A Perfect Song

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr\'s eyes also filled with tears and he began crying as well, shaking his head in denial.  Though he was sobbing, a numbness was spreading through him that made everything a bit easier to bear.  He knew he needed to do everything in his power to get this resolved before that numbness began to melt and he had to feel the horrendous amount of pain threatening his inner horizon.

"No," he whispered, also pleading as he sank to his knees behind Ben, shuffling up against him and resting his forehead on Ben\'s shoulder.  "I\'m sorry.  I won\'t do it again, I promise.  I\'ll wait for you.  Forever, if I have to.  Please don\'t send me away... please."  He didn\'t dare touch Ben with his hands again, but he ached to.

[Trillian]

Ben not only didn\'t have the strength to push Kerr away again, or shrug him off, but he also didn\'t want to.  He hated himself for craving him, for wanting him, for not ending it once and for all and staying with Arles, who\'d done nothing but positive things for Ben, who\'d never caused him trouble, who\'d only ever looked after him, whose only guilt was wanting him, who was willing enough to share him and give him his own space so as not to suffocate him.  Dear God, he could never forgive himself if he left Arles after all that.  It didn\'t change the fact that he allowed himself to draw comfort from Kerr\'s tentative touch, that he no longer sent his sire pleas to leave, and he hated himself for feeling glad about Kerr\'s promise to wait for him.

"It\'s not fair," he hiccuped through his sobs, meaning that it wasn\'t fair of him to make Kerr wait, but it came out sounding (and feeling) more generalised instead.  The touch from Kerr was like permission to let out his cries, and he didn\'t feel as self conscious about his hitching breaths and choked off cries.  He didn\'t turn into Kerr\'s arms, but he didn\'t shrink away from his touches either.

[Existentially Odd]

"Just... just tell me what you want, then," Kerr pleaded, attempting to swallow down his emotions.  He was partly distraught that Ben had accepted his offer - or seemed to be doing so - but was mostly relieved that he wasn\'t being sent away still.  He didn\'t want to stay apart from people any more, like he had when he was

owned by

with Sawyl, but any sacrifice was worth having Ben.

His hands snuck up around his fledgling\'s hips, tentatively stroking at his shirt hem, sneaking beneath, just to feel his skin.  The contact was reassuring, making him feel a bit more real, a bit less numb.

[Trillian]

"I don\'t know!" Ben blurted, for he didn\'t know, he couldn\'t think straight with his feelings in turmoil.  This wasn\'t a good time to be asking deep and meaningful questions about their future.  Arles could be coming back at any time and Ben didn\'t want his other sire to see this scenario.  This spurred him in a flurry of action, wiping his face with his hands and sniffing though there was no snot to sniff up (such was the wonders of being undead) it was more the habit of doing so when miserable.  "I want to wash my face," he said childishly, wanting to retreat into his own space, if even momentarily.  With the fledgling adamant that he was not to be treated like a child and was mostly mature for his age, perhaps Kerr was forgetting that the youth was still technically a teenager and sometimes behaved and thought like one - especially in times of great stress.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr spun away from Ben, landing on the carpet beside him with his back against the wall, facing the open doorway.  His knees were raised, elbows resting on them, wordlessly allowing Ben the space he needed to go wash his face, beginning to feel things were a little hopeless as well.  Ben couldn\'t tell him anything besides the fact that he wanted him not to have sex with other people, it seemed.

Wanted him to wait.  Some more.  He gnawed on his tongue stud and thought about how he could do that.

[Trillian]

While Kerr thought Ben had acknowledged his offer to wait, Ben thought he\'d not confirmed anything in the slightest.  Sure, he would like Kerr to wait while he figured out what he wanted or to see if anything progressed between them, but Ben had Arles and he was sensitive to this fact.  The only thing he\'d said was that such a request wasn\'t fair, so he believed that he hadn\'t asked Kerr to wait for him at all.  Wanting something unreasonable was different to asking for it (or accepting it) and so he\'d not pursued such a request.  He did, however, quickly move to the bathroom to wash his face and pointedly ignore himself in the medicine cabinet mirror.

When he came back out, smelling of the soap he\'d used, he was a little more together, but he returned to the corridor near the front door and sat down opposite Kerr, not trusting himself (or his sire) not to touch.  He was okay to talk now, so he didn\'t want to get distracted, and wanted more so to watch the expression on his sire\'s face.

"M\'okay now," he said softly, letting Kerr know that he could ask questions, if he wanted.  Ben wasn\'t really sure how to start himself, so he would wait and see what Kerr would say.  Kerr had come to him, after all.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr\'s gaze lifted from the carpet between his feet, slowly finding Ben\'s face.  He stared at it without saying anything, just allowing himself to continue the line of thought he\'d pursued when Ben had left.  Before it had run its course, however, he suddenly began voicing it, his thoughts needing to be shared to count, anyway.

"I don\'t know where we went wrong.  Not for sure.  I think it was probably from the beginning; when I didn\'t get permission and you got the punishment.  It probably should have died then.  Except the adage about absence making the heart fonder... was true.  I\'m connected to you... in so many ways... but the fact is... you have two sires.  Two people in your life.  And that\'s... really... one too many.  Isn\'t it?"

