Perfect Love Casts Out Fear	  Perfect Love Casts Out Fear by Iris Gray

 Author's webpage: http://victoria.tc.ca/~wy236/fic.html

  

 Disclaimer: Characters not mine, I make no money from this, all I have is
my cats. 

 Feedback to: wy236@victoria.tc.ca 

 Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
 by Iris Gray 

 

 Benton Fraser walked in to his lover's apartment. Ray Kowalski was bent
over a box on the coffee table. "Hey Frase," said Ray as his partner
entered. "How was yer day?" 

 "Same as usual, Ray," Ben replied, giving Ray a brief kiss. "What do you
have there?" 

 "It's a game. It's supposed to be for couples, help them get to know each
other better. I thought we could try it after dinner." 

 Fraser was intrigued. "How does it work?" he asked. 

 Ray briefly explained the rules: the players shook dice and moved around
the board as they would in any board game, but each square was coloured to
indicate a category. The player had to answer a question from that
category. Sometimes he had to answer a question about himself, sometimes
about his partner. 

 After dinner was over and the dishes had been cleared away (at Fraser's
insistence), the two men started playing the game. Some of the questions
were simple: What is you favourite colour? What is your partner's
favourite food? Some were a little risque: What is your favourite sexual
fantasy? Fraser blushed the colour of his red uniform as he hesitantly
told Ray the answer to that question, which involved Ray and some
chocolate syrup and whipped cream. "Am I yer lover or yer dessert,
Fraser?" Ray asked after hearing the fantasy. 

 "Can't you be both, Ray?" Fraser responded innocently. 

 It was Ray's turn next, and he answered a question about his favourite
childhood memory, involving a trip to the zoo with his father. Then it was
Ben's turn again. The question was, "What is your greatest fear?" Fraser
turned pale as Ray read the question to him. Then he got up. "I think I
have to walk Diefenbaker," he said. 

 "No you don't, ya told me you already walked him before you came here,"
said his partner. "Now sit down and answer the question." 

 "Maybe we should wash the dishes before the food dries on them," Fraser
suggested. 

 "The dishes can wait, Frase. I'll do them in the morning. C'mon, let's
keep playing the game." 

 "Really, the longer you leave the dishes, the harder they will be to
clean. I can do them now, it's no trouble," said Ben. 

 "Fraser, what's wrong?" asked Kowalski. 

 "Nothing is wrong, Ray. I was just suggesting that we do the dishes now
rather than waiting until later." 

 "No, Fraser, that was not just a suggestion. Yer tryin' to get out of
answering this question. Why?" 

 "I would simply prefer not to answer it, Ray," stated the Mountie. 

 Ray got up and went over to where his partner was standing. He put his
hands on Fraser's shoulders. "Why, Ben? What are you afraid of?" he asked.


 "Ray...." Ben's voice trailed off. "I would rather not say." 

 "I wanna know, Fraser. I'm your partner. I'm your lover. We shouldn't
have secrets from each other. It ain't a good way to have a relationship."
He paused, then went on. "What if I tell ya what I'm afraid of? Would that
make ya feel any better?" 

 "I...I don't know, Ray. I didn't think there was anything you were afraid
of," said Fraser. 

 "Of course there's things I'm afraid of. Everyone's afraid of something.
Unless they're totally psycho. Stella was afraid of spiders. But that's
not what we're talkin' about, is it?" 

 Fraser shook his head. Ray went on. "Ben, my biggest fear is of messing
up." 

 Benton looked confused. "Messing up? What do you mean?" 

 Kowalski sighed. "My life has changed so much since I met you, Frase.
Before, I was completely screwed up. I'd lost Stella, I'd lost the friends
I had with Stella, and I took the job pretendin' to be Vecchio to escape
from my own life. And now - now I have you. And my career is going really
well. I even have new friends, like Huey and Dewey. I'm just scared of
messing that up." 

 Ben put his arms around his lover. "I don't think you have anything to
worry about, Ray. From what I know of you, it's not very likely you will
'mess up', as you put it. You're a fine man, a fine police officer, and I
love you." 

