Ben smiled as Ray looked up at him. “Ray, meet Diefenbaker.”
Ray nodded, and wiped his doubtless damp palm on his jeans. “You belong to him?”
Fraser smiled, knowing that if Dief had the use of his ears, Ray would just have made a lifelong friend--always assuming he hadn’t already with the donut--and said, “He may well think of it that way, but I prefer to see us as friends. Partners, if you will.”
Ray’s mouth moved slightly, as though he were about to say something, but then he shook his head and turned back to the shelf. “Almost finished with these.”
Ben nodded. “Good, good. We should be in plenty of time to get back before the storm hits.”
Ray nodded, bending lower over his work, and Ben took mercy on him and went back to his desk. Dief was sitting on top of his laptop case, enjoying the residual warmth, and Ben gave him a very sharp look before he sat down. Dief merely yawned at him, and Ben reached for his pad of paper and a pen, flipping it open to a page of requests and preparing to look busy until Ray was ready to leave.
Snowed-in sex ensued, eventually, after Fraser had sufficiently demonstrated that he wasn't Taking Advantage, and then when the snow stopped the two of them went their separate ways for a while, only to meet up again when Ray got himself into some trouble hitchhiking.
Eventually it would have been revealed that what happened to this Ray is that--without Fraser around as a Mountie to help out--he wasn't able to prevent Beth Botrelle's execution, though he did discover her innocence before she died. He proved it too late, leading to Franklin (Franklin!) committing suicide rather than go to trial; Ray was the one who found him. The hand that had held the gun lay outstretched on the carpet.
After that, Ray (with the assistance of one Renfield Turnbull, the only sympathetic figure anywhere in Chicago although technically he was in Canada) decided it was time to get the Hell out of Dodge, and headed north. Way north.
There were a lot of other complications which I no longer remember very clearly--I think I co-opted a lot of similar ideas for e.g. why Fraser didn't become a Mountie into the Hockey AU. In any case, naturally in the end, Fraser, Ray, Dief the Cat, and the bookmobile all live happily ever after, touring the North for all their days.
This one is all
fairmer's fault: back when I was working for her, when I had first gotten into slash and was prone to, uh, uncontrollably spewing forth my thoughts on N'Sync as freedom fighters in an unspecified South American country, or Casey McCall and his aplastic anemia, or what have you, she attempted once to shut me up by saying, "I challenge you to write an AU where they're librarians."And of course this was like putting out a fire with gasoline. I said, "Well, that would work for Fraser, his grandparents were librarians, but Ray..."
"Ray can be the homeless guy who hangs out in the library."
"No!" I said. "No! That's too mean to--hmmmm..."
Ben glanced up at the sound of the door, but he caught only a glimpse of the visitor as he entered–-skinny and tall, wild blond hair, head and hands and face uncovered, wearing a coat too light for the weather coming in. He suppressed a sigh at the machismo of boys who somehow persisted in believing that *they* couldn’t freeze to death, and as he finished noting down Myrna’s long list of inter-library loan requests, he was already mentally rearranging his evening. He’d have to give the boy a ride home, not only to make sure he was safe in the coming storm, but to tell him graphic and nauseating stories about frostbite.
He helped Myrna on with her coat and muffler, politely ignoring all signals that she wished him to escort her home. She only lived around the corner, and he’d need to close up soon, and of course now there was the boy to think of. However small a town this was, Ben couldn’t very well leave the library untended, especially not when his latest visitor had settled himself near the magazine rack. He’d have to make sure the inevitable torn-out pages were returned to their place, this time, no matter how long it took the boy to get the hang of document tape. He could already feel his “The library is a way for everyone to share resources, not an opportunity to decorate your bedroom with pictures of snowmobiles,” lecture coming on. Closing the door behind Myrna with an outward smile and an inward sigh of relief, Ben headed through the closely packed shelves toward the table where his visitor sat, a stack of magazines beside him and one open on the table, just as he’d expected.
He hadn’t heard any tearing sounds, at least, so perhaps he’d arrived in time to prevent any damage to the collection. The boy remained intent, hunched over the table, flipping pages quickly but carefully, and Ben noticed the awkward motion of his cold-reddened hands, half-frozen fingers moving stiffly, careful not to tear the thin fragile magazine pages. His heart softened quickly, as it nearly always did when the willful destruction of library materials wasn’t at issue, and he shook away the lecture and moved to take a seat, companionable and non-confrontational, across the table.
