custardpringle

the_antichris

etben

and drunk-betaed by shoemaster

A little warning might've been nice.

Benton generally appreciated having some idea that these kinds of things were about to happen. Not that this, specifically, had ever happened to him, although there had been that one time several years ago . . .
In any case.

In any case, with no warning whatsoever, there was another face very close to his and a peevish voice snapping-- at extremely short range-- "How come your card catalogue makes no sense?"

Benton had often wondered the same thing when he first came here, but it wasn't his job to express those concerns, so he looked up from his paperwork and forced a mild smile. "Can I help you?"

"Can you--" The student on the other side of the desk spluttered incoherently, shoving his fingers roughly through his hair and knocking his thick glasses askew. Behind them, his eyes narrowed in frustration. "Nah, I'm over here for my health."

Benton waited, as patiently as he could, and resisted the immediate and absurd urge to reach up and straighten the student's glasses for him.

After a few seconds, the student huffed out a breath and slapped a catalogue card down onto the circulation desk between them. "What--" he rapped on the call number sharply with two fingers-- "what the hell is that?"

Benton supposed he should at least be grateful he was keeping his voice appropriately low. It was a fairly common question, anyway, if not usually phrased that way.

"The Library of Congress Classification system," Benton reeled off-- this was something he could deal with, now he knew what the question was. "It was invented in the late nineteenth century by one Herbert Putnam, shortly before he became Librarian of Congress, and based on an earlier system known as the Cutter Expansive Classification. It possesses several advantages over the more commonly known Dewey Decimal system, the most prominent being--" The students eyes had narrowed further to blue glints, although it seemed to be more incredulity now than anger, and Benton heaved a sigh. "Class S is on the third floor. Subclass SE is in the back, on the third set of shelves from your right when you exit the stairwell. From there, it should be fairly simple to locate the call number in question."

"Thank you." The student pushed his glasses back up, snatched the card, and was gone in the blink of an eye.

No one else was around, so Benton allowed himself to close his eyes and slump over for a few seconds. Fifteen more minutes, he told himself. Fifteen more minutes until closing, until he could get back to -- well, to the perpetual noise of the dormitory, but at least none of it would be directed at him. Surely he could last that long.

He got three whole minutes of peace before there was someone standing on the other side of the desk again.

"It's not there." The other student didn't sound angry any more, just dejected. Benton would have sworn his hair was even drooping, even though that was patently ridiculous. "Please, God, tell me you've got it behind the counter or something, 'cause if I don't know anything about natural resources by tomorrow I'm--" He made a violent, expressive gesture.

Benton held out a hand, and before he could even ask the catalogue card slapped into his palm. "Tomorrow is Saturday," he pointed out-- he'd known far too many people who worked too hard to keep track of what day it was.

"Debate team." There was an edge to the student's voice again, but it was clearly no longer directed at Benton. "Thought it'd be fun, y'know? But there was some other kid last year, some other Ray, and he was a genius or something, so clearly I've gotta be him now, gotta be some kinda prod-- protect--"

"Prodigy," Benton suggested automatically, not looking up from the file drawer he was looking through. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and could imagine the other young man pacing impatiently back and forth in front of the desk.

"Yeah, that." A pause. "Hey, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to dump on you like that."

"That's quite all right." He frowned determinedly at the card in his hand. "I know how-- unnerving-- it can be when people expect the unreasonable." Which was all he was willing to say on that subject.
He looked up from the drawer, a file card in each hand, and was struck for a moment by the sudden, warm grin that spread across the other student's face. He'd stopped pacing to lean his elbows on the desk, glasses pushed up to the top of his head, watching Benton expectantly. The sheer intensity of his expression made Benton go still for a moment.

Oh, dear.

"I'm sorry," he said evenly, replacing one card in the drawer and passing its counterpart back to the other student. "That book is checked out; I'm afraid I can't get it for you."

In an instant the face across from him was serious again. "Great." He slapped a hand down on the counter. "Just-- C'mon, you've gotta have something. I got twelve hours to write about why we shouldn't turn Canada into a giant strip mall."

It took a second to translate that. "Your topic is development of wild spaces?"

"Yep." The look he was getting was almost pleading, now.

Benton considered the situation for a few moments.

