Work Text:
It’s not alright
Ben slides from the sofa to the floor as the sobbing wrecks its way through his body.
‘He left, he left, he left!’ The single refrain beats through him as if it's his heart beat. ' you finally did it' his brain chips in helpfully when his tears begin to slow, his throat raw beyond anything he can remember. 'you lost him just like you lost Paul. Just like you deserve.'
Just the thought of his Paul's name forces another painful gasp passed his bitten lips, and re-wets his stinging eyes.
Blinking furiously to hold those tears back, his eyes eventually refocus on the long forgotten beer bottle in the table.
Grabbing for it he was relieved it was still mostly full, though a few of it's dead comrades lay already in the recycling bin.
Swinging deep, he swallowed hard, before slamming the base of the bottle against his thigh.
Those halted tears spilled over his eyelashes this time, not from the pain, although it hurt like crazy, there were already a few bruises littering his thighs, it wasn’t the first time he had lashed out on himself. the action itself bringing forth a memory of watching Callum do the same sitting on the swings, many months ago in a private moment. Hunting so much inside that he had to hurt outside in some crazy effort to feel balanced again.
Callums name now brought almost as much pain as Paul's, and Ben roared at his loss, launching the bottle across the room so it smashed against the wall.
No one came running, no one cared, the house was empty and he was alone. The painful truth came crashing over him like a wave and he needed a way out of it. Pulling himself up on the sofa he felt wobbly in his legs, drunker than he really was, his usual constitution worn away by the emotions he was finally letting himself feel. The emotions he had been bottling up since before christmas.
Leaning against the walls of the front room he slid into the hallway and towards the kitchen. He need another drink and another and another after that.
It had been many nights since he had been able to sleep sober and tonight wasn't going to be the one to change that.
He frowned slightly at the closed kitchen door, he didn't remember shutting it and in this house a shut door often was a sign to go away. But Ben didn't care, there was very little in this house he didn't know about and the amount he had done for this family in the last few weeks he reckoned there was nothing he didn't deserve to know about.
Opening it with purpose he burst into the kitchen and scanned the room for secrets.
The room was dark, lit only from the moonlight streaming through the windows on his left. A half eaten and abandoned dinner sat on the side where he had discarded it. After realising he had no desire to eat tonight, and had started drinking instead.
Sat at the table was the very, very last person he had been expecting to see. His legs dissolved into jelly, and he had to fight to stay upright. His grip on the door handle helping immensely.
He was sat facing away from him, and Ben eyes could only bore into his back. His head was hung so low his mop of hair was hidden, and his dark shirt almost camouflaged him in the room, but it was him, it was Callum.
'he didn't go' Ben's mind screamed His throat tightened, and he scrubbed a hand across his face, a miserable attempt to hide some of those shed tears.
Silence filled the room between them, as Callum didn't even turn to look at him, in fact didn't even react to his appearance at all. The moonlight shining through the window caused stripes across his shoulders and Ben briefly wondered if he was dreaming.
"It's Keanu, isn't it ?"
Not dreaming then Ben realised as Callums voice finally broke though.
Callum slowly turned, his head first and then his long body twisting in the chair. His dark eyes piercing into Ben's.
"It's Keanu, isn't it?" He repeated. " The man you… the man whose..."
Ben flinched at the name, the accusation, but said nothing. He was still in shock.
Callum might not of been able to finish the sentence and Ben wasn't going to do it for him. Instead he just stared back, searching Callum's face for some sign of why he was still there, why he was asking in that cold tone, why was he looking at Ben like that? Why? Why?
"Ben!" Callum snapped when no response came. His frustration twisting his face as he scraped the chair across the floor and stood up, and taking a step towards Ben.
Ben flinched back this time, and hated himself for it. He'd worked so hard on not reacting like that little school boy inside of him that was frightened by bigger people, but he just couldn't find that hard man mask he wore most days. His tears had dissolved it tonight.
Callums face fell as he saw something in Ben's reaction and his entire body softened.
"Oh, Ben?" he repeated softer now, and calling, he took another step forward as if to offer his embrace.
But Ben shakes his head. He couldn't do that, he couldn't go and find comfort in Callums arms not when he could lose it again in a second. He threw his hands up in warning to stay away.
Callum folded in further on himself but took the message and didn't come any closer.
"Why Ben?" He whispered after a moment, " I've been sitting and thinking and I just… why? I know, I know what happened I get it, your Dad and Sharon and the baby, but... murder that's not you? Is it?"
Ben closed his eyes for a second, ‘Was it? Was it him?’
He pursued his lips and forced his eyes open again.
He had made his choice, he did, and he knows he needs to take his punishment for it. And this right now was more punishment than any court would ever be able to dish out.
Stepping forward he pushed past Callum and opened the fridge with as much nonchalance as he could muster, taking himself another bottle of beer.
" I thought you were leaving." He tries to hiss with as much venom in his voice, as he can muster. Yet another attempt to try and push the man he loves further away, but it comes out as a whine, a desperate beg to do anything but.
