by Brynn Stein
YOU DON’T FUCK SHERI OR MALCOLM.
“Geez. Language.” Elliot was getting pissed off and slammed down the bottle. “What difference is it to you who I fuck? It’s my life, Ben. You had yours. I’m sorry it was so short, but if you don’t like being stuck here, you can cross over any time. I keep trying to tell you, Patrick is waiting for you over there.” Elliot was so angry he didn’t even consider how Ben might react to any of this. Just another problem of not being able to see the person you were fighting with. “I can’t be your lover, Ben. What we have in dreams is nice, but….”
I don’t believe you said that. Any of it.
Elliot did feel rather cruel for saying it that way, and now that he’d ended his tirade, he could see in his mind’s eye how dejected Ben would look if he was visible. He could imagine him going from angry and shouting to hurt, and he murmured, “I’m sorry, Ben. I am.” His volume had decreased immensely; he was even trying to sound gentle. “But it’s just dinner. Daniel’s got a point. I don’t want to start cooping myself up here.”
ok
That was all Ben wrote; then he was no longer in the kitchen. Elliot knew it was far from okay, but he didn’t know what else he could do about it. He looked at the bottle abandoned on the counter and suddenly wasn’t thirsty anymore. He put the lid back on, put it in the refrigerator, and looked back at the laptop. Still nothing more from Ben, but then, he knew there wouldn’t be.
Elliot tried to go back to work on the plans, but his heart wasn’t in it. He had only allowed himself an hour to finish up and get ready before he’d have to leave to meet Daniel at seven o’clock, but now he rattled around the house, not really knowing what to do with the hour. He didn’t plan to get dressed up, didn’t feel like shaving or doing anything else special. It was just dinner with a friend, and he didn’t get dressed up to eat with Sheri and Malcolm. Well, not unless they were going to the club afterward or something. But not just for the diner.
Somehow the hour passed. Elliot didn’t even try to talk to Ben again. Now that he was calm, he realized just how awful he’d been to him. He didn’t blame Ben at all for avoiding him.
ELLIOT MET Daniel at the diner they both liked. It was nice to see him again, even though Elliot still felt awful about how he’d left things with Ben. As odd as it was, given the difference in their ages, Elliot and Daniel could talk easily with each other. They didn’t have that much in common, but both were willing to listen to the other talk about their interests and truly seemed to want to learn about them. It was enough for Elliot. He wasn’t looking for anything heavy or long-term.
As he should have guessed, though, the evening didn’t end with dinner. They headed back to Daniel’s apartment, supposedly just to talk, but they wound up in bed. Daniel eagerly took the lead. Elliot, uncharacteristically, was willing to follow, up to a point.
When Daniel pushed Elliot onto his back on the bed, Elliot took charge, flipping them over, holding Daniel’s hands above his head in that way he seemed to like. It was Elliot’s show from then on. Daniel was content to ride the sensations as Elliot opened him and claimed him and collapsed on top of him in record time.
Elliot felt guilty for how quickly it was over and for how rough he’d been, even though Daniel didn’t seem to mind. Elliot rolled onto his back, taking Daniel with him, but his arms didn’t fit correctly anymore. Daniel’s head didn’t hit Elliot’s chest at the right place. His thick hair, even though it was the right color, didn’t feel like feathers tickling his chin.
Daniel rolled to his side, and Elliot responded in kind so that they were facing each other. Daniel played with Elliot’s hair for a long while, and they lay silently in the bed. “This was the last time, wasn’t it?” Daniel’s voice was steady, but Elliot sensed the emotion anyway.
Elliot dropped his head, unable to meet Daniel’s eyes. He felt like he was destined to hurt someone important to him no matter what he decided. He forced himself to meet Daniel’s eyes; Daniel deserved at least that much. He deserved much more, but Elliot now knew he couldn’t give it to him. His voice was just above a whisper. “I think so.” He brushed a lock of hair out of Daniel’s face. “I would like to still be friends if we can. I do like you, and I enjoy spending time with you. But this?” He gestured between them and expanded the gesture to include the bed. “I feel like I’m cheating on him.”
“On Ben,” Daniel said flatly, no derision in his voice, and looked Elliot solidly in the eye.
“Yeah.” Elliot found he couldn’t hold Daniel’s gaze. He picked imaginary fuzz out of Daniel’s chest hair. “I can’t explain it. I love him.” He glanced up at him quickly but couldn’t sustain it. He didn’t know if he was breaking Daniel’s heart, but his own was feeling the loss already. What choice did he have, though? He couldn’t lose Ben. “I don’t usually love anyone. I never have. But Ben and I? We’ve gotten closer in dreams than I’ve gotten to anyone in real life… ever.” Elliot realized how that might sound and tried to fix it. “I mean… you and I connect really well, Daniel. That surprised me too, but….” He was botching this horribly and had no idea how to do it any differently.
“Now I know it’s over.” Daniel looked stricken. “You called me Daniel.” He smoothed Elliot’s tousled hair. “You know that’s not a healthy relationship, though. Right?”
