Alejandra's Webpage / Fanfics / Due South / Tears: Ben's Take

TEARS: Ben's Take. By Zhirea. Circa January 15, 2001.

Pairings: BF/RV

Category: Drama. Raiting: PG-13. Subtle hints to m/m relationships.

Spoilers: Victoria's Secret.

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TEARS: Ben's Take

by

Zhirea

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The sounds, tastes and smells are not unknown to me, but I still feel terrified. I know this feeling all too well. I've felt if before, but not this intensely. It rushes through my body with such a power that I feel unable to fight back. The pain, both physical and emotional, is raw and bleeding as I am.

And through the choir of hammers pounding in my brain, as blood pools and runs past my ears, I can only hear her voice, soft and almost silent, whispering words of love, death and snow, that I repeat without wanting to. I feel dirty, loathing the memories that stole my last grip of sanity and drove me utterly blind, deaf and stupid upon seeing her again after ten years of feeling guilty. I've known all along that loving her wasn't right, but I'm so tired of always doing the right thing. For once, I wanted to follow my instincts, and look where those brought me. To a point of no return.

You knew it, and tried to make me see it.

I just wanted to feel loved again.

I recognize now I behaved like a kid. I, Benton Fraser, succumbed at the memory from the past, and I tried to make things right, but they were wrong. They were always wrong. From the beginning.

And now, all the way to this end.

But not quite. Even if I want to die, even if I want to let go and join my parents, you won't let me go. You're by my side, gripping my hand with so much force I can't feel my fingertips, and looking at the verge of ripping appart anything that comes near me to make things worse. You're my protector, the presence that keeps things in perspective, even if they seem so odd. And yet, you seem different. I know I am different, because you're here with me.

Life without you is pointless. I know that now. I didn't know it a week ago, and I was so ready to leave everything behind for her, to go away with her... and in the process of trying to find between her arms what I had lost, I didn't see what I already had.

Ray, I have a confession to make. There's no better time, right? After all, you can't hear me, and Death's strangling me, so I can't speak up. But this is something I know by heart, and I have to say it, even if it is without words, before it's too late. It's not late for me to die, but it's late to ammend the damage I did to you. Still, I feel I have to say this.

You know how it is when you dream about something that you know is unreacheable, but you still want it, until it becomes a part of you? Do you know that kind of obsession? Of course not. You've always been a balanced guy, without any of the wackiness that seemes to be my trademark. You have it all: a loving family, a good, honest job, profound sense of faith, and undying sense of friendship. Although we didn't click at first, I knew you were a man on whom I could place my entire trust, even if sometimes I concealed things from you. I did that to protect you from myself. It's just fair I tell you that now.

Ray, I'm not perfect. I'm a very flawed man, with fears and feelings and desires and sadnesses like most men. I was brough up so I wouldn't share my feelings with anyone. My grandparents loved me like I was their son, but my upbringing was one lived on solitude, surrounded by books, on which I found friends I couldn't make on the outside world. I wasn't equipped for it. Sure, I had some friends, like must boys do, but they just were people I would hang out with, without feeling any sense of real closeness. I've only felt that with you. I don't have to speak for you to know what I'm thinking. You read me as I read books: thoroughly, from A to Z, without missing a beat. You never missed one of my beats. Sometimes I hated you for that, because I could fool everyone but you, and it made me mad to be so vulnerable. I don't want to be vulnerable.

Even now, when I'm shattered to pieces, a spoil of what I had been, I try to tell myself I'm still strong. You're right: I'm the most annoying man in the world. I even annoy myself.

And I just wonder why you put up with me. I know I can be snobbish, act superior and drive you insane, and you just brush all that idiocy aside and stay by me, without faltering a step. You always walk by my side, or even ahead of me, but then you always wait for me to pick up my pace. You're never behind. I prided myself of being a good tracker, but you are better than me. You go places within me I didn't know they existed. You don't stop at the Mountie, Canadian, weird, talky guy everyone sees. You go right past it, and see me, for me. You see the real man behind the masks. As clear as I see the one behind your masks. I can see through you just as well as you can see through me. I'm all the better for it. What about you?

Don't you feel scared of what you're seeing? Why haven't you run, like everybody else, upon seeing the real me? I'm like poison, Ray: everything I touch, dies. Want me to rest my case? I dared to touch my soul, my inner feelings, tried to reach the human in me, and now I'm dying. There's no better proof of what I'm saying.

I wanted you to run away. I wanted you to hate me for being half the person you wanted me to be. You don't deserve halves. You deserve something better than me. You deserve someone to love you as much as you can love her. Yes, her. The kind of love I could've offered you is frowned upon in many ways. And I really love you, Ray. I love you with heart, body and soul. But I couldn't ask you to leave you family, to forget your believes and to be with a man that is on himself a battered, broken reflect of what should've been. We're just too different. Like fire and snow. You heat up everything you come in touch with. I just frost it.

Anyway, it doesn't matter anymore. I guess you can say, after I'm gone, that I was a your friend. That much is true.

What you can't say, Ray, is that you were the only person I really loved. I never told you, but I figure you know. Although I tried to hide it even from myself, my eyes betrayed me. Everytime you were near me I breathed a little easier, smiled a little broader, and acted a little sillier. If I allow myself to say so.

Death makes us do strange things, don't you agree? We start confessing our sins to ourselves, maybe because we're afraid to leave things unfinished. Everything in my life has been left unfinished. Even us.

Now, I'll leave, my Ray. I'm sure I must be dying, because I'm having an extraordinary dream...

I feel you kissing me. I feel your lips on mine, briefly. And right this second, I know I'm happy. I know you're asking for forgiveness, even indulging this sick fantasy of mine, because you know how I feel, and you also know I'm dying, so this way you're giving me one last gift.

I don't have to forgive you anything, Ray. You did what you had to do. It's better for all of us. For both of us, is better than I'm gone.

I try your name one last time, and it tastes good. It sounds and feels like you, and I see you crying. One of your tears falls on my lips, and I taste it hungrily, as an aftertaste of Life. Of your heat of Life. A taste of your inner sunshine, like your namesake.

Thank you, Ray, for giving me back my peace...

I hear faint shouts and feel myself being lifted off the floor and into a softer surface. Then, the overhead lighs run from my head to my toes like a continuous scan, looking past my body and then again. Life and Death are scanning me, trying to decide which one gets the prize.

And after all that's been said and done, I couldn't care less.

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Coming Soon: After The Rain