"It's central, convenient. I can walk to work in seven minutes."

[sings-too.livejournal.com]

((Closed RP for Fraser, Ray, and Starbuck. >.<))

Walking beside Ray down the Main Street of a place that was not actually Disneyland, Benton raised a hand to interrupt his partner.

"Ray, wait. Let me just... recap. To be sure I have this quite straight."

It wasn't that he didn't believe Ray, it was just that... well, yes, Benton supposed he was having a hard time believing the story. But Ray often accepted things he found strange or difficult to believe, simply because it was Benton who told him of it. It was only fair to make the effort in return.

"She put the gun against your head and pulled the trigger, and some invisible... magic force stopped the bullet from exiting the barrel, lifted her into the air, flung her halfway across the park and dumped her in a fountain. And the reason she tried to kill you is that she believes that you are one of a number of robots, who appear indistinguishable from humans and are bent on the destruction of her entire race. And the other denizens of the park seem to hold the opinion that she should be forgiven the attempted murder because of these admittedly rather horrifying circumstances. Oh, what about there?"

He paused to peer through the window of an empty shop. It looked... more or less like all the others. Well.

Comments

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Sador whined back to Dief, snuffling heavily in what nearly sounded like exasperation. She lay down on the ground and put her head on top of her paws.

Starbuck had the strangest urge to tell the dog to stop talking about her, which was just crazy, and should have been the first indicator that she needed sleep. "Okay, so you gave me the wrong last name and now expect that I'm going to listen to you, when you've admitted that you lied to me already." This guy wasn't very smart.

The question was one that had been asked to her different ways by different people since toaster arrived and it's wearing her thin enough that she snaps, "Because he has the same frakking face! And I don't mean he looks just like, I mean it's a copy. I'm not crazy, I don't make things up, and I don't have to prove it to you. He is responsible for the death of billions of people. Him and all the rest of them."

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Fraser looked taken aback.

"Oh," he said. "I see." A long pause while he considered, and then he offered a heartfelt; "I'm sorry."

Billions of people. If it were true, and he supposes it has every right to be, given where they are and what has happened... well, the horror of it was unfathomable, really.

Dief whined and lay down beside Sador and put his nose down against hers.

"My wolf seems to have taken a liking to your dog," Benton observed.

[shake-bad-guys.livejournal.com]

"That's great, that's just...that is great," Ray said, giving Dief an et tu, Brute glare.

"Fraser wasn't lying about the name thing. He doesn't lie," he said, defending his partner. Okay, sometimes Fraser got kind of...creative with the truth, he was really good with the strategic omission thing. But this was not one of those times. "I was undercover, it's a long story, he's just in the habit of calling me that."

"It's not important, what is important is..." He tried to collect his thoughts. "I am not this guy, this guy you think I am. I never killed anyone," and that hurt a hell of a lot more than he was expecting it to, coming out; it might be true, but he still remembered Beth Botrelle, and how close he'd come to having her blood on his hands. "I think I would know. So you don't believe me, fine, whatever, I can't make you. But I am..."

It really was unfathomable, unimaginable, if it was true: billions dead. Ray's mind more or less caroomed off of it, refusing to understand because it was way, way too much. He still felt weirdly horrible and somehow guilty as he tilted his jaw up and said, "...I am not gonna be feeling sorry for you, Kara." He'd only just managed not to say 'lady,' again.

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"I guess so," she said to Fraser, turning her head to glare at Sador. It would have been sort of funny, in any other situation, watching how the dog carefully avoided Starbuck's eyes.

She barely even heard the rest, or at least, it didn't register properly until he said her name. Because, no matter how much he protested that he didn't know her, the fact that he had done that made him sound more like Leoben than anything since he had arrived. Even in a different accent it sounded right. "I never asked you to feel sorry for me," she said, perhaps the first time she had spoken to him and it didn't sound instantly hateful. "That's the last thing I want from anyone."

[sings-too.livejournal.com]

Fraser scratched the side of his nose.

"I have a friend," he said after a moment. "Another friend, whose name really is Ray Vecchio. Like this Ray, he is a police officer and a good man who has dedicated his life to protecting people and upholding the law. He has a large family, including a mother who loves him very much. And he also happens to have the same face as a Mob lieutenant and very dangerous man named Armando 'the Bookman' Langoustini. That's the reason I called Ray -this Ray- by his last name; he's been deep undercover, posing as the Bookman after the real Armando Langoustini was killed in a car accident, and Ray -this Ray, Ray Kowalski- has been posing as Ray Vecchio, to protect that cover."

Dief picked up his head again and looked over at Starbuck, as if to see how this logic would affect her. Benton, for his part, simply gave her a small smile.

"Ray Vecchio is nothing like Armando Langoustini in any way, save for his appearance, which is almost perfect. Isn't it possible, in all the billions of people that do or did exist that there might be someone with the same face who isn't that man... especially if he isn't a man at all, but a copy of a man?"

Benton still wasn't sure he was understanding that whole situation correctly.

[shake-bad-guys.livejournal.com]

"Well, every other freaking person I met here did!" Ray exploded, aggrieved. "Okay, so you didn't ask for it. First good thing about you."

He'd tried not to wince as Vecchio got brought into it all. Honestly, the whole mess of undercover for an undercover operative had never made that much sense to Ray. (But honestly, he had never really expected his life to make sense.) Of more importance was the fact that, after living Ray Vecchio's life for all those months, he'd actually just met the guy and had kind of had to wonder if it had all been worth it at all. Not that this was anything he could say to Fraser, who he knew still looked on Vecchio as his best friend.