"The only trouble with resisting temptation
is that you may not get another chance."
- Anon -
On the fifth day, Abigail called her job to say she would be taking another day off and she was told either she would be at her desk on time or clean it out before close of business. And while she did not necessarily need the money given the finder's fee she had received, she hated to be idle. Work kept her mind sharp and it kept her from becoming sedentary, so with a promise to Ben that she would be at the hospital as soon as she was done, Abigail left him to stand vigil at Riley's side.
His condition had been downgraded from Critical to Serious though he remained under the watchful eyes of the ICU staff, where he'd stay until they were sure that Riley was safe enough to be removed from round-the-clock care. While he would receive such elsewhere in the hospital, the ICU had a nursing staff that monitored fewer patients per person – they were better equipped to monitor Riley for the smallest of changes.
"Abigail will be here soon," Ben told Riley, relaxing in the provided chair. It was the most uncomfortable thing he'd ever had the displeasure of sitting in and he thought that perhaps it was a prerequisite for hospitals to have furniture people hated so they'd leave quicker.
"The cops found your laptop in a dumpster at the end of the alley. It's trashed if the garbage juice that leaked out of the damn thing is anything to go by but they were able to get some of your hard drive recovered. Guess they wanted to make sure that you didn't have anything hidden on there that would help them find the guys that attacked you..." he trailed off and ran a hand through his hair. "Anyway, they printed off a hard copy of your latest draft of 'Sarah & Jade' so you'd at least have that."
It had been a source of endless amusement for Ben when he discovered Riley's penchant for writing leaned toward teen fiction. He'd created for his books a universe that was on the cusp of destruction, the always-female lead characters the eyes through which the reader saw that world and how the girls fought to balance evil with good. It was a simple concept, albeit one that he managed to convey well enough to have collected a dedicated fanbase.
For his part, Ben had considered it strange for Riley who was, at heart, a computer geek to create those kids of books. Then, one day, his friend had turned to him and firmly told him to knock it off or find himself a new person to find the Charlotte. "I got made fun of as a kid, I got made fun of in college, and I got made fun of by fucking editors – I won't take it from you," he'd said firmly, showing for the first time that he could stand up for himself when he needed to.
He lapsed into silence, listening to the machines beep rhythmically and the ventilator timing out the breaths it pushed into Riley's lungs. It was a strange symphony, but a calming one that reminded him that Riley was still with him. Ben tightened his grip on his best friend's wrist for a few seconds then released it, and exhaled hard.
"I'm sorry about the other night," he whispered, hoping Riley could hear him and he wouldn't have to say this all over again when the man came out of the coma. "I think I knew for a long time how I've felt. Hell, I think I fell a little in love with you the day I saw you in that cubicle. You looked so happy... so... alive. And God, you were laid-back, like the world could end right then and there and you'd just roll with it.
"I didn't want you to leave angry. I know I should have stopped you and explained but I guess I thought if I gave you time to cool off I could tell you what I'd meant." Ben stood and leaned over the railing, pressing his lips against the unblemished spot above Riley's left eye. "I love you. Very much, but I'm twelve years older than you."
He could practically hear the argument, as though Riley had connected to him mentally. Ben kissed the man's forehead again, smiling against the warm skin, pulling back to say, "I know – age is a number and ten years isn't that much, but I can't stop thinking that you'd be better off with someone who doesn't spend most of their day in libraries and classrooms." Laying his head down beside Riley's, Ben closed his eyes and settled his hand on his friend's chest, feeling the inhalations beneath his fingertips.
How Ben managed to fall asleep like that, even he couldn't explain but it was how Abigail found him when she arrived an hour later. The scrub pants were taut at his back and the top hitched up to show a strip of white skin, his chest pressed hard into the metal bar which had to be painful yet Ben continue to snore annoyingly.
Abigail shared a smile with the nurse who came in a few minutes later as she continued to stand on the other side of the glass door. Women were prone to coo at acts of romanticism, she'd said once before she and Ben had broken up, because it reminded them of what they wanted in their own lives. And as she watched over the scene, waiting for the same nurse to bring her a blanket they could wrap over Ben's hunched form, Abigail realized that she was still a little in love with the man despite all that had driven her away.
Moving out had been one of the hardest things in the world though Ben had offered her the house, time and time again until the day she'd finally turned to him and told him "It's not the house I want!" At the time, she'd not been sure what she'd meant by it, but Abigail knew now that she'd been chasing after what they could have been and not what they had been.
"Miss Chase? Abigail?" The nurse prodded from her side.
