Paths I Fear to Tread

Fanfiction
Title:	Paths I Fear to Tread
Author(s):	Cara Chapel
Date(s):
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Due South
Relationship(s):	Fraser/Vecchio
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Paths I Fear to Tread is a Due South Fraser/Vecchio story by Cara Chapel.

Parts

• Follow Without Pride - Mysterious gifts of money lead to old friends... and old enemies. Fraser/Vecchio. AU. Episode-related.

• Breathe Your Breath - A game of cat and mouse in the wild outdoors leads to mayhem and tenderness, but not to a cashier's check. Fraser/Vecchio. AU. Episode-related. PG-13.

• Day of Knowing - Ray Vecchio tries to overcome his doubts and Fraser tries to reclaim his life. Fraser/Vecchio. AU. Episode-related. NC-17.

Reactions and Reviews

This is actually a series in progress, so far in three parts. It's clearly unfinished -- the third part ends on something of a cliffhanger. And given that the last part was posted in 2001, my guess is that it's never going to be completed. I'm hesitant to rec it because of that, but on the other hand, this is fantastic.

The premise is AU -- Ray never shot Fraser at the train station, and Fraser left with Victoria. I was hesitant when I saw that, but I trust Cara's writing, and I wasn't wrong to. She handles this beautifully, breaking Fraser in ways I wouldn't have believed in a weaker writer's hands, and not going the easy route of Love Fixes Everything -- Fraser's been damaged to the core, and it's a struggle to heal. Ray's facing a struggle of his own -- not just to help Fraser heal, but to deal with his own growing attraction to him, when he thinks of himself as entirely straight. All of this plays out against the gripping, well-told storylines about Fraser's life with Victoria and Ray's attempts to rescue him, then complications back home.

I desperately want to read the next, non-existent part, to find out what happens, but I don't regret having read the first three, even having been left hanging.

An epic Fraser/Vecchio (I figure we need one to balance all the epic Fraser/Kowalski's) that gives great Vecchio in particular. It is an AU or AR where Vecchio doesn't take the shot that prevents Fraser from running off with Victoria and what Vecchio will do to make things right afterwards and how his definition of 'what is right' changes although it remains wrapped up in Benny. Often Vecchio ends up being portrayed as a carbon-copy, homophobic, Italian goomba and people don't acknowledge that he has been consciously resisting that all his life most overtly by his choice to become a cop. Vecchio is a huge risk-taker in fighting his upbringing as seen by his accepting the Las Vegas undercover assignment so it always strikes me as very out-of-character to have him wallow in un-examined prejudice. Here Ray examines and fights and resists and Benny benefits.