American Way
| Fraser/Kowalski Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | American Way |
| Author(s): | Resonant |
| Date(s): | August 4, 2001 |
| Length: | 17,989 words; 100K (file size) |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | due South |
| External Links: | at Resonant's website; at AO3 |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
American Way is a Fraser/RayK story by Resonant.
It was podficced by Luzula in 2008
Reactions and Reviews
When Fraser begins spotting people wearing jewelry from a highly valued missing collection, they're unable to get answers because of Fraser's innate Candian-ness. Rather than give Ray a crash course in the jewely pieces, Ray decides it's easier to just teach Fraser to act more American. The results are...pretty hot. Fraser takes his American lessons to heart and goes after what he wants, too! This fic does have humor - it's hard to think of Due South without thinking about humor. It's just a delightful, quick read. [1]
The top quality writing that I've come to expect from Resonant. Ray and Fraser are stumbling across an anti-Canadian feeling amongst their suspects, and this can only mean one thing - Fraser has to stop being Canadian and start being American. Some funny, wry acknowledgements of Americanism and some incredibly hot sex means that this is well worth a read. [2]
Great plot, and Fraser as an American is to die for. [3]
Another long, plotty story by Res, which manages to capture the humor and quirkiness of the actual show, while again giving us amazing characterization. (And Really, really hot sex.) [4]
You know once upon a time I used to think that slashing the Mountie was dirty in some creepy way. Now all I have to say to that thought is, "What the fuck was I thinking?" DS slash has become one of my favorites. It just isn't an update without a DS story in there somewhere. Once I've found a DS story to rec I know an update is coming soon. Oh dear lord. This is another of those stories that nearly fried my brain. It is just so fucking hot. It's not even just the sex that is truly hot, though it is amazing. It's Ben in this story. Oh my, Ben. In this one Ray and Ben are after some stolen jewelry that was created by a Canadian crafter long ago. It's return would be quite the coup for Canada. Those possessing the jewelry have been warned of awful Canadians who've been hounding the thief. That they should be wary of anyone Canadian. Even in plain clothes people could tell Fraser was Canadian a mile away in the story. So they decide to build a cover for Fraser. Have him playing at being an American. Well, Ben has to find someone to imitate, model his behavior after. So he picks...RayK. Dear lord, just remembering Ben playing at being RayK is enough to melt me right here in my seat. Ray was walking around perpetually turned on by this image in the story. I would have been too. This one is totally hot and wonderful. With just a touch of humor that makes it just divine. I love this one. Knew I was going to rec it as I was reading it. Some stories are like that. You just know you are going to love them before you are even through and have to tel people about them. This is one of those. A definite must read. You can not miss the Americanized Ben in this one. Too Hot. Totally. [5]
I want to slip in one more Resonant rec. Resonant, like Speranza, is one of those authors who has written so many truly amazing, incredible, knock-your-socks off stories, so many of which are so high on my own personal list of favorites, that it is simply agony to try to settle on just a few to rec. I've decided to go with American Way in order to illustrate her breadth.The Resonant fics that have already been rec'ed - Sixteenth of June (by me, earlier in the month) and Adorned (by my predecessor in December) - are both vignette fics, and they share a certain cadence and tone, a lyrical tenderness that is absolutely beautiful and deeply moving. American Way, by contrast, is a "plot" fic, and it's painted with a much broader, more irreverent brush. It's an incredibly clever take on the American-vs.-Canadian theme that ran through the show - and in particular, the scene at the end of Some Like It Red, when Fraser tells Ray Vecchio that one of the girls at the school where he was undercover as a female teacher suspected that he might have been .... Canadian. The way in which that line was delivered was quite suggestive - it's hard to avoid the implication that "Canadian" was a euphemism for ... something - male? gay? - and a number of talented authors have capitalized on various of the double meanings in their stories (Speranza's Anatomically Correct, for example).
In American Way, Resonant takes the statement perfectly literally, at least on the surface, and then runs with it in the most delightfully lunatic and mind-bendingly hilarious way. The premise: Ray and Fraser find themselves on a case involving jewelry stolen from a famous Canadian collection. The problem, though, is that every single person who might know anything at all about the case either clams up immediately or runs screaming as soon as they suspect that Fraser might be ... yes, Canadian.