"Yes? Yes, sorry, I guess I'm a little more tired than I thought," she admitted sheepishly, as she took the sterile, plastic-covered blanket. The crinkle of the encasing made her heart squeeze; she'd forgotten for just a moment where she was and why she was there.
A few minutes went by while she washed up and changed, holding the still-wrapped blanket to her chest and crossing her arms over it as though it were a cotton shield. Abigail slipped into the room with her arms still safely guarding her against the sadness and she moved around the bed, to etch the sight before her into her memory. Though it hurt in her gut, the corners of her lips curled upwards and pulling the plastic open, shaking it out.
Just as the heavy material touched Ben's shoulders, he started and blinked rapidly until his vision cleared. "Abigail?"
"You know, one day, I will get you to call me Abby," she whispered. She pushed him back into the chair and yanked the blanket's edges together, wrapping him in it. "You should go home. I'll stay with him until visitor's hours end."
"Only have another hour," he said with a yawn. "Doctor's supposed to come by soon anyway." His words were negated by the closing of his eyes and his lax limbs while he fought to stay awake. Aside from the times the nursing staff had kicked him out to change bandages, bedclothes, or do whatever else they had to, Ben hadn't left Riley's side and he didn't intend leave until he'd talked with the doctor.
Admittedly, Ben knew he'd stayed with his friend long enough and that talking to the doctor really was moot; the nurses had, beyond that first night, been good about talking to them, telling them the ups and downs. Still, Ben knew he would sleep far better if the last thing he heard was something optimistic.
But he would not get that small solace.
"Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind."
- Dr. Seuss -
Patrick Gates was not a man for unconventional things. He still believed in the sanctity of marriage and the belief in a God that watched over them all with a paternal eye, so when he'd first listened to Ben's questions on his own sexuality at the age of twenty, Patrick had sent him to their church. "Talk to the priest," he'd said, confident that all would be well.
And for a while, he had believed that baldfaced lie. Even when Ben called him, his voice tight as he told his father that the engagement was off and Abigail was moving out and could be bring Riley to dinner tomorrow? After all, it was hardly like Ben had started wearing hot pants and redecorated in rainbow after she'd gone to her new place.
"They, uh, they're pretty sure that Riley's... He's probably deaf," Ben said as he sat quietly on the sofa, his elbows pushed on his knees and his head hung down.
It was that pitiful image – his boy grieving for someone who he had clearly given his heart – that shattered that lie and Patrick was faced with a choice. Granted it should have been a painfully easy one, because Ben was his flesh and his blood and he was more than who he went to bed with, only he had a lifetime of the church's teachings behind him.
He'd managed to control himself enough to get Ben up the steps to his bedroom and saw to it the man was asleep, then drifted back into the living room with his mind awash in thoughts. Societal ideas dueled with what he knew in Ben and what he'd always wanted for his son: the kind of life with children that ran him absolutely ragged and a big yard that he had to huff and puff just to do a few feet of mowing, while a beautiful woman teased him from a long white porch. It was the life he'd had for a time and how he cherished those memories...
Thinking back to the first time Patrick met Riley, he had been unimpressed by the boy. His hair was a mess and his clothing had been a stark contrast to the formal wear worn by Ben and Abigail. He'd dug into the lukewarm pizza like it were the first meal he'd had in months, never actually saying thank you for it. Riley had simply seemed a child in an adult body, something Patrick loathed.
Lord but he'd imagined that Ben's choice in friends was less than worthy of him.
The revision had come just hours later when they'd stood together in the treasure room, admiring the sparkle of the fire-lit gold, and the steady tick-tick-tick in the room set a cadence for their move toward the decrepit stairs at the far end. They'd not spared a single thought for the noise; they were standing in a room filled to the brim with the artifacts of ancient cultures, the first time they'd been seen in more than two hundred years.
"Ben!" Riley had shouted when all of a sudden the ticking penetrated his consciousness and he'd leapt toward his friend without any hesitation. The surprise of the yell had started Ben, who'd turned to face Riley and ended up with an armful of the younger man as they crashed to the ground and a volley of stones fell from the ceiling, landing in places too perfect to be anything other than intentional.
A booby trap, likely meant to thwart anyone who came across the treasure from making it to the stairs. And Riley had protected Ben on instinct, thinking not of his own welfare but of another's. Patrick had approved of that and said as much while they sat in the pews of Trinity Church, waiting for the FBI to meet them.
The slide of the front door as it popped open made Patrick rise from his spot in front of the fireplace where the last glowing embers began to die and smoke, greeting Abigail who handed him two heavily filled grocery bags. "I'll bet anything he's got in the fridge is becoming sentient by now," she said with a small smile, lugging along her own bags.
