A/N: A look early-on at how Fraser and Ray got used to each other.

Vile Canuck

If there was one thing Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, had learned in the course of his three months' sojourn in Chicago, it was the inadvisability of curing meat by hanging it out an eighth-story window. No matter how unlikely it seemed to be stolen, someone always managed. After five separate attempts that always ended in the feeding of various homeless people— not that he begrudged them, that wasn't it at all, homeless people deserved to eat as much as the next person— he gave up and resigned himself to a largely meatless diet. Nothing quite tasted the same as home-cured meat. Every piece went a little farther towards curing his real appetite, for the wide clearings and wilder woods of his far-off home.

The other thing of note that he'd learned was that Americans were different from Canadians in ways that he'd never quite suspected. He'd thought himself a man of the world. He'd thought himself familiar with the face of mankind, with their dark corners and their inadvertent lies. But he had to admit to himself that till now, in this dank city with winds stirring up the streetside trash, he'd never quite grasped the magnitude, the full spectrum, of mankind's possibilities.

"That's great, Fraser," said Ray Vecchio briefly when he told him this. "But do we really gotta go over this now?" A bullet pinged off the brick wall next to him. "I mean," the cop gestured wildly with the hand that wasn't holding his gun, "bigger things are going down right now than your understanding of my dark side."

Fraser thumbed thoughtfully at his forehead. "What I'm trying to get at, Ray, is that—"

"Benny?"

"Yes, Ray?"

"Shut up." He squeezed off a couple of shots.

Fraser nodded a little. "Sure, Ray."

What he was trying to get at was that, for some time now, he'd been sure that Ray Vecchio was not an officer of the law. He was not an officer of the law, at least, in the traditional Canadian sense of being there to protect the innocent and scrupulously uphold the law. Oh, he did his share of innocent-protecting; it was the second part where he fell down.

"It's just— it's really sort of important, Ray."

Ray dropped his head back against the wall, wincing at the contact. He turned the wince into a look of impatience directed at his partner. Only three months, and Fraser was coming to know that look well.

"You have thirty seconds," said Ray. "Then we're gonna go get him."

"But you're out of bullets," Fraser pointed out reasonably.

"So?"

Fraser nodded. "Ah. I see. Thirty seconds. Well, what I've been wanting to say to you for a while now, Ray— and when I say 'a while,' I should perhaps be more specific. In fact it's been since shortly after I first came to Chicago, which I'm sure you'll remember was on the trail of my father's—"

"Fifteen seconds."

"Perhaps I should get straight to the—"

"Five seconds."

"But— oh." Fraser straightened and stared at him briefly in consternation. "Alright. The truth is, I've never been able to reconcile your typical courses of action with those of a real policeman, one sworn to do what was right and uphold the law." Ray's eyebrows lifted; his gun wavered and dropped.

"You— you don't think I'm a real cop?"

"Well, that's—" Fraser glanced at his wristwatch. "I'm all out of time, Ray. We should probably go and get him, as you suggested."

"I want clarification on this, Fraser. This is not some conversational bomb you drop and then just stand back to watch it go off. You think I'm not worthy of my badge, we need to talk about it."

"Ray," said Fraser gently. "He's stopped shooting. I believe, much like you, he is out of bullets."

Ray glared at him for a split second more, then lurched away from the wall, dropping into his habitual stalker's crouch, shoulders hunched, empty gun held in both hands in front of him to lead the way, as a symbol more than anything. Fraser followed him, back straight and shoulders squared; followed him into oblivion. Ray had shot out the light in the next room. Probably by accident.

"Okay. This doesn't mean you're off the hook, though. I want an answer."

"Sure, Ray."

"Three months he's here," Ray could be heard to mutter as they moved forwards into the dark. "A guest in my city, in my country. Three months."

"Well, maybe it wasn't all that important," said Fraser, back straight, arms tucked behind.

"Ha," said Ray, semi-triumphantly, and leapt out on the bulletless miscreant. The perpetrator, a bully and a coward at heart, yelped a little as his arms were forcefully wrenched behind his back. "Look, Fraser, don't try to get out of this now. You opened up this can of worms, now fish with 'em. You got something to say about my habits, you say it to my face."

"I got somethin' to say about your habits," said the disgruntled villain, face against the wall, and Ray kicked him.

"Did I ask you? Keep your trap shut."

