Yet another unexpected visitor and a heart to heart Joe never saw coming.

What seemed like not three hours after his oldest, sternest, most serious brother, plus the only person in the house who spoke more than one language, had barged into his room, laughed at he and Candy's nocturnal arrangement and allowed themselves to be sworn to secrecy about it, Joe was payed yet another visit. Though, not by Sheriff Coffee, who he hoped he hadn't scared off for good with his little 'episode' the other day, and not from his other brother either.
No, when Joe looked up from where he'd been staring off into empty space, counting the pangs his head sent him between every throb from his wrist —it was a four to one beat—, it was to the sight of his pa looking uncharacteristically unsure as he shut the door behind himself.

"Is it lunch time already?" Joe asked, wondering if he'd somehow lost track of time yet again. Something that it turned out had most likely been happening more frequently than he'd have guessed.

"Hm? Oh, no, Hop Sing's only starting on lunch now," Ben said as he walked up to and took the seat by the bed. Making him the third unexpected visitor to sit in it in only the last day or so.

"Oh. Was there something... else then?" Joe found himself prompting when his pa just sat there, continuing to look rather undecided about something.

"Yes. I was hoping to speak with you at a time when there wouldn't be interruptions," Ben Cartwright explained.

"Okay... Uh, I'm all ears," Joe encouraged when nothing more was said.

"Hm? Oh, right," Ben said with a chuckle, adjusting his perch on the questionably comfy seat. "Yes, I was hoping to talk to you, Joseph, about your heart."

"M-my heart?" Joe asked, feeling the muscle in question speed up and his eyes go wide. "But the doc said everything was fine, right? What- what-"

"No, there's no question of health; Your heart is fine, Joe, just-" Ben cut himself off, took a breath, and started from the beginning.
"I was hoping to talk to you about what it is your heart wants."

"To get out of this bed?"

Ignoring the quip, the father went on, relatively unperturbed. "I have been made aware of certain details concerning your and Candy's friendship and I have come here today to give you my blessing."

"Blessing? What's going on? What blessing?" Joe asked, feeling a faint chill run down his spine at the strange look his pa was giving him.

"My blessing in your and Candy's pursuit of each other's... affections," Ben said, sounding marginally less unperturbed.

"I don't- Who- What-" Joe blanched as he realized his pa knew. He knew and he was staring straight into Joe's eyes and his face was getting hard around the edges and he was opening his mouth again and-

"Joseph, the heart knows what the heart wants, and if what your heart wants is a saddle tramp, this saddle tramp, then, by thunder, there is nothing your brothers, Hop Sing, nor myself will do to stop it pursuing him." The hard look melted to something approaching reassuring and Joe's pa opened his mouth once more. "Besides, it's nice to have company at the table. Our cook hates left overs."

"I'll say," Joe agreed with an ultimately relieved chuckle, surprised by his pa's apparent support concerning the issue of blossoming affections on the ranch.

The father looked at his injured son in a way that Joe wasn't quite sure he'd seen before; part understanding, part hoping for understanding.

"Joseph, do you know the nature of Hop Sing and my relationship. Aside from simply employee and employer, respectively?"

"Yeah, Pa, you're… good friends?"

"Yes. Yes we are. But, there is something more there that… most don't tend to look for. A sort of fondness and closeness formed over many long years of hardship, good times, and heartbreak," Ben said. Strange look unchanging.

Joe paused a moment to ponder the riddle. "You love each other?"

"Without a doubt," Ben affirmed with a convicted nod.

"But, Hop Sing has his own 'personal quarters', and-and-and- you both date ladies, and-

"Yes. Our relationship is rather... unconventional. It is platonic at its core, yet we support each other, we care for each other, we're the closest of friends, and you're right: we do live in very separate quarters and we live our separate lives, but we do so together. And we do so happily," Ben explained. All patience. Before he continued though, Joe noted the slight turn toward melancholy his pa's expression took.
"Both of us were hit quite hard, harder than perhaps most could imagine, by the death of your mother. She truly was an amazing person," Ben said with a blue chuckle. "In that time of grief, we had no one to turn to but ourselves. And to each other. It was during that period, and in the ensuing weeks if not months, that we came to realize a bond existed. Made all the stronger by everything that we had been through over the short years that we had already known each other." A fond look passed over his father's face as Joe watched, transfixed. "He was there for your biggest brother's birth. He helped me raise your oldest brother after his mother died. He's been here…"

"Forever?"

"Yes. Forever." The solemnity in that one, small action of a nod gave Joe a new appreciation for the subtly of human expression. Or, more specifically, for his pa's capacity for subtlety.

"I've always thought of him as part of the family," said Joe, a smile beginning to play at the corner of his lips. "Doesn't help that I've known him as long as I've known you," he added with a cheeky slant to his brow.

"No, I suppose it wouldn't," Ben said with eyes downcast. Not in a way that indicated shame or shyness, but the presence of fond memories.
When his pa looked back up at him, it was with a certainty in his gaze that pinned every ounce of Joe's attention exactly where it was. "The relationship that Hop Sing and I share is a special one. I hope- I wish for something equally as special for you and your Candy," the patriarch sitting by his bed said, sounding as if he had barely refrained from referring to his employee once again as instead, 'saddle tramp'.
Joe appreciated the effort.

"Thanks, Pa. That means a lot."

"You're welcome, son. And, uh, I wouldn't want you to worry about me not understanding if and, indeed, when you ever need to speak with me a-about this... subject." It took his pa a moment to retrieve the correct word, waving a hand in a small circle from the wrist as he stood from his chair. "Adam told me that he'd already had a touching conversation with you about not being afraid to voice your feelings to-"

"Adam what?" Joe asked with an unbelieving blink."

"Adam's the one that told me you two whippersnappers were... 'sweet on each other'," the last of the sentence preceded again by a pause and the twirling of one hand as the phrase was searched for.

"Well, leave it to Adam, I guess," Joe said with a roll of his eyes. Causing his head to give an unpleasant pang which reminded him why it was he was still confined to bed. "But what made him so sure he was right about all this? Why do you think he's right about a-any of this?" The raised eyebrow that got him had Joe wondering whether it hadn't come out a mite disrespectful. So he tacked on a, "Sir?" for good measure.

With a sigh teetering on the cusp of long suffering, Ben explained the method to his madness. "Adam has been around the world, my dear Joseph. And even before that, if any a judgement I'd trust besides my own, Adam's is one of them."

"So, you really wouldn't mind hearing about... Candy and me 'being sweet on each other'?" Joe asked, disappointed by the timidness in his voice.

"Joseph," his pa said, pausing for effect, "I'd be delighted."

"Thanks, Pa," said a Joe who hoped the pink wasn't showing on his cheeks.

"No trouble at all," said his pa. Before the busy man made for the exit. "Oh, eh, might want to put an effort into finishing your lunch," Ben added as he opened the door. "Hop Sing's beginning to worry." And with that, the father left to see to some chores, and make himself ready for the second meal of the day.

"Is that what he calls it?" Joe mused to an empty room. Both feeling a good deal of hope for the future, and hoping that his stomach was up for a full helping when the tray made its way around again. For his own good, as well as everyone else's.

I hope news of Ben and Hop Sing's longstanding queer-platonic relationship doesn't come as a complete surprise. If read carefully, they have been quite affectionate with each other for this story! XD
If it does though, I'll still take it as a compliment, because I was also trying to write them the way they are on the show itself!
And yay for solidarity! Joe and his pa are gonna be besties for life!