Strange Bedfellows
Show: Young and the Restless
Main Characters: Ben "Stitch" Rayburn, Victoria Newman
Summary: "Misery loves company, Ben." / Or, Stitch & Victoria with all of their ambiguities. StitchVictoria.
Notes: It's ridiculous how jazzed I am about this pairing. It's just new and exciting, and while I adore Billy and Victoria – I always will – I'm loving this free, light vibe Stitch and Victoria have with each other. It doesn't hurt that Sean Carrigan and Amelia Heinle have insane chemistry with each other. So, wish me luck.
Notes 2: I love Stitch & I adore Victoria. But I love them together. I'm sorry. I can't help it. But the possibility of these two together excites me. There will be angst with them, no doubt. But I still love them.
Notes 3: Still waiting for my Victoria and Stitch sex.
Notes 4: After today, I'm anticipating my Team Villy people stoning me.
Notes 5: Shutting up now.
Dedications: Every Stitch & Victoria fan out there, who like me, love the possibility of them.
Disclaimer: I'm just a Y&R fan with a wild imagination. I'm just writing for profit. Hold the subpoenas, please & thank you.
"Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."
–Trinculo (The Tempest: Act 2, Scene 33-41)
i.
Yesterday, there are three people who call him Ben.
His mother calls him Ben – Benjamin when she's being stern, regardless of the fact that he is a grown man. She is also a doctor and all about feminism and breaking glass ceilings. She never takes on his father's name when they marry. Jenna calls him Ben when they are young in love with this child they are not even expecting. Now, the wedding is long over, its memory broken and cracked. She is on the brink of becoming his ex-wife and Stitch sees no repairing to that relationship (she yells, he yells back trying to make her understand, she cries, he cries a little too and before Stitch leaves, Max runs to him and cries the most).
Kelly calls him Ben and there is poison in between the three letters. Sometimes, she looks at him like she doesn't hate him and calls him Benji. He finds himself transported back to that time in his life where their paths intersect and intertwine. But he doesn't want to talk about that.
Currently, there is another person that calls him Ben and he's okay with it.
There's Victoria. He legitimately doesn't mean to stop by for dinner, but somehow she ropes him into one. Even though it doesn't happen because the hospital pages him, the company is nice and Victoria happens to be a Games of Thrones aficionado, which is an added bonus. She's a good person, a sweet lady and it's admirable the way she cares for her little boy. There is a slight ache in his chest he smiles through because Max's face – mop of curly dark brown hair, blue eyes from him and button nose with a dimple in his cheek when he smiles – appears in his mind's eye. It fades away again like a scepter, something of a mirage. Stitch misses his little rebel rouser, his little buddy but the sound of Victoria's light chuckle snaps him back and they're back to laughing, joking around in between peeling potatoes.
This is good. This is nice and yeah, Stitch thinks, the Burger Beat can wait.
::
Stitch has to leave because he's a doctor and there are patients that need help. Duty never pauses. It's gratifying, being a resident at the hospital. This is his penance to bear. Sometimes, a patient pulls through and sometimes, Stitch still hears the long, sound of another flat-lining in his head. When his secret does its march around his head, Stitch looks at his patients and it makes him realize that there is always someone worse off. This is his compensation. It's enough to bear.
"I'm sorry I couldn't stay," he says, standing at the door. She smiles at him. "But this was nice."
"I had fun, too, and you can bring that plate back whenever," Victoria says, with a dismissive wave of her hand. She tells him earlier that she hears Kelly calls him Ben, and finds it kind of nice. She also tells him that she almost considers naming her son, Ben, but the name of Billy's deceased father wins out. "Consider this me saving you from the Burger Beat."
"Thanks, Victoria."
A pause passes between them.
"Goodnight, Ben," Victoria says, like she's testing it out on her tongue. Her tone sounds like she's asking him for his permission to call him that. It's an exclusive club. It's surprising to him that Victoria wants to join it but in hindsight not really, since Victoria looks like a formal type of woman.
Victoria's voice curls around his name, in between the three letters like a cool breeze that brushes against his skin just by sheer circumstance – something he can't quite control. The single syllable is like a pretty sparkler on the Fourth of July and it reminds him of the way Max grins and is fascinated by the mini-explosion of light he holds for a short moment before it dims.
Stitch finds that illuminating. So, he replies, "That sounds right when you say it."
Ben. Victoria calls him by his birth name, his given name.
It's a short, fleeting moment in passing but yeah, it does sound right when Victoria says his name.
ii.
Widowhood scares her.
She fears the idea of a Plexiglas barrier separating her from her husband, and Victoria fears her son losing his father the most to a fiery explosion that claims her brother or prison.
