Chapter Text
Ben is in the apartment when Riley gets home. Using Riley’s laptop. Sitting on Riley’s couch. With his feet up on Riley’s coffee table.
He looks right at home.
Of course, he had a key. And all of Riley’s passwords. He hadn’t asked for either, but Riley had offered.
Riley’s heart swells at the sight. He's glad Ben hadn’t made him show up at his dad’s to beg for their friendship. For scraps. The worst part is Riley absolutely would have. He wonders if Ben knows that.
“Uh, hey.”
“Hi, Riley.”
“Whatcha doing?”
Ben doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he types for a good minute or two. Riley shuffles uncertainly in the doorway, and then remembers this is his apartment. He slips out of his shoes, throws his keys onto the counter, and sits down on the couch—leaning against the opposite arm as far away from Ben as possible. He’s not sure what about the way he does it manages to be sulky, but there’s definitely something. Maybe the way his arms and legs seem to cross before the cushion has even settled.
Ben glances up, smiling. “Sorry. Writing a lecture. I’m speaking at a conference in a month. About the Booth diary pages.”
Ben says it like it’s a story Riley should know, but he doesn’t. Riley lets it pass without asking like he does with a lot of things Ben says.
“Right. Cool.”
“Yeah.”
Ben’s focus returns to laptop, and Riley wants to kick himself. Probably it would be a bad idea to just ask “What are we?” or “What happens now?”. If Riley were less of a coward, he would do it, but Ben would just ask what he means by that because Ben prefers specifics. But, then again, he also prefers Abigail, so he can’t always get what he wants. Specifics and cowardice aside, Abigail seems like as good an entry point as any.
“I talked to Abigail today. Just now actually.”
“Oh yeah? Any messages she wanted you to pass on?” Ben sounds amused, but he doesn’t look up.
Not that Riley is looking at him either. Definitely not. He’s looking right at the most interesting of all the plain white walls in his apartment. This one’s got water stains that have been inching terrifyingly closer to the cable box with every storm.
“No messages, but…Ben?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t think she wants to work things out this time.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She, uh, said so?”
“Is that right?”
“Well, maybe not that exactly.” Riley tries to unwind his angry limbs and turns to look at Ben. He hates himself for the way his heart swells again, just watching the other man go back and reword a sentence. “Something more like you don’t make her happy.”
Ben glances up for a second. He looks more surprised and curious than hurt, but Riley’s heart clenches anyway.
“And that she doesn’t make you happy!” Riley tacks on.
Ben goes back to typing. Like that somehow reminded him of something he needed to say about history. “Interesting…”
Ben seems to mean it, and Riley doesn’t know what to do with that. So, he stews. Was the…at the restaurant… He can’t even let himself think it. But Abigail had said it wasn’t why. Did Ben know that? Should Riley say so? Would it matter to Ben? What happened…did it matter? To anyone?
Riley squirms. He feels stuck in place and examined although Ben isn’t even looking at him. The room is stifling just because Ben is in it. And because Ben won’t look at him.
Until the other day, neither of them had ever acknowledged his stupid crush. Riley had known Ben knew (because Ben knows everything, duh!) but it was just a fact they both ignored. The earth is round, history is cool, Ben is a genius, the sky is blue, and Riley is hopelessly in love with Ben.
But Ben hadn’t even said anything. He’d just reached out and touched. Ben had never touched him like that. Or like anything. Riley can’t remember much touching outside of a quick clap on the shoulder. Sometimes a hand ruffling his hair. It was like Riley could still feel Ben’s fingers on his neck, like a buzzing under his skin. He wants to ask, “Is it my turn yet?” but he can’t find the courage.
Instead, he finds himself staring mesmerized at Ben’s hands, tapping away on his computer.
“So, is that why you went to the house? To ask Abigail if I made her happy?”
Riley coughs, feeling caught. Instead of answering, he struggles to think of a way to get the conversation back to where he wants it. Riley is nothing if not a man of sequences. With life—like in programming—it’s best to focus on the first hurdle, and then let the code play out. Input a problem, output a solution.
All he needs to do is definitively address the most likely bad case scenario—that if Abigail really is done, Ben will be mad at him, mad enough to leave. He’d established the first part was true: Abigail was really done. Now, all that’s left is the second half of the equation: was Ben mad at him? Inputs and outputs. Simple enough.
