Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me.

Notes: This is my first `Due South' story. I spent a few years dabbling in DC Comics/Smallville related fics but backed off and now would like to try something new. Let me know what you think of it.

E-mail me, if you like: EscapeToCity@aol.com

WHILE THE WORLD SLEEPS

I am awake.

He`s all over me.

I cannot remove his taste from my mouth. It is there, imprinted on my buds, burned into my cheeks, painted-- no, tattooed across my lips.

His taste is stronger in winter. The sweet comes with the harsh.

I walk outside into the star-drenched field. The wind is slight, from the southeast...

I have completed an assignment in Prince Rupert, some sort of immigration/drugs affair. It was all rather distasteful, everyone was heavily armed and bitter and quite impolite.

Things are becoming tense. Rumours of border troubles. Our neighbor to the South militarizing and organizing...something...I am no politician but I feel it as the anger of the world creeps closer and closer to my woods.

Diefenbaker is much slower now. He rides along but his muscles burn and his eyes water. I rub his paws at night and make sure he gets the choice cuts. I don't like to let him get too far down the ridge these days. His sons are battling for alpha position these days. We sit on the porch, especially in the evening...I look in those wise eyes...he keeps telling me everything is fine. He lies. He is afraid to leave me.

"I can't do this. It's just not going to work out. I know you'll understand, someday."

The words...were they his? Or hers? Or my father's? They all blur sometimes in the darkness and I come to, startled and sweaty, Dief watching me closely, his eyes flitting up to the rifles...

"Come with me...I'll take care of the both of us. You won't have to do anything."

It was desperate, true. It was clingy and immature and rather pathetic. But when isn't love some of those things? I thought if only I could get him here, keep him here...then perhaps he wouldn't want the City with its blood and terrors...He would choose this green and white place rife with life...not that unfeeling, unforgiving kingdom of stone...

I was wrong.

"This place is mine just like the Territories are yours. You cannot change me."

He kept saying that...you cannot change me; you cannot mold me into your perfect little cabin mate to sit around cooking while I trekked around the fields hunting and beating my chest. He did not understand. I never wanted him tamed. I wanted him wild and free and naked in the snow up here. With me.

"Go there and be what you need to be. You have to do what's best for you, Benny."

For a time, I got letters. Long, rambling affirmations of friendship. Stories of good busts and promotions. Then months went by. I considered calling but knew that was inappropriate. Then the dreaded call came and went. From Ma Vecchio of all people. Tinged with regret, promises of a basket of edibles on its way. He had found her, someone, a lady of elegance and means and kindness. They were married, a little one on the way. I was the past. I was alone. She accepted him. His flaws, his strange mannerisms. She loved him now. I wanted to hate her.

"Benton, caro...he's happy...be happy for him."

Was she beautiful, I asked? Was she strong? Could she hold him, protect him? Did she smell like leather and lavender? Did she know the secret places to make him scream? Cry? Could she read him? I knew every ounce of him, every layer, every scent from elbow to eyelash.

"She makes him happy."

I was never kind enough to him. Though I tried to be.

"I feel like you're judging me. Like you think you're better."

I couldn't pull back...I always had to be the superhero, the star, the most polite...the most *everything*...I so rarely let him shine. He couldn't shine...my glare would have burned him. Consumed him.

"You have a huge ego...you just won't accept that."

Some nights they have dances. The locals love to see their RCMP at play. I show up here & then, just to keep my name out there. People have forgotten I was once cast away from here, the wayward snitch thrown to the American wolves. No longer...these days ladies and gentlemen come up, faces animated and bold and blunt; I deny them all. My heart is closed now. That window has been passed and now I focus on my position and taking care of Dief, the pack, and the land...

Maggie tells me I need to `get out there'...find someone. She says the worse thing is to grow older alone.

I have always felt old. And I have generally been alone.

"You'll be fine, Benny. Promise. You're the strongest guy I have ever met."

But I'm not all that strong. I might look the part. I've bulked up some, let the beard linger. There are strands of silver around the corners of my mouth. I have grown even more proficient at tracking and fishing. I am a master chef for myself and my canine friends...however there are moments I fear (embrace) the idea that I might just dwell in my pocket of nowhere forever, solitary and satisfied.

Nearly every night he's there. On the El, laughing at me, feeding me penne with olive oil...I lick the sweat from his shoulder and bite him there, gently...I place him at Marshall Field's, trying on pink and gold mob suits, my tongue under his and my hand traveling due south, feeling and pulsing and taking, taking, always...he always tasted of pemmican and honey, fresh honey from the steepest slope...

"Taste the bitter with the sweet, Benton"

Her voice stings now...those lessons from childhood...

The dreams never last, much like my moments of slumber. Scattered my thoughts are and I find myself walking in circles around the cabin. The moon, the sun...sometimes sharing one space in the horizon. There, in those crystalline still moments...I can feel his hand in mine and for that short, fleeting instant it is real and warm and I am aroused and flustered. Ecstatic. Enough to conjure up that one historical moment where anything was possible...

"You know I love you."

"I know."

That was the one and only time-- and eight weeks later I was gone-- but in that hot, liquid evening I finally understood what passion was. What love was. Victoria only had passion tinged with violence and lust-- a complete absence of love. My father had only duty. My mother had emotion. My grandparents had their knowledge, finding solace and stability in the written word...

I was a broken man, the glue barely holding these disparate pieces in place.

Then he came. He finished me. He gave me breath and vitality and humour and, yes, the only truly mind-blowing sex of my life. I could come just from looking at him. He protected me. He shielded me.

All my life it had been the other way around. He became my guardian. My brother/lover/father/friend. Everyone. Everything.

The snow crunches crisply beneath my feet and there he is-- I can hear him...

"What can we do with this?"

"Sleep on it...see what happens..."

END of `While The World Sleeps'