On 14 March 2003, Anna (having a minor existential writing crisis) wrote: "Tell me: what should Anna write?" in her livejournal. My response - unsurprisingly - was "I'll give you a hint (duesouthduesouthduesouth).

Now...as you'll note if you follow the link, one of her tongue-in-cheek possibilities was "Spike/Water Buffalo" so - after finding an appropriately strange police case related to water buffalos - I wrote the following snippet.

*****

Ray stopped dead in his tracks and stared at his partner. "Okay, so I get that you didn't plan for this to happen when you went to visit Vecchio. Just explain again why your picture was on the cover of the Thonotosassa Daily wearing nothing but a water buffalo outfit and fur-lined chains."

Fraser sighed. "I've already explained this, Ray. I was asked to participate in a multi-jurisdictional undercover operation set up to apprehend one "Master Troy" - a Canadian national - and..."

"Yeah, yeah...I got that. But...a water buffalo?" Ray shook his head.

"It could have been worse," Fraser muttered. "The word 'anteater' was bandied about. In point of fact though, originally they'd asked me to dress as a rival dungeon master."

Ray raised his eyebrows. "Whoa...back up there. You could have gone in as a...."

"Dungeon master. Wearing leather. Carrying a whip."

"And you decided a water buffalo outfit was...what? Hotter?"

"Not exactly." Fraser looked away from Ray and brushed his thumb across his eyebrow. "However, I knew when the operation was brought to a satisfactory conclusion, we'd be asked to surrender the outfits we were wearing and...."

Ray glanced toward the door at Fraser's duffel bag. "Uh huh. But they wouldn't necessarily miss all the unused costumes? Not right away, huh?"

Fraser cleared his throat twice before speaking. "Something like that, yes."

"So, would you...you want me to unpack your bag? Um...Master?"

Fraser grinned.

****

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