Rated G
Alliance owns these characters; I do not. No copyright infringement intended and no profit will be made from this story.
Silvina, am I forgiven now?
UNFORGETTABLE
Ray sighed as he drove the Riviera through the afternoon traffic. Today had sucked. It had started when his alarm had gone off two hours earlier than usual. As if that wasn't bad enough, the reason he had gotten up so early was so that he could drive Benny to the airport so Benny could go away for five days.
Five days! Five boring, ugly, dreary, Bennyless days. Damn Canada anyway, sending Benny to some stupid seminar in Vancouver. As if Benny needed to learn any more about how to be a Mountie. If anything, Benny could teach the damn seminar.
A small smile flickered over Ray's face. Benny probably would be teaching the seminar by the end of the week.
Ray leaned on the horn as the car in front of him lingered too long after the light had turned green. The driver flipped him off, and Ray smiled savagely. Good. Someone else was in as bad a mood as he was.
But at least there had been a couple of high points to his day. The first- and best- had been the rousing lovemaking session he and Benny had shared that morning.
And he had talked to Benny on the phone this afternoon; although that had been a mixed blessing. He was relieved and happy to know that Benny had arrived safe and sound, but talking to him on the phone only reinforced the fact that his lover was so far away. And now Ray had to go home and face Diefenbaker.
Dief had not taken Benny's leaving any better than Ray had. Ray had gone by the house- the home that he and Benny had purchased together only three months ago- on his lunch hour to feed Dief and take him for a walk.
When Diefenbaker had seen that Ben was not with him, he had reacted in a manner that could only be described as moping. Ray could swear that Dief blamed him for Benny's absence.
Ray parked the Riv in the garage and entered the house through the kitchen. Dief ran up to him, tail wagging. Ray scratched the wolf on the head. "Hey, Dief." The wolf licked Ray's hand, then looked beyond him.
When he saw that nobody else was there, Diefenbaker walked back over to his corner and slumped down, his head resting on his front paws.
"Yeah? How do you think I feel?"
Dief just snorted and whined and continued to stare at Ray in an accusatory manner.
Ray sighed and went into the bedroom to change into jeans and a sweatshirt. He came back into the kitchen to find Dief still pouting in the corner. "Hey boy, what do you want for dinner?"
Dief lifted his head from his paws and looked at Ray with the first trace of interest he had shown all day.
Ray opened the refrigerator and peered inside, and Dief trotted over to stand next to him. "Hmmm. There is some of the beef stew left from last night's dinner. Without Benny here I'm going to need someone to help me finish it off."
Dief whined and nudged Ray's hand, his tail wagging slightly. "Yeah, I thought so," Ray said with a grin.
Ray heated up the stew and divided it between Dief and himself. After dinner, Ray stretched out the cleaning chores as long as he could; washing and drying the dishes carefully and scrubbing the stove and counters until they shone.
Once his chores were done, Ray was at loose ends, and he wandered aimlessly through the house, wondering what in the hell he was going to do for the next several hours.
He turned on the radio and tuned into the soft-rock station. That was all he was in the mood to deal with tonight. The soothing voice of Nat King Cole came over the airwaves.
"Unforgettable, that's what you are, Unforgettable, though near or far..."
Damn, now he was thinking depressing thoughts of Benny again! Ray snapped off the radio and wandered over to the shelf of videotapes, but couldn't find anything he wanted to watch.
'God Vecchio,' he chastised himself, 'you're pathetic! You're a grown man, you should be able to find something to amuse yourself and keep yourself occupied. Benny's only gone for a few days. Get a grip! It's not like he's off on some secret undercover mission and you don't know when you're going to see him again. He'll be back on Saturday.'
Ray finally plopped down onto the sofa and turned on the baseball game, trying to interest himself in another Cubs losing effort. After a couple of innings, Diefenbaker walked into the room and rested his head on the sofa cushion next to Ray, looking up at him with sad brown eyes.
"You're worse than I am," Ray told him. Dief just whined and continued staring at him. "It'll be okay, boy. He's coming back in five days, I promise." Ray began stroking Dief's head, and kept on petting him through the rest of the game.
The Cubs made an amazing rally in the eighth inning and actually managed to win the game, which went a long way towards improving Ray's night. After the game, he flipped aimlessly through the channels, watching some of the news and part of an infomercial before turning off the TV set in disgust.
Ray headed into the bedroom and turned down the bed, then crossed over to the dresser to change into his pajamas. After he had finished changing, Ray picked up a picture from the dresser. It was a picture of Benny- his favorite picture of Benny as a matter of fact.
In the photo, Ben was wearing jeans and a light-blue t-shirt, and he was smiling happily into the camera, a sparkle in his eyes. Ray remembered the comment he had made just before snapping the picture that had put that sparkle in Ben's eyes, and he smiled.
Ray sighed and ran a finger slowly over the photograph. "Good night, Benny. I love you."
Ray got into bed and pulled up the covers, then turned off the light and relaxed into the pillows. At least he tried to relax. But Ray could sense that sleep was not going to come easily.
The bed was just not the same comforting, comfortable place it usually was. Ray missed the quiet even breathing next to him, the soft voice talking to him as he drifted off to sleep, the warm body to curl up next to. Without Benny next to him, the bed was just... a bed.
Ray had been tossing and turning for about forty-five minutes when he heard quiet footsteps enter the room and come over to the bed. He rolled over to see a white furry face at the side of the bed, watching him intently. "You couldn't sleep either, huh?"
A soft, sad whine was answer enough.
"I know," Ray sighed. Dief placed his head on the mattress, licked Ray's hand and whined again.
Ray paused for a moment. "Oh, what the hell." He patted the mattress next to him. "Come on up."
Diefenbaker jumped nimbly onto the bed and over Ray and lay down next to him, his tail wagging rapidly.
Ray turned his head to look at the wolf. "Don't you dare tell Benny."
Dief growled softly to seal their pact, and Ray gently stroked Dief's head as man and wolf fell asleep.
THE END
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