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ds_flashfictionTitle: In Plain Site
Author: WriteDragon
Fandoms: due South/Homicide Life on the Street
Rating: T
Word count: 1,380
Warnings: No warnings apply
Ships: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Characters: Benton Fraser, Ray Kowalski, Tim Bayliss
Tags: angst, hope, homophobia, coming out, being closeted, bisexuality, Buddhism, crossover, child abuse mention, suicide mention, computers and web sites
Summary: Fraser discovers a web site while perusing the Geocities domain, and it gets him thinking — about Ray, about himself … about, well, a number of things.
-----
Fraser closes the door to his office and steps inside the quiet space. The end of the day. Everyone is gone, though it took convincing Turnbull that the Queen’s Suite did not actually need a fifth dusting before he’d finally left.
Inspector Thatcher, wearing a little black dress and matching kitten-heeled shoes, had glided out the door an hour earlier on the arm of a French business magnate.
“Don’t wait up,” she’d said, “and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Not that you would,” she added with a wink before turning to leave with the smiling businessman.
“Understood,” he said, because what else was there to say?
Fraser sits down in his office chair, his muscles relaxed and heavy, and rubs a hand over the back of his neck. His tunic hangs neatly in the closet, boots unlaced and tucked away beneath. Dief curls up against his legs and rests his muzzle on top of Fraser’s sock-clad feet, warming them both.
An eerie combination of yellow light from the single desk lamp and the blue-violet glow from the computer monitor slants across the desktop, casting double shadows in the darkened room.
“You’ve gotta check out this Geocities site,” Ray had said earlier that week. “It’s a trip. There’s whole cities on there — well, topics, really but they call ‘em cities — and people put the wildest stuff up. You wouldn’t believe it.”
Fraser would believe it, actually. Geocities had only been in existence for a few years and like the World Wide Web itself, was a largely unregulated and untamed space. On this single hosting site there were many places to explore: Athens, Tokyo, West Hollywood …. Because Ray had insisted that he investigate the site, Fraser had dipped his virtual toes in here and there, but so far had been largely unimpressed with what he’d found.
Until now.
While browsing Eastern Philosophy sites in a neighborhood of Tokyo, he stumbles across a site he’s never seen before, and the title stops him in mid-scroll: “In Plain Site: Buddhist Perspectives on Bi-Sexuality”.
Something tickles at the back of his mind — perhaps he’s having one of Ray’s hunches. Fraser hesitates, his finger hovering over the mouse button. Should he click? Shouldn’t he? Is this something he really wants to admit he’s curious about?
It’s just a web site. What could it hurt to look? As the saying went, curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. He takes a deep breath. Through the looking glass, Alice, he thinks to himself, and clicks.
Unlike most of the other Geocities pages, with their flashing images, gaudy clashing colors, yellow “under construction” icons, and questionable taste (not to mention veracity), this site is different. It features a simple red screen graced by an illustration of a seated Buddha, white lotus flowers, and a menu.
Menu:
Hiding in Plain Sight
Meditation
Karma
Prana
Buddha
Loving Kindness or Metta
Karma and Child Abuse
Nervous with anticipation about what he might find inside the deeper layers of the site, Fraser clicks on “Hiding in Plain Sight”, and begins to read.
The first post explores the relationship between Buddhism, bisexuality … and police work, of all things. Like Ben, the blogger is an officer of the law, and … he’s … Ben realizes with a shock that what he’s reading hits home in more ways than one.
Stunned, Fraser reads another post, then one more, until he finds himself caught, ensnared, enthralled; his lips part in breathless wonder as the eloquent, heartfelt, soul-baring words flow through his mind and into his heart.
For the first time in his adult life Fraser feels validated. Understood. Not alone. It’s like looking into a mirror, but instead of finding the usual distortion and mockery of the fun-house that is the society in which he lives, the face looking back is filled with compassion.
One by one he devours all of the articles on the site, reading deep into the night, into the still, quiet, liminal spaces where time itself seems to stop. It is the hour of the Wolf, and still he reads on, until fatigue overtakes him.
He has just enough presence of mind to clear his browser history before signing off for the night, and dropping into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
Fraser had been aware of — and confused by — the twinned nature of his own heart since adolescence. His father, he knew, would never understand. And in police culture, to be different often meant career (or even actual) suicide. So Fraser had kept his cards close to his vest, his mouth shut, and his heart protected by a high wall topped with coils of razor wire.
Mostly.
Fraser had never spoken about his inclinations to anyone, except Tom Quinn, his childhood mentor. One frozen, starry night, their faces lit by the flickering orange and red glow of their campfire, he had made his confession, his voice hushed and trembling.
Ben had waited for what seemed like an eternity for Quinn to speak; to condemn him or to absolve him, he wasn’t sure. To distract himself from the silence, Ben had watched the white mist of his breath mingle with the smoke from the fire as it rose into the dark. Higher and higher it rode on the wind, into the black, where it danced with the auroras, red and green, rippling overhead.
When Quinn nodded sagely and finally responded in his usual low, measured tones, Ben’s shoulders had dropped with relief.
“There is no shame in the ways of your spirit, Benton,” he said. “It just means that your heart is bigger than most. It is large enough to love and to serve everyone. It is your responsibility to give that love wisely.”
After that, Quinn had said no more about it, and Ben returned to the things of boyhood: of exploration, hunting, books, and learning the ways of the wilderness.
Years later, stuck in a hospital bed with a bullet lodged in his spine, he’d had ample time to contemplate Quinn’s words. If only he had listened, and given his love wisely. If only.
***
Lying in his cot the night after discovering the web site, his hands resting behind his head as he stares vacantly up at the ceiling, Fraser wonders if he is destined to remain alone, with a heart too big for this world. He can count on one hand the people he’d loved over the course of his life — men and women both — some of them deeply, one of them disastrously, none of them for very long.
He wonders, too, if Ray Kowalski ever feels the same way. And if he does, what that might mean. And whether anyone will, or should ever, know the answers to those questions.
***
Deeply curious about the blogger, Fraser takes advantage of his Consular access and tracks the ISP to Baltimore. The owner of the site has kept himself anonymous and clearly wishes to stay that way. Fraser could, theoretically, track the site to a single user, but instinct — and an abundance of caution — tells him that it is better not to pry too deeply, so he lets it be. Something, another of Ray’s borrowed hunches, perhaps, tells him it wouldn’t be good karma to look any further.
One day, the site simply vanishes.
Fraser has no clue what has happened to the blogger. There’s no way to know if he is all right, or if he is even still alive. Fraser questions, briefly, why the site has disappeared, but in his heart he knows. Closets exist everywhere, even on the internet.
That night Fraser practices a loving-kindness meditation directed towards the mystery blogger.
May he be free from anger.
May he be free from pain.
May he be free from suffering.
May he be at peace.
Six hundred miles to the east, Homicide Detective Tim Bayliss looks up and sees a shooting star streaking across the darkened Baltimore skyline. The bright white light flickers against the lenses of his glasses and for a single fleeting instant, like the meteorite before it burns to ash and disappears forever, he forgets. He forgets his suffering, the betrayals, the shouted slurs, and the hate crimes.
For one bright, burning moment, he feels at peace.
The End.
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