His voice was mild, almost conversational, and belied the hurt he was feeling.  Initially and instinctively he\'d fought leaving Ben but... the more he\'d sat and thought about what sort of future they had - about sneaking around and snatching moments away from Arles, waiting to see if anything happened while Ben held him back and vetoed all physical contact between them - why should he insist?

Continuing as they were now wasn\'t fair to either of them; it was a shadow of the relationship he wanted and nothing even close to what he felt they deserved, after all they\'d been through together.

[Trillian]

Inside of him was a slowly building pressure of panic, he blinked, slowly, then again as he processed that this sounded like the start of a breakup.  He\'d told Kerr to leave, he\'d said go, he\'d declared that he never wanted to see him again.  It had all been emotional chaos, things said in the heat of the moment.  None of it had been true, but Kerr was the type of person to take everything said (even the heated stuff) as explicit truthfulness that was exact.  Black and white.

"Would you have picked him up if I didn\'t have Arles?"  he shook his head and started again.  "If I lived alone, and said I wanted to take it slowly, would you have... "  he couldn\'t finish his sentence, he couldn\'t say it twice.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr frowned.  "Well, no.  If you lived alone and wanted to take it slowly, I wouldn\'t have, because the circumstances would be completely different.  You having Arles makes things different."

He fell quiet for just a moment before he continued, needing to explain in greater depth, his scowl not abating.  "I don\'t think you realise just how much I want you; you come around to see me and I get to touch you and kiss you and hold you close - but not too close and not for too long and not anything more than that, then you leave.  You get to come back to someone else that cares for you, that gets to do everything I want to, to you and I\'m left... lonely.  I just wanted someone to be close to, too, because you said I couldn\'t have you and because you made that clear and because you have Arles... I figured it would be okay."

[Trillian]

All that stuff about him and Arles and Kerr was just too complicated.  When Kerr finished with the last bit, he latched onto that, and frowned.

"I never said it wasn\'t."

In fact, he\'d been very careful to tell Kerr that it was fine.  That even though he\'d been hurt by it, was still hurt by it, he knew his feelings were unreasonable.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr rolled his eyes scornfully.  "You didn\'t mean it, though.  You don\'t actually want me sleeping with other people - you called me a fucking asshole!  Or was that just because it was Ichabod you found me with?"

His eyes were now narrowed and he was back to frowning again, wondering if the person had been what Ben had actually objected to, rather than the act.  If it was... well, he wasn\'t sure how he\'d feel about that... probably worse.

[Trillian]

Ben, caught out now and not wanting to confirm that it was the fact Kerr had sought to bring home someone Ben had had a connection with (especially after being told the choice of Ichabod had nothing to do with him had made him feel like Kerr had accused him of being self-centred, or something to that effect), pulled his gaze from his sire and hugged his knees.

"I didn\'t know it was Ichabod until you said," he admitted, hoping that Kerr would guess it was just shock talking.

[Existentially Odd]

"You know what?" Kerr cried suddenly, his tone exasperated.  He got to his feet in one swift manoeuvre, readying to walk out.  "You have the most annoying habit of fucking dodging answers in anyone I\'ve ever met!  It\'s frustrating and it\'s rude.  I don\'t ask questions because I like hearing my own voice, but ever since we met up again, it\'s like that\'s exactly all I\'m doing!"

He shuffled on his feet a bit, glancing around and ensuring the front door was open so that he could make his exit when he\'d finished his outburst.  He\'d shed tears too often over Ben - and with him, tonight - only to be constantly sidestepped whenever he asked something.  He\'d never received an honest answer to anything he\'d asked - well, perhaps what he\'d heard was honest, but none of it was straightforward.  He was tired of not knowing where he stood, of being put off.  In that moment more than any other, he felt his age over Ben\'s keenly (for it was his opinion that such waffling was a specialty of modern times).

"I\'m tired of dicking around.  When you\'re prepared to speak straight to me, you know where I live."  With that, he headed for his car once more.

[Trillian]

Ben let him go, and it wasn\'t long before Kerr had gone through the front door that Ben got up to close it.  Not with a slam, but gently.

He resented the words upon Kerr\'s exit.  Kerr had come to him when he wasn\'t ready to talk about it, hadn\'t bothered to patiently have a discussion he\'d just jumped straight into it, had insisted on staying when repeatedly asked to leave, and kept on pushing even though he could see Ben was distraught.  Wasn\'t it fucking obvious that Ben felt upset by his screwing around?  Tears should kind of give that away.  Wasn\'t it obvious that Ben didn\'t want to talk about it?  Wasn\'t it better to give an answer to a question that hadn\'t been asked than to simply hear: "I don\'t want to talk about it" ?

So much for Kerr\'s offer to be patient for him.  He wanted Ben when he was good and ready, not when Ben was.  Even without Arles, he doubted that he would be running to Kerr right now.  What Kerr didn\'t seem to remember was that the complication of their triangle wasn\'t the only issue they had.  It was simply the most obvious one.

He had no tears left at this point, he\'d cried out much of them and would have to wait for a new wave of unhappiness to meet him.  Right now he was mostly detached from the situation, and that was better than being miserable.

He returned to the spare bed and lay down upon it, wrapping himself up in a little ball and trying to go to sleep so he wouldn\'t have to think about Kerr or Arles or anything else.