Title: Ag Cogarnach sa Dorchadas (whispering in the dark.)
Fandom: due South
Rating: Explicit (sort of.)
Pairing: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Length: 1962
Warning: bad language
Summary: Ray shares secrets.

Notes: The filthy stuff is in Irish, and there isn't much of it. But just in case - don't say this to your future in-laws if you're marrying into a family of Gaeilgeorí.

Gift fic for Vicki - and she knows why.









"Is dócha nach bhfuil seans ar bith ann?"


Fraser blinked. Had Ray really said that, or was this a very peculiar waking dream? And if Ray had said that (though Fraser could think of no reason for Ray to suddenly start speaking Irish) did he understand the subtext?


Fraser cleared his throat and played for time. “Excuse me?”


Ray smirked. “Is dócha nach bhfuil seans ar bith agam oíche fiachmhar salach a chaitheamh leatsa?”


Oh. Well. So much for subtext.


Fraser resisted the temptation to tug his ear. He knew it was a tell, and he didn’t want Ray to realise that he’d understood exactly what was said. It would result in embarrassment all round. Though quite why Ray would posit such an interesting way to spend the night was beyond the scope of Fraser’s imagination.


Or maybe not. After all, he did a lot of imagining at times. Just not when they were on stakeout.


Or not often when they were on stakeout.


Or – be honest. Perhaps quite a lot when they were on stakeout. Something about the long hours of proximity led to... thoughts. Thoughts which Fraser was definitely not thinking right now. Or thinking about thinking. Or....


Absolutely not.


Fraser risked a glance at Ray’s profile. He was staring straight ahead, as Fraser should be, at the stubbornly empty warehouse. Nobody had turned up over the last three days. Nobody was ever going to turn up. No wonder Ray had tried to break up the tedium with a little... joke.


A joke, perhaps, but jokes were only funny if they were true. Maybe... maybe Ray got those thoughts too. Perhaps he had been having those thoughts for a long time. Perhaps...


Well, Ray had said it. Perhaps he really did want to....


Good Lord.


Fortunately for Fraser, it was dark enough that Ray didn’t see him blush.


Which was a good thing, because that would definitely give the game away.


Fraser glanced sideways again. Ray was sprawling now, as much as one could in such a confined space, radiating exhaustion and amusement in equal measure. His head was tilted back against the car seat, the long line of his throat exposed.


Had Ray meant what he said? Or was he just bored?


Perhaps, Fraser’s thoughts whirled dizzily through his head, perhaps I could just lean over there, kiss him –


No, not kiss him. Lick him. The idea came to him with such sudden clarity that for a moment he could taste it. He could lean over, swipe his tongue from collar to chin – Ray would taste salty – his pulse would beat beneath Fraser’s tongue and.... And then he would kiss him.


He bit his lip, closed his eyes for a moment, managed not to groan. Oh dear. His first thought was the right thought: this was a dream. He had clearly fallen asleep at his station. Or (and this was a distinct possibility) he had just gone completely insane.


No. He wasn’t going to accept that. For once his father wasn’t sitting in the back seat giving advice, and besides, there wasn’t a single cabbage leaf in sight.


For now Fraser was going with the dream theory. ‘Aisling fliuch,’ perhaps – or maybe that should be ‘aisling salach.’ It was not the kind of question he could have asked his grandfather after all. By the time he knew what a wet dream was he knew not to talk about them.


So, yes. A dream. He was having a dream. A spectacular lucid dream. The kind of dream that... really... he should be having in private. Very much in private. Cautiously Fraser pinched himself, hard.


Owch. Not a dream then.


“Nach dtuigann tú?”


Oh. Well, thank you very much, Ray. That's very helpful. Now Fraser was going to have to lie, to spare them both embarrassment. Ray was obviously trying to pass the time, having a little joke at Fraser’s expense. He’d regret saying these things in the morning, or whenever he managed to catch up on his sleep.


As innocently as he could, Fraser looked at Ray, affecting an air of bewilderment. “Excuse me?” he said again.


"What?" Ray looked slightly smug. "You don't like it when you don't know the 'teanga,' do you?"


Under the circumstances, a lie was definitely the best defence.


"I am sure I have no idea what you're talking about, Ray."


"Go h'iontach!” Somehow Ray managed to sound relieved and disappointed at the same time. “There's something you don't know."


"Well,” Fraser sulked. “There has to be something."


“Yeah, roight,” Ray said, in what Fraser took to be an imitation of an Irish accent. “Níl faic ar eolas agatsa, go deimhin.”


Fraser bridled at that, his pride stung. For one thing the idiom threw him for a moment, and for another – well. While it was clearly true that he didn’t know everything, he didn’t like to be mocked and not be able to respond. If Ray thought he was a know it all, then he should come out and say it to his face.


Though perhaps that wasn’t what Ray meant. Perhaps he simply meant that there were things about himself that Fraser didn’t know. There had been something sad in the way he said it. Perhaps Ray had something else he had wanted to say....


Fraser pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the incipient headache. He felt uncomfortably like he was eavesdropping, but it was too late to go back now. For a moment he fought the crazy notion of informing Ray that his Grandfather had been one of the last Irish speakers in Newfoundland – Talamh an Éisc, his mind whispered – and that his father before him had spoken Scottish Gaelic, having moved from Nova Scotia. It seemed that the Frasers were cursed forever to travel the world, banished from their homelands.