Elliot could tell Daniel was merely concerned. He wasn’t mocking him, or even trying to convince him to change his mind. “I know.” Elliot rolled onto his back to add physical distance between them since he didn’t know how to fix the emotional distance. “But, it is what it is.”
Daniel nodded and rolled onto his back as well. “You staying the night, one more time? Or you going home?” The pain and dejection in his voice told Elliot that Daniel thought he knew the answer.
“I think I better leave.” Elliot didn’t think staying would help anything. As he lay there staring at the ceiling, with Daniel lying rigid beside him, he knew he wouldn’t be able to get to sleep here, and Daniel didn’t need an irritable insomniac keeping him up all night.
Daniel turned to his side and raised to his elbow. He leaned in slowly. “One more kiss? Good-bye?”
Elliot debated it, but he didn’t see the harm. It wouldn’t turn into anything passionate. It truly would be just a good-bye kiss. He nodded and they kissed. A gentle meeting of lips, dry and chaste.
They got dressed in silence, and Daniel walked with Elliot to the door. “You know you’re welcome here anytime.” Daniel held the door open as he met Elliot’s eyes. “I won’t insist we go out anymore, but I’d love to have dinner with you from time to time, as a friend. Maybe with Sheri and Malcolm in tow so you know I don’t expect anything else.”
Elliot shrugged. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet. But he’d think about it. He hadn’t expected to feel like this. Why did this hurt so much? He barely knew Daniel. They hadn’t been dating. Elliot had thought he could have his arrangement with Daniel and still have his thing with Ben. But his soul ached to be with Ben.
Elliot hated that he was hurting Daniel; he cared for him a great deal. But it was nothing like the connection he felt for Ben. He’d wanted Daniel, but he needed Ben.
AS ELLIOT came through the door, he expected items to be thrown at him again. He was actually more concerned when they weren’t. He had a brief thought that Ben might have crossed over after all and left him alone. He suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of that.
“Ben?” Elliot moved tentatively into the kitchen to get the laptop, but it was floating in the air and met him halfway. Elliot let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
“Oh, thank God.” He grabbed the laptop as if it were a lifeline.
On it was already written i’m sorry.
“Me too, Ben.” He clutched at the laptop and looked around. “God, me too.” A computer key clacked and then another, more slowly than Ben had typed in a long time, until Elliot realized Ben didn’t have clear access to the keyboard. He quickly turned the laptop so th
e keys faced outward and Ben could talk.
did you and he….
Elliot could hear the misery in those words and had long since noticed Ben lost capitals when he was upset. He hadn’t even used abbreviations. Elliot wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
He debated lying, but he didn’t want to do that to Ben. No lies with him. No secrets. Not with his Ben. “Yes, but it was the last time.” He looked at the air just in front of the keyboard. “I broke it off. It’s not going to happen anymore.”
It was a long moment before Ben typed Good. But why?
“I’m in love with you, Ben. It felt like cheating.” Elliot looked and felt completely defeated. “I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to deal with being in love with a ghost, but there it is.”
:-)
Even though Elliot was still raw, he managed a chuckle for Ben’s attempt at lightening the mood.
I love you too. So very much.
“I’m glad, Ben.” Elliot wiped a stray tear away with one hand while balancing the laptop on the other. “But it doesn’t really make this impossible situation any easier.”
<3
Elliot laughed out loud. “Really, Ben. These symbols are getting ridiculous.”
<3 :-* ((((hugs)))) :-* <3
Elliot practically doubled over. “I love you too, Ben.”
And somehow he felt like maybe this silly, impossible relationship might work after all.
At least for a while.
Chapter 8
THE CONSTRUCTION on the old house was coming along nicely, and Elliot could see an end coming soon. Of course, there was nothing to say that he couldn’t stay there after it was finished, even if it wasn’t really his style. But he was already looking at other houses on the Internet and decided to take day trips or short overnight trips to look at some in person.
Ben got sullen when Elliot left, and it seemed to get worse each time. Elliot thought Ben was afraid that Elliot might leave for longer than a day or two.
Elliot kept trying, for quite a while, to talk Ben into crossing over, but Ben was adamant that Patrick was getting closer all the time and he couldn’t leave now. So Elliot changed his tactics and created Operation: Make Ben More Comfortable Here After I Leave to add to the current operation. He wasn’t going to give up entirely on the idea of Ben crossing over. Once he found out that Ben’s birthday was coming up in a month, he had a self-made deadline, for at least part of it.
He combined some of that with his day trips, and a month after he started the project, he returned home with a package wrapped in blue and gold paper that he couldn’t wait for Ben to open.
“Hey, Ben,” Elliot called as soon as he shut the front door behind him. He had left the laptop beside the door because he had talked to Ben right up until the last moment that he left for the last trip, so it was all set up now. “You around? I have something for you.”
U do? Something other than ur beautiful self?
Elliot chuckled at the air in front of the keys and grabbed up the laptop. “Yes. As much of a wonderful present as that always is, in and of itself, I do have another gift for you.” He laid the laptop on top of the package and headed into the living room. Once he sank down onto the couch, he set the laptop on one side of the coffee table but held on to the package.
Y the present?
“It’s your birthday.” Elliot beamed and shook the wrapped package. “This is your birthday gift. You are 172 years old today.”
