Author's webpage: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Starship/6102/home.html

Author's disclaimer:
There once was a group in Toronto
Who made the world's best TV show
People, wolves, places and plot
All the rights they have got
But here I can do what I want to!

Author's notes: Please be kind, I've never done this before....

Red.

It was a very important color in the life of Ray Vecchio.

When he was a small boy, it had meant the large pots of marinara sauce his mother would simmer on the stove. Thick and filled with chunks of fresh tomatoes, herbs, and chopped garlic, it would waft it's rich aroma all over the house. Some of it would go into jars, some to the church for the needy, and some would be ladled over plates of steaming pasta and placed on the Vecchio family table. Too many nights, one of those plates would not be consumed, and his mother would faithfully wrap it in waxed paper and place
her husband's portion in the refrigerator.

When he was a teenager, it meant the color he turned that afternoon when Marco Martolli caught him behind the back shed with his hands under Irene Zuko's blouse. Best friend or not, he had to pay the other guy twenty bucks to keep his mouth shut. It was money more or less well spent, though, for despite the mood-breaking effects of the discovery, Irene had thought it was very chivalrous of him to spend his last twenty on her reputation.

When he was a young man, it was one color among three. Red, white, and blue, making up the flag of his country. He had stood there at his police Academy graduation, tall and proud in his blue uniform, and he had sworn to uphold the laws of that country. He had sworn to lay down his life if need be to maintain law and order, but it had been for more than just a flag. It had been to defy the rules of his family and neighborhood, to prove that Raymond Vecchio not only would not become his father, but would fight everything that had been a part of his father's world.

When he was older, it had taken on a new meaning. It meant wool serge, cut and precisely tailored into a tunic that symbolized the mythology and ideals of an entire nation. It meant a man who was his best friend, who managed to remain idealistic and innocent in the middle of Chicago's cynicism and darkness. A man who he had known less than two years now, but he would lay down his life for in a heartbeat. That man still carried a bullet he had accidentally fired in an attempt to protect him, and Ray himself bore the scars of the bullet he had taken in return a few weeks later.

Now, though, red meant blood.

It was the blood that had caught his eye. The dark, syrupy trail that seeped from beneath the door.

Heart leaping into his throat, he had pushed open the door, forgetting everything else in a gasp of horror as he saw what lay in the apartment. Benny's tall, solid body was crumpled in pain against the wall, his knees raised and his broad shoulders hunched forward in an instinctive attempt to shield himself. Both the thin cotton of his undershirt and the thick flannel over top were soaked in red. His hands looked to be covered in wet scarlet gloves, the vital fluid practically pouring between his fingers as he clutched at the knife wound in his side. Fair skin was a shocky white - almost blue - and his eyes were closed tightly as he fought the pain that made his entire body tremble.

Diefenbaker had clearly tried to guard his master, and paid the price. The wolf lay not far away, his brown eyes looking blankly at the opposing wall. The intruder - the murderer, Ray corrected himself - had dealt with the beautiful animal simply. Like an obscenely painted bib, his slit throat had darkened the white fur to the same ugly red that Benny now displayed profusely. Bitter, sharp bile rose in Ray's throat, and he felt a boiling fury fighting the queasiness and sorrow.

Shaking his head sharply, Ray forced himself to action. It might be too late for Dief, but he wasn't going to lose the human part of that duo. Getting down on his knees behind the Mountie, he pulled out his cell phone, laying one hand on his partner's shoulder as he flipped the device open with his other. He made the call quickly, fighting the urge to scream at the dispatcher. Volume wouldn't make the ambulance come any quicker.

As he hung up, the Canadian's head began to sag, as if he were about to pass out. Fear tightened it's grip on the American, and he in turn tightened his grip on his partner's shoulder. "Benny...c'mon...look at me here..."

The head raised slightly, the blue eyes opened, and the pain in them took Ray's breath away. Constable Fraser, impervious and unflinching Superman, had vanished behind they tortured eyes of a man who had just seen his most enduring companion heartlessly slaughtered, then been grievously injured himself. Ray made himself look directly into those azure pools of suffering. "What the hell happened?"