His visitor looked up quickly, not quite jumping but obviously startled, and Ben thought for an instant that his first estimation of his age had been horribly, impossibly wrong; he looked so tired, and old, that Ben thought the man could have been his father’s age. But then the stranger visibly realized Ben was no threat. He relaxed, even smiled a little as he smoothed the page his hand had creased in his instant of panic, and Ben was able to see that they were nearly of an age. The lines of the stranger’s face were lines of worry, and he’d lost a good deal of weight recently, and had that crabbed look that people got when they encountered their first Arctic winter not altogether prepared, but the man was likely still somewhere in his thirties.
Ben cleared his throat. “Hello, there. Can I help you with something?”
“Uh,” the blond looked quickly down at the magazine, which he’d been paging through much too quickly to actually be reading, and said, “maybe. I’m looking for some song lyrics.”
Ben glanced down at the magazine again, but he hadn’t been mistaken. “You’re looking for song lyrics in *Northern Logger*?”
“Um.” The skin of his cheeks and ears were already bright with cold, but Ben could have sworn he flushed. “Well, I didn’t know where to look, and when you’re looking for stuff you got no idea about, it’s always in the last place you think of, so I figured I’d just start in the least likely place and maybe get lucky.”
He sat silent for a minute while considering that line of logic, if you could call it that, and then his training took over, and he said, in a not-quite-scolding voice, “In a library, the place to look for questions like that is the *librarian*, which in this case is me.” He extended a hand across the table. “Benton Fraser, Head Librarian.”
“Oh. Ray. Um. No title or nothing, just. Ray.” The hand in his was cold and chapped, and Ben shook it firmly, noting that Ray broke eye contact quickly, and that he had no last name, as well as no job description.
“Well, Ray, do you know the name of the artist or song?”
Ray looked up again, quickly, with relief in his eyes, and shook his head.
Hoping this wasn’t going to turn into one of those “It was a brown book, about this big,” discussions, he said a little desperately, “A style? Time period?”
Ray shook his head again, harder this time, perhaps a little frustrated, which hadn’t taken long. “No, I just. Heard it on the radio, hell, maybe it was a tape, I dunno. I only remember a little. Um. Something like, *da-dum I left a settled life, I threw it all away.*”
Not hard to see why that line might have struck him, but Ben ignored Ray’s hand, tightening into a fist, then deliberately relaxing, and nodded. “You have a good memory for rhythm. The first two words are *Like them*. The song is “Northwest Passage,” by Stan Rogers, and I don’t have a printed version of the lyrics anywhere, but I could write them out for you.”
Ray nodded, staring down intently at an article comparing various styles of chain flail. “Um, I thought there was something else, in the chorus, about somebody named Franklin? And his, um. His hand, or something, but maybe I heard that wrong.”
Ben frowned at Ray’s hesitancy, and found himself wishing he knew the man well enough to know what he was getting at–-come to that, he could wish he knew the man *at all*–-and why it seemed to trouble him so to ask a simple question about a song.
“No, Ray,” he said, when Ray finally looked up at him, causing him to realize he’d been silent too long, “you heard correctly. The chorus says, ah.” He hesitated, schooling himself to say the words without the melody to move them, “‘For just one time, I would take the Northwest Passage, to find the Hand of Franklin, reaching for the Beaufort Sea.’ It’s in reference to Sir John Franklin, an Arctic explorer who sought a sea route across northern Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He and his men were lost, and their remains have never been found, though many people have mounted expeditions to find them.”
Ray had looked up halfway through, and then maintained eye contact, listening intently. He also seemed to relax a bit without actually glazing over, so Ben had probably gotten the level of explanation right–-as much information as he needed, but not so much that he got bored. It had been one of the harder things for him to learn, but these days he felt he’d mastered it, though it was sometimes hard to gauge for strangers. Ray nodded when Ben fell silent, then looked back down to his copy of *Northern Logger*. After a moment, he turned a page, and Ben said, “Was there anything else you needed?”
