11th January, 1895 — East Staple House, Kent

Eleven days in, and he was learning the routines. There were parts of the place that ought to be oppressive, Ari thought, in spite of the private hospital’s quaint, homely appearance – strict hours, forced mealtimes in the downstairs hall, enforced bars just out past the windowpanes; the narrow room with its spare furnishings, just faded curtains and cot and desk and a single rickety chair. He had been allowed a few books to keep, but was left no quill and ink when he was unobserved; of course none of the patients here were allowed to keep a wand. Ari understood the rationale.

But the new shape of his life was simple and solid. No margin or freedom left for making mistakes. He could not hurt anyone else by being here (Elliott: he was always thinking about Elliott); he could no longer hurt himself. He thought about it as often as ever, but – he felt almost placid besides some of the other patients he had met, and if he didn’t make a habit of hurting himself, the staff would perhaps not need to give him the same restraints.

Ari had spent most of the morning reading, after the morning meal; he hadn’t slept well for some upsets somewhere down the corridor during the night, and his whole body ached a little even just from traipsing up and down the stairs. His mind must have been elsewhere, because he hadn’t heard the visitor being shown into his room until he looked up and –

“Ben?” Ari said, throat dry. He shifted on the bed, straightening up to a proper sitting position against the wall. The nurse left them, visitors always with instructions to ring for help in the hallway if they had a problem; she had closed the door, but there was a small glass window in the door. “You came.”

He hadn’t had a chance to write back to Ben yet, now that he was here – no quill and ink – but he had the parchment with Ben’s answer folded into his book as a bookmark, and had spent as much time in his days tracing that letter as he had focusing on the novel. I will wait for you. As long as it takes. That was more than he deserved from Ben, already – but it did not tell him much about how he actually was, how he actually felt. Ari gazed hesitantly at him, waiting.

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Benedict Sterling/Philomena Sprout

  

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He’d been waiting for this day for…what seemed like years. It had been years, hadn’t it? And yet it only seemed like yesterday when Dionisia had caught them in Ben’s bedroom. He couldn’t forget that day no matter how hard he’d tried, short of paying someone to modify his memory. But to do that, it’d take a skilled obliviator, and even then Ben just couldn’t bring himself to erase the last moments he’d felt Ari’s skin beneath his fingers, his breath at the shell of his ear, or how the air had been thrumming with an energy it seemed only they could create.

So on those nights when it had become all too much, when the dreams plagued him like a never-ending fog, Ben had taken to drinking sleeping draughts. It took the sting off, but never wiped away the memory. And even knowing that he had an invitation to see Ari now at East Staple House, Ben felt a different kind of energy buzzing around him as he walked up the stairs. It was such a cruel, impersonal building, he thought; nothing but harsh lines and gray stone on the outside, or at least that’s how he’d imagined it and how it would stay in his head. But the inside of the hospital had the trappings of a much warmer atmosphere, one that quelled the images of Ari barricaded in here with nothing but a thin sheet for comfort.

He’d wanted to bring things of course, but knew they would get taken away in an instant. With a small smile at the receptionist, he signed in and waited to be escorted back to Ari’s room. Ben barely heard the nurse as she motioned for him to follow her. Barely heard the small talk that she made as they walked down the hallway. His heart thudded in his chest, in his throat, in his palms, everywhere as the door opened and he got the first look at Ari, reading on the bed looking for all the world…completely fine. He didn’t look agonized, didn’t look tortured, or like they were neglecting him. He looked like Ari.

Ben’s hands had been stuck in fists at his side. He flexed both of them now, shifting his weight. Angled a smile that didn’t say enough, didn’t hold enough of what he wanted it to, didn’t convey how much he had fucking missed Ari. It was only after a few moments of taking in the man before him that Ben realized it was his turn to speak. “I —” He cleared his throat. “That I did.” He returned, clasping his hands together. “I hope that’s alright...”

