Drowning In Ship

All those years repressing his love for Benji, thinking it’ll get him hurt, get him killed, how every time he shows affection for anyone, marrying Julia, holding hands with Ilsa in the boat, they end up damaged or dead, and shoving all his feelings for Benji into a box deep inside and locking it closed.

I think the thing with that Entity box is that it unlocks what is hidden deep inside. With Gabriel it intensified the evil and the madness inside. I suspect it’s done that with anyone who went inside.

But inside Ethan is love, especially his love for Benji, and it unlocked that.

And just at the moment all Ethan’s love for Benji floods his body and mind, when he realises he can’t hold this back anymore - he doesn’t want to hold this back anymore…

(Wonder if Benton ever took Carter down to the jazz club….)

And the very gentle way Benton reassures Carter and his hand cradling his elbow - oh, these two….

AND Benton talking - admiringly - about Carter on his date!

And for a second Carter focuses on Benton….

(Yes, I’m watching THAT episode. The one where Carter gets stabbed and Benton practically takes out a police officer in his rush to get to him. Where he runs into the room demanding to know if’s breathing)

The interplay and dependence and responses between these two is exquisite

The way Benton orders Carter to stay with him, to look at him, look at him in his eyes and even though he’s slipping away, Carter still has to obey, turns his head…

‘I’m glad it’s you’

‘Hey, I’m getting you through this man, you hear me?’

The way Benton can’t take his eyes off Carter even when scrubbing up - and Anspaugh and Corday watch Peter, knowing how difficult this is for him.

And Benton utter desperation as he operates and it’s all going wrong and he’s shouting and moving as fast as he can and he’s still losing Carter…

(Huh. They gave Carter a colostomy. I had one of those. It was a very difficult and painful recovery, hopefully Carter does better, if anyone is writing fic about it I’m happy to answer questions)

(Poor Lucy - it must have been terrifying - having enough medical knowledge to know what was happening to her and how it could and would end)

Benton’s sigh of relief when he hears Carter is out of the OR. And then the way he looks after him in recovery - the constant ‘good, good’, the order to be up and about - he likes to take care of Carter, doesn’t he?

That was incredibly shippy, which is the reason for my rewatch.

He’s just so damn competent in wrangling Ethan right from the start.

He had about five seconds of saying he wasn’t going to deal with Ethan’s bullshit before saying ‘fuck it’ and giving in and then between Ethan’s signals and movements and Benji reading of them and timing and his own intelligence managed to get Ethan and Bogdan out of there.

He brings the climbing gloves even though there was no reason to think they’d be needed, and explains them perfectly to Ethan. He obeys Ethan’s instructions immediately in the hotel. He manages to get Ethan in better mood at the airport with the ‘love the car’ bit (and I bet it was him Ethan called)

Do you know what I think? When Luther and Ethan were talking about the mission before the others got there? I think Luther listened to ‘and Benji did this and luckily Benji remembered the gloves and Benji did agree to come and Benji….’

And Luther listened to his oldest friend and realised that Benji was already pretty skilled in handling Ethan - and god knows, Luther needs help with that. And Luther decides Benji is good for Ethan and maybe it would be handy to keep him around…and just keep him for Ethan, no one else.