This is the second? third? time I've read this, and I enjoy it utterly each time. I love the total confusion that besets both Ray and Vecchio throughout: the way they're equally lost in what's happening, and yet equally transparent to one another. I love that, after you've been building up and building up the idea of Fraser's obliviousness, it turns out that he isn't so blind after all: Fraser got it. Fraser absolutely one hundred per cent got what was going on here.

I love the way the three of them have an ease working with each other, which is so true of the canon F/V and is the core of canon F/K, and yet seemed so hard to achieve between Vecchio and Kowalski as they chase the thugs in CotW. I love how that ease comes from their acceptance of each other. Love Vecchio tip-toeing through the garbage, and the way things get weirder the instant Fraser shows up (the alligator lady); and the way Ray finally works out that Vecchio calling him 'Stanley' is just like Vecchio saying 'Benny'.