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ds_flashfictionI'm a little obsessed with pre-series right now. Gen -- Buck, wee!Ben, and Bob, after Caroline's murder. I'll err on the side of caution and say R for angst. 2148 words.
[Disclaimer: Don't own them, even though the series doesn't talk about this bit directly.]
Coping Mechanisms
"You don't need to come," Buck tells Ben worriedly. Children shouldn't need to go through this. Hell, Bob shouldn't've had to go through this. No one should've had to handle this -- Muldoon and Caroline and Bob being a fugitive without anyone knowing -- no one knows what to do with it, and no one should have to figure out what to do about it.
But especially not Ben. Not Ben, who's afraid of Buck, and afraid of Bob -- afraid, in fact, of everyone who's tried to get him out from under his bed in the last week. Buck's had to slide his meals in to him, unwilling to force him to come out. He hasn't seen Ben at all since this happened -- can't even say how much Ben's grown in the year and a half between now and Buck's last visit. Bob can't say either, and that -- some part of Buck thinks that's wrong, thinks he ought to give Bob a talking to about that. Not that he has a leg to stand on -- he hasn't seen Julie in almost as long.
"You can stay here, if you want," Buck says awkwardly -- it's almost like talking to an empty room. Pointless, really; Ben will stay here, if he's just left to himself. He doesn't even need to know what today is -- but he does deserve to know. That's what Buck came to tell him. "But you can come. If you want to. I'll take you there, in the dogsled -- do you remember the dogsled?"
Something rustles under the bed. "Where?" the bedskirt asks in a small voice.
"Inuvik."
There's a silence; Ben must be considering it, which is progress of a sort. "Why?"
How does one explain a funeral to a six-year-old? Even Buck doesn't know what the purpose is, and he's been going to them ever since Sergeant Morris slipped into that ice crevasse nine years ago. "To see your mother again," Buck hears himself say, wanting to take back the words almost as soon as he says them.
"You said she left," Ben says plainitively.
Buck asks himself a great many questions -- why he's doing this instead of Bob, for one thing, and why Ben has to think so damn much when he's only six, for another -- before heaving a sigh and sitting down on the bed. Ben startles when the mattress squeaks; Buck can hear him skittering about under there. "She did," Buck says heavily. "But you can see her, if you want to. It might be scary, but you could do it. I won't stop you. Neither will your father."
"I'm not scared," Ben asserts. "Not of Mum."
Buck rubs his face with both hands and swears that Bob will pay for this -- whenever he realizes that he's got some responsibility back home, which just might be never. "She'll be different," he warns Ben. "And you'll -- you'll have to say good-bye."
"I don't want to." Ben's six. Ben's only six. He can't understand any of these -- metaphors, these polite excuses for coping with death.
"You have to, Ben, that's why you're going." His voice sounds too harsh -- Ben's scared enough already without Buck being angry, even if Buck's never going to be angry at Ben himself. "You can say good-bye or not, but she won't come back. Not even if you don't."
"But you said she's here," Ben protests. "You said I could see her."
And with that, Buck finds himself abruptly at a loss, out of words, out of patience, out of strength -- he leans his arms on his knees, pressing his face into the heels of his palms, trying not to make a sound that might frighten Ben any more than is necessary. It's too much for him, just as it's too much for Bob. He's told himself countless times over the past week that this is not his family, it's Bob's, and Bob needs Buck to be strong and stable until he recovers what's left of his sanity -- but it is his family, or it might as well be. Who's to say that one of his ill-wishers mightn't try to attack Julie and Patty? They've got no protection, nothing at all -- and hell, it could be him next, couldn't it? Why not him -- he's a Mountie. Mounties die all the time; that's what they're for. They're soldiers. And if that happened -- what would happen to Julie? Julie's only three. How on earth would Patty explain --
A soft thump catches Buck's attention, and his head flies up -- dear God, Muldoon's back, come to finish off the last of the Frasers, he's done something to Bob already --
But there's no Muldoon -- it's just Ben. He's sitting on the floor, biting his lip in concentration and tying his bootlaces. He lays the sole flat on the ground, and Buck realizes where the thump came from. Muldoon isn't here, and he's not coming back -- because Bob killed him. Bob killed him. "Morning, Ben," he says, in what he hopes is a gentle voice. "Where are you off to?"
Ben looks up from his boots for a second. "I'm going to see Mum."
