(being in the form of an interlude between parts 8 and 9 of "A Day in the Life of alt.tv.due-south")

rated R for mild slash

I'd like to thank Manna and Misha for their feedback, Demeter for giving me permission to jump into the story at this point, and all the great writers of "A Day in the Life of alt.tv.due-south" for making my job as a beta-reader so easy and fun.

I have quoted from Manna's first chapter of the RideForever Round Robyn, which I guess makes this a round robin crossover. ;-)

Teaser: In part 8 of "A Day in the Life of alt.tv.due-south" (by Sasscat) Ray Vecchio suddenly and mysteriously vanished. Where did he go?

In a quiet corner of the RideForever list, beside the cheerfully crackling fire in the old fieldstone fireplace, Manna sat alone on the polished oak flor with her scissors and paste. Scattered around her were eleven piles of paper, the chapters of the Round Robyn she was supposed to be editing; another chapter rested on her lap. Supposedly she was doing one last proofread while she pasted the chapters together for archiving, but at this moment checking for spelling and punctuation was the last thing on her mind. She absent-mindedly pulled the red scrunchie from her hair, freeing it to hang loosely on her shoulders as she turned the page.

Without even realizing that she was doing it, she quietly crooned the song that she'd heard on the Oldies station a few hours earlier--it seemed appropriate for the occasion. The bowl of Gumbo Yaya beside her on the floor was getting cold and the bottle of Labat Blue was getting warm, but the story she was reading was getting very, very hot. As she finished the chapter, she flung her head back and sang with full voice:

"They started going steady, and bless my soul, they out-bopped the buzzard and the--oriole!"

The pages that had been in her lap fluttered across the room as she leapt to her feet and began to dance to the song she was singing. Full of heartfelt exuberance, she scattered the pages of all twelve chapters under feet as she celebrated the merits of well-written slash.

"He rocks in the treetops all the day long, hopping and a-bopping and a-singing his song. All the little birds on Jaybird Street love to hear the robyn go tweet, tweet, tweet."

She was in full-blown karaoke mode now, jitterbugging wildly with an imaginary microphone clutched in one hand. As she began the chorus, she executed a series of graceful turns across the floor in the direction of her forgotten meal, her long black hair fanning out around her head with each spin.

"Rockin' robyn (tweet, tweet, tweet!) Rockin' robyn (tweet, tweedledee-deet!) Go! rockin' robyn 'cause we really gonna rock to-n. . . "

Both song and dance ended abruptly when she crashed backwards into Ray.

Ray Vecchio.

The real Ray Vecchio.

He caught her arm in his left hand, his long elegant fingers firm but gentle on her wrist. Manna stared for several long seconds at that hand, her pulse loud and fast under his touch. Then the logical next course of action finally crept its way into her thoughts. With a roll of her dark brown eyes and a gentle gasp Manna unlocked her knees and affected a very convincing swoon.

His reflexes weren't as fast as she had hoped--insteading of being caught up in his arms, she dropped awkwardly to the floor at his feet. He didn't let go of her arm, though, and he quickly knelt down on the floor beside her to check her for injuries. She wasn't hurt, but she let him check anyway. He was very thorough.

"Detective Vecchio, Chicago P.D." he introduced himself. "You okay?"

"Mmmmmmm," she responded with a sultry voice that held just a hint of southern drawl, "mmmmmManna."

"Very nice." He let go of her arm. "Mind telling me where the hell I am?" She glanced around the shadowed room. "RideForever."

"RideForever. And that would be. . . ?"

"A list. An e-mail list." She was disappointed by the lack of understanding in those green eyes; he clearly didn't have a clue what she was talking about. She added conspiratorily, "We're the list your mama warned you about."

"Yeah, I bet you are." He dropped her wrist, stood up and put his hands on his hips. With his sternest, don't-mess-with-me-'cause-I-got-a-gun voice, he pressed for more information. "You care to tell me how I got here?"

Manna glanced around the pages on the floor. Could it be. . . ? There was no precedent for this that she could think of. "That would depend, Ray. May I call you Ray?"

"Yeah, whatever. Depends on what?"

"On where you were before you came."

"Oh." Ray frowned, and a tiny concentration-line appeared between his eyes. He thought about it for a minute or so, then sat down beside Manna on the floor. The fire was warm on his back. "I was out on the tundra, with Benny. . . "

"Yeah!" cried Manna, detecting a hint of "The Cabin."

Ray glared at her and continued, ". . . with Benny and Kowalski, looking for some woman named Charter."

"Darn," Manna muttered, under her breath.

"We went to the Dance Hall, and the Sweat Lodge, and the Newbie Welcoming Area." Ray paused, considering how stupid this all sounded. "Then somebody shot some heavy fireworks into some musician's concert or something, and his fans started hurling pianos at us."

"Right."

"Baby blue baby grands. Two of 'em."

"Right."

"Then this guy Lawley. . . "

"Lawley? Carl Lawley?"

"Yes."

Manna grabbed Ray's thigh (she'd been hoping for a reason to do that!) and said urgently, "Just tell me one thing, and be absoultely sure about your answer. Absolutely sure, do you understand me? Were Carl's eyes open?"

"What kind of question is that?"

She squeezed (oh, baby!) and asked again. "Were his eyes open?"

"Yeah, his eyes were open!"

"Damn!" Manna's hope began to slip away. Still, it couldn't hurt to ask. "You and Benny, you're . . . like. . . ?"

