Work Text:
“For a full year I'm deep undercover, never waiting in line, always getting the best tables at the best restaurants. I live in a nine thousand square foot Adobe house at the edge of the desert, with a butler named Nero who brings me buttermilk night and day and everywhere I go I sit in the back of a black limousine my elbow on the gangster lean and all this, all this, you wipe out with one word?"
~Ray Vecchio
***
God, why did I say that to him? I might as well have just said, “Hey, come get me…I’ve been waiting…” given a switch of my hips and that’d been that. It would have been about the same effect. No one else would have taken those works that way…but Benny? You know Benny, he doesn't think with the same logic as all the rest of us do. He starts talking about seals and Inuit peoples and ends up solving a homicide, discussing the intricacies of the failure of the public education system, and elaborates on his plan to end world hunger with only a stick of chewing gum and a llama, all in the space of a sentence.
Couldn’t I have said, “Hey Benny how ya doing? Long time…who’s the jerk with you?” No, I had to explain things too much…I’m turning into him. God help me, I’m turning Canadian! Quick! I need to shoot someone, or drink too much, or watch porn…something inherently American.
I really did miss him though. Like it or not, he’s become a part of my life. Maybe an exasperating, selfless, sickeningly polite and totally bizarre part of my life…but a part of it nonetheless. Okay, so that's a lousy way of putting it. Nobody's ever accused me of being eloquent. But it's true...I'm changed, and all because of him. Even when we've been apart for so long; It's how I realized, the changes that is. They were so subtle that I didn't even notice them until he wasn't there to cause my behavior anymore. Changes...that I never, in my wildest dreams, thought would happen.
***
The rough fabric of my suits feel out of place but at the same time strangely homey. I’m finally back in my old life, my new life, MY life again. I feel like I always have. Out of place.
So why can’t I just fall into the way things were? Why can’t I just follow Benny around, like always, risk my neck for him, like always, and be happy with the friendship we have, like always? He’ll spout off some obscure reference to his bizarre childhood and I’ll bicker back, maybe ask him if he's unhinged just for good measure. Why can’t I be happy with that? I’ll tell you why, because I’ve realized how much I need him. It’s not easy to realize you’ve become dependant on someone, and I can’t imagine him to be invincible like I did before. That idea was pushed from my head the moment I opened the door of that hotel room.
His eyes were the crystal blue I’d missed for so many months without even noticing it, his mouth twitched at the corners as if he was trying not to cry, or to shout out his excitement at finding me. And for Benny, loud and readily apparent bursts of emotion are not high on his to do list. It had to have been huge to make him slip like that. I knew he’d been looking for me, just like he was looking around now. Always so aware, so prepared, one step ahead of everyone else…absolutely the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen.
He is…what am I saying? He IS absolutely and totally NOT available to me. That’s it, the point is moot. Moot? MOOT? Now I know I’m mutating into a Canadian. Who uses words like moot in a common everyday ordinary sentence, other than Benny?
I’ve been back for months. I’ve gotten myself back into myself again after being so deep undercover. I’ve had months to think about myself and think about who I am now. When you have an extended assignment like I did, it's sometimes hard to remember what's really you and what's the persona you are playing. But I know who I am, I know where I stand. The real question is what have I learned? I really can’t say much more than I have already. I know I missed Fraser more than anything while I was away. Even my family was a distant second to his calming presence. And that’s just…wrong somehow. My family had always come first, but now…
I often found myself lying awake at night wondering if my friend was awake too. Was he thinking of me? Maybe, maybe not; and I doubted even more if he was having the same kind of thoughts or longing for my sarcastic presence.
It would have been nice to know someone was waiting for me when I got back. I never knew for sure and under the strains of undercover work I clung to the ideas my mind dolled out. A few times, I thought, just maybe when I got back I’d change my life around. I’d reassess what I wanted out of life and start living it for me instead of what I thought everyone wanted from me. But here I am, months have passed and been wasted trying to “get back into the swing of things”.
To say I was too busy to think about it is a cop-out. I've had time and I've thought...I've just been too chicken to do anything about it. How pathetic is that? I can pretend to be a mobster, I can commit atrocities in the name of my job, I can face death everyday, but I still can't tell my best friend...I love him.
That’s it…I’m tired of standing out here in the cold. I’m taking the changes and going with them. Today I think…we’ll see how it goes.
***
I thought I would lose all control the moment he opened the door. I was so utterly relieved to see him; to have visual confirmation that he was indeed alright, that I didn't even realize until a moment too late that his name had escaped my lips.
"Ray". I'd uttered it so many times over the last 2 yrs, but never with such emotion and pure desperation. I was desperate to believe that I was no longer alone. That I was no longer forced to live in a state of limbo, pretending that this other Ray was even close to a proper fit for the hole left in my life.
I've stopped talking to Diefenbaker about it. Or rather he's declared an embargo on any conversation that revolves around Ray Vecchio and my feelings for him. Even hypothetical conversations...really, he can be such a...well never matter. I suppose I have to admit he's right in this instance, though I will never tell him that, he has a big enough ego already. Ever since that little incident where I didn’t believe him when he told me there were trout apparently being raised in a large vat of water on the rooftop of an apartment building...well he's just been incorrigible ever since.
I do care for Ray, much more than I reasonably feel I should. And even though I am uncertain to his reaction if he ever comes to know this information, it does no good to sit and deliberate without trying to change the situation.
I’ve never been one to deny I feel these things. I just keep them private. But having Ray back makes me feel like any minute the joy will all burst out of me at the most inopportune moment.
I feel Ray has sensed a change in me. He's been tense as of late, and I can only wonder if I'm giving away in some manner, my desperation for an answer to my questions. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if I’m not cursed when it comes to loving others; and as much as I don’t really believe in such things. The evidence seems clear. Everything I touch, I seem to break. But I'm determined to not let that happen this time. I'm determined to make this work either way. Whether I can make this work between us, or if I have to be content with what is there already, I will make it work.
What he said to me when I found him has to mean something more. Even if the words have no particular meaning, the gentle exasperation in his voice does. I'm sure of it now.
Enough of this indecision. I’m taking the changes and going with them. Today I think…we’ll see how it goes.