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"Stay?" Robbie asks, in a rumbling voice that reaches deep into Ben's gut and restrains him from reaching for the doorknob. He turns back, and Robbie's dark smiling eyes snare him further. "Just another hour?"
Ben sighs, checks his watch. He's supposed to be home to pick up Ruby in half an hour. They're having a big date.
He bought her a ring.
"She'll understand," Robbie insists. "Besides, when have you ever been on time?"
Somehow, weighing that ring and another drink with Robbie, there's no contest. The ring is tucked away at the bottom of Ben's sock drawer, and every time he thinks about it, every time he envisions going to his knees and sliding it on Ruby's finger, his stomach drops through the floor.
He loves Ruby, loves her more than anything, but...
"Oh, fine," he says, because he'd rather throw back another soothing gulp of whiskey than finish that thought. "But only another hour. Only to celebrate the — the end of an era."
"The hell does that mean?" Robbie asks through a laugh, handing Ben a filled glass, scooting to make room on the couch.
It means married men don't stay out late drinking, don't dread the thought of their wedding rings, don't dream of the shape of men's lips. One man in particular.
"Ben?" Robbie asks. Ben realizes he's twitching head to toe, and his whiskey is spilling onto his hands.
"Damnit, sorry." Ben chokes it down quickly and, still twitching, sets his emptied glass on Robbie's coffee table. Sometimes Ben feels less like a man than a sack full of spiders attempting to impersonate a man, all of them skittering and hissing and fighting inside, starving —
"Hey, don't be sorry. Don't ever be sorry, man." Robbie sets his own glass down beside Ben's and slings an arm around Ben's shoulders. Ben melts. "I'm sorry for tempting you. You don't have to stay if you really don't want to."
"I do want to," Ben mutters, pinned helpless under Robbie's arm. It's not that Robbie's applying much pressure, or that Ben's enhanced strength is failing him; it's just that he'd rather slap tape over his spinnerets and leap off a skyscraper than have Robbie stop touching him. "That's the problem."
Robbie sighs and leans on Ben. "Harry Gerber," Robbie begins, wistful. "He's this fella down in Chicago, a queer. A few years back he started up a kind of secret society for men like him, even started publishing a periodical about it. Friendship and Freedom, it was called. You know what happened to him?"
"Yeah," Ben says darkly. "Read about it in the Bugle."
“The police came and arrested him and his friends, destroyed their publication, which only lasted two issues. Poor guy lost just about everything,” Robbie continues. "And remind me, how did the Bugle frame the whole affair?"
Ben smiles without humor. "The best thing since the printing press. I believe the headline was ‘Strange Sex Cult Exposed’.”
"That's right." Robbie reaches for the whiskey bottle, refills his glass, and throws it back. Ben watches the artful way the knot of his throat bobs as he swallows. "I wanted to object, but... Well. I didn't want the cops raiding my place next. I thought, imagine how much worse it'd be for a black man.” Robbie sighs. “Guess I'm a coward for that."
"You're not a coward, you're the bravest man I've ever met," Ben protests immediately, because it's true. "You were just being sensible. You were just listening to me, for once." Robbie asked for Ben's advice that week. That was before Robbie figured out Ben's two dirty secrets.
Robbie smiles, sets the whiskey bottle and his glass back down. He has a wonderful smile, Ben's always thought so.
"Anyway." Ben clears his throat. "Was that story supposed to make me feel any better? If so, it failed miserably."
"No, not really. It was just supposed to remind you that we're not the only ones." Robbie shrugs. "And that we're not the ones in the wrong. I mean, do good people destroy a man's business just because he printed some words they disagreed with? Because he believed in friendship and freedom? Anyway, at least it made you stop twitching."
Ben checks his hands, and they're steady. "Thanks," he says blandly.
"Y'know, I think she'd understand," Robbie says abruptly, like a kick to Ben's gut.
Ben's already reaching for the bottle. "Who'd understand what?"
"Ruby, and you know what." Robbie watches him pour and drink and pour and drink. "I really do. She's the kindest lady, and she's your best friend, and don't you think she must already suspect —?"
"Let me stop you there." Ben pounces to straddle Robbie's lap, to cup Robbie's face in his hands and stare down searchingly into Robbie's dark, bright eyes. "I want something to remember you by, lover."
Robbie snorts and touches Ben's waist through his shirt. "You act like we'll never see each other again after you get hitched. We'll still be working together, y'know. I'll still be the only photographer the Spider stands still for, and the only newshawk Ben Reilly shares his cases with. We'll still be friends."