Buck supposes that was a stupid question to ask. "Oh. All right, then, we'll just -- we'll just, ah, get the -- "
Ben finishes tying his boot lace, thumps his foot to the ground. They're good boots -- fur lined, a snug fit, strong tread. Caroline knew how to survive up here. "Buck?"
"Yes, Ben?"
"Are you all right?"
Buck tells himself, very firmly, that men do not cry -- or at the very least, they don't let boys know that they do. Instead, he dredges up a smile for Ben from someplace he didn't know existed. "I'm fine, Ben. Go get your coat."
Bob looks terrible, and that's no surprise whatsoever. He's got a week's worth of stubble, and he smells of a week's worth of travel, and his eyes are reddened from lack of sleep -- snow doesn't make a feather mattress or a down pillow this time of year, and even if it had, Buck doubts Bob'd sleep easy just now. Understandably, Ben hovers fearfully near Buck's leg; this is not the father he knows. "Bob," Buck mutters, coming up behind him and hoping Ben will succeed in hiding behind him for a minute or two.
Bob, probably hearing the crunch of snow under Buck's boots, looks around at Buck and relaxes minutely. "Oh. It's you." His tone is casual, so much so that Buck might even believe it if Bob wasn't right there in front of him.
"Yes."
"Thought you might not come."
"I had to." Buck lets out a breath, looking over at the casket -- it's dark against the snow, some sort of hardwood. "Outdoors?" he asks, as though he's referring to a picnic -- Bob wants this to be casual, and it's his family. His wife. They'll do this his way.
"Yes," Bob responds, almost easily, not looking directly at Buck. "She liked the snow. Liked the ice, too -- absolutely mad, if you ask me, but -- "
Buck nods. They've had this conversation before. "So you've said."
"It's for her," Bob says elliptically. "Might as well make her happy."
If Buck were a braver man, he'd be as straightforward as Ben was today. He'd be able to ask Bob if he's all right, and then perhaps Bob would realize that he isn't, and would cease this parody of normality -- but Buck is not brave at all. One day, they'll sing songs about Fraser and Frobisher, the two greatest Mounties to traverse the Northwest Territories, and no doubt they'll be made out to be brave on top of being foolhardy -- but they're not brave at all. Bob can't face this -- all he can do is exact revenge in like kind, and past that he doesn't know what to do with himself. And Buck -- Buck's even worse. He doesn't even know what he'll do if Bob realizes how disturbed he is.
Ben tugs on Buck's trousers. "Where's Mum?" he whispers. Buck doesn't, at first, know why he's whispering -- but of course, Bob was whispering, too. "She's in the big box," he tells Ben, simply. They've had their talk. There's nothing more Buck can say.
Ben runs up to the casket, his strides not quite practiced yet, his legs still too short to be graceful in snow -- and Bob sees him. Bob sees him, and processes who he must be -- and then he whirls around to face Buck, utterly infuriated, everything he's about to say blazing in his eyes: why did you bring him here? how can you rub his face in this? why are you interfering?
It's the first time that Buck has ever, ever been truly afraid of Robert Fraser.
Robert takes a breath --
-- and Ben says, "She's not here."
And Robert deflates, and continues to deflate, until his face is as crumpled and guilty as Buck has ever seen it.
Ben looks around -- at the others, at the priest, at his father -- and repeats himself, louder, obviously expecting someone to be alarmed. "She's not here!"
No one moves. Buck looks around at the guests -- Allison Murray, Tim "the Jack" Smithers, George Conner, all familiar faces -- and finds that not one of them is looking at Ben. They can't stand it. It's ugly; it hurts to watch. It's beyond their capacity to do it.
But Buck has to watch, and he will.
Ben looks straight at Buck, and then he's stumbling back, managing to come only halfway -- but it's plain to see who he's talking to. "You said she'd be here!"
"So I did," Buck says, fighting to keep calm. "So she is." Next to him, Bob is coming back to life -- he's furious, of course, but he's coming alive again, little by little.
"She's fake!" Ben screams. "That's not her, that's not real, that's fake -- "
Allison turns away altogether, her back to Ben and a gloved hand over her mouth to stifle a sob -- and Bob is still. Bob hasn't moved.
"I know," Buck says, his voice cracking only slightly. "I know she is."
"You -- you promised," Ben says feebly. "You promised she'd come back."
Buck starts forward, to get close and touch Ben, calm him somehow, though he doesn't know what precisely to do -- but Bob's hand flies out and catches Buck at the elbow, pulls him back, makes him stay put.