 Ray kissed Fraser. "Thanks, Frase. I love ya too. Now it's your turn.
What are you afraid of?" 

 The Canadian turned away from his partner. He walked over to the window
and stared out at the night sky. Diefenbaker went to his side and 'wuffed'
inquiringly. Ray approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't
turn away from me, please, Ben," he said. 

 The Mountie turned back to face the man he loved. He just stood and
looked at Ray for a long time. Finally, he said, "Ray, what I fear most,
more than anything, is losing you." 

 Ray was surprised. "Benton-buddy," he said, "you're not gonna lose me.
I'm not going anywhere. I love you. I'm not gonna leave ya." 

 Fraser sighed and shook his head. "Fear is not always a logical thing,
Ray. Remember, you are a police officer. You put your life in danger
almost every day. The day we first met, you were shot right in front of
me. If you hadn't been wearing a vest...." 

 Ray thought for a moment. "Frase," he said, "you ever read the Bible?" 

 Ben was confused. What did the Bible have to do with their conversation?
"Certainly, when I was a child. My grandmother taught Sunday School for
many years. Why?" 

 Ray went over to a bookshelf and removed a leather-bound Bible from it.
It looked fairly new. He opened it and turned to a specific page. "It says
in here, 'Perfect love casts out fear.' (1 John 4:18). The more we love,
the less we fear. If I love you, and you love me, and God loves us both,
we have nothing to be afraid of." 

 "When did you start reading the Bible, Ray?" asked Benton. 

 Kowalski smiled a little self-consciously. "Jack Huey told me about this
church. It's called MCC, Metropolitan Community Church. I've been going to
services and Bible study classes there. It's a church made up almost
entirely of gay people. People like you and me, Frase. " He held up a
hand. "I know, you don't think of yerself as gay. I don't either, really,
'cause after all, I loved Stella, and I know you loved....her." 

 "Victoria," said Fraser. 

 "Yeah. Anyway, you an' me are together now, so whether we're gay or bi or
whatever, we're a couple, and we're a same-sex couple. And the people at
that church understand. And it's okay to be who we are there. I've never
felt anything like it before." 

 "What prompted you to start going to church, Ray?" Ben had never thought
of his partner as being particularly religious. 

 "I guess fear did, Frase," was Kowalski's response. "It seemed like,
every time I was in trouble, like with the Volpe shooting, I wanted to do
something, I wanted to *pray* and I didn't know how. I didn't know who to
talk to. And every time that you pulled some crazy stunt that put you in
danger, I wanted to pray then, too. And when I fell in love with you, it
just seemed crazy that if I wanted to I could walk into a church and marry
any woman I pleased, even if I didn't love her, but I couldn't marry you,
no matter how much I love you. 

 "So when I found out that Jack and Tom were together, I mentioned that to
Jack, and he told me about MCC. I think he an' Tom are planning to have a
- what do they call it - Holy Union there. That's when two women or two
men get married." 

 "Are you saying you want to marry me, Ray ?" asked Fraser. 

 Ray grinned. "Yeah, Ben, I guess I am. Benton Fraser, will you marry me?"


 Fraser's grin was as wide as his lover's. "Yes, Stanley Raymond Kowalski,
I will marry you." 

 The two men kissed, long and hard. When they finally moved apart, Ray
said. "We need to make an appointment with Reverend Tracy at the church
for 'pre-marital counselling.' That okay with you?" 

 "If it is required for us to be married, then it is fine with me, Ray,"
replied Benton. 

 "The Rev will ask some tough questions, ya know, Frase. Questions like
the ones in the game. You gonna be able to handle that?" Fraser was silent
for a moment, then spoke. "I'm not saying it will be easy, Ray. But I will
do my best. I love you, and I want to be married to you. Like you said,
for our relationship to work, we should not have secrets from each other."


 Ray and Ben kissed some more, then Ben said, "Do you want to finish the
game now, Ray?" 

 "I have another game in mind for us, Fraser," was his partner's response.


 "What kind of game?" asked the Mountie. 

 "One that involves chocolate syrup and whipped cream." 

 "Now *that*," said Fraser, "is my kind of game." 

 END