Title: Best Friend
Fandom: due South
Rating: Gen (ish: some mention of sex.)
Length: 775 words
Characters: Benton Fraser. Ray Vecchio.
Content notes: Possibly Unrequited Love, UST, Loneliness
Author notes: For fan-flashworks for the "Locked" challenge.
Summary: Childhood reminiscences, friendships past and present.



His eyes are very beautiful.

Today he looked at me, and those eyes were soft and sad. We were walking Dief in the park, and the conversation had turned to our best friends as children. Watching Dief gambolling by the water’s edge, I told him about Pearson, our lead dog. He was the only dog allowed in the cabin, and he slept on my bed. He kept my feet warm, and grumbled in his dreams. It was a comfort to me, his presence. I told him all my little secrets; he was the first dog who ever talked back.

Ray interrupted me, making no disparaging comments about my mental health or Doctor Doolittle. “And that was your best friend, a dog?”

“Well, yes.” I stroked my eyebrow – a bad habit, I know – and Ray knows all my tells.

“What about other children?”

I cracked my neck – oh dear. Another tell. “I didn’t know many children,” I said, feeling slightly uncomfortable at the admission. I decided against telling him that by the time I was seven I had only met, briefly, seven other children, nor that the boy who struck me with an otter was the first child I ever met who looked like me – nor that Mark was the second. Not that the First Nation children I met were unkind – but they could see that I was different, and let me know it. It probably had more to do with my father being a Mountie than anything else.

Ray was still looking at me with sad green eyes. Dief was terrorising ducks.

“What about school? You had a bully – you must have had a best friend.”

“Well, yes. Pearson.” I hastened to explain. “I didn’t go to school until I was ten, and then somewhat erratically. But, later I did make human friends – Mark –”

Ray snorted. “Some friend.”

My voice rose, a little defensively. “And then, of course, there were Inusiq and June...” Oh dear. I trailed off as I realised that perhaps they weren’t friends. They had each been more than friends at one point. First Mark, then Inusiq, then, once, June. It seems to be a pattern with me. I mistake friendship for something else, demand more than is safe, then lose the friend. And certainly I am not going to tell him what happened at Depot, or Moosejaw, still less about Victoria.

“Well,” I said, cringing at my petulance but unable to reign it in. “I’m terribly sorry that my social skills do not attain to your high American standards.”

“Benny,” he chided, and slung an arm around me, protectively. He squeezed my shoulder, and pulled me tight to him. I could feel his warmth up and down my right hand side as we continued to walk. A casual observer would probably take us for lovers. But Ray is Italian. Physical affection comes naturally to him. I would be foolish to mistake it for anything more. “Benny,” he said. “That’s not what I meant.”

My throat was choked up, and I didn’t trust my speaking voice, so I simply nodded my yes.

“You know I’m your friend,” he said, “and always will be.”

“Yes, Ray,” I managed to say. “I know that. My best friend.”

“Yeah?” He grinned then. “Well, stop trashing my suits then.”

“It’s a sign of affection,” I informed him, straightfaced. “We do things differently up North.”

His lips quirked at the little joke. I kept to myself the fact that sometimes I deliberately provoke him, just to see that flash in his eyes. His arm was still around my shoulder. I didn’t want him to let me go.

And now it is evening at West Racine Street, and Diefenbaker is sleeping across my feet at the bottom of my cot, keeping my feet warm and grumbling in his sleep.

‘Best friend,’ Ray said. I find myself turning the phrase obsessively, round and round in my head. ‘Best friend.’

“I should tell him.”

My voice sounds lonely in the dark.

I should tell him. I close my eyes, and try to imagine his response.

No. No. To ask for more would be – it would be more than foolish. It would be destructive. It would burn everything to the ground. It seems at times that he would do anything for me, but I can’t ask him to do that. He might leave. Worse yet, he might do it for my sake, for a while at least, and then leave. I don’t know how I would survive Chicago if Ray were to simply up and go.

No. I can’t tell him. Better by far to keep my heart locked shut.