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   Ari Fisk

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“Yes,” Ari breathed at once, without pausing to think about it. “Yes, it’s alright.”

Ben had actually come, and now that he was standing here Ari was desperate for him not to leave, desperate to drink in all of him, to try and understand the intervening years between them, how he might have been. Ben had been so important a part of his life for so long that living as they had for the past two years, practically strangers, seemed almost unthinkable. If Ari had thought it could fix things, or undo them, he had – clearly been wrong.

Ben was looking at him, and Ari thought he caught a flash of a smile from him, but wasn’t quite brave enough to linger on his face yet. Ben was still standing, and Ari hadn’t stood up from the bed, so for the moment his gaze rested on Ben’s hands, moulded into fists. (He might be furious, Ari realised. That would be fair.) Ari watched his fists open and his fingers flex, wondering how to translate this: discomfort, or resentment, or – no, now Ben’s hands were clasped together, he didn’t know.

He closed the book without looking at it, and let it slip from his lap onto the bedsheets beside him. He stayed sitting, almost too nervous to move, but planted his feet onto the floor to ground himself, and looked up at Ben from here. He worried his bottom lip with his teeth, already wishing he could soften the tension he saw in Ben’s shoulders, his stance, his jaw. Earnestly, he asked: “How are you?”

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The tension in Ben’s shoulders eased only slightly. Ari was okay that he came. Alright; that was one small step. Now for the next one. It was Ben’s turn to say something, wasn’t it? But what was he supposed to say? What in Merlin’s fucking name was he supposed to say? He couldn’t very well do what he wanted to do and throw himself at Ari, beg him to forgive him. No, that wouldn’t do well at all, not when he wasn’t sure where they stood.

He watched as Ari moved to the edge of the bed, the movements achingly familiar. Watched as Ari bit his bottom lip, no doubt looking to see if Ben had any obvious injuries. Or perhaps that was horrible presumptuous and self-centered of Ben to think. Maybe Ari had just been polite when he said it was alright that Ben visited, and he was instead trying to figure out a way to tell him to leave?

But no — he looked sincere when he asked Ben how he was. “I’m…good.” He replied lamely, and immediately regretted it because he was not, in fact, good. He hadn’t been good for quite some time and the man in front of him was the reason why, and it was just a smidge painful to feel as if your whole existence hinged upon the happiness of a person who had spent the last two years torturing himself.

And despite the words in Ari’s letter, Ben scarcely allowed himself to believe the man in front of him wanted anything to do with him again. It was a mistake to ever involve you.

There are so many things that I’d like to say sorry for to you, and ought to say sorry for –

The two phrases warred with each other in his mind; one past and one present, twisting around each other, fighting for dominance in his mind. Ben had never been one to back away from a fight but, with a sigh, he forced himself to back away from the equal dread and hope those two sentences evoked. “That was…a lie,” He amended, running his palm on the back of his neck. He searched lamely for a place to sit. “You could say I’ve been quite rubbish.”

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   Ari Fisk

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Was this it? Maybe it was too late to reconcile anything – never mind as lovers, but even as friends – if this was them now. Reduced to stilted small talk. And all of it, Ari knew objectively, his fault. He had broken things off, after all: and maybe part of coming to terms with what he had been doing meant realising that not everything he had broken, be it within or beyond himself, could be repaired.

But then Ben spoke again, and sounded like a different person. Ari gave a pained smile. “I’m sorry,” he said (and he was certain he would want to say it again before this conversation was through, at least a thousand times over), and swallowed. “Well, I suppose that makes two of us.” It was a poor attempt at a joke – but being in a place like this did not lend itself to joking, much.

“Would you –” he added quickly, gesturing at the shabby wooden chair opposite him in a tentative suggestion, “like to sit?” It was a difficult place for anyone to feel at home in, Ari could see that plainly, but – this felt uncomfortable enough as it was, so it was worth a try.

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