“But if she doesn’t come back, uh, then what happens?”
Ben hums. “What do you mean?”
“You won’t be upset?”
Ben finally looks at Riley then, so Riley looks away. He stares out the window. The sun is about to go down.
“With me, I mean. Obviously, it’s upsetting to get broken up with! But is it, like, my fault? In your eyes or…?” Riley’s eyes jump back to Ben, desperate to see and hear his reaction.
Ben looks amused. “Don’t worry, Riley. You didn’t do anything.” Ben turns his attention back to the lecture. “And besides, you were here first.”
The relief is so palpable Riley shudders. He feels tears welling in his eyes—happy ones!
But despite the relief, despite Ben saying just what he wanted to hear, despite the fact that it’s immature and unfair, he can’t help but say: “But you picked her.”
“Hm.” Ben is typing intently again, and Riley resists the urge to lean over and slam the laptop shut.
“Why?”
Ben pauses then. He fixes his eyes on Riley thoughtfully. Like maybe he’d never thought about it before. It fills Riley with a feeling he’s afraid to identify. Hope is so much scarier than love, so Riley bursts out “She said that you don’t see me as a real person.”
This makes Ben laugh. Riley scowls. He pulls his knees up to his chest and presses his chin down, squeezing himself tightly to keep from reaching over and touching Ben. From getting on his knees and begging.
“And did she tell you what that’s supposed to mean?”
Riley shuts his eyes and shakes his head. He hears Ben set down the laptop and stand up. He stretches noisily. Riley opens his eyes, afraid he’s leaving, and in a flash, Ben is looming over him.
“I see you. You look real enough.”
Ben swoops down. Riley lets out a squeak as Ben pushes his legs apart and squeezes between them. He tugs Riley up, until his sitting up on the back of the couch—pinned at the waist between it and Ben’s hips.
Riley loses control over his body—letting out a mortifyingly dramatic wheeze and then freezing in place. Even though Ben is so close, and if he could just—
Ben softens. The intensity is still there, but it’s shot through with something else, something more human. More present. Ben has big ideas, big ideals. It was rare he focused completely on something tangible, and of course, he’d never wasted time focused completely on Riley.
Riley tells himself it’s not love—not love love—but it’s close. And maybe—
Ben wraps his arms around Riley and tugs him forward into a hug and back beside him on the couch. He kisses Riley on the top of his head. Even though his hair, it burns.
“I pick you, Riley.” Ben says it like it was never a question. Like Riley wasn’t the second choice at all.
“Okay,” Riley squeaks out.
Maybe that’s true. And maybe that’s enough and it is okay, Riley tells himself. But when he opens his eyes, Ben is looking down at his lips with curiosity, head tipped to one side. And Riley feels like his stomach has fallen down to his feet. Could it be—?
“What happened to your mouth?” Ben asks, sounding faintly alarmed.
Suddenly, Riley’s brain exits the dream plane and re-enters reality. He lets out a painfully fake sounding laugh.
“Oh. Uh, coffee?”
“Does it hurt?”
“It did at first but…not really. Anymore.”
Ben grabs his chin to get a better look at the burns on the inside of his lip but lets go immediately when Riley lets out a humiliating sound.
“Sorry.” Riley turns his face away and thinks about suicide. He could buy a gun. He had the money for it. All thanks to Ben. Would that be dramatic? Well, Ben liked drama. They had that in common.
“No, I’m sorry about the other night. I shouldn’t have done that to you.” Ben slings an arm across Riley’s shoulders and urges him closer. It’s decidedly friendly, and Riley tries to be grateful for that. That Ben wasn’t afraid to touch him after…Riley buries the thought in his mind and his face in Ben’s shoulder.
“I didn’t mind exactly.” Riley mutters.
Ben huffs out a laugh. “I just wanted to prove a point. I had no idea Abigail would get so angry, but she can never stand to be wrong.”
Riley lets out a tortured laugh. He pulls back and away before his tears can drip onto Ben’s shirt and is pointedly looking out the window again at the sunset as he sniffs, “Yeah, well, I always said she was mean. Just for the record.”
“I know, Riley.”
Ben’s hands squeeze gently on his arm, tugging him back into another hug, and Riley lets himself fall back into the warm security of his friend’s arms. It’s enough. It has to be.