Callum blinks at him, and a look crosses his face as if he just realised something.
"No, no, I just needed to think, some air, for a moment," he gestures to the ajar back door, and Ben realises some of the coldness in his bones was from a real draft of winter and not just the frozen iceberg that has made home in his heart.
Callum takes a tiny step forward, bowing his head to catch Ben's attention back to him, and when their eyes meet, Ben can see tears in Callums and he feels sick, he never wanted this, he never wanted to hurt anyone. He never wanted to be the cause of Callums tears, not even when he was still with Whitney and Ben was baiting him relentlessly, it was never to hurt him.
"I am scared." Callum admits after a beat, and Ben flinches at the brutal honesty. "Jesus Christ Ben of course I am, and I need answers, things I need to know, but Im not...not leaving you." Callums face twists as if his tasted something awful. "I'm not happy, or…or impressed… but I'm not soft rainbows either Ben," Callum continues, he turns his gaze away "I can cope, no matter what you think"
Ben Huffs a laugh, and shakes his head, breaking eye contact to take a swig from the bottle. The man that had just run from him could cope? And of course Callum doesn't seem himself as soft, it's what makes him so.
Before he has registered the taller man moving, he his thrown back against the door, slamming it shut. The bottle falling from his hand, and shattering loudly, as he feels a firm but gentle grip of a hand around his throat, holding him up just enough he has to raise onto his toes to make it more comfortable. A thrill which is entirely inappropriate at this moment I time runs through him and sets of a fire low in his gut.
"Don't laugh at me Ben" Callum growled low in his ear, "You don't know what I've done, what I am..."
"Punching someone on the street isn't exactly the same thing." Ben growled back half teasing, half annoyed that Callum appeared to be taking this so lightly.
Callums long fingers around his neck twitch and slide away, as he seems to deflate somewhat.
"I've... I've killed people," he admits. In a choked off voice and Ben's playfulness scuttles out the door, a deep sickness settling in its place. “In the army." Callum continues his confession, his eyes on the floor. "I wasn't playing, I've followed orders and people have died. Enemies... friends... innocents.” Callums voice wavered, and Ben could hear him tightening his throat to hold something back.
“Hell, even not in the army I've shot people." He broke off with a self deprecating laugh. " If it wasn't for my bad aim, I would have killed Mick."
Callums rolls away from where he was pressed against Ben, hits his own back against the door and slides down it, landing in a puddle of long legs on the floor.
Ben was speechless, Callum so rarely spoke about his time in the army, and there was obviously so much to unpack there but Ben didn't know where to start.
A fresh realisation punched hard in his chest, they were both broken in different ways.
He had seen those flashes of anger, he’d seen shaking hands and unshed tears during moments that he hadn’t understood, and therefore had ignored, not willing to rock their precious boat. He heard Callum struggle to catch breath in the middle of the night, and now in a moment of clarity he wonders if Callum rushing to get air was not in disgust, at Ben's confession, but in a panic of his own memories?
It hurt him to realise maybe he didn't know Callum as well as he hoped.
Now, now he gets it, now he sees Callum is so used to hiding himself, that he has been hiding more than just his sexuality. His past, the soldier boy persona that ben had teased and been titillated by was a reality darker than he had even considered. Somehow that darkness makes Callums sunshine seem even brighter. Ben feels himself fall a little bit harder than he had already. He can’t push him away anymore.
He slides to the floor too.
“You didn't want to hurt Mick." He placated taking the cowards way out of those statements. It's all he can manage for now. He can do better in the future, maybe.
“Did you want to hurt Keanu?” Callum shot back, and Ben gasped, the older man was not pulling punches tonight. He opened his mouth and paused, he didn’t know how to answer, did he want to hurt him? He did feel the anger for his Dad, but would he have chosen to act this way on his own? Had his dad not held that bottle and threatened his own life, would Ben rational anger have stayed just at that, and not mutated into the deadly events that it had? Keanu had deserved a beating that was for sure, but death, Ben wasn’t sure, and that made it even harder.
Callum shook his head after a moment, obviously not expecting an answer. "It doesn't matter does it. I carried a gun and I used it, meaning to or not, luck made me not a murderer, not my choices."
Ben doesn't know what to say to that, instead he lays his head in Callums shoulder and sits in silence.
‘What had his choices made him?’
"It's not okay, Ben.” Callums whispers into his hair after a while "It's not okay to make these mistakes."
Ben nods silently, and he cant help but wonder if Callum means the mistakes of their violence against others, or the mistake he has labeled them as more than once. He hopes the former.
Reaching down to entangle his fingers with Callums and squeezes his hand tight to try and convey some of his longing for them to stay together. "No” he admits for the first time. “It's not okay. But it's us."
Callum nods once, squeezes his hand back, and resting his head too, the barest hint of a smile on his lips as he whispers back “It is us."