Title: Blush,Challenge: Warmth
Fandom: due South
Word Count: 754
Sumary: Fraser blushes.





Oh good Lord.



Warm. Again… my face is warm.



“Erm… thank you Francesca, that’s very helpful. I’ll…”



I fumble the computer printouts to my chest, an impromptu shield, grin inanely, manage to break away from her intensity, and escape.



I do wish that Francesca wasn’t quite so… enamoured of me. I’m not entirely sure that the correct word for her affliction is ‘enamoured’… perhaps besotted is nearer the mark. Something unhealthy and unreal, since I can’t imagine why she’d be interested in me at all. Not 'me,' so much as the imaginary ‘me’ she has constructed. She knows so very little about me, far less than her brother. And… while she might be attracted to me physically, there’s no reason to suppose that she is at all interested in what goes on in my head, or what passes for my heart.



My heart.



For so many years I thought it… not dead, just cold. Covered in permafrost. It didn’t beat anymore, didn’t hurt… Cold. People say ‘cold’ as though it was a bad thing, but cold preserves. Dulls pain, slows down a bleeding wound... Cold is safe.



Apparently, my heart was not cold. It was only hibernating. First Ray, Francesca’s brother… Ray Vecchio… he broke through the layers of ice. And I found myself laughing, eating pizza and watching the game. Teasing, and laid back, and joking with another human being for the first time in... I don’t know how long. Ray Vecchio breached the ice.



I didn’t realise, at first, what was happening. The first time I realised that the frost (my heart) was breaking was when I saw how distressed Ray was by any notion that I might be interested in his sister. It made me feel a little dizzy, unsteady on my feet… I wasn’t sure if he was concerned (jealous) for her, or for me. And to this day I don’t know. It’s not as though I can ask him, not now that he’s out of my reach, undercover with the mob. And so I keep Francesca, beautiful, ditzy, utterly wrong for me Francesca, at a huge and chilly distance.



She reminds me of him. Her dark hair, her olive skin, her beautiful eyes. Her eyes are honey gold, flecked with green and chocolate. His eyes are a luminescent, vivid green, and far too far away.



I wish I could tell Francesca how much I love her brother, how much I long for him to be safe. She looks at me with his eyes, in a different colour, and when she does… I wish I didn’t blush so easily.



When I was a boy, a thousand years ago, Eric kissed me. We were fourteen. When I saw him the next day, we were in a group of his family and friends. They started laughing, and my first thought was… how do they know? Then I realised my face was hot, and they must have seen the pink on my cheeks. Crazy white boy. I don’t think they ever realised why I was blushing. Eric forgave me my indiscretion. I never quite did. The only Kabluunak in the whole village… well, of course when I went pink everyone stared. At times, when I am shaving, it hits me, in the mirror, how very white my skin is, and it feels… wrong. I wish I had darker skin to hide behind. When I go pink in the station house, I still expect everyone to stare at the alien, and laugh.



And now, looking at another Ray… this new Ray Kowalski, I flush. My face is warm, and pink.



“Hey, Frannie bother you?”



“No,” I lie. “I’m fine.”



“Cool. Come on, we need to go over this stuff,” he declares, and grabs the printouts from my arms. Walks off, with a swagger to his hips. He’s a dancer, I know that now, and a boxer. He moves easily, comfortable in his skin, as though he never had cause to blush in his life. I know so little about him, and yet after so few days, I want to know so much more.



I follow him down the corridor.



Warmth, I think, watching him move. I hear the slow creaking of long ice. Spring may be coming. An ominous thing. Winter is a hard thing, the thaw the hardest. Dangerous… for me, Francesca, for both my Rays.



Better, I think, as Ray Kowalski walks ahead of me, better by far, to keep my heart safe, encased, and cold. To keep my blushes to myself.