But this – the rage, betrayal and the mortification – is her worst fear of all, because her instincts scream at her and sound alarms at the amount of time Billy and Kelly spend together.
Her instincts are right. They are loud and clear.
Lesson learned. Victoria will never, ever second guess her instincts again.
Her instincts are confusing now, but still, she will never question them.
::
Victoria thinks she will feel a whole gambit of emotions, but it is strange because she feels hollow.
But how can someone feel so hollow when their nerves are so taut? She wakes up today, peels her blue eyes away from the ceiling resolving to join the land of the living. The whole town knows her brother kills Delia, the whole town knows Adam is dead and of course, all of Genoa City knows about Billy cheating on her. It takes a chandelier falling on top of him while they are all held hostage, but in his state of delirium, Billy rips her heart out of her chest and tells her not to cry because it's just her – he loves her, it's a horrible mistake.
Then while Billy struggles to breathe, and while she is praying her husband does not die, Victoria looks Kelly – really looks at her. She invites this woman into her home in an effort to thank her for helping Billy. Victoria extends this tramp an olive branch – oh yes, the coffee meetings after the support group, the inside jokes that leave Victoria on the inside looking in, that connection they share because all Victoria is the foolish wife. There is anger. There is rage and perhaps – it's a good thing, since adrenaline courses through her body and Victoria can literally feel her blood boil. That way she isn't falling apart. She will not give Kelly that kind of satisfaction.
Victoria wishes for a pill, a magic elixir to make it so she never feels anything. She wants to shut her emotions down and protect herself because it's the sane thing to do. Anything else is madness. She is already deep enough. Gravity is cruel. Emotional gravity is worse. It pulls her deep into this rabbit's hole that opens up and swallows up everything whole since Delia's death.
::
One hundred twenty days. Four whole months.
That's the waiting period for a divorce to go through in the state of Wisconsin according to Avery.
Well, Victoria can't wait that long. She has to do something now. Sleep escapes and hides from her because she wills it to. Sure, she eats – if cold yogurt and warm minestrone soup counts. It's what she can keep down because she is afraid she will throw up. That is what Victoria is reduced to: a maelstrom of emotions Avery advises to feel her way through before making snap decisions.
Johnny is out with Hannah, and she is grateful she can unravel for a little bit. Johnny misses Billy. He misses his daddy and his blue eyes dart around and then his little face starts to crumple when there is no distant of sound Billy's keys jingling on the other side of the door. She hates that Johnny is hurt in all of this, but it is what it is. Billy does this. Kelly does this. That is a fact.
Victoria likes to believe that her son is perceptive like that.
Her days are filled with just putting on a brave face, and her nights are spent holding Johnny and whispering that Mama's here, his Daddy loves him and everything will be okay.
"Shh," she whispers, and presses a kiss into his blond head. The motion of the rocking chair is oddly soothing and allows her to put the movies of Billy and Kelly in her head on pause, just for a little while. "Shhh… Mommy loves you," Johnny nestles into her and rests his little head, against her chest. "Daddy loves you too. We're just taking a time out, but everything's gonna be okay," Tears shine in Victoria's eyes. "Everything's gonna be okay, sweetheart."
::
Victoria's phone rings, putting a dent into the solitude. She's ready to hit ignore because well, she wants to handle things her own way. For the first time ever, she will not crawl on her hands and knees back to Newman-Chancellor. She will most definitely not go back to her father. Not when Victoria is beyond furious and his kind of betrayal cuts just as deep.
Instead, a sense of surprise replaces the annoyance and Victoria answers, not sure what to do or how to react. It's still a new thing – still foreign territory in a sense when there is a very big shift in her birth order.
"Dylan," Victoria answers, forcing her voice into some semblance of normalcy. "Uh, hi."
Dylan sounds awkward and tentative, yet concerned, "Look, I hope this isn't weird."
"What? No, no. I mean, we were friends before you happened to be my older brother," Victoria answers, and quickly corrects herself. "If you're not freaked out by that, still. I didn't mean to."
"I'm working through that. Uh, I'm headed to the coffeehouse but I just wanted to check in on you. I'm not gonna re-hash anything for you, but I know what went down between Billy and Kelly. I hope I didn't overstep or anything. I'm…just sorry."
Victoria almost smiles. "It was nice of you to check in. But I'm fine."
"No, you aren't," he replies, honestly. Dylan is awfully perceptive. Even though the phone and the little time they interact, she knows that. "Feel free to bend my ear if that will help, Victoria. I'm still figuring out the brother thing but that aside, I could just listen."
"I'll take you up on that."
"Okay," Dylan answers, "Take care, Victoria."