Ray looked up at him, and then around the room, taking in the shelves and the makeshift librarian’s desk as though he were seeing them for the first time. “Uh, not really. Is it–-do I need to go, then?”
He was half-standing as he asked, reaching under the table for what proved to be a green army surplus knapsack, half-empty by the way it hung. Ben was briefly mesmerized by it, studying for a moment the frayed pocket-edges, the marker-doodled decorations, the Canadian flag patch secured with safety pins at its corners, and then met Ray’s gaze again. The redness of cold had faded from his ears and cheeks, and he looked grey with fatigue under the fluorescent lights, and Ben wondered how he hadn’t seen it sooner. He’d been familiar enough, once, with the sort of people who stopped into a library on a cold day and were in no hurry to leave again so long as they were left alone. “Why did you come in here, Ray? Not for song lyrics, you could have asked anyone that. Half of Canada can sing that song in their sleep.”
Ray dropped his eyes again, looked to the door, to the shelves, as though there might be some escape, and then he sighed, squared his shoulders–-they were sharp shapes, under the insufficient padding of his coat, and he wondered where Ray had come from, that made him think that was winter gear–-and met Ben’s eyes with a self-deprecating half-smile. “Church social hall, people coming and going. Usually that means a luncheon or something, and I can cadge a sandwich or a donut and coffee. But then it was warm, and I thought I’d just sit a while. I won’t bother you anymore,” he added, swinging his bag up onto his shoulder. “Past time I was finding my next ride anyway.”
Ben stood as well, and caught Ray before he’d gone more than one stride, grabbing his elbow. “You won’t.”
Ray’s eyebrows went up, and he looked amused. It was a good mask, and Ben wondered how long he’d been working on it. “I won’t what, Benton Fraser, Head Librarian?”
“You won’t find a ride, Ray. There’s a storm blowing in, it’s going to be a complete white-out in a few hours. No one’s driving anywhere now but home to sit it out.”
The mask slipped, and Ray looked quickly away to the door, as if he were trying to work out how far he could get on foot, where the last likely-looking shelter had been. Ben tightened his grip. “You can stay with me,” he said, and Ray turned his head slowly to meet his eyes. All expression had left his face, except for a glimmer of wariness in his eyes, and Ben kept talking. “I’ve got a place a little way out of town, nothing fancy, but it keeps the cold out, and you’re welcome to come. It gets boring, being there for days on end, and Dief isn’t much of a conversationalist.”
Ray didn’t ask any questions–-who Dief was, or why he should trust Ben enough to go to some secluded place out of town with him, for instance–-just nodded. “I haven’t got any money,” he said, after a moment, tugging gently free of Ben’s hand. “But if there’s anything I can do,” he spread his hands, tilted his hips and chin in a subtle but unmistakable gesture of putting himself on display, “just say the word.”
Ben’s eyes, despite his best intentions, skimmed over Ray’s body, from his wind-ruffled blond hair, standing nearly on end, to his scuffed and muddied boots, and when he met Ray’s eyes again, he could feel a blush threatening on his own cheeks. He turned away, toward the desk, and gestured toward the children’s section. “Thank you kindly, Ray. If you could alphabetize the Teen Fiction paperbacks, it would be a great help. We’ll need to close up soon, and those are always a disaster area.”
He looked back when Ray cleared his throat, looking genuinely amused this time. “You know, when I said anything, I meant, *anything*. Right?”
Ben nodded shallowly, smiling enough to show Ray he hadn’t been offended by the offer, though he certainly had no intention of taking advantage. “I know. But what I really need just now is someone with two hands and a working knowledge of the alphabet. If you don’t mind?”
“Nah,” Ray said, moving in the direction Ben had indicated with a puzzled smile and a slight redness at the tips of his rather attractive ears. He lowered his bag from his shoulder to dangle from one hand as he walked, though he carried it with him to the shelves rather than setting it down. “By author’s last name?”
“Yes, thank you.” Ben continued on toward his desk, finishing up the last bits of data entry and then shutting down his computer. Small sounds carried from Teen Fiction–-the thump of books being moved around, and then the sound of Ray humming the ABC’s to himself, and the slide of paper against paper as a book was put away. Ben had always been inclined to think of other people as intrusions into his bookish domain–-Dief being a silent four-legged exception who admirably proved the rule–-but he found himself smiling every time he heard Ray hum half the alphabet as he worked. Ben told himself that it was because Ray was reducing the chaos rather than contributing to it, and hoped fervently that that actually was the case. He secured his laptop in its case, and then moved quietly among the other shelves, straightening books and returning strays to their homes.