"But we won't be this." Ben feels emotion clotting in his throat, suddenly mournful; instead of succumbing to it, he crashes his mouth to Robbie's and kisses him hungrily. Ben's always hungry, an itch deep down inside that can't ever be satisfied, but Robbie comes close. He tastes like the best thing Ben's never eaten. The part of Ben that never quite remembered its humanity aches and pines to take a bite.
Robbie surges up and grabs at Ben's shoulders and opens his mouth for Ben's tongue, and Ben's throbbing in his pants the way he never is for Ruby. This is their fifth time, but it still feels like the first. It feels magnetic and maddening. It feels like no amount of clutching and kissing and gnawing will ever be enough to satisfy the monster in Ben.
And Ben realizes something as Robbie presses him down into the couch and gives him what he wants, what he'll never be able to get enough of: this won't be the last time. Ben won't be able to stop even after he's married, even when he's betraying his best friend. Not unless Robbie enforces their chastity.
"Damnit, Ben," Robbie breathes into Ben's mouth, snapping his hips with devastating precision, bearing his neck readily for Ben's teeth. Moaning when Ben bites down beside his pulse.
And Ben realizes something else, with the salty-sweet tang of Robbie's blood on his tongue. He's a damn good detective, occasionally, and he knows Robbie won't enforce shit.
Ben smiles with all his bloody teeth.
*
*
*
"Ben? Ben, we know you're in there!" Janet calls. She's in the hallway, screaming and pounding on Ben's door; has been for coming on half an hour now. "We're still here, we're not going anywhere! Please let us in."
Ben's sprawled out on the living-room ceiling. He's dying, he thinks he must be dying. He groans.
"Ben!" Now it's Robbie's turn to pound, so hard and frantic it's a wonder that old door stays standing under his fists. "At least say something, please —!"
His voice splinters, like it did when he called Ben's name last night, after Ben got sober enough to sense that his world was ending. He shoved out of Robbie's arms and raced out the door, swung to the docks faster than he's ever moved in his life, dove headfirst into the rippling, bubbling water.
And he was too late.
He's worse than a betrayer. He's a murderer. While he was pressing his teeth to Robbie's neck, that man was covering Ruby's mouth and tying her wrists to the steering wheel. While Robbie was moaning for him, Ruby was screaming for him. While he was floundering, fighting to swim downward, to reach the car and the brightest light in his life, the stream of bubbles came to an abrupt stop. If he'd come to his senses just a minute earlier...
He broke all her ribs when he finally managed to drag her out of the water and onto the dock. He couldn't believe she was gone. He just kept pounding and pounding and pounding on her chest, blowing and sobbing into her mouth, waiting for her to snap up and gasp and be okay like in the movies. Her lips, always warm and smiling no matter how monstrous he was, were cold and motionless. The stiff tips of her fingers were blue.
It was that man who pushed her into the water — and Ben killed him before coming home, hunted him down and sliced him open, Ben's clothes are caked in the blood — but Ben's the one who killed her. It's all his fault. But the policemen wouldn't take him to jail.
He screams, thrashes on the ceiling, sends rubble raining down onto the carpet when he slams his fist through the drywall.
"Ben!" Janet tries the knob for the hundredth time.
"That's it, I'm breaking it down," Robbie says. "Janet, move back —"
"No!" Ben's voice is a weak, wrecked thing. He doesn't deserve her help, but he knows he needs it. "I'll open it. Just — just Janet come in."
"Ben?" Robbie says. Like when he asked Ben to stay.
"Get out of here! I —" Ben twitches violently from head to toe, and he crashes to the floor, starts dragging himself toward the door. He hears Janet shriek and Robbie gasp at the explosive sound. "I don't want to see you. I never want to see your face again." Ben's tone isn't vicious; it's terrified.
"What the hell —? Robbie!" Janet calls. Ben hears Robbie's footsteps moving fast and immediate down the hallway, without a fight.
"Just take care of him," Robbie tells her in his splintered voice.
Ben waits until Robbie's scent has faded to get on his knees and unlock the door. Then Janet's on him, cupping his blood-smeared face and pushing back his sweat-soaked hair and dragging his sorry carcass to the couch. Holding his nape and pouring water down his throat. Swatting at his hands when he tries to push her away.
"Stop," he croaks, when she's cleaning his face with a damp washcloth, saying she wants him to come stay with her and her husband for a while. "You have to stop, you don't understand. It's my fault, Janet. I killed —"
"Don't say that, it's not true!" Janet snaps at him, then softens and throws herself down on his chest, hugs him fiercely. "It's not true, Ben. It's not your fault. It's not your fault."
