Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. I am not making money from them. I deny everything.

Story Notes: Done for the LiveJournal community ds_snippets prompt of "five senses." Maybe the slightest Fraser/Vecchio preslash, if you squint; and a tiny hint of femslash.

Walking to the station proves excruciating. The street is steaming, throbbing with smells: sweat, food, people.

He almost falls in the door, expecting relief, but the air's broken again. Fewer smells here, but even stronger in the enclosed space.

Frannie comes up with her sandwich tray and says, "What's wrong, Fraser?" Then Elaine's there, and Gardino and Huey, all asking.

"Heat," he half-lies, and Ray appears, thank God, a smell so familiar he can almost edit it out. Ray steers him back outside.

"Geez, Benny, you look awful, get some air. Way hotter than home?"

"Not just heat---smells. Never been so hot with so many people. Too much information."

"Information?"

Fraser tries to breathe shallowly. It doesn't help. "The gentleman who just walked past us is a late-stage alcoholic," he whispers. "Detective Gardino has two male cats at home. Detective Huey puts dill in his scrambled eggs. The suspect in Interview Room 3 has urinated on himself." He grabs the bridge of his nose, pinches fiercely, manages not to blurt out "And Elaine smells like Frannie and Frannie smells like Elaine and they both smell like the supply closet."

"Wow," Ray says. "I'll get the Riv, crank up the air, but it's a couple blocks away, just wait here--" and he's gone.

But he's back much too fast, can't have gotten much past the corner, with the street vendors---oh. He's shoving roses in Fraser's hands, says, "Here, stick your face in these for a minute," disappears again.

Oh, of course...a posy for the plague, Fraser thinks muzzily, buries his nose in the sweetness that blocks everything else. And when his brain clears a little the first thing that occurs to him is how Ray's gesture must have looked to passersby. He finds he doesn't even care.