hsavinien

Title: One Shot, Short Range

Author: H. Savinien

Disclaimer: Due South and the characters and situations therein belong to the Pauls and Callum.

Rating: PG, mentions of violence.

Author’s note: Another Due South short, as I needed one from Ben’s point of view detailing the greatness of RayK.

***

It made Ben’s heart stop for a moment, when his part- R- when the new Ray stepped in front of the performance arsonist’s bullet and fell back in his arms with the blow. It made his heart stop and his conscience – as Ben labeled the inner voice that quoted his father, his grandmother, scripture, or Henry David Thoreau as guilt warranted – scream in pained denial. Then Ray opened his eyes and grinned and Ben breathed again. The shock of it trailed him, though, and made him that much more determined that it wouldn’t happen again. (It was, after all, in his nature to entrust his heart so quickly to the power of a stranger, though last time the outcome had nearly broken him.)

Ray did not remain a stranger long. Ben, once he got over the shock of Ray Vecchio’s disappearance (and really, it was duty that had taken him away, not something unimportant, though the unruly part of his mind occasionally suggested that duty was not a good enough reason for leaving friends and family, then coughed and shied away from the image of his father’s large, retreating back), found him to be a congenial, if odd, companion. His interests and habits were quite different from Ray Vecchio’s, barring the frustration he showed at times when dealing with, to quote the man in question, “Weird Mountie things.”

Ben realized eventually that he enjoyed studying Ray more than everyday observation warranted. Ray moved like, well, like a dancer and a boxer, of course, bouncing to some inner beat as he walked, always in readiness. His mouth was oddly mobile and Ben found himself watching it more and more often, heart twisting with the emotions so openly displayed there. Ray’s thick glasses ought to have made him look silly, functional though they were, but the extra step of grace they conferred was nearly stunning: his marksmanship with a handgun certainly surpassed Ben’s capabilities. His ‘experimental’ hair made him look constantly tousled. Ben felt somewhere between grateful and strangely disappointed whenever Ray was in too much of a morning rush to bother with it, as the fluffy-looking spikes made him that much more aware of the physicality they shared.

Ben was beginning to suspect that their relationship had gone beyond the line of ‘buddies’. He couldn’t quite bring himself to mind. He’d lost control of his heart with one shot at short range.