Together they unloaded the bags in silence, broken by Patrick's snort when he lifted up the last bag only to find that it was in fact filled with greasy, delicious Chinese food. "Asian Garden?" he asked, sniffing the carton of General Tso's and delightedly snatching an eggroll.
"Best artery clogging meals this side of the Anacostia." She nodded as she hipchecked the utensil drawer shut, holding two plates with clean pub glasses on top with spoons and forks inside of them. "I haven't really felt the urge to cook for myself and I doubt that Ben has either," she commented and scooped a helping of fried rice onto her plate.
Patrick snorted; he was sure that the last thing on his son's mind was food. It was in the Gates' family make up, the man swore, to forgo anything that was actually needed like food, sleep, and showers when the person they loved was in danger. It was just what they did, love driving them to extreme measures.
The shock of it hit him hard, like a slap in the face: Ben had not just given his heart to Riley, he'd fallen in love with the younger man. He was sick with worry and fear and exhausted to nearly the point of collapse and Ben was in love.
He sat his plate down with a delicate clatter, resting his hands on the counter's edge and leaning forward over it all, saying, "I can't get my mind around it. I know it's there – it's staring me in the face, but I just... I can't, Abigail."
"I don't understand," she said, confused as to what had gotten into the elder man. She'd never assume that Patrick was anything less than intelligent, astute, yet she knew that he tended to ignore the things that could cause him potential upset. It was his way and while it had been a source of consternation between father and son, Abigail had found a fondness for him in it.
"You don't have to protect him. I'm not angry. I think I'm confused," he confessed. It was something he hated to say because confusion intoned a lack of comprehension, and he comprehended the situation. He merely couldn't understand it and there was a subtle difference, only Patrick wasn't sure how to explain it right then.
Her brow furrowed as she tried to grasp what he was trying to say. Abigail made no assumptions about the source of the man's confusion, aware that he could simply be asking about what happened to Riley in spite of what her gut was saying. "Patrick?"
"Ben's gay!" He exclaimed without preamble and tightened his grip on the counter top when he stumbled over the second word. Just three letters yet it was like someone had shoved a knife in his belly and was slowly twisting it, back and forth as though widening the wound.
The murmur came from their side, Ben standing in the archway between kitchen and living room. "Shit." He'd gone pale, his dark-ringed eyes making him look deathly ill; Patrick kicked himself internally. His boy needed sleep, not discussion, not at twelve-thirty at night. It would certainly keep until morning and he said as much, gently telling Ben, "Go back to bed.
"I'm not tired," he said in a slur, slumping down into the nearest chair. "Dad?"
"You have to rest, son," Patrick ordered with numb lips. He didn't know what else to say, what else to do to take away some of the sadness. It was a parent's prerogative to want to see their child healthy and happy, and when their child suffered, it sometimes took everything in them not to reach out with the promise that they would fix it. Right now, he knew that short of a time machine, Ben's dejection would continue seeing as there was no way for Patrick to fix it.
"Nah, I'm fine." The yawn made Patrick smile, thinking over how stubborn Ben was. Sometimes it was the only reminder he had of Ben's mother, how they both had always dug in their heels when they felt it necessary.
Still, he patted Ben's shoulder and kissed his hair and told him, "You'll be of no use to Riley if you're in the hospital too. Go to bed, sleep. I'm not going to run away in the night." He hefted Ben to his feet and pushed him toward the stairs, banishing him from the kitchen until morning with the instruction to do whatever he needed to do to not emerge from his bedroom for at least six hours.
Once the sound of the door closing and the bed bouncing from his plop into it reached them through the floorboards, Abigail looked at Patrick and she knew her eyes were filled with worry. Albeit he'd handled Ben's sudden appearance with finesse and care, she still worried for his reaction now that he'd said allowed what he'd most likely feared.
"It's funny. I think I knew it all along, but in a way I didn't either." He'd spoken while reaching into the fridge for a beer, offering her a bottle as well and was unsurprised by the rejection. Patrick kept the second bottle anyway, sipping at the amber liquid, telling her, "They say parents always know. I guess in a way we do. We just block out the parts we don't want to accept, but this isn't exactly something I can ignore, is it?"
"No, it's not. Whether or not Ben realizes it, I think we both know that Ben's going to bring Riley home here as soon as the hospital says he can and Riley's not going to leave," she replied, no hint of doubt in her mind or her voice, and Abigail went on, "And unless you plan to ignore Riley altogether, I'd say it's unlikely that you can live in denial, Patrick."