Poor Athair Críonna, he thought wistfully.


Of course, Fraser had never used ‘críonna’ as a term of affection in his grandparents' hearing – they would have thought it unconscionably sentimental – but he would have liked to. In any case, he had often thought of them that way.


Ray was still smirking.


Well, that smirk could get very irritating, very quickly. It wasn’t just a point of personal pride, but of national pride as well. Perhaps he should put a stop to Ray’s teasing, and point out that Canada contained the only Gaeltacht in the world outside of Ireland, and that as a child he had made it a point to study the language during the long (very long) winter nights when it was not safe to go out and play. And also because it made his grandfather proud.


But if he were to say such a thing then Ray would know he had been – what was the American idiom – rumbled. Ah, yes. Ray would know that he’d been rumbled.


Beside him Ray sighed. “You ever find you can say things to someone if you know they don’t understand you?”


Fraser started a little. That had come out of nowhere... Maybe Ray had meant something beyond gentle teasing.


“Hmm...” He rubbed his eyebrow, and cleared his throat. Oh dear. That was a very definite tell. If he wasn’t careful he was the one who would be rumbled. “Well,” he confessed. “There was a time when I wanted to tell Ray Vecchio something, but I couldn’t say it till he was asleep.”


“What did you say?”


“That’s not important right now.” The last thing he wanted to do at this juncture was raise Victoria’s shadow.


“I thought everything you said was important.”


Fraser relaxed at the opportunity to banter, and steer the conversation away from dark waters. “I thought you didn’t like my Inuit stories, Ray.”


“Hey, I never said they weren’t important.”


“I’m glad to hear it.”


“Just that they send me to sleep.”


“Well, we can’t have that Ray. We are on stakeout, after all.”


Ray smiled, and yawned. Fraser tried not to watch him.


So – what had Ray meant? At first Fraser had thought it was boredom speaking. Now he wasn’t so sure.


“So,” Fraser was finding the conversation difficult to navigate – his mouth was dry – but he did want to know the answer. “How did you learn Irish?”


Ray shot Fraser a suspicious look. “How did you know it was Irish?”


“Oh, uh... I have some linguistic background, and the phonetics sounded –”


“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get all technical on me.” Ray huffed out a sigh. “Okay, so I’m not...” he laughed bitterly. “’Dúr.’ Tá mé briste, not stupid.”


Fraser bit his lip, overwhelmed by the memory of Ray saying something similar, on another long night, a long time ago. “I never thought you were stupid, Ray.”


“Yeah. I get that. I do get that. But, well, everyone else thinks I’m stupid.” Ray smiled. “Except for my family. Mum, and Dad. My Granny.”


“Your mother’s mother?” Fraser had noted Barbara Kowalski’s slight Irish accent.


“Yeah. She came over from Donegal when she was about twenty. Never lost the language. Bhí sí thar a bheith sásta when she realised I wanted to learn.” He slanted a grin at Fraser. “Delighted, so she was,” he said, in what was, this time, a fair imitation of an Irish accent. “I mean, I learned Polish too, which just so you know, is cool – but I loved Irish. There were just the three of us who spoke it. Me, Mum and Granny. So, you know. I could use it to tell secrets. My brother was never interested.”


Fraser swallowed, strangely moved by the vision of young Ray, holding conversations with his grandmother in the kitchen, keeping that part of her heritage alive. It was a surprising point of commonality between him and Ray, that they had both made an effort not to forget. Fraser regretted now that he had lied about not understanding the language.


Though... Ray’s grandmother had clearly been a woman with a very filthy mind. Either that or his mother was.


Fraser shook his head to dispel the bizarre insight into the deeper mysteries of Ray’s matriarchal line.


“Why...” Fraser paused. “Why today, Ray? Why are you telling secrets today?”


There was silence for a while. Fraser waited it out. Whatever Ray was saying – or not saying – it was important.


Ray rubbed his knuckles in his eyes and yawned. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m tired.”


Fraser said nothing, disappointed by this obvious evasion. Ray grunted.


“God, Fraser, how do you do that? Say so much when you’re not saying anything?”


“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” This time, Fraser wasn’t lying.


“I mean, that thing you do where you say nothing, but you say it really loud, and what you’re saying is ‘I am very disappointed in your behaviour young man.’ You might as well be an Irish grandmother yourself.”


That startled a laugh out of Fraser. He had been accused of many things, but never yet of being somebody’s grandmother. Ray was grinning again.


“Yeah. Okay. So... You asked ‘why now.’ I just... you know. Got to think out loud sometimes, and... you know. Practice saying things. See if they’re things I should say for real. You know. When it matters.”


“And... what would you say, Ray?” Fraser held his breath. Beside him Ray went very still.


“Sílim... Tá mé i ngrá leat. Thit mé i ngrá leat.”


Fraser closed his eyes, mouth dry.


“Fraser?” Ray’s voice sounded alarmed – Fraser had tipped his hand. He opened his eyes and stared across the tiny distance between them – wide as a chasm now. Ray looked terrified.


Fraser could take away that fear. He could close that gap. They never had to be so alone, or frightened again.


“Agus,” his voice dropped low. “Agus thit mé i ngrá leat friesin.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Mo chroí,” he whispered. “Mó grá thú.”


Ray's smile blossomed like a flower.