He lets himself cling to her for a while, but he doesn't leave with her. He doesn't deserve her care, her time, her tender tearful eyes staring at him like he's the victim in all this.
Like he's worth saving.
It's a dark, damp night when Robbie comes to the office again; Ben almost can't hear him calling over the racket of the rain. Ben's been sleeping here for a full month now, since he had the apartment sold. Robbie looks miserable and brave there on the front step, soaked to the bone, rainwater dripping from the brim of his hat. He's been unofficially banned from the office — and Ben's life — also for a full month now.
Ashamed as he is to acknowledge it, Ben's relieved to see Robbie's face again. His frowning, worried, perfect face.
"Come in," Ben says, stepping aside, following Robbie into the office when Robbie tentatively steps past him. "How've you been?"
"How have I been?" Robbie whirls around to boggle at Ben, whose chest is too hollow to manage anything more than a flat deadpan. He picks his current bottle of whiskey off his desk and takes a long, deep drink straight from the source. "Jesus," Robbie says, watching with wide eyes.
"I love this stuff. Dunno what I'd do without it," Ben slurs, as he collapses into his chair and splashes some whiskey on his shirt in the process of taking another drink. "A bottle a day keeps the doctor away.” Or two, or five, or ten…
"Ben, how have you been?" Robbie kneels beside Ben's chair, puts his hand on Ben's arm. Flinches when Ben kicks the ground and pushes his chair away. He's too numb to really feel it, but he doesn't want to be touched by Robbie. Never again.
"I'm survivin'," Ben slurs, "sadly."
"Ben." Robbie stands and tightens his jaw. Drips onto the floor. "You can't keep going like this, sleeping on the floor here, drinking yourself stupid all day. Janet's worried sick about you, and so am I. You — you're killing yourself."
If only.
Ben stretches his mouth into an empty, painful smile. "Sympathy for the devil, eh?"
"Stop that. Stop that right now." Robbie charges forward and wrenches the bottle from Ben's hands, though joke's on him, Ben's already finished it off. "It wasn't your fault, Ben, and it wasn't mine, either. We couldn't have known."
"I could've known," Ben mutters, tipping his head to rest on the back of his chair.
"It wasn't your fault," Robbie tells him firmly. "Now, since you refuse to stay with Janet, I want you to come and stay with me."
Ben shakes his head, spins his chair around, hums it's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring… He's pleasantly numb and floaty, but not completely delirious like he needs to be. He needs another bottle.
"Hey." Robbie grabs Ben's chair by the armrests and stops it spinning. He leans down over Ben. "I know you hate me now, you blame me, I get it, but I — I don't hate you, okay? The opposite. I can't stand by and watch you do this to yourself. So please, please, come with me."
Ben grimaces, suddenly and distressingly less drunk. "I don't hate you, Robbie," he says. "And you're right, it's not your fault."
Robbie sighs as if in relief, straightens and steps away from Ben's chair. "Good," Robbie breathes. "C'mon, get up, let's go. Is there anything here you want to bring with you, or is it all just dirty clothes and empty bottles?" He kicks a pile of dirty clothes and empty bottles aside on his way to check the closet.
Ben manages to raise his arm and shoot a wad of webbing at the knob, keeping the closet door firmly shut.
"Robbie," Ben says, "I'm not coming with you."
Robbie tenses and turns around, opens his mouth to argue, but Ben cuts him off.
"It's not your fault. I was wrong to blame you," Ben concedes. "It's all my fault. No one else's."
"Ben —"
"And I'm just going to have to deal with that, in my own way," Ben continues. "I want you to go now. You can come back tomorrow if you want, you and Janet can plead with me together, but right now I want to be alone."
Robbie just stares at Ben, looking suddenly lost, like short of knocking Ben unconscious and dragging him halfway across town to Robbie's place, he has no idea what to do. Well, neither does Ben. All Ben really knows it that as long as he keeps drinking, the pain stays away.
"We can still be friends. You can still be the only newshawk Ben Reilly shares his cases with," Ben offers, "but the Spider's dead, and that part of me that was — sick, for you." Ben grits his teeth, twitches head to toe. "He's dead, too. I buried him."
"Ben," Robbie says, brokenly.
"Just get out, please." Ben spins his chair in circles, chasing dizziness, until Robbie's gone and it's safe to retrieve his next bottle of whiskey from inside the closet.
Ben doesn't know what Robbie and Janet are so worried about, as he finishes off this bottle and crawls up onto the ceiling to enjoy a full few hours of sleep that he wouldn't get otherwise. This is perfectly sustainable.