For a moment, he was sure he heard his father, clear as if they'd been in the same room: Never go rushing into unknown terrain, son. You have to know your territory first.

Benton was here, though, and his father wasn't. And he felt that, just this once, he could afford to take a risk or two.

"It just so happens," he said carefully, "that I have a certain amount of-- ah, first-hand knowledge of the issue, being from Canada myself. I may be able to help you."

"You're kidding." The student watched Benton warily for a few long seconds, as if waiting for him to rescind the offer, but finally relaxed. "What'd you have in mind?"

"The library closes in--" Benton glanced at the clock-- "three minutes. At that time, I'll need to lock up the building. After that, I had planned to find a late dinner. Would you care to join me?"

He wasn't exactly experienced at these things, but he thought he'd managed to sound casual enough. And he absolutely did not hold his breath.

"Yeah, of course." The other student extended a hand over the desk. "I'm Ray-- Ray Kowalski."

Benton let out the breath he hadn't been holding, shook hands firmly, and took special care not to let his hold linger. "Benton Fraser.'

"Benton?" Ray repeated, brow creasing slightly. "Okay if I call you Ben?"

"I don't see why not," Benton conceded-- and then, and only then, did he allow himself to smile.

----------

They didn't wind up anywhere memorable, naturally-- merely a late-night diner with which Ray seemed to already be quite familiar. He ordered without even glancing at the menu, then proceeded, between bites of cheeseburger, to grill Benton determinedly about everything either of them deemed even remotely relevant. They went through the basics of Canadian geography, ecology, fauna, economics; the observed consequences of development; preservation laws, statistics relating to those laws, and-- inevitably-- segued into the relevant RCMP policy, until Ray broke off in the middle of a question and said "Hey, your soup's gonna get cold."

Benton blinked down at his soup bowl-- he'd been so focused on Ray that he'd entirely forgotten his own food. He ate one spoonful, then another, but the sudden silence between them was unnerving, and he searched for something lighthearted to fill it. "Have you ever considered police work, Ray? Your interrogation skills are, uh, quite formidable."

Ray's eyes went wide and solemn-- he'd pocketed the glasses long since-- and he thumped a fist twice, slowly, on the chest of his t-shirt. "Y'know, Ben, that hurts. That really hurts. Right here."

Benton managed, somehow, not to snort. Instead he leaned back, folded his arms, and-- well, didn't quite manage to glare, either.

After a few seconds, Ray relaxed and grinned, but there was something a little wistful in it. "Thought about it, actually, but the parents wanted me to go to school. Mom put her foot down, and, y'know, damn heavy foot." He shrugged. "Figure if they insist on spending all this extra cash on me, who'm I to complain?"

Remembering his dinner suddenly, Benton had another spoonful of soup. Not nearly enough vegetables, in his opinion. "You can always join when you've finished with college, can't you?"

"Well, yeah." Ray shrugged, and there was another minute of silence during which Benton finished his soup and tried not to watch too closely as Ray gulped at his milkshake. And then, out of nowhere: "You sound a helluva lot like a cop yourself. Unless everyone up there knows that much about Mounties, which'd be a little, y'know--" His finger drew a quick, tight circle by his ear.

The question was so unexpected that Benton stared, for real, for a good several seconds before remembering that courtesy, at the least, required him to actually answer. "My father," he began, and hoped that he didn't sound as strangled as he felt. "Was a member of the Mounted Police. Is a member." Good lord, could he not even talk about this any more?

Then again, it wasn't as if anyone had ever asked before, either.

"Hey, if you don't mind--" Ray must have caught his discomfort, because his voice had softened a little. "Why'd you come down here? I mean--" he gestured vaguely out the window-- "This. Chicago. Not exactly like Canada. Unless you count the shitty winters."

This was something Benton had been asked before, because it was the most obvious inroad to conversation for conversation's sake. I wanted this particular school, he would usually say at this juncture, or I wanted to live in a major city. Or I was offered an attractive scholarship.

"I first came to Chicago to get away from my father--" he began, and stopped short, because he'd never told the truth before when answering this question, and he'd never planned to, certainly not to someone he'd only known for an hour and a half. "I apologize, Ray. This isn't something you need to hear."