"He..." Benny's voice trembled, but was surprisingly strong for a man who had approximately three pints of bodily fluids in locations other than inside the veins and arteries where they belonged, with more surging out to join them by the second. "He was trying..."

"Who was trying what? Trying to rob you?" Ray's voice rose in anger. "Shit, Fraser! Why didn't you let him take what he wanted!?"

"No..." The Mountie shook his head. "Trying...to rape a girl...using my apartment...because I'd left the window open...for Dief." A small smile appeared, looking oddly beatific despite the omnipresent pain. "She got away." His tone made it seem almost as if that were worth everything.

A similar smile, only this one darkened with irony, was mirrored on the broadly drawn features of the Italian. To Benny, Ray knew, saving that girl had been worth everything, even if that price was his life. That's just the way things worked in his world, his little personal kingdom where knights still rescued damsels in distress, and all to the code of chivalry.

Tears were now threatening his eyes, but Ray made no move to wipe them away. Gently, he reached out, pushing a dark curl off of where it had fallen on Benny's forehead. It was a gesture that he would normally never have made. Too caring, almost maternal. Something that tough, street-smart guys like him just didn't do.

In response, one of Benny's hands, slick and dripping with blood, came up and took his, the rough, blunt fingers wrapping with surprising strength around the slim, elegant ones. "Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"They...aren't going to get here in time." The words were spoken so matter-of-factly that it took him a moment to realize that his friend had just pronounced his own death sentence.

Green eyes flashed in anger. "Like shit they aren't! Don't talk like that, Fraser! You're gonna make it...hear me?"

A shake of the head. "Ray, I think he..."

"I don't care if he put it right through your heart! Don't even think about giving up on me!" Ray was crying freely now, his voice tight and shaking almost as badly as the wounded man's, his vision blurred with the tears that spilled down his cheeks. He didn't try to hide it. It didn't matter anymore. He was past the games, past the hiding. Though he knew there was no way he would be able to bring himself to verbally articulate his feelings, he wasn't going to hide them.

How many times had he told Benny that he needed to get out of this neighborhood? How many times had he warned him that something exactly like this might happen some day?

Damn him for being so stubborn. Damn him for not having a telephone to call for help. Damn the young punks of Chicago who felt that killing a man meant nothing more than killing an insect. Damn his neighbors, who had ignored everything and tucked themselves away behind a wall of self interest. Damn himself for falling in love with a stubborn Canadian son of a bitch like Fraser, who had been inviting death since the moment they met.

He didn't know exactly when he had fallen out of friendship and into love with Fraser, but he certainly knew why. It wasn't the Mountie's poster-boy-perfect looks, though lately, Ray had begun to understand exactly what the women of the precinct saw in him. His face was an almost unnaturally precise model of the human ideal, his body strong yet elegant at the same time, with a rear view in blue jeans that could stop the heart of anything with hormones. Certainly, they were the kind of genetics of which cold showers were made. Yet that wasn't it.

It was his heart. On the surface, he was nothing more than an overgrown boyscout. Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent...the whole litany suited him perfectly. He had been gifted, though, in the course of their partnership, with the rare chance to see past that. See a police officer who was a modern Sherlock Holmes in the pursuit of criminals, yet for all his insight, so genuinely innocent as to the true blackness the human spirit was capable of. See the wicked, subtle sense of humor that occasionally glittered the blue eyes, and the dark, hollow emptiness that was there when Chicago seemed to hold nothing but loneliness. See the man behind the myth.

For a long time, Ray had fought the feelings. It was friendship, he had told himself at first. Then, when the truth of the emotion was undeniable, he had conceded to love but added the qualifier 'brotherly.' It was only when he realized that one did not typically think of one's brother when one had one's hands down one's pants in the middle of the night that he had to admit what it really was.

