Hi, so here is another story from me, it's a pre-series story which is a new one for me but I am really looking forwards to it and I hope you do to.
I have constantly alluded in other Waltons stories that in my personal headcannon Ben Sr (John's brother) was a homosexual. I have also alluded to John knowing about it, the Waltons was filmed in the sixties, somehow I think things would have been very different if it was filmed today so this is my headcannon. Ben Walton survives and Waltons Mountain gets some much needed LGTBQ love.
If you don't like that, don't bother reading.
This is going to be short and sweet this story about ten chapters.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine except Bradley and maybe some interpretation on the births of John-Boy and Jason...and the rest of them.
Historical references are my own.
Please Read and Review.
There is an episode in the later seasons where Olivia drinks champagne because it's her and John's anniversary and so this is where Esther drinking recipe comes from. I figured if she was ever gonna do it, it was this moment right here.
Boots With My Father's Name
Chapter 3-Different Drummer
Zeb Walton has often employed the philosophy of don't ask, don't tell with his oldest. Now though he thinks he has to ask. Because God knows (and he says that reverently) Ben is not hiding this.
Zeb Walton has often employed the philosophy of don't ask, don't tell with his oldest. Now though he thinks he has to ask. Because God knows (and he says that reverently) Ben is not hiding this.
He thinks that as they sit for dinner the first night and Ben casually mentions that for the time being Bradley can bunk in his room until he gets somewhere to go.
"And where will you go?" Esther says quick as a whip. "You need someplace here I assume, maybe—"
"I was thinking up in the hills"
Clearly that is not what Esther wants and Zeb loves his wife and he too does not want that, he got both his boys back he wants them in his eyeline for a long time to come and he does not want to spend his older years dragging his behind up the mountains no matter how good it's supposed to be for the heart.
"Why not clear out the shed" he says. "We can get a couple of beds in there for the both of you until you make plans"
He makes it as casual and carefree as he dares and it's because in truth he doesn't know how much Esther knows about their eldest and his…desires. If she knows or at the very least suspects she never mentions it but he likes to think that if Esther knew she would. But then again Zeb has never dared to mention it, it felt like a little secret between himself and God when the boys were at war and Zeb had looked at the cross in the Church and said that the Lord had given him two boys and he wanted them back preferably in the same condition he sent them off in.
He had gotten what millions of fathers did not get, all over the world, hundreds of boys scattered to the wind, nameless, faceless and he feared forgotten. His boys on the other hand came back home alive, with their sight and their limbs and their hearing and their lungs. He got them back and now he has this other man with Ben and he knows that he has to deal with that the same way he had to deal with Olivia when she crash landed into their lives one early morning where he had thought both his boys asleep in their beds when they most certainly were not.
He knows that he has to ask the question because as soon as he does then he can start to plan.
The problem he thinks as he sips his coffee. Is that he doesn't know how to start. How do you come out and ask if your eldest is a homosexual. How in 1919 do fathers and sons have this conversation when the very thought of it is classed as immoral and illegal?
It's not like there's a book for this kind of thing either or someone he can write too. All Zeb's got is his gut and a sense of what his eldest can do.
Olivia clears away the dishes and John sits on the floor and plays with his sons. Ben joins in and Bradley sips his coffee and chats with Esther and it's all very amicable and Zeb watching sees his family. He should be at peace and indeed a part of him is, a part of him has longed for this…for his boys back in one piece.
The other part of him is terrified that it's all a dream about to come crashing down.
It's not that Zeb doesn't know.
He does. He's…he suspected for a long time when Ben turned fourteen and John turned twelve and John got into girls and Ben didn't. It wasn't obvious but it was gradual, he didn't do dances or if he did he picked woman and girls who were never usually picked, the unpopular ones who he took onto the dancefloor, widows, older woman, nobody seriously. The girls who needed a bit of kindness, the woman who needed a bit of laughter in their life and Ben had shrugged in that way that John had tried to copy when Esther had told him he was being sweet and when Zeb had asked him if there was never anyone really special he wanted to dance with.
John he knew, knew because when Ben had been eighteen all forms of communication between the two brothers about girls had stopped. It was clear that both knew what was going on, that there was a secret but Ben whenever Esther had asked had just smiled serenely and said that he didn't know if he was the marrying kind.
"Besides…Johnny's the one with all the girls hovering around him Ma not me"
That had been the last conversation Zeb could remember until a student from the university coming up to study land had been to visit. Usually he couldn't stand those people but the man had only asked for a place to sleep and Esther had relented and said he could stay for a week in the barn. Ben and him had been close, Ben had offered to take him out and Zeb who had work up to his ears in those days had relented and he had thought nothing off it until he saw Ben sneaking out to the barn and then sneaking back in the next morning. There had been a pause where he had watched then carefully and as he had gone to clean his fishing tackle he had seen his son and that damn student pressed up against the back of the barn door lazily kissing as if it was a normal thing.