This tends to happen just about as soon as Fraser opens his mouth, despite Ray's best efforts to deflect the potential witnesses' suspicions by attributing Fraser's Canadianisms to ever-wilder causes - he went to boarding school, or his parents were preachers, or he did a lot of acid in the sixties. When these efforts fail, Fraser desperately tries to convince the witnesses to reconsider their reluctance, exhorting them in that classically earnest and pedantic Fraser fashion about Canada's virtues - "Canada is a well-established democracy, and one of the United States' nearest neighbors, and it behooves the two countries to --" - but to no avail. They simply refuse to talk to a Canadian. This distresses Fraser to no end - and provides good fodder for some Canadian jokes:
"It's most provoking," Fraser said as they entered the Ice Queen's office. "I can't think why anyone would have such a violent reaction against Canada."
"I'm gonna be nice here and not mention Celine Dion," Ray said.
What to do? Well, the solution is obvious - send Fraser undercover as an American. And who else to coach him in that gentle art than Ray? It's a crazy, just-barely-plausible, wildly quirky kind of set-up that's totally true to the spirit of the show - it could have worked perfectly as an episode.
And the Americanization of Fraser is one of the funniest and sexiest things you'll ever read. To make it work, Ray first has to unstiffen Fraser's spine. Slouch, he tells Fraser, lean back in the chair, and oh yeah, spread those legs: [dialogue snipped]
The story is rip-roaringly, side-splittingly funny, and always smart and clever with it. But that's not all it is, of course - Resonant's a true romantic, and American Way is no exception. This is at heart a story about the discovery - emergence, if you will - of the "real" Fraser. To Ray, "Ben" seems at first to be an entirely different person from his familiar Fraser, and he's not quite sure which of them he's sleeping with. He loves the sexy American Ben, but finds himself missing stiff Mountie Fraser. And he worries what will happen when that Fraser returns - is their affair, like the slouching and the messy hair, going to just disappear when the undercover gig is over and the red coat goes back on?
What Ray - and we - learn in the end, of course, and in the most moving and beautiful way, is that "Ben" isn't just an act, that the starched-shorts-and-caribou-stories "Fraser" is no more the "real" Fraser, no more the entire person, than the naked, eating-spaghetti-naked-in-bed "Ben" is. Ben is Fraser, and Fraser is Ben, and he's offering all of himself to Ray. It's a short scene, but it's truly gorgeous, romantic and tender.
So American Way manages to be wildly fun, sharply witty, and also touching and insightful. And let's not forget sexy (not that I ever would!) - American!Ben is, as Ray says, sex-on-a-stick, and this combined with the fact that Resonant is simply peerless when it comes to smut, makes the story just mind-blowingly hot. The dialogue is amazing - in addition to perfect comedic timing, the voices are spot on - and the story captures that unique due South wackiness as well as any I've read. It just works on every single level - a true classic, from an author who deserves every one of the many accolades she's ever been given. [6]
Historic, stolen jewelry pieces are suddenly cropping up in Chicago, and Ray and Fraser are on the case. Only the owners of the jewelry have been told to avoid speaking with Canadians. In order to catch the culprit and bring them to justice, Fraser gets a crash course in being American, taught by Ray. Fraser acting like an American is hot, and the fic combines the humor and wackiness of the show with the developing relationship between Ray and Fraser. An enjoyable read that should make the reader alternately smile and fan themselves. [7]
Chock full of Canadian and American stereotypes as well as hot, hot sex. And all of that wrapped up in a case fic that seems to be pulled straight from the show itself. Absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.[8]
References
- ^ Epic Recs, Feb. 16th, 2015
- ^ Mog Recs - Due South: Fic Recs, Archived version
- ^ mysticalchild_isis, Archived version, November 2009
- ^ The Shipper's Manifesto - Ray Kowalski/Benton Fraser (Due South) (2004), Archived version
- ^ Slash Slut's due South Recs Page, Archived version
- ^ 2004 rec at Crack Van
- ^ "Slash World". Archived from the original on 2014-01-31.
- ^ "March 13, 2015 Blog post". Archived from the original on 2023-01-04.