Ray was leaning back in his seat, but still watching Benton with narrowed eyes, genuinely sober this time. "Nah, but sounds like you need to say it." He waves a careless hand. "Whatever buys me time before I gotta go work on my prep, right?"

"If you insist." Benton swallowed hard, unable to find any words at all for a second-- and then they all came tumbling out, almost too fast for him to even know what he was saying. "My mother died when I was very young." He nodded briefly at Ray's wordless noise of sympathy. "My father had been assigned to a fairly remote posting, and he was forced to transfer to something more sedentary in order to look after me properly. It was hard on him--" and Benton knew that, he did. "At one swoop, he had lost the two things he loved most in the world: my mother and his work. Instead he had me, a small child whom he barely even knew and for whom he suddenly had sole responsibility. I believe he truly did his best to love me and to bring me up properly, but he always felt that he had sacrificed too much for that privilege. We both knew that. But he was never truly angry with me, not until he learned that I had no intention of following him into service with the RCMP." He realized abruptly that his hands were clenched on the edge of the table, knuckles turning white, and forced himself to let go. "He said I was a disgrace to the country and to my family. But I didn't-- I couldn't be like him, trapped between two duties like that."

Benton ran out of words, ran out of air, and gasped. He'd never said that to anyone before, not any of it. He wasn't sure he could believe he'd said it now, to this near-stranger-- except that they didn't feel like strangers at all, for some reason. And Ray had, after all, asked to hear it; Benton could only hope he wasn't regretting that now.

Ray didn't look annoyed or bored, at any rate. He was nodding sympathetically, looking attentive and perfectly serious-- and then he made a small choking noise and buried his face in his hands. His cheekbones showed bright red between his fingers, and his shoulders shook.

Leaning forward a little, Ben peered at him, but it simply wasn't possible to tell what was going on. "Are you all right, Ray?"

Still red-faced and shaking, Ray nodded, voice muffled. "'M fine. Just-- you--" He finally lowered his hands, and Ben saw that Ray was grinning widely-- he'd been laughing. "You're the only guy I've ever met--" another chuckle-- "who'd decide to piss off his dad by being a librarian."

Benton tried, very hard, to be angry; after all, he'd bared his heart here, and Ray was laughing. But it was a valid point, he supposed, and he was certain that Ray had listened and understood what he'd said. "What would you have recommended, then?" It was more comfortable, really, moving the conversation back to lighter topics.

"Most people," Ray said reprovingly, "do drugs, say. Get weird piercings. Sell themselves on the street. Do something more dangerous than their parents want, not less." He suddenly grinned so widely it made Benton lightheaded just to watch. "Benton Fraser, teenage sex rebel, how's that for a thought?"

There were no words for that. Benton felt his face turn bright red, was certain he heard his own jaw hit the table, and stayed that way in shocked speechlessness for a long minute.

Then stray thoughts started popping up, unbidden and unexpected. I'm still nineteen, there's still time, I could-- with him, it might not be so bad, not bad at all, really--

Ray was leaning forward across the table, looking up into Benton's face. His eyes, at this distance, were very blue indeed. "Uh, Ben? You okay in there? Didn't break you, did I?"

Coming back to himself, Benton shook his head, closing his mouth quickly. "No, thank you, Ray. You startled me, that's all." He managed a small, noncommittal smile.

"Huh," Ray said, unhelpfully, and leaned back in his seat. He seemed about to ask something more, but just then the waitress came back and handed over a slip of paper. He blinked at it-- Benton privately doubted he could read the total without his glasses-- and reached for his pocket. "I'll pay. Only fair, seeing as you're only here to dig me outta my own hole."

"Absolutely not," Benton said, instantly guilty. "You came to hear about the Canadian wilderness, not my own dysfunctions. I should pay."

Ray was already standing up, counting money onto the table, but he looked down and nodded. "We'll split it, okay?"

"Okay," Benton echoed automatically, reaching for his own wallet.

"Great." Ray hesitated by the table and finally squeezed Benton's shoulder, hard but not painful. "Been greatness, Ben. I'll, uh, I'll see you around, okay?" But he spun on his heel and headed for the street door without waiting for an answer.

He was leaving. He was leaving and they might not--

"Ray," Benton said loudly, without even thinking. He couldn't imagine what else he had to say; he only knew that he could not, must not, lose this chance.