When he reached the test-prep books, he was able to peer across a short gap to where Ray was perched on a wooden stool, the strap of his bag wrapped around his ankle, sorting books. He did seem to be reading the spines and humming the alphabet in reassuring sequence, so things were likely being put away correctly.
Just then he heard the soft impact of paws several feet away, and looked up to see Dief, leaping from shelf to shelf in a fluid ripple of white and grey, ending up atop the shelf where Ray was working. He struck a suitably threatening pose on its edge, back arched, fur fluffed to maximum size, whiskers and face tufts fairly twanging, fangs and claws on full display. Ray looked up at the sound, startling as he had at Ben’s approach, then settling onto his stool again. He held up both hands, fingers spread, palms facing Dief, and spoke softly but distinctly. “Not armed, okay, cat?”
Dief drew his paw back fractionally, a tiny concession, and Ray nodded slightly. He kept his eyes on Dief and, moving slowly and so that everything he did was visible to the cat, reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a waxed paper packet. When he unfolded it, it proved to hold half a donut, covered in powdered sugar. Ben’s stomach clenched to see this man–-surely hungry, and with no explicit promise of being fed, nor any reason to believe one if he had it–-hold his bit of hoarded food out to Dief, who, being the greedy wildcat he was, ate it in three quick snaps. Ray crumpled up the empty wrapping and held out his hand, palm up, wiggling his sugar-dusted fingers.
Dief tilted his head and merely looked for a moment, and Ben was tempted to warn Ray not to tease the cat, or Dief to let Ray alone, but then Dief hopped down, to a shelf, and down further, to Ray’s knee, and delicately licked his fingers clean, laying one paw, claws retracted, daintily in the palm of his hand. As the arch of his back relaxed, Ray cautiously lifted his free hand and smoothed it down Dief’s spine, and Dief butted him gently, then abruptly jumped down and trotted off.
Ben smiled as Ray looked up at him. “Ray, meet Diefenbaker.”
Ray nodded, and wiped his doubtless damp palm on his jeans. “You belong to him?”
Fraser smiled, knowing that if Dief had the use of his ears, Ray would just have made a lifelong friend--always assuming he hadn’t already with the donut--and said, “He may well think of it that way, but I prefer to see us as friends. Partners, if you will.”
Ray’s mouth moved slightly, as though he were about to say something, but then he shook his head and turned back to the shelf. “Almost finished with these.”
Ben nodded. “Good, good. We should be in plenty of time to get back before the storm hits.”
Ray nodded, bending lower over his work, and Ben took mercy on him and went back to his desk. Dief was sitting on top of his laptop case, enjoying the residual warmth, and Ben gave him a very sharp look before he sat down. Dief merely yawned at him, and Ben reached for his pad of paper and a pen, flipping it open to a page of requests and preparing to look busy until Ray was ready to leave.
Snowed-in sex ensued, eventually, after Fraser had sufficiently demonstrated that he wasn't Taking Advantage, and then when the snow stopped the two of them went their separate ways for a while, only to meet up again when Ray got himself into some trouble hitchhiking.
Eventually it would have been revealed that what happened to this Ray is that--without Fraser around as a Mountie to help out--he wasn't able to prevent Beth Botrelle's execution, though he did discover her innocence before she died. He proved it too late, leading to Franklin (Franklin!) committing suicide rather than go to trial; Ray was the one who found him. The hand that had held the gun lay outstretched on the carpet.
After that, Ray (with the assistance of one Renfield Turnbull, the only sympathetic figure anywhere in Chicago although technically he was in Canada) decided it was time to get the Hell out of Dodge, and headed north. Way north.
There were a lot of other complications which I no longer remember very clearly--I think I co-opted a lot of similar ideas for e.g. why Fraser didn't become a Mountie into the Hockey AU. In any case, naturally in the end, Fraser, Ray, Dief the Cat, and the bookmobile all live happily ever after, touring the North for all their days.