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Caleb falls into the room, crunching on an apple.
The door swings shut after him. Ben catches him out of the corner of his eye from where he is hunched over at the writing desk.
“Evening, Tallmadge,” Caleb says gaily.
“Caleb,” Ben returns, his greeting lost to the scraping sound of teeth against apple as Brewster polishes off the rest in three bites. Caleb crosses the room behind him and slides the window open to dispose of the core. Ben has only just managed to refocus on the writing in front of him when a hand slaps down onto his shoulder and throws him off again.
“Christ,” he mutters reflexively.
Caleb’s exclamation carries more outrage. “ Jesus, man, your shoulders are as stiff as a board!” A second hand joins the first and he presses both of them down, squeezing playfully. “Someone’s gotta lighten you up.”
“I’m fine as I am, thank you,” he replies primly. Ordinarily, he might have felt himself permitted to be more annoyed at the interruption, but today Ben has less reason to complain than most.
At any rate, he’s still relieved Caleb seems himself again.
Caleb’s hands slide to the back of Ben’s chair, hanging off it carelessly. “Not good enough, Tallboy,” he scoffs, amused. “Fine ain’t the word you want, and I’ll be damned if this is how you’re spending your night.”
He flicks dangerously at the inkpot, and Ben curls protective fingers around it, his other hand preemptively securing the pages.
“Do you know how much there is to do now?” Ben asks - mostly rhetorically, since Caleb can see for himself, an indication of the critical next few months piled up in the mountain of papers on the desk. “The war’s hardly done, and Washington's got his hands full -”
“You know,” Brewster says, his words warm at Ben’s ear, “for once, I don’t right care what Washington’s doing. All’s I know,” he continues sagely, “is it’s time to be celebratin’, and the best way I know to do that is to have your hands full of a bottle of whiskey or a nice pair of -”
Ben clicks his teeth at the gesture that accompanies those words. He is well accustomed to Caleb’s teasing, although he isn’t sure whether even Caleb knows just how much of a nerve he sometimes hits. As grateful as he is to have his friend back to usual, that kind of talk is the last thing he feels like hearing.
“No one’s stopping you from enjoying yourself,” Ben interjects, and he can't quite feign enthusiasm in place of exasperation. “You go,” he suggests, inclining his head. “I’ll stay here. Make a start on some of this for Congress.”
“Screw Congress!” Caleb says, almost too gleefully.
If Ben sighs at that, it isn’t because he is at all moved by Brewster’s schemes. He chances a glance over his shoulder, where his friend is still lounging keenly. Caleb greets his look with a grin.
“Me, head out? And let my best friend bury his head in this shite all night?” He echoes.
This shite is all in vital service of establishing a country anew, Ben almost protests, as if Caleb doesn’t know it. Instead, he chooses levity, and jokingly picks at the admission of best friend. “Don’t let Abe hear you say that.”
His attempt to steer the subject away from the course of this evening almost works for half a minute.
“I’ve saved that bastard’s skin more times than I can count, he’s got nothing to sniff at.”
Ben has lost count of how often Caleb has stuck his neck out for the whole ring and each of his friends, too. He knows the ring wouldn’t have made it through the war without him.
But by God, he’s a stubborn arsehole.
“Anyway,” he declares. “I won't be going anywhere without you, Benny boy. I’ll be right here ‘til you change your mind.”
Ben shoots him a look, one that merely pleads please don’t, but Caleb - committed to his cause, which is playing some juvenile game to guilt him out of getting anything useful done tonight - throws himself onto the bed to wait. Ben’s bed, that is; Caleb has his own room in the inn somewhere. Before Ben can say so much as get off, Caleb kicks up his feet and settles his arms behind his head in easy defiance.
Ben rolls his eyes, and returns his attention to his work.
Much as he despairs to admit it, he’s not getting anywhere. The candle on the desk keeps casting the words into flickering shadow, and Caleb has left the window open, which carries up distant sounds of drunken revelry and blows a chill at the back of Ben’s neck. He sets down the quill and rubs his neck with a hand, silently admitting that Caleb might have had a point. Everything feels tight and sore, and every day has seen a new layer of weariness settling into his bones.
It’s not been a quarter of an hour. The clock must need winding: its ticking is excruciatingly slow. Caleb, in casual impatience or affected nonchalance, began drumming his fingers against the headboard almost immediately. After a few minutes, the drumming turned to humming. Now he changes tack again, and breaks into whistling a tune that Ben can’t quite place.
Ben closes his eyes. It’s a lost cause.
“Will you be quiet?” He intones anyway, knowing full well that asking will do nothing but encourage him, now that he can be sure being a nuisance is working.
The whistling stops. Ben shifts in his chair, looks over the back of it.
“Quiet as a mouse, if you stop working.”
Ben rolls his eyes. Caleb laughs heartily at that look, and this time, when Ben hasn’t moved an inch from the desk, he starts singing.