Ray stopped instantly and turned halfway back around. There was something very like relief on his face. "Yeah?"

Benton finished counting out his own money and stood, taking two steps towards Ray, searching desperately for something to say. Until finally, his conscious mind caught up with his mouth, and he nearly laughed from the hugeness of his own relief. "There is something you could read. I believe it would be enormously helpful to you."

-----------

There was no need to turn on any lights; the library's lobby stretched all the way up through the building's four stories, and the skylight admitted just enough light from the street to serve their purposes. Ray glanced up at it, then back at Benton, "You sure we can do this?"

Benton locked the door carefully behind them. "I'm merely fulfilling my duties as an employee of this library." Of course. As if he would have done this kind of thing for just anyone. "After all, it isn't as if we were breaking and entering, or as if we intended to steal or deface library materials."

"Okay, okay, I ain't complaining." Ray held up his hands in mock surrender. "What're we looking for, anyway?"

"National Geographic." Benton was already on his way towards the magazine section. "1970-- April 1970, if I recall correctly." Amazing how easy it was to forget this, something that had seemed so important at the time.

"And what's in it?" Ray persisted, trailing behind him.

Benton held up a hand, tried not to notice that Ray was following him into a dark confined space, and ran his fingers quickly over the plastic-sheathed spines of the magazines. It was almost painful to read the heavy dark type in the dim light. April 1970-- no, he'd been wrong. It was the May issue whose spine included the phrase PRESERVING THE TUNDRA.

He pulled it off the shelf and flipped through, searching for a familiar page. Just as he found what he needed, a large warm presence made itself known behind him. "What's up?"

Reluctantly, Benton took a step aside, turning at an angle so that Ray could see over his shoulder. "My father," he said simply. And so it was, of course, a full-page photograph of his father in brown serge, looking wise and invincible far beyond his thirty-two years.

 Benton could even remember when he'd believed that.

There was a pause and a rustle, doubtless the sound of Ray retrieving his glasses. "'Constable Robert Fraser,'" he read aloud, leaning in close and squinting. "'Has dedicated his life to defending the Yukon wilderness--' Oh, boy. You want me to talk about your dad tomorrow?"

"My father," said Benton, trying to keep the tension out of his voice, "is irrelevant. I simply felt that this article would be of service to you in preparing your arguments for tomorrow." He flipped the magazine shut and held it out.

Ray wasn't paying attention to the magazine any more, though; he was repocketing his glasses and looking straight at Benton. Even in the dim light, there was a clear spark of mischief in his eyes as he tapped Benton on the chest with one finger. "Y'know what, Ben? You should get a medal for this. Librarianship Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty." His free hand sketched a line across the air as if spelling it out in lights. "They give those out, right?"

Benton couldn't hold back his chuckle this time. "I'm afraid not, Ray."

"Too bad," Ray said earnestly. His voice sounded suddenly rougher, more serious, in a way that made Benton swallow hard. "Because, y'know, Ben, you're really-- you're something else."

Else than what? Benton wanted to say, a little crazily, but he didn't get the chance before Ray's hand flattened on his chest and shoved him back against the shelves. Instead they stared at each other a little wildly for the whole half-second before Ray leaned in and planted his mouth, hard, on Ben's.

The magazine hit the floor, and Ben spared a moment's prayer for the integrity of its binding before clenching one hand in Ray's shirt and the other into his hair and yanking him closer in. Ray tasted like his milkshake and his cheeseburger and the brilliance of his smile, and Ben wanted to fall into that, to simply crawl into the warmth and the sweetness and never come up for air.

Reflexes said otherwise, though, and after what might have been seconds and might have been years they pulled apart, gasping. Ray's forehead fell heavily onto Ben's shoulder, and Ben let his own head thud gently back against the shelves. They stayed quiet for a minute or two, just holding on.

"Jesus, Ben," Ray said at last, voice muffled in Ben's shirt. "You got any idea how long I've wanted to do that?"

Ben dropped a light kiss on Ray's ear, just because it was there, and might have fallen ever so slightly in love with the way it made Ray shiver against him. "We've only known each other for a few hours, Ray," he felt obliged to point out.

"Feels like it's been forever, " Ray complained, words warm against Ben's neck, and Ben couldn't help but agree.

.

END