"He's my best friend. He's my partner. I. . . I love him. . . "

Manna's heart leaped.

". . . like a brother."

And then her heart sank. As far as she was concnerned, there were few more depressing sentences in the English language than this: I love him like a brother.

Whatever fanfic he had slipped out of, it wasn't slash.

Ray continued, oblivious to Manna's disappointment. "I wish Benny were here right now."

"You do?"

He had reason to make that wish--for one thing, Benny would probably understand this bizarre place and have a relevant Inuit legend to explain it. More importantly, if Benny were here he'd be doing the chick-magnet thing and then this young woman would probably take her hand off his thigh. Not that it was a bad thing; she was young and attractive, and a great dancer, but he was having a bad day and at some very deep level of his sub-consciousness he was dutifully aware of the restrictions placed upon him by his origin in a PG-rated fanfic.

Manna glanced into the shadowed corner of the list, where here computer was waiting, its modem hissing quietly to itself. She looked back at Ray and smiled wickedly.

"You want Benny? I think I can do that."

She rushed to the computer, and got to work. Her e-mail program cheerfully announced "You've got slash!" but she ignored it. She slipped a diskette into the drive and searched for the relevant file. As she scrolled throught the list of files on the disk, she began to hum again.

"Rockin' robyn (tweet, tweet, tweet!) Rockin' robyn (tweet, tweedledee-deet!) Go! rockin' robyn 'cause we're really gonna rock tonight."

The file wasn't on the disk. Panic began to set in, but then she remembered where she had left it. She clicked on "C:" and laughed at her forgetfulness. "Stuff like this you don't keep on a floppy. This story definitely belongs on the hard drive." She opened the file and began to scroll. She found it just where she had written it, about two-thirds of the way into part one:

Yes, Evil Benny, who looked just like the regular Benny, but agreed to do things that the real Benny would never, ever do.

Evil Benny, for example, never wore the uniform unless parts of it were unbuttoned, and if he wore casual clothes they were tight and downright undone. Ray had once tried putting Evil Benny in black leather pants, but the best he'd managed was dark jeans. The leather jacket, however, was a natch.

Today Evil Benny was in a red T-shirt and jeans and looked absolutely wonderful. His hair was just slightly mussed, just the way Fraser would never allow. His lips were curled in a little smile similar to the one Fraser wore, but full of all those meanings unknown to his wholesome partner.

Manna highlighted the text and clicked "copy," then from the Edit menu she selected "paste special" and chose "interactive 3-D metafile."

Evil Benny manifested behind Ray and his face brightened at the sight of the Italian's well-proportioned posterior. "It's good to see you, Ray," he said; truer words he had never spoken.

Ray spun around and completed the ritual greeting, "It's good to see you too, Bennnnnnnn. . . ." His lost his train of thought as he stared and gaped at the sight of his partner in skin-tight denim. After several awkward seconds he gulped and asked, "Benny?"

Evil Benny glided forward with the lissomeness of a cat. He placed one strong hand behind Ray's back, the other on his shoulder, and murmured, "You look tense, Ray."

Ray got tenser. Parts of him got extremely tense.

Manna dashed off a quick e-mail to the list without ever once looking down at her monitor. It read, "Evli Benny and Ray (rea lRay) here in perrson. Get hereNOW!!!!!"

Evil Benny massaged Ray's neck with his right hand, while he worked on unbuckling Ray's belt with his left. PG-Gen-fanfic Ray stood frozen like a deer in the headlights of a big, red, Canadian eighteen-wheeler.

Manna glowed. Making Evil Benny ambidextrous had been her idea.

Around her, other RideForever members appeared in the shadows, seated at their computers. Ro and Courser brought their dinners to the list; Birgitt arrived in her red nightgown and slippers. Jan was looking particularly luminous, holding her laptop while seated in the lotus position. Sandy and Linda perched together side-by-side on the same chair and typed together on the same keyboard, Sandy on the left-hand keys and Linda on the right. Every few seconds the high-pitched buzz of an additional modem announced the arrival of another listmember: Chez, Ann, Rochon, Cazz, Cylelle, Magnes--even newcomers Debbie and Chani found their way.

Manna pulled her eyes away from the two men long enought to register that one of the Round Robyn authors was missing. "Where's Vicki?" she hissed.

Courser replied without ever taking her eyes off the action taking place by the fireplace. "Manna, if you had read the newsgroup's Round Robin, you'd know that Vicki, Melanie, Alex, Kat, Janice, and Demeter are all frozen in time in the newsgroup."

"Who did that to them?"

"Carl."

"No kidding? Well, they're missing a hell of a show." Even as she said this, Evil Benny dropped Ray's belt on the floor and started working on his buttons. Ray was starting to unfreeze, and his face showed a strange mixture of terror and intrigue. The image of his partner and friend was just beginning to nuzzle his ear when Ray became aware of a strange, new sensation. Time seemed to slow, the warmth from the fire grew almost unbearably hot, and the sounds of the listmembers tapping on their keyboards faded into the distance. He turned his head so that his lips brushed Evil Benny's cheek, and whispered, "Benny. . . "

And he disappeared.

Evil Benny knelt down and picked up the brown leather belt that Ray had left behind. He caressed it lovingly to his cheek as an anguished cry of frustration and loss echoed throughout Onelist.

To be continued in "A Day in the Life of alt.tv.due-south" part nine. It's Misha's turn!