Abandoning his papers, Ben launches out of his chair and onto the edge of the bed, close enough to reach out and cover Caleb's mouth with his hand. The song muffles against it, but Caleb’s eyes are laughing.
“Even if I’m not working, others will be,” Ben points out, with a warning nod to the walls; every room in the inn is occupied tonight. Half the world seems to have descended on Philadelphia.
In truth, he’s very nearly on the verge of conceding to one drink, then, though he knows Caleb's talent at turning one into ten, knows that he’ll drink him into a ditch -
But then Caleb grasps Ben’s hand in his own to lower it, still holding on as he counters knowingly, “I doubt it. Even Washington’s got his dear Martha to distract him tonight.” He quirks a brow, and laughs out loud again at Ben’s affronted look.
Ben flinches at the thought that wherever they go tonight, Brewster will prod and cajole him towards women he’s never seen before in his life, and the rest of the night will be awkward fluttering eyelashes and stilted conversation, standing by while Caleb, ruddy-faced and beaming, regales half the room with stories that have the place roaring with laughter, every once in a while shooting him a conspiratorial wink that sends Ben’s stomach flipping for no apparent reason.
He’d rather not.
He slips his hand free from Caleb, and stands up to carefully pull the window closed. After the last breath of outside air there cools his warm cheeks, he turns, leaning against the window sill.
“Well, I’m going to bed,” he declares. He offers Caleb a shrug, sorry - if not for not giving in - for wasting his time here waiting.
To his surprise, Caleb doesn’t seem especially disappointed. Obligingly, he shuffles sideways so that he’s not taking up all the space on the bed. All the same, he doesn’t get up.
“Alright,” he says instead, as easily as ever. And there’s still that broad grin on his face, but suddenly his words are softer. “Mind if I stay for a bit?”
It takes all of Ben’s restraint not to glance sharply at him at the question, but he catches himself in time and just wonders what that’s about. Maybe he’s not so taken with the celebrations as he sounds, and cares more for having company tonight, even if that company is a little lacklustre. Ben’s not sure. Perhaps Caleb just doesn’t want to be alone.
Whatever the reason, Caleb has known him since he was a child, so there’s nothing truly strange in it. Ben certainly doesn’t have the heart to shoo him away. If this is how Brewster wants to spend his evening, if this is where he wants to be.... so be it.
He casts him a gracious nod, and, eyeing Caleb’s comfortable position, merely tells him: “Take your boots off, if you’re on the bed.” He’s sure some of the mud caked on them has been there for years. And it’s been a fair time since either of them have stayed in a real room with four walls and a door and a proper bed. No wonder Caleb doesn’t want to get up.
“Right you are, sir,” Caleb teases, but as Ben sinks back down onto the side of the bed to work off his own, Caleb does tug his boots off without grumbling, kicking them into a corner.
“What now?” He inquires next, folding his arms in mock-disgruntlement. “Not going to ask me to take off my jacket, are ya?”
Ben raises an eyebrow, a silent maybe I should. It’s not that cold in here; it’s not like living in a tent. He doesn’t need to wear it indoors. (Never mind that he’s wearing his.)
“Are you ever going to stop wearing it?” He chides, leaning over to tug at the creased old duster Caleb wears like a second skin.
“How dare you,” Caleb answers, but his eyes betray his feigned indignation, crinkling in a smile. “This old thing and I’ve been through a bloody lot together.”
“And you’re not my mother,” he adds, but he’s leaning forwards to shrug it off anyway.
“Thank God for that,” Ben replies, with feeling. He peels off his own blue coat, folding it as carefully as he can over the footboard of the bed. Ben has always been more inclined to neatness.
He watches the leather duster sail to the floor in a crumpled heap.
Caleb is a disaster, as natural as they come. Under his jacket, his waistcoat is half open already, his necktie undone and his brown shirt mottled and creased. He rolls up his sleeves carelessly, and watches Ben struggle with his cravat, which is tied almost uncomfortably tight.
“Besides,” Caleb continues cheerfully, raising his hands to Ben’s throat to do battle with the cravat himself. Ben doesn’t resist the help, arching his chin up and dropping his fingers to his waistcoat buttons instead. Caleb calmly eases the knot apart. “I could say the same about you and this here uniform, Major.”
Somehow, Major has never once sounded serious, coming out of Caleb’s mouth. After years of fighting - after all they have been through, after having learnt what war truly means - and still it’s as though they’re both children again, play-acting at being soldiers. In the lilt of his voice, it remains a jest, as though it’s an honour he’s conferred on Ben himself, a rank he might perhaps obey, if he fancies: this has always been the struggle of trying to direct his friends. Rarely do any of them listen to him.
“I don’t have much left with me that isn’t uniform,” Ben admits, making slow progress with his waistcoat buttons. He has some spare plainclothes somewhere, but not many. He can barely remember what he used to wear before joining the army. Regardless, a new wardrobe ranks very low on his list of priorities; it won’t surprise Caleb to hear it. “I’ll have to visit a tailor sometime, I s’pose.” He smiles wryly. A reluctant errand.