"Now, see, here's a bit of a case in point, Ray," Fraser found it prudent to interject at this point. "The miscreant is well and duly apprehended. He has been restrained. There is no need for further violent altercations."

"Speak English, will ya, Benny?"

"You didn't have to kick him, Ray," said Fraser patiently.

"Yeah," said the well and duly apprehended miscreant, somewhat nasally. His nose was bleeding now. "You didn't hafta kick me."

"I don't have to punch you either. Doesn't mean I won't." Ray propelled the bound man out the door and into the hallway. "Me, I like to go that extra mile for my miscreants. Fraser here, he'll treat you just like the law says he should. No more, no less. 'Cause he's a real cop." He paused a minute. "'Cept he isn't, he's a Mountie. And you know the thing about Mounties? They do everything so perfect they forget what it's like to be a real person sometimes."

"I didn't mean to convey that, Ray."

"Forget it, Fraser."

"But I'm sorry if—"

"I said forget it."

The first half of the ride to the police station was very silent. The second was not.

The man in the backseat leaned forward abruptly and rested his cuffed wrists on the seat in front of him. He turned his head and looked side to side between them.

"I hate to see you guys like this," he said.

"Shut up," said Ray.

"Please," said Fraser.

"No, really," pursued the criminal. "The whole time you guys were chasing me, I could hear ya. Back and forth, like ping pong with words. Game, set, match."

"Actually, that would be tennis," Fraser corrected, shifting to look at the man. "Though in theory your analogy is sound, as both sports exhibit the same basic motions and objectives— is there something wrong, Ray?"

"Alright," said Ray, who had been grinding his teeth. "You wanna tell me what exactly it is you don't like about the way I do my job?"

Fraser was quiet for a moment. "I suppose it takes some time to get accustomed to the way things are handled here in the United States of America."

"Okay, okay, first of all," Ray said, banging both hands on his steering wheel. "It's the US. Or the States. Or even, God forbid, just Chicago. You don't need to say the whole thing."

"Oh, I know, Ray. I just thought, in the interest of clarity—"

"Second of all, get used to it already. We got rules here the same as they do in Canada. Ours are a little more elastic, maybe, but when everybody follows 'em, it all works out fine and dandy. If people are going to break the law, I'm going to do what I personally feel is necessary in order—"

"It's just different, Ray."

"Hey!" said the handcuffed man in the backseat. "Hey!" The cop and the Mountie subsided into silence, and for a moment there was only the sound of the Riviera's tires singing, the three men breathing. "This is what I'm talkin' about. You're different, so what? You guys work great together, you know what I'm sayin'?"

Another moment of silence.

"What do you mean?" questioned Fraser.

The man shrugged, rolled his eyes, bounced his bound hands off the upholstery. "Good cop, bad cop. Chicago. Canada. Police officer, Mountie. So what? You caught me together, didn't you?"

"That is true," agreed Fraser, turning back to his partner. "He has a point."

Ray remained silent.

"So who cares if you're so different?" demanded the criminal.

"Different, now, see, that is all I was getting at," said Fraser, gratefully.

"Whatever," said Ray. He shook his head. Fraser eyed the expression on his partner's face and knew that all was not well in the Vecchio cranium. He regretted ever having embarked on this conversation in the first place.

He rubbed at one eyebrow with his thumb. "I regret ever having embarked on this conversation in the first place," he said, and then added, "although, for the sake of honesty—"

"Just say it, Fraser."

Fraser dropped his head. "I apologize, Ray. It was inconsiderate of me not to, well, not to repeat myself but it was inconsiderate of me not to consider that just as there are many countries of origin, so there are many methods of upholding the law. And we did catch him, Ray."

"Apology not accepted," said Ray flatly.

"Oh, come on," wheedled the man in the backseat. "That's just cold, man. The guy apologized. What more do you want?"

"What more do I want? What more do I want?" Ray yanked the wheel to the right. Without taking advantage of blinkers, they crossed three lanes of traffic and came to a stop near the sidewalk. Ray shifted in his seat till he could see both Fraser and the bound man. "You know what I want? Just once, I want to see this guy prove he's a human being and not a robot. Do something wrong. Break the rules."

Fraser frowned thoughtfully. "I'm willing to prove my humanity to you, Ray, if that's really what you insist upon, but how do you suggest I go about doing so?"

"Punch him," said Ray without hesitation, jerking his head towards the criminal in the backseat.