And then Bob moves forward, which is just as well.
Bob approaches his son the way Buck's seen him approach armed malfeasants -- cautiously, maintaining eye contact, hands palms out to show that he's unarmed. Ben watches him with wide, bewildered eyes, and makes no move to stop him when he pulls Ben's face to his stomach.
When he speaks, the whole congregation can hear him. "She's not coming back, son."
Ben's voice is muffled in Bob's coat. "But -- "
"She's not coming back." Bob's voice is rough, blunt. He's dispensed with the social niceties entirely, and Buck is simultaneously impressed and alarmed.
There's a minute or two of silence, complete and pure silence -- and then Ben starts to cry, finally, after days of muteness and hours of tranquility. Buck can see the top of his brown head shaking against Bob's side, and realizes -- entirely inappropriately -- that Ben has grown, nearly seven centimeters. Children -- you turn your back for a minute, and they somehow manage to grow without you watching.
When Bob looks up, Buck looks back, because partners communicate with looks more often than they do with words, and know the signal for an open comm system when they see it -- and Bob is terrified. Buck can't remember the last time he saw Bob this afraid -- in fact, he'd venture to say that he's never seen Bob like this before. And he's afraid of -- of Ben. He doesn't know what to do, and he doesn't think he ever will. Buck can appreciate the sentiment; he always does.
"Get out of here," Bob says, very quietly -- but it's obvious, nonetheless, that he does not mean merely the funeral, nor only for a few minutes.
Buck stares, appalled at Bob's stupidity. How can Bob manage this alone? He's got to be mad. He's got to be --
"Buck." The fear is fading fast. "Please."
This is Bob's family. This is Bob's life. They'll do this his way. "No," Buck says, lifting his chin.
Bob blinks. "You'll be sorry later," he hisses, pulling Ben closer.
Buck nods grimly. "I'm sure I will," he says, and goes to get the dogsled. He doesn't trust Bob to get himself and Ben home safely today.
--fin
[Disclaimer: Don't own them, even though the series doesn't talk about this bit directly.]
Coping Mechanisms
"You don't need to come," Buck tells Ben worriedly. Children shouldn't need to go through this. Hell, Bob shouldn't've had to go through this. No one should've had to handle this -- Muldoon and Caroline and Bob being a fugitive without anyone knowing -- no one knows what to do with it, and no one should have to figure out what to do about it.
But especially not Ben. Not Ben, who's afraid of Buck, and afraid of Bob -- afraid, in fact, of everyone who's tried to get him out from under his bed in the last week. Buck's had to slide his meals in to him, unwilling to force him to come out. He hasn't seen Ben at all since this happened -- can't even say how much Ben's grown in the year and a half between now and Buck's last visit. Bob can't say either, and that -- some part of Buck thinks that's wrong, thinks he ought to give Bob a talking to about that. Not that he has a leg to stand on -- he hasn't seen Julie in almost as long.
"You can stay here, if you want," Buck says awkwardly -- it's almost like talking to an empty room. Pointless, really; Ben will stay here, if he's just left to himself. He doesn't even need to know what today is -- but he does deserve to know. That's what Buck came to tell him. "But you can come. If you want to. I'll take you there, in the dogsled -- do you remember the dogsled?"
Something rustles under the bed. "Where?" the bedskirt asks in a small voice.
"Inuvik."
There's a silence; Ben must be considering it, which is progress of a sort. "Why?"
How does one explain a funeral to a six-year-old? Even Buck doesn't know what the purpose is, and he's been going to them ever since Sergeant Morris slipped into that ice crevasse nine years ago. "To see your mother again," Buck hears himself say, wanting to take back the words almost as soon as he says them.
"You said she left," Ben says plainitively.
Buck asks himself a great many questions -- why he's doing this instead of Bob, for one thing, and why Ben has to think so damn much when he's only six, for another -- before heaving a sigh and sitting down on the bed. Ben startles when the mattress squeaks; Buck can hear him skittering about under there. "She did," Buck says heavily. "But you can see her, if you want to. It might be scary, but you could do it. I won't stop you. Neither will your father."
"I'm not scared," Ben asserts. "Not of Mum."
Buck rubs his face with both hands and swears that Bob will pay for this -- whenever he realizes that he's got some responsibility back home, which just might be never. "She'll be different," he warns Ben. "And you'll -- you'll have to say good-bye."
"I don't want to." Ben's six. Ben's only six. He can't understand any of these -- metaphors, these polite excuses for coping with death.