“Yeah, and I’ll go when you get round to it, get meself sorted too,” Caleb promises, sounding confident that it won’t be a vow fulfilled in haste. He scratches at his beard. Ben catches himself wondering what’ll become of it, and that thought spirals out into wondering what will become of Caleb at all now: will he go back to Setauket, or will he return to whaling? Trading? The sea, he supposes, and perhaps he’ll travel far. He can’t much picture him a society gentleman -
Caleb swats him with the untied cravat. “I’m looking forward to seeing it.”
“But I thought,” Ben says, struck by a sudden flash of daring, “that the uniform made me look handsome.”
Caleb only says things like that to make fun of him, Ben reminds himself, steeling himself for the sure rebuttal. It’s to tease him, or because he’s had too much to drink. Most things Caleb says to him fall under that umbrella.
“I told ya that, huh?” Caleb says - contemplative, but not entirely abashed.
Ben’s voice is shrinking in his throat - even at the prospect of backpedaling - so he only raises an eyebrow in admission.
He can feel Caleb’s eyes on him, but he has dropped his gaze in haste, back to his forgotten buttons.
“Bit of a lie, actually,” Caleb continues, somewhere between amused and matter-of-fact. Ben feels a childish burst of disappointment in his gut.
“Gives the uniform too much credit, see. It shows off your arse, I’ll give it that. But the rest ain’t about the clothes.” Ben’s face is already burning, but now Caleb has given himself leave to go on. “I shouldn’t need to be telling you this, right,” he says, with a crooked grin, “but I don’t know a woman who wouldn’t be mad for that pretty face of yours.” Ben scoffs and tries to shake his head, only Caleb catches him by the chin, tilts his face slightly upwards, holds him there. Ben regrets ever bringing this up. “Nah,” Caleb rounds off, “the uniform’s nothing. Trust me. I’d say you’ve got handsomeness fair enough covered, all by yourself.”
“You’d say, hm?” Ben returns, trying to sound joking back and not grossly high-pitched, only he’d rather like to die. Despite himself, his eyes flicker up to Caleb’s face, as if he’s going to find any hint of earnestness there.
Caleb manages a throaty laugh, but he has already withdrawn his hand from Ben’s chin and is carefully averting his gaze. “Won’t be much to you,” he says: offhand, and half to the ceiling. “But aye, I’m man enough to admit it.”
He hardly knows what Caleb means. But it stirs something in him that Ben can’t resist, something that he has been trying to suppress for the longest time. Heart pounding out of his chest, he reaches out and catches Caleb’s face between his hands. There’s a pause, a split-second of fear, a mustering of courage, before he surges forwards - and oh, he knows it’s foolish, but what better, what other chance will he have than now? - and meets Caleb’s mouth firmly with his own.
It’s worth it: after all, Ben is prepared to meet the magnitude of his stupidity in this moment, to suffer a noble defeat. Brewster’s far too sober to actually mean what he says, he knows that. But all the same, at least he’ll understand Ben’s mind at last. And whatever his first response, he’s sure Caleb at least has the heart to let him down gently, to forgive and forget for the sake of their friendship.
He draws back and sucks in a breath, licks his lips in contrition. His hands remain where they are, and Ben raises his eyes gravely to Caleb’s to await judgement.
Their eyes meet, and it’s like Caleb comes alive anew. His eyes are gleaming, as deep as mahogany and spilling with warmth, and Ben catches his mouth twitch up at the corner. And then Caleb leans in to chase the kiss, blazing forwards as if they’re one person, his hands clutching at Ben’s collar in sheer desperation. Ben is wild, already consumed as he kisses back, his thumbs grazing Caleb’s cheeks again.
Everything turns to double time, Caleb wresting off Ben’s waistcoat before his own, their shadows sent careening across the walls by the remains of the candlelight. The world is so warm it might be on fire.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t see this day coming,” Caleb gasps, half-laughing as he begs leave of Ben’s mouth for the time it takes to pull Ben’s shirt over his head. Ben gets a little tangled in it in his keenness to help - Caleb is clearly better at this than him, and beating him to it, with deft fingers already at his breeches.
Nor did I, Ben could say, but, not to be outdone, he shifts in place and slides his hands up under Caleb’s shirt, pushing it upwards. When it’s off, he tosses the shirt out of the way, further emboldened by every motion; his hands are already roving downwards when his gaze dips, too, and all of a sudden he jerks back in dismay.
“Caleb,” he says, aghast. Caleb stills abruptly, the set of his shoulders stiffening as he settles back, instantly on his guard again. There’s something yet uncomprehending in the taut line of his mouth.
But Ben’s eyes are fixed on his chest, and the criss-crossing of blackened skin still branded there.
He can taste blood in his mouth from where he’s bitten the inside of his cheek. The scars aren’t new, not in the least - he can still picture them when Caleb was first retrieved, the wounds ragged and blistering and bleeding persistently through his clothes - but it all comes flooