due South snippet: "Conflicts"

[luzula]

Title: Conflicts
Characters: Benton Fraser, Bob Fraser (background Bob/Buck)
Rating: G
Length: 300 words
Prompt: "you keep lying when you ought to be truthing"
Summary: A discussion of ethics.
Notes: Inspired by a late-night chat with podfic_lover.

"That story you told me once," Fraser began, curling his hands around his hot cup of tea.

"Which one, son?" his father said, sitting by the fire in his wardrobe office.

Which one, indeed? "The one about Ellesmere Island. When you had orders to forcibly re-locate a tribe."

"Yes?"

"You disobeyed orders."

His father waggled his hand back and forth, as if there was any question.

Fraser raised his eyebrows. "You did."

"All right, I did." His father spread his hands. "So?"

Fraser gathered his thoughts--his argument seemed so self-evident he hadn't expected to have to defend it. "If you can't trust in the institution, in your superior officers, how can you serve at all? If you don't obey orders..."

"Should I have obeyed, then? You don't mean that." His father was watching him keenly.

Fraser shook his head sharply. "No, of course not. I was just thinking of what it would take to...well, for me to leave the force."

"You disobeyed orders yourself, over those masks."

"Not explicitly."

"Oh, come now. You disobeyed, and you did the right thing. The force isn't perfect, and sometimes it's downright corrupt. You need to be a little...flexible, when it comes to taking orders. You'll learn that as you get older, son."

"You weren't that old back then."

His father shrugged. "I suppose we learned early. Especially those of us who...well, got a little too close to our partners, shall we say."

Fraser flushed. He knew about his father and Buck, but it wasn't something they discussed often. "To live a lie, or to renounce your profession."

"Not an easy choice, is it?"

"No." Fraser cleared his throat. "I'm very grateful I don't have to make it today. Not in that regard, anyway."

His father nodded. "Some things do change for the better."

Comments

[hazelwho]

Oh, Bob! I love your Bob and I'm happy to see him again. I love that Fraser's torn, and I'm glad that Bob set him straight. =)

[luzula]

Thanks! Yeah, I love Bob, too.

[sage]

Awww, BOB! ♥ I love the tone of this. I also love the idea of Fraser questioning how much faith he should place in authority, even by that point. I mean, Gerard disillusioned him pretty hard, as does Welsh, and eventually he gets a little more canny about inflicting justice on people, but it does seem like something he constantly puzzles over.

[luzula]

Thank you! Yeah, I think he constantly puzzles over it, too. I think he saw Gerard as just one bad apple, not necessarily something that led him to question the RCMP itself. And he took his reassignment to Chicago without complaint (at least no official complaint), even if it was unfair. But something like that Ellesmere Island business--I think Fraser might've openly disobeyed orders and taken the consequences, or resigned, rather than just quietly lie about it like Bob did.

[mergatrude]

Oh, excellent! ♥

[luzula]

Thank you! ♥

[exbex]

Beautiful; simple but very effective.

[luzula]

Thank you! It started as a meta discussion, but I turned it into fic instead. : )

[brigantine]

I've always liked that Bob gives Fraser this example to turn to, when he's torn between what's Law vs what's Right. \bob/

[luzula]

Yeah, it's one of my favorite Bob stories--I love him so much for it!

[spuffyduds]

Oh, lovely! (And yes, I <3 Bob for Ellesmere.)

[luzula]

Thanks! Although I just realized when rereading that Bob tells Fraser the Ellesmere story in Asylum, not in Mask. *facepalm* Ah well.