"You have to, Ben, that's why you're going." His voice sounds too harsh -- Ben's scared enough already without Buck being angry, even if Buck's never going to be angry at Ben himself. "You can say good-bye or not, but she won't come back. Not even if you don't."
"But you said she's here," Ben protests. "You said I could see her."
And with that, Buck finds himself abruptly at a loss, out of words, out of patience, out of strength -- he leans his arms on his knees, pressing his face into the heels of his palms, trying not to make a sound that might frighten Ben any more than is necessary. It's too much for him, just as it's too much for Bob. He's told himself countless times over the past week that this is not his family, it's Bob's, and Bob needs Buck to be strong and stable until he recovers what's left of his sanity -- but it is his family, or it might as well be. Who's to say that one of his ill-wishers mightn't try to attack Julie and Patty? They've got no protection, nothing at all -- and hell, it could be him next, couldn't it? Why not him -- he's a Mountie. Mounties die all the time; that's what they're for. They're soldiers. And if that happened -- what would happen to Julie? Julie's only three. How on earth would Patty explain --
A soft thump catches Buck's attention, and his head flies up -- dear God, Muldoon's back, come to finish off the last of the Frasers, he's done something to Bob already --
But there's no Muldoon -- it's just Ben. He's sitting on the floor, biting his lip in concentration and tying his bootlaces. He lays the sole flat on the ground, and Buck realizes where the thump came from. Muldoon isn't here, and he's not coming back -- because Bob killed him. Bob killed him. "Morning, Ben," he says, in what he hopes is a gentle voice. "Where are you off to?"
Ben looks up from his boots for a second. "I'm going to see Mum."
Buck supposes that was a stupid question to ask. "Oh. All right, then, we'll just -- we'll just, ah, get the -- "
Ben finishes tying his boot lace, thumps his foot to the ground. They're good boots -- fur lined, a snug fit, strong tread. Caroline knew how to survive up here. "Buck?"
"Yes, Ben?"
"Are you all right?"
Buck tells himself, very firmly, that men do not cry -- or at the very least, they don't let boys know that they do. Instead, he dredges up a smile for Ben from someplace he didn't know existed. "I'm fine, Ben. Go get your coat."
Bob looks terrible, and that's no surprise whatsoever. He's got a week's worth of stubble, and he smells of a week's worth of travel, and his eyes are reddened from lack of sleep -- snow doesn't make a feather mattress or a down pillow this time of year, and even if it had, Buck doubts Bob'd sleep easy just now. Understandably, Ben hovers fearfully near Buck's leg; this is not the father he knows. "Bob," Buck mutters, coming up behind him and hoping Ben will succeed in hiding behind him for a minute or two.
Bob, probably hearing the crunch of snow under Buck's boots, looks around at Buck and relaxes minutely. "Oh. It's you." His tone is casual, so much so that Buck might even believe it if Bob wasn't right there in front of him.
"Yes."
"Thought you might not come."
"I had to." Buck lets out a breath, looking over at the casket -- it's dark against the snow, some sort of hardwood. "Outdoors?" he asks, as though he's referring to a picnic -- Bob wants this to be casual, and it's his family. His wife. They'll do this his way.
"Yes," Bob responds, almost easily, not looking directly at Buck. "She liked the snow. Liked the ice, too -- absolutely mad, if you ask me, but -- "
Buck nods. They've had this conversation before. "So you've said."
"It's for her," Bob says elliptically. "Might as well make her happy."
If Buck were a braver man, he'd be as straightforward as Ben was today. He'd be able to ask Bob if he's all right, and then perhaps Bob would realize that he isn't, and would cease this parody of normality -- but Buck is not brave at all. One day, they'll sing songs about Fraser and Frobisher, the two greatest Mounties to traverse the Northwest Territories, and no doubt they'll be made out to be brave on top of being foolhardy -- but they're not brave at all. Bob can't face this -- all he can do is exact revenge in like kind, and past that he doesn't know what to do with himself. And Buck -- Buck's even worse. He doesn't even know what he'll do if Bob realizes how disturbed he is.
Ben tugs on Buck's trousers. "Where's Mum?" he whispers. Buck doesn't, at first, know why he's whispering -- but of course, Bob was whispering, too. "She's in the big box," he tells Ben, simply. They've had their talk. There's nothing more Buck can say.
Ben runs up to the casket, his strides not quite practiced yet, his legs still too short to be graceful in snow -- and Bob sees him. Bob sees him, and processes who he must be -- and then he whirls around to face Buck, utterly infuriated, everything he's about to say blazing in his eyes: why did you bring him here? how can you rub his face in this? why are you interfering?
It's the first time that Buck has ever, ever been truly afraid of Robert Fraser.
Robert takes a breath --
-- and Ben says, "She's not here."
And Robert deflates, and continues to deflate, until his face is as crumpled and guilty as Buck has ever seen it.
Ben looks around -- at the others, at the priest, at his father -- and repeats himself, louder, obviously expecting someone to be alarmed. "She's not here!"
No one moves. Buck looks around at the guests -- Allison Murray, Tim "the Jack" Smithers, George Conner, all familiar faces -- and finds that not one of them is looking at Ben. They can't stand it. It's ugly; it hurts to watch. It's beyond their capacity to do it.
But Buck has to watch, and he will.
Ben looks straight at Buck, and then he's stumbling back, managing to come only halfway -- but it's plain to see who he's talking to. "You said she'd be here!"
"So I did," Buck says, fighting to keep calm. "So she is." Next to him, Bob is coming back to life -- he's furious, of course, but he's coming alive again, little by little.
"She's fake!" Ben screams. "That's not her, that's not real, that's fake -- "
Allison turns away altogether, her back to Ben and a gloved hand over her mouth to stifle a sob -- and Bob is still. Bob hasn't moved.
"I know," Buck says, his voice cracking only slightly. "I know she is."
"You -- you promised," Ben says feebly. "You promised she'd come back."
Buck starts forward, to get close and touch Ben, calm him somehow, though he doesn't know what precisely to do -- but Bob's hand flies out and catches Buck at the elbow, pulls him back, makes him stay put.
And then Bob moves forward, which is just as well.
Bob approaches his son the way Buck's seen him approach armed malfeasants -- cautiously, maintaining eye contact, hands palms out to show that he's unarmed. Ben watches him with wide, bewildered eyes, and makes no move to stop him when he pulls Ben's face to his stomach.
When he speaks, the whole congregation can hear him. "She's not coming back, son."
Ben's voice is muffled in Bob's coat. "But -- "
"She's not coming back." Bob's voice is rough, blunt. He's dispensed with the social niceties entirely, and Buck is simultaneously impressed and alarmed.
There's a minute or two of silence, complete and pure silence -- and then Ben starts to cry, finally, after days of muteness and hours of tranquility. Buck can see the top of his brown head shaking against Bob's side, and realizes -- entirely inappropriately -- that Ben has grown, nearly seven centimeters. Children -- you turn your back for a minute, and they somehow manage to grow without you watching.
When Bob looks up, Buck looks back, because partners communicate with looks more often than they do with words, and know the signal for an open comm system when they see it -- and Bob is terrified. Buck can't remember the last time he saw Bob this afraid -- in fact, he'd venture to say that he's never seen Bob like this before. And he's afraid of -- of Ben. He doesn't know what to do, and he doesn't think he ever will. Buck can appreciate the sentiment; he always does.
"Get out of here," Bob says, very quietly -- but it's obvious, nonetheless, that he does not mean merely the funeral, nor only for a few minutes.
Buck stares, appalled at Bob's stupidity. How can Bob manage this alone? He's got to be mad. He's got to be --
"Buck." The fear is fading fast. "Please."
This is Bob's family. This is Bob's life. They'll do this his way. "No," Buck says, lifting his chin.
Bob blinks. "You'll be sorry later," he hisses, pulling Ben closer.
Buck nods grimly. "I'm sure I will," he says, and goes to get the dogsled. He doesn't trust Bob to get himself and Ben home safely today.
--fin
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 08:32 am (UTC)That's the effect we wanted -- so yes, I am GLAD I STABBED YOU IN THE CHEST. *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 08:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 11:37 am (UTC)This is fantastically written... you're scarily talented, dear *G*
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:26 pm (UTC)*blushes furiously* Um, thanks!
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 12:08 am (UTC)Aw, thanks!
no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 02:26 pm (UTC)And the fact that you included this phrasing? exact revenge in like kind Makes me all shivery.
Very nice!
no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 07:38 pm (UTC)(*snugs you* You know I Iove you, right?)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 11:11 pm (UTC)So you won't hit me if I tell you I think "enfuriated" should be "infuriated"?
Ow! Ow! Ow!
(Sorry, I couldn't resist!)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 11:14 pm (UTC)