"What?" said the criminal. "Hey, what, man?"

"Ray," said Fraser, with a tight little smile, shaking his head. "I'm not going to punch him."

"Robot," said Ray.

"I'm not a robot, Ray."

"Then punch him."

The criminal had decided that it was better to endure pain for the greater good; the greater good in this case being the reparation of the fractured friendship in the front seat. He nodded at Fraser. "Go ahead. Hit me."

"I," said Fraser definitely, "am not going to hit you."

"Go on," wheedled the man. "You don't have to do it hard or anything."

"Yes he does," contradicted Ray. "Yes he does have to do it hard. Hit him, Fraser."

"I don't want to, Ray."

"Come on. Prove you're human. Do something wrong. Do something vile. Do something human. Prove it, Fraser, and I'll forgive you for saying I'm a bad cop."

"I didn't say that, Ray—"

"Hit me," said the criminal, bouncing up and down in his seat. "Hit me, hit me, hit me hit me hit me hit me hit me hit mehitmehitmehitme—"

Fraser hit him.

For a few seconds, the three were an odd and quiet tableau. Fraser rubbed at his hand.

"I really regret doing that," he said, truthfully.

"Come on," said Ray, who was no longer able to conceal his grin. He nudged at Fraser's shoulder with his fist. "You're gonna tell me you don't feel better now?"

"Truthfully, Ray? No. I don't. Do you?"

"Yeah," said Ray, still grinning, facing forward again and turning the key in the ignition. "Yeah, I really really do."

"Me, too," said the criminal, stanching the blood flow from his nose with one sleeve.

"Shut up," said Ray, and pulled back into traffic, again without blinkers.

Fraser was unusually quiet for several moments, till they pulled up at the police station and Ray unbuckled his seatbelt. Then he said, "I don't suppose you'd reciprocate, Ray."

"How's that?" Ray was still grinning. The requested vileness of the Mountie beside him had put a shine on his day.

"I did something you asked me to do, though I didn't want to do it. I don't suppose you'd care to do something for me?"

The smile dimmed.

"What, Benny?"

Fraser shrugged, made a little face. "Apologize to the man."

The criminal let out a slight snort of laughter, followed by a grunt of pain as he clutched at his wounded nose with both hands.

"What?" Ray stared at him.

"Apologize for hitting him unnecessarily," Fraser clarified. "He was, as I mentioned, well and duly apprehended. He was restrained. He was not, in short, going anywhere." Fraser paused, moistening his lower lip with his tongue. "Apologize to him."

Ray fixed him with disbelieving eyes, shook his head slowly. "You're kidding me, right?"

"Apologize, Ray."

"Apologize to me," said the criminal. "Do it, Vecchio. Do it, do it, do it do it do it."

Ray held his breath for a moment, temperature climbing. Fraser cocked his head to one side, waiting for the break. He'd only known the man three months, after all. He couldn't be certain how this would end.

Ray let out his breath, and shrugged. "What's a partnership all about, anyway," he said, and turned back to the criminal. "I'm sorry for hitting you when it wasn't necessary," he told him, "though I kinda wish I'd done it harder."

Fraser beamed at him.

"Thank you, Ray."

"You're welcome, Benny."

"Apology not accepted," said the criminal.

"Shut up," said the cop.

"Please," said the Mountie.

Three days into his partnership with the faux-Ray Vecchio, Constable Benton Fraser had reached the conclusion that this was not Ray at all. Not in any way, shape, or form— at least, not in the traditional manner of being Ray Vecchio. Not in the way he was used to.

That he was a Ray of a sort was indisputable. The sort of Ray he would prove to be, however, still remained to be seen. After all, Fraser reasoned to himself, you couldn't very well get to know someone all at once, even when you worked with him every day.

"And how exactly are we going to disarm this man, anyway?" he questioned at a vital point of the proceedings.

"Kick him inna head," said the faux-Ray, immediately.

Fraser smiled, for the first time genuinely since the known had been replaced with the unknown. Then again, perhaps you could.

"Of course," he said. "Exactly what I would have guessed, Ray."

Ray shrugged. "Right," he said. No question. Of course.

And then, Fraser thought, they would apologize to him. One of them would, anyway. Good cop, bad cop. Chicago, Canada. Police officer, Mountie.

That's what partnerships were about.

Fraser straightened his shoulders. "Let's go get him, Ray."