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Title : Role Reversal Recs

Fandom : due South

Pairing : Benton Fraser / Ray Kowalski

Ratings : see headers at each fic’s website

Word Counts : see headers at each fic’s website

AN : My first-ever rec set. TYK to hardboiledbaby for inspiration.

Summary : Recs for three different forms of role reversal fic.
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One of the forms of role reversal is that which occurs in the context of bodyswap. Here we have one from Kowalski’s POV.

Being Benton Fraser

(it’s the first fic on the page)

by theodosia

I woke to realize I was in Fraser’s office at the Consulate, on Fraser’s cot, and had no memory of how I got there.

Something that had been tugging at the back of my mind like a loose shirt-tail made me look down at my hands… which didn’t seem to be my hands – not bragging here, I have distinctive hands, or so the ladies tell me. I know them… like I’d know the back of my hand, right? Backs or fronts, they were broader and thicker, handsome even, but not mine. Even if they were at the ends of my arms, which on closer inspection also didn’t seem to be my arms….

“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” I said – reverting to Mum-speak under stress, oh yeah. There are no atheists in Mountie holes. I scrambled to my feet and looked around for a mirror. No, of course Fraser didn’t keep one in his office-cum-bedroom, that would be down the hall and in the bathroom.

Yeah, Benton Fraser RCMP stared back at me, only the expression was pure panic-stricken Kowalski. I said something in Polish, curse words that Mum would never translate for me. 
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Another form of role reversal is the one in the alternate-career ’verse.  Here we have instead of a law enforcement officer a criminal : Benton Fraser as a contract killer.

Death-Defying

by keerawa

"You worried this tip won't pan out, Kowalski?" my partner Douglas asked as we pulled off the highway, towards the port. A line of marked and unmarked police vehicles followed us; the headlights made us look like a funeral procession in the gray light just before dawn.


"Look, we're bringing in Ben Fraser," I told him. "The guy's a legend."

"Twenty-nine contract kills in seven countries? More like a nightmare, if you ask me."

"Yeah, but no civilians, no women, no children," I reminded Douglas, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. "Just the baddest of the bad - drug lords, mafioso, perps the cops could never touch. Remember that Colombian, Escobar, the one who started cutting out the tongues of the villagers so they couldn't tell anybody his business? Ben Fraser took him out in the middle of his own private army."
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Yet another form of role reversal is when the one who would usually be the follower in a given situation instead has the lead. Here we have Fraser in trouble in the Yukon wilderness and not handling it well, and Ray taking competent charge.

Men on the Moon

by aukestrel

It’s not supposed to be me. I mean, it’s supposed to be him. Supposed to be him who knows what’s what, supposed to be him looking out for me and I’m getting this feeling, worse and worse, that he’s in trouble.

He’s not calling me Steve, okay, and there’s no head injury, but I think we’re losing it, I think he’s lost it. He’s shivering hard, makes my teeth hurt to hear him. But he plows on, says “that’s the body’s way of warming itself, Ray,” and “this ridge is probably the one we need to crest to see the cabin.” I think we need to rest, get out of the wind, maybe, find a tree or something to duck behind for a while. I got the stove, he’s got fuel, we just need a snow bank or something to get behind, get something hot in us.

He stumbles, goes down on one knee, and he’s breathing hard, still shivering.

 “Need a hand?” I say, trying to sound neutral.