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due South, From Sea to Shining Sea

Jan. 3rd, 2015 at 4:47 PM

bghost.livejournal.com

Title: From Sea to Shining Sea
Author: bghost
Fandom: due South
Rating: G
Length: 805
Summary: Benton, viewing different oceans.

The first time Benton ever saw the sea, it was iron. If his Grandmother had not been there to tell him, he would not have known where the permafrost ended and the water began. He could walk on the ocean, and did so, tentatively – though she didn’t let him go far.

“It’s a rite of passage,” she said, “for a boy to go to the seaside with his family.”

He nodded solemnly, like he knew what a ‘rite of passage’ was.

“Now,” she said, with a touch of what he would later know was whimsy, “it’s time we had a picnic. Here. Have some pemmican.”

So they had pemmican and sweet milky tea from the thermos, shivered on the shore, while Grandmother recounted the species of birds, then hurried back to their host’s igloo.

At the time it didn’t strike Benton as in the least bit strange that he was holidaying in an igloo. It was his first actual vacation. He had been very excited. Later, when he tried to tell this story to people in Chicago, even people in Moosejaw, they just laughed when he got to the part about the igloo. “One of your Eskimo stories,” one Ray had said, kindly, if with a hint of unwitting racism. “So when did the caribou turn up?” asked the other.

Benton didn’t really talk about his childhood much. ‘The past is another country, they do things differently there,’ he told himself stoically. And, when he thought about it, there were plenty of things in his childhood he really shouldn’t share.

For example: his Uncle Tiberius.

Really, Benton was a very slow child. It took him months, nearly a year in fact, before he realised that he shouldn’t have been speaking to his uncle. After all, the man was clearly dead. He walked through walls for goodness sake.

Nevertheless, he made a good companion, and on lonely nights he would regale Benton with tales of open water, of working on steel boats out on the Great Lakes. Or he would sing to him. It could be argued that Tiberius’ choices of lullaby were perhaps somewhat grim – on the other hand, they were certainly educational.

One day, however, his Grandmother overheard him singing a sea shanty, and enquired sharply as to where he’d learned it. He made the mistake of mentioning his uncle’s nocturnal visitations to his Grandparents. For some reason that seemed to upset them. Inexplicably Grandmother surrounded the house with salt, and Uncle Tiberius stopped coming by. Benton was lonely again for a while. But, as when his mother left, he got used to it.

Benton is not lonely now, and is mainly known as Fraser, occasionally Fraze, though he is also ‘Ben, God, Ben, like that,’ or ‘Jeeze, Benny could you be any more Canadian?’ depending which Ray he is talking too, and what precisely he is doing at the time.

On their honeymoon he and Ray go down to see Ray and Stella in Florida. At first he feels uncomfortable in the heat, in the loose Hawaiian shirt that both Rays insisted he wear ‘because, you know, otherwise you’ll melt like a popsicle.’ ‘Yeah, we don’t want you to stroke out , Benny.’ Benton puts a polite face on it, until they finally get to the ocean.

Oh my God.

For the longest time, Benton just gapes: at the sky, at the sea, at the sand. The Rays start to mutter. He overhears Ray say “Jeeze, what’s wrong with Benny?” and Ray say “I think he’s okay. He just does that, kinda breaks his face when he’s real happy.” “That’s happy? He looks stoned.”

There is a long silence as the waves breathe in and out across the shore. Birds, Lord – the birds. He should know their genus, be able to categorise them, but... he can’t think. Blue, and gold, and shine overwhelm him. Fresh breeze off the water....

“You okay, Fraser?”

“Yes, Ray. Ray –” He realises that his husband and his best friend are standing on either side of him, sandwiching him in a hug. He swallows a lump from his throat, then giggles a little. He is so far from lonely here. He is, in fact, a Benton sandwich. They should have a picnic. He giggles again, kisses one Ray behind his ear, where his hair is soft, not spiky, and gives his other Ray a sideways hug.

“See?” Ray says, baffled but returning the hug. “I told you. Stoned.”

“Nah. Just happy.” Ray kisses him back.

Benton bursts out laughing. The blue is just so blue, the sand so golden – he is in his bare feet for the love of heaven, and they are warm. A far cry from the frozen ocean of his childhood.

He laughs again, and blinks back tears.

He wishes his Grandmother were here to see it.