Peeps Revenge

by MR

I'll tell ya; as much as I love Fraser, the guy can make you nuts sometimes.

Take last Friday. I had the weekend off, so we were gonna pack up the tent and drive out into the country to go camping. The idea that you could go camping in Illinois seemed to surprise Fraser; I guess for him, the only legitimate way to camp is on the frozen tundra with a foot an a half of snow and 50 mph winds. Been there, managed to survive, an that's why we came back to civilization.

So I was fixing us supper, which involved reheating the leftovers Mum gave me, and he was sitting on the couch…drivin' me crazy, okay? The guy can't even sit on a couch like a normal person. No, he's gotta sit at attention, like any minute now Buck Frobisher's gonna pop outta the closet and tell him it's time to go catch fur trappers. Even without his uniform, he still manages to look like he's on duty.

"Will you relax?" I'm fiddlin' with the microwave controls, tryin' to figure out how much time it'll take to reheat bigos. I wasn't lookin' at him, but I didn't have to be looking at him; I could tell he was sitting on my couch like a little tin soldier. Which is actually pretty funny, considerin' we've done things on that couch that are proof positive he's not a tin soldier OR little.

"I am relaxed, Ray." Oh God, he's usin' the "Benton Fraser being logical" voice. And I want to spend the weekend in the middle of some farm field with this guy?

I look at him outta the corner of my eye. Fraser dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt looks better than any one man has a right to. And given the remoteness of the place we're campin', there's a good possibility neither him or I will be wearin' much of anything, if you catch my drift.

"You are not relaxed," I turn around and almost trip over Dief, who's sitting at my feet with his tongue lolling. "You are the most unrelaxed I think I've ever seen you. I thought you wanted to go campin'."

"I do, Ray," Oops, the thumbs rubbin' the eyebrow. All is not well in Fraserland. "It's just…I'm afraid I'm feeling slightly ill at the moment."

"Slightly ill?" I step over Dief and go into the living room. "Like a headache or somethin'?"

"Actually, more of an upset stomach."

Up close, he does look sorta green around the gills. I lay my hand against his forehead. "Jesus, Frase, I think you're runnin' a fever. Let me get the thermometer." I head for the bathroom.

"It's not that high, Ray." He calls after me. "Probably not more than 2-3 degrees."

I come out of the bathroom with the thermometer. "Is that regular or Canadian degrees?" When he opens his mouth to tell me, I pop it in. "Now keep your mouth closed a couple minutes, okay?"

I sit down next to him, and when the thermometer beeps, I pull it out. "Whoa, not good, Frase. 101.5. Normal's 98.6, so that's…"

"2.9 degrees, Ray." He's sweatin' now; actually, I think he's been sweatin' all along, I just didn' notice when I was in the kitchen.

"So you're sick to your stomach?" He nods, looking distinctly miserable. "How sick? We talkin'pukin'?"

I swear, the word's barely outta my mouth, and he's runnin' for the bathroom. "I'll take that as a yes."

An hour an a half later, I'm startin' to get worried. He's puked till he's dry-heavin' and his temperature's gone up another degree.

He's stretched out on the couch with a washrag over his eyes. I'm sittin' on the coffee table. "Okay, how long you been sick like this?"

"It started around 3."

I check my watch; it's 6:30 now. "What'd you eat today?"

"Just the usual. Oatmeal and bacon for breakfast," he swallows and pales a little. He's to the point where jus' talkin' about food makes him sick. "I was rather hurried over lunch, so all I had was a sandwich."

"Anything different from what you usually have?"

He removes the washrag and looks at me. "Ray, you know I always eat the same thing on my sandwiches."

"Yeah, I know; ham and mayonnaise on white bread. So, did the ham taste off or anythin'? Or maybe the mayo'd been sittin' out?"

"No, the sandwich tasted fine. Mr. Pulaski's sandwiches are always delicious." Yeah, and Mr. Pulaski likes to have a cow every time Frase comes in and orders ham and mayo on white bread, too.

"Nothin' else?"

"Not that I…oh dear," he looks at me with a pained expression. "I'd forgotten about the peeps."

"The peeps?" It takes me a minute to figure out what he means. "You mean marshmallow peeps? Like at Easter?"

"Yes. The sandwich wasn't very filling, and I found this box of marshmallow peeps in my bottom drawer."

"Wait a minute. Are we talkin bout the peeps my Mum gave you Easter Sunday?" He nods. "Jesus Christ, Fraser, that was," I count on my fingers, "almost six months ago. Though I don' know that peeps can go bad…"

"Oh I'm sure they weren't spoiled, Ray. Though it was rather odd they were green, as I'm sure rest of the ones your mother gave me were yellow."

It took that statement a minute to sink in. "The peeps were "green"?" He nods. "Fraser, I been eatin' peeps on Easter all of my life, and I'm fairly sure they don't come in green. Yellow and pink, yes; green, no."

We stare at each other a minute, an then I can't help it, an I start to crack up.

"I fail to see," Fraser says in his best grievously wounded voice, "what is so amusing about me eating spoiled peeps."

"Nothin'!" I manage to snort out. "It's jus'…I've never seen anyone sufferin' from peeps poisoning before!"

Needless to say, we never did manage to make it out of Chicago that weekend. Most of Friday night was spent sittin' in the ER, with Fraser pukin' into a bucket. When the doctor finally saw him, an' found out what'd happened, I thought for a minute she was gonna start laughin' too. She might've, if Frase hadn' looked so awful.

They ended up pumpin' his stomach (NOT a fun thing to have done, or witness), then kept him overnight, just to make sure they'd gotten all the stuff out. So I spent the night in a chair in the ER, while he slept on the gurney.

Saturday, around noon, they decided to let him go home, since he wasn't pukin' anymore. We drove back to my place, with a short stop at the store to get some Jell-O and freezer pops, cause he wasn' supposed to have anything but liquids for 48 hours. By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, he an' I were in bed, tryin' to make-up on lost sleep.

It was a hot day, so I had the AC goin' full blast, an' neither of us had any clothes on. Jus' as I was startin' to drift off, he says, "Ray?"

"What, Frase?"

"I'm sorry for ruining the weekend."

I pulled myself up on one elbow and looked at him. He was still sorta pale, but he sure's hell looked a whole lot better than he had last night. "Ya didn' ruin it, ya big goof. Not on purpose, anyway.But no more peeps for you, mister."

He gave me his big-eyed Mountie look. "Not even at Easter?"

I pretended to consider it a minute. "Okay, maybe at Easter. But no green ones."

"Believe me, Ray, I will never even 'look' at a green peep again, never mind eat it." He grins a little, so he must be feelin' better. "Did I ever tell you I had a particularly erotic dream that involved eating multicolored peeps off your naked body?"

I leaned down and kissed him. "Yer a freak, Benton Fraser."

"Understood," he agreed amiably. "But I'm your freak, Ray."

"You better believe it."

FIN

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