Love. He was in love with gorgeous, kind, achingly lonely Benton Fraser. His best friend. His partner. Another guy.

That had almost been worse. He was a cop. An Italian cop. An Italian Catholic cop. An Italian, Catholic cop who's mother already had blood pressure higher than was good for her. If she ever knew.... No. Ray had resolved then that no one but him would know. Not Ma, not Frannie, not even Father Behan. Certainly not Benny. He had no idea what the Canadian's reaction would be, but he didn't want to chance losing him entirely if that reaction was shock and disgust at Ray's perversion.

For a long time, Ray himself had been disgusted, but that had slowly faded to resignation. It wasn't as if he were acting on it in wild abandon. He consoled himself with that, with the logic that it was not a perversion unless it was real, just like he had never really committed adultery with the pretty (and married) highschool teacher he had once had a crush on, no matter how many nights he had thought of her. Besides, how could something perverted feel this pure, this real?

Not caring what the medics would think when they came, he slipped between his friend and the hard, cold wall, cradling Benny's body in his lap. Blue eyes looked pleadingly up at him. "Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"Need...to tell you...before..." The Mountie coughed harshly, a gob of bright scarlet blood staining his chin. Without a word of complaint, the sleeve of a silk Armani shirt wiped it away.

It was strange that a man who was suffering because of what the church would consider a perversion was now playing the role of priest. The irony made Ray smile as he nodded slowly, agreeing to receive what he knew was his friend's last confession. "It's ok. Go ahead."

At first, Benny closed his eyes, and Ray could almost feel him gathering what strength remained. Finally, his lips moved, and he spoke, his voice faded to a pale shadow of it's former timbre. "I've been lonely...here...lonely... at home...always..." Moisture had appeared at the corner of the closed eyes, but he wasn't sure if it was physical or emotional pain. "Always lonely."

"I know." His reply was quiet. He knew he didn't really need to say anything, but he wanted Benny to know he was listening.

"My fault."

"Shhhh, Benny. It wasn't your fault." Ray's hands moved smoothly through the other man's hair, rubbing and soothing the way his mother had when he was a small boy and sick with the flu.

"Yes...never...said. Never told...how I feel." The regret in the words tore into Ray, and he stopped, staring in a mixture of hope and fear at the dying Mountie. Could it be true? Could Benny possibly feel the same way about him? Would God be so cruel as to not let him know until now, when it was too late?

Licking suddenly-dry lips, he whispered, "Why?"

"Working...together...too close..." His words cut off a moment in sharp agony, then returned again, so faint that Ray had to lower his head to make them out at all. "Didn't want to hurt...friendship...too precious..."

A sob shook Ray's thin shoulders, and his tears rained down to cut thin rivulets in the dark blood streaked on the deathly white skin of Benny's face. He really had felt the same way all along. Yet he had lived with the loneliness, never knowing how much his partner really loved him. Never knowing that he could banish the darkness with one word. Never knowing because the man who loved him back was a coward. He couldn't manage to form words, but he communicated his grief too clearly to need them.

Pale gray lips moved again, and this time, Ray had to lower his head to within a handspan of Benny's mouth to hear the words. "Please...Ray...tell Meg...I love her...."

One heart stopped at that moment, but two souls died.

THE END

Well, there it is. My first slash story. Courtesy of Manna LaDroit's "The Fan", which got me believing it could happen without crucifying character.

I admit I couldn't bring myself to do it 'all the way', as in a full-blown relationship, and I don't know if I will ever be able to. I'm pretty certain that there is no way on God's green Earth (or purple Mars, or any other planet of any other color) I will be able to ever write a sex scene in slash...I kinda skip over those parts when I'm reading anyway. Personally, I get a little squicky, and I don't think you can write it if you don't enjoy it.

Those of you who have been reading slash longer than two weeks, please, I am posting it to this archive because I want a completely unadulterated opinion. Should I stick to pure het (which I have been told I do extremely well) , or do I show some small promise dabbling in this genre?