She makes Nick tell her all about this Ian Ward and Summer thing because she want to take a break from stewing in her own domestic mess.
Victoria feels the corners of her mouth pull upward despite herself, "Thank you, Dylan. You too."
The solitude creeps back in, and Victoria is left with this ache that has no clear end in sight.
::
Hannah should be bringing Johnny back from their walk into the park in a couple of hours.
Avery leaves and Victoria's blue eyes land on the framed picture of her and Billy on the mantle. He has his arms around her and in that moment she feels safe, like they finally get over the loss of Delia. There is no real healing and there is no real closure because in moments like this, Victoria can still hear Delia's happy chatter linger in the air. But it's progress.
Now, Victoria feels like she is trapped – almost in marital purgatory. She straddles this line between reconciliation and divorce, between giving in to Billy and giving up on him altogether.
She wants to smash this framed picture to pieces and cradle it like something precious.
This marital limbo is hellish and all she wants to do is scream.
This ache in her chest literally hurts, anger becomes pure and concentrated. All she can see is red, and the rage is white hot. It's not healthy for her to live this way. She can't do this and truthfully, Victoria is exhausted. She's tired of crying. She's tired of loving Billy. She's tired of resenting Billy. Victoria could collapse on the couch and sleep for years – she could sleep until time goes back to when Delia is alive, back to when her marriage is intact, back to when this hurricane of grief doesn't rip her heart and home to many pieces, back when the name Kelly Andrews is nothing but another face on a planet of seven billion other people, back to when Kelly Andrews isn't a home-wrecking slut Victoria sees at every turn, back to when Kelly Andrews is...nothing.
The distant sound of wheels rolling against snow catches her ears and she's not expecting anyone right now. If it's Billy, she will ask him to leave. If it's anyone with the last name Newman or Abbott, she will still ask them to leave, and if it's her father – he's in a whole new category all by himself – Victoria will ask him to leave and respectfully keep his arsenal of divorce lawyers to himself.
Tearing her gaze from the framed photo – her and Billy in happier times when she is still the fool and blissfully ignorant – in her hands, she gets up with a sigh to answer the doorbell.
The requests to leave freeze on her tongue, however, when she opens the door and it's Ben.
It's just Ben, and she doesn't know what to say.
::
(Here's the thing, though: Victoria is quite truthful when she tells him he shouldn't be here, but despite that, part of her finds it nice of Ben to come by. It's…sweet.)
iii.
Stitch swears he is a more Live and Let Live kind of guy under normal circumstances.
These are not normal circumstances though: Max's birthday passes by, and Jenna stays unreasonable. So, he's a little raw today. He wants to forget Jenna. He'll never forget Max and if he's being honest, he's struggling to forget kissing Victoria.
It isn't planned and not something he sets out to do. Stitch's life is complicated, and she's a married woman. She may be going through a rough patch with Billy, but Stitch can see that she loves him. They're just friends – him and Victoria. They're just friends.
Maybe it's the way she starts to question herself, doubt herself and even wonder if she is worth anything in Billy's eyes. Maybe it's the way Victoria starts to cry when she's angry. Or, perhaps it is the way Victoria tries to take on a heavy boxing back bare-handed. Medically, that's not smart. Frankly, that is not smart. Period.
Emotions don't know sensibility, and Stitch would know.
::
He's still drowning in his mistakes, and sometimes, doesn't want the life preservers.
Sometimes, Stitch figures work at the hospital is as close to a life preserver as he will get.
Being Dr. Rayburn – that saves him when everything else is going to hell, but by bit.
::
Victoria cringes where Stitch examines the bones of her fingers. He doesn't feel a break in them or everything remotely close to a hairline fracture. However, she should put some ice on it as a precaution.
He feels Victoria's knuckles and Stitch can't quite forget the softness of Victoria's hands out of his head either. She looks at him and the gaze is intense. It is like she understands what marital hell is because he's in it and it's frustrating.
Stitch doesn't want to cross any boundaries but there's Jenna and missing Max's birthday and he's having a bad day. Victoria slowly presses his lips to his and in this back of his mind, his common sense screams that she's a married woman. Chances are Victoria is kissing him to hurt Billy, and he may be doing it back to erase Jenna.
But Victoria isn't Jenna. Victoria is all bright blue eyes, soft skin, and even softer lips. She's free of complications. It's all about the joys of junk food and the 12 Steps Program against the Burger Beat. This – what is happening right now – goes beyond complication. Things are tentative at first but he's like he's operating on autopilot. She lightly grips his forearm and against everything, Stitch feels warmth he doesn't feel in a while.
He strokes the apple of her cheek.
Victoria's waist is tiny in his arms, but still, Stitch is still on autopilot.