He nodded, the tiniest bit amused by her candid answer. "True. Quite true," he sighed and leaned back against the counter he'd grasped earlier.
"Turn out the light
And what are you left with?"
- Aqualung -
Time seemed to pass so slowly for Ben that the next month felt more like a year, waiting as the doctors finally began easing back the medications in Riley's system. They'd explained that they would bring him back to consciousness by reducing the sedatives and painkillers that were keeping him in the coma, the swelling in his brain gone.
Ben simply hadn't expected it to take as long as it was.
"It's been two days," he remarked to the doctor the next time the man came around. Abigail's glare was the only thing that stopped him from letting his impatience truly show, and she asked if there was anything they could do to help speed the process.
"I wish I knew myself," Kayes answered. "With head injuries, it could be a few minutes or it could be several more days. He could be keeping himself unconscious for some reason or it could be that since he can't hear us talking, he doesn't realize what's going on." He crossed his arms and told them, "The best advice I can give you is just to keep waiting. If he still hasn't at least made some gesture toward waking, we'll take a little more off the pain meds."
With a last initialing of the chart in his hand, the doctor turned and left, sparing not one single glance back at the duo. He disappeared into another room; Abigail made a face at the vacant space he'd occupied seconds earlier. "Right. Riley's not awake so let's use pain to shock him awake," she muttered, annoyed.
Her friend only shrugged, less disturbed by the medical professions methods than the reality that when Riley did come to, they would have to tell him that the beating had rendered him into a world of silence. It would be like giving punishment to an innocent man and Ben reached out to run a finger along the still-colorful knuckles.
The same thought would flit through his mind over the course of the next three days anytime he looked at Riley's defiantly closed eyes. While the anxiety of the wait made Ben sick to his stomach at times, he was grateful for the reprieve.
And, on the morning the doctors would have lowered the amount of morphine dispensed to him, Riley wiggled his toes, stretched his fingers and his eyes popped open. No preamble or warning – it happened all at once and before Ben could alert a person to the change in his status, Riley's ventilator started screaming as he fought to breath on his own.
Kayes had explained that his lungs, torn and bruised, had been overstressed by the bronchitis he'd recovered from (and Ben was so kicking his ass for saying it was the flu) as well as the beating, thus making it difficult to wean him from the vent. As it appeared now, however, that idea had been kicked in the pants and the nursing staff scurried into the room, knowing words were useless and helpless to explain what was going on. They simply rested hands on his shoulders until Riley understood he had to calm.
From her vantage point, Abigail could see the instant Riley realized he couldn't hear the noise of the machines nor the voices of the women talking at him. She felt the tears rise up as he weakly lifted a hand and pressed a finger to his ear, tugging it lightly and even though he was clearly groggy, she could see that he was panicking.
Abigail grabbed for the pad next to the room's sink and wrote in sloppy script, flinging it to Ben who sighed at the words and held it a bare foot from their friend's face. Slowly, the panic was replaced, though she wasn't sure that the sadness there was any improvement.
It took a few minutes for Riley to comprehend what he needed to do before the tube was pulled from his throat, an oxygen mask taking its place and Ben quickly took the hand that flopped onto the bed. He had his mouth open to speak, snapping his jaw shut with a mental kick. Instead he lightly squeezed Riley's hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss there while he tried to ignore the glittery look in Abigail's eyes.
He wasn't sure if it were happiness or tears, but either way Ben wasn't sure he could take either at that moment. Right now, his entire being was focused on Riley who looked terrified and sick, like his entire world had just fallen apart at the seams.
While the staff busied themselves, Ben brought his other hand down to rest on Riley's shoulder, fingers unconsciously rubbing circles against the starched gown. Someone passed him a damp washcloth after a few minutes and was told, "He'll probably appreciate a bath."
The 'by you' remained, appreciatively, unspoken.
He'd only gotten so far as to run the cloth over both of Riley's arms and a cursory swipe down his chest when Kayes appeared. Ben had swapped to the leg that wasn't swathed in plaster, long strokes taking away only a day's worth of sweat, when they began detaching Riley from various monitors and transferred others.
"What's going on?" he demanded, soothed by Abigail's slender hand on his wrist.
"They need to take Riley for a few tests, Ben. It's all right," she said and tightened her grip on him as the bed itself was wheeled from the room. Riley's arm flipped over the railing, reaching toward empty space and if it hadn't been for her hold, Ben would have gone straight for his friend and no force on Earth would have stopped him.
The room was empty then and Ben stood, tiredly looking around like a lost little boy.