And then he had known.
He had walked away slightly stunned and trying very hard to forget the blissed out look on his eldest's face and had ended up going fishing methodically trying to think it through.
First thing was that Zeb loved his son, he was not one of those men who would ever turn their backs on their children. Esther had born him three children and had lost one in the early days and he had watched her heart break and had felt his own go. He was never going to turn his babies away from his door for anything even if he disapproved.
The second thing was the very act himself. Zeb was not some corn fed country boy with no idea about the world. He knew enough to know that people had urges…and he also knew that his view privately and publicly if asked was that if both sides were adult and consenting what did he care.
As he watched his little rod bob in the water he had to think on that.
In truth he had seen and heard enough to know about men who liked men. And it did not bother him that Ben was one of those men. It didn't…Zeb loved his son, his son loved a little bit differently than the rest of the world. Didn't change the fact that Zeb still loved his son.
But still…suddenly the world became very different to how it was before this morning's discovery. Now he had other things to worry about. Never mind the immortal soul bit but this was against the law…
And as for the immortal soul bit well…the God that Zeb believed in was a loving and patient God who loved them all. He believed that God saw what was in each persons heart and there was nothing but good in Ben's heart. And so if He was as loving as Zeb thought he was then God was the least of his worries.
Esther was another thing.
No he thought looking down at his rod. No he would spare Esther this, he knew that her love for her son and her love for God would clash with her and he was not going to have her torn apart because of this.
As he came home that night he hugged Ben and Ben slightly bemused hugged him back. It was the only way Zeb could think to tell his son that it was okay that he was who he was. That he was going to love him no matter what, that he was going to be with him no matter what, that he would always have a home here with them on Walton's Mountain.
And if he prayed to God that night to look after his boy and give him a life full of happiness then…well…that was between him and God.
Then John had eloped and Ben had brought them home grinning as Olivia in white was nearly dropped on the floor, then there had been John-Boy, Jason and then a World War whose sparks had travelled over to America and taken his two boys.
And now he got them back, eighteen months of hope and prayer and dread everytime Ike came with the mail and they got them back.
And with Ben came this man who was looking at his son in a quite frankly indecent way and Ben who was looking right back and Zeb knew that this was the man that Ben had chosen.
Great. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Zeb was fine with it he really was.
He just needed the recipe first.
Esther frowned when she saw him with the jug by his bed but he flashed her a look.
"I think we are entitled to a drink tonight Esther" he said pouring a generous amount into a mug. "We are both exceptionally lucky and I for one intend to drink to it"
Esther looked at him in her nightdress for a second and then teetered on the edge of speech and then.
"Give it to me"
"Esther"
"Zebulon it's not for the reasons you think"
She held out her hand and he passed her the mug and she stared at the contents and then drank it in one.
Zeb fell off the edge of the bed in shock.
He caught himself just in time and then rightened himself before he had half of upstairs crashing down to check he'd not had a heart attack.
Because Esther drinking the recipe was something that he had never seen and in their long marriage he had never planned to see and it had taken him almost to his knees in shock.
Which considering one son had eloped in the night and the other was a homosexual was saying something.
"Esther"
"Zeb" she said passing back the mug. "I know"
"Know what?"
She shot him a long look and then.
"I know that Bradley is not up there with Ben in two separate beds"
For a second his mind went blissfully blank, he didn't get what the hell she was trying to tell him and then he did and his mouth dropped open. Esther sighed looking back at the empty mug and then cool as you please…
"You know you've got to give those two old ladies credit, it's a sin what their doing but that's not that bad. Of course this is a special occasion but…" she shrugged and then smiled at his rather dumb expression.
"Good night Zeb"
And with that she turned on her side and moved as if to go to sleep and Zeb still holding the mug processed what he had just seen.
His wife was drinking.
His wife was drinking recipe.
His wife knew about Ben.
HIS WIFE KNEW ABOUT BEN!
And now his wife was going to sleep as if she didn't have a care in the world and…
HANG ON!
"Hang on!" he nearly shouted and Esther sat back up again sighing.
"Hang the fuck on!"
"ZEBULON"
"ESTHER"
For one long second they stared at each other and then Esther sighed.
"You better pour yourself another one" she said nodding at the glass, "I am going to get the cocoa out, I fear we need to have a chat"
And with that she got up and padded towards the kitchen in search of her favourite place the stove and Zeb was left to pour—oh who was he kidding he was drinking this straight out of the bottle.
It seemed they had a lot of talking to do.
And so there you go, I hope you enjoy see you next chapter.
Next Chapter-Esther recollects what she knows...and she and Zeb talk about their son's collective futures.