LOL. I’m remarkably well preserved. Though perhaps a little thin.
Elliot loved Ben’s sense of humor but really had no comeback for that. He’d give Sheri a friendly slap if she said something like that, but that wasn’t an option in this situation. “Anyway.” Elliot extended the package up into the air. “Here’s your present, Ben.”
Ben took the extended present, and it floated to the coffee table before the paper started ripping itself off the beautiful leather-bound photo album. Elliot scooted closer to where he thought Ben was so that he could move the photo album and they could both still see it, as though Ben could sit beside Elliot on the couch and they could reminisce. Like normal couples.
Pictures?
Elliot nodded and smiled at the air beside him. “Of your family. Most of the overnight trips I’ve been taking have been to Pennsylvania. I tracked down your descendants… well, descendants of your brothers and sisters. I spoke to many of them. I didn’t tell them the photo album was for you, per se, but I told them I knew of a family member who would love to see some of the old pictures.”
The front of the album opened, and Elliot held his breath for Ben’s reaction.
When the pages kept turning and Ben didn’t say anything, Elliot filled the silence. “Most of them were happy to let me make copies of them. I’ve got photos of as far back as I could. There is a Myers family photo in there from just after the Civil War.”
How did they afford it? Photographs weren’t cheap back then. Mostly just journalists took them, or richer families had portraits made.
Elliot was at a loss as to how to interact with Ben. If this had been in his dream, he would have run his hand down Ben’s cheek or brushed the lock of beautiful blond hair out of his face or simply squeezed his knee while they talked. But he couldn’t do any of that. All he could do was answer Ben’s question. “Your however-many-greats-niece told me the story. Apparently your mom was heartsick over losing so many of her kids and took the money she had been saving up for years to buy land. She used it instead to get three headstones placed in the local cemetery, even though she didn’t have any bodies to bury, and purchased a portrait of herself and the remaining children.”
3?
“Samuel died early in the war, as far as anyone could tell—”
Probably in the first year. We hadn’t heard from him at all by the time Patrick and I left.
“Oh, right. I remember that. And of course you died.” Elliot paused, wishing again he could physically interact with Ben, provide some comfort to offset his blunt words. “And Martin ran away and joined the fighting as soon as he turned sixteen. He never came back.”
Martin too?
Ben must be upset at this news, and Elliot wished he could hold him.
I always thought he was safe at home. Grew up. Had kids.
“I know.” Elliot had gotten that sense through either the memories or just a vague feeling. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have done this. I wanted to make you happy. Not drag up old memories and information that makes you sad.” The picture of a harried older woman and four children moved slightly in the book. “I wish I could hug you, Ben.”
Me too.
“Tonight?” Elliot wasn’t sure if he was asking Ben’s permission or promising him that he would. Probably a little of both.
Please.
The pages turned slowly and Elliot took the next hour recounting all the stories that Ben’s family had told him behind the pictures in the book. There were pictures of people that Ben had known: his little brothers and sisters all grown up, their spouses, often people from the community Ben had grown up in, and some of Patrick’s relatives. Then the book gave way to pictures of people Ben had never met. Little nieces and nephews he had never held or played with. Their spouses and children. His great nieces and nephews. Some of Patrick’s extended family.
The last page had two pictures. One picture was of a giant oak tree with a rundown old tree house, and a separate picture, a close-up of a heart carved into the trunk that said PC + BM.
:’-(
It was the only way that Ben could let him know that he was crying, and Elliot practically cried as well. “I’m so sorry, Ben. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
Good sad though. Thank you.
Elliot wasn’t sure there was such a thing as a good sad, but he thought he knew what Ben meant. “I wanted you to have a little piece of home if you insist on staying.” Elliot had also thought of another spin he could put on this but wasn’t sure now was the time. He fiddl
ed with the edge of the photo album and decided to go ahead and say it. “But, Ben, this just brings up again how many people are waiting for you on the other side. You’re waiting here for one person, but all of those people are waiting there for you.”
Not fair.
Elliot knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t fair for him to bring this up now when Ben had such a limited way to argue his side, but it was important to Elliot that Ben be happy. “I just want you to be happy.” He went back to worrying the corner of the book.
Then stay.
Elliot looked up, willing himself to meet Ben’s gaze even though he couldn’t see him. “I will, for a while. But I can’t stay forever, Ben.” He reached out as though he could touch him. “When I leave, promise me you’ll move on and stop waiting for Patrick?”
I can’t do that. I promised him.
“But you won’t promise me?” Elliot tried not to feel horribly hurt by that, but he didn’t succeed.
Contradicts the first promise.
“Ben, you’re impossible.” Elliot wasn’t sure where the anger was coming from, but he was getting livid. “Why do you insist on waiting for someone who will never come?”
He’s coming. And I promised.
Elliot made an exasperated noise and turned away. When he heard the pages of the photo album turn again, he turned back and reached toward where Ben must be.
“I wish I could touch you,” Elliot said again, all anger gone, just wanting to hold his beautiful, confused, loyal Ben.
We can tonight.
There was a pause, and then the laptop keys clicked again.
Finished being mad?