Just as quickly as the fog descends – because that's the only way Stitch can describe it – it leaves. Victoria pulls away from him and suddenly, a red blush colors her soft cheeks.
::
It's human to be selfish, Stitch knows that. He understands that.
("Benjamin," his mother, Dr. Audrey Pierce, says in a matter-of-fact and complacent tone over the phone. She is the only other person besides Kelly who knows his secret – all of it. "It's okay to be a selfish bastard once in a blue moon. You didn't slide out of my birth canal with a halo.")
Maybe it's that selfish part of him that makes a small appearance at that moment because Stitch allows this imagined kissing scenario – the one that exists only in his mind, even when he's being respectful of Victoria and her marriage – to become reality even if it's brief.
::
Here is the truth though: Stitch admits that he kind of is not sorry for kissing Victoria back, and he is definitely not sorry about caring for her, because he does.
He cares about her.
iv.
Victoria is emotionally wound up and verbally displacing everywhere.
Mean, vicious things keep slipping out of her mouth and she's angry at the lack of control she has over that. She may or may not mean that but that doesn't make it okay. None of this is okay.
She needles Avery before she talks Victoria down from the ledge of divorce.
Victoria feels terribly for verbally displacing all over Ben now. It's considerate of him to stop by – sure, he antagonizes Billy at the gym and knowing her husband, that isn't smart – but all the same, Victoria could use the company.
"Ben! Ben, wait…" Victoria calls out as he's turning around to leave. He pauses and with a light smile she prays doesn't come as forced, Victoria steps aside and lets him in. "Please, come in."
::
If Victoria is being truthful, she resents the fact that Billy leaves her to be strong. That's not to say that his grief and his pain is less significant because all she wants to do is take it away from him. All Victoria wants to do fix his shattered heart somehow, but she can't. She wants to be the one to heal Billy's heart, and maybe, in time, hers will do the same. Billy seeks comfort from someone else that is not her and leaves her drowning. Billy leaves to love Johnny for the both of them. In an odd sense, Victoria is proud of her emotional threshold, but she cannot cry in the shower anymore. She cannot be afraid to fall asleep because Delia's scream as she is hit by Adam's car haunts Victoria in her nightmares any longer.
The very idea that Kelly sees the cluster brown freckles on the small of Billy's back or that strange birthmark on the inside of his left thigh makes Victoria ill to her stomach and her skin crawl. The mental movies don't stop. They don't quit. Victoria's heart has this gaping wound that she fears will not close and heal. The painful ache in her chest feels like a separate heartbeat – rhythmic and infinite.
"I figured you needed a friend, Victoria."
"I don't know. I don't know if I can do this anymore…" she mutters, and the pain just creeps up again like a poison in her veins. Victoria's trying to keep the tears at bay because she will not cry anymore, damnit! Victoria feels Ben touch her shoulder and she lets him pulls her into his arms.
Victoria lets herself fall into Ben's comfort. She allows him to hold her. It's a little selfish, and she never wants to use Ben and make him feel like a crutch.
Her arms feel like lead, and her heart like concrete, but she needs that.
She allows herself to rest her head against Ben's chest as he whispers, "I'm sorry," into her hair.
::
Victoria pulls away, and apologizes for breaking down like that.
Stitch accepts and says it's already forgotten – just like that kiss which happens in the heat of the moment.
Except it's really not.
::
"Would you like some coffee? Hannah isn't bringing Johnny back for a little bit."
"I don't want you to think I'm taking advantage."
She looks away to discreetly sniffle, and smiles, "You're not. There's a fresh pot I made this morning but didn't touch. Johnny was kind enough to share his animal crackers and Cheerios with me. It's a step up from yogurt," Victoria replies, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear and crosses her arms, around herself. "Caffeine won't help me anyway."
"Will some space help?"
Victoria chuckles, "Misery loves company, Ben," she says with a light tone in her voice, although this shadow of a smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Please stay. You still have to teach me how to pull a quarter out of someone's ear, remember?"
He knows that saying – misery hating loneliness. Stitch lives it several times over in Afghanistan.
Stitch isn't going to the hospital for a few hours anyway.
He returns Victoria's smile with one of his own.
"In that case, I'd love some coffee. Thank you."
A/N: After almost two weeks on and off of slaving over this thing, it's finally complete.
It was fun to write this, and it is my first time writing Stitch. Hopefully, I got his characterization write and gave him a tad of a backstory so things flowed right. I hope that my fellow Stitch & Victoria people enjoy this, but people that just enjoy a good story alike.
You don't have to be a member on this site to leave feedback. But I would appreciate it all the same.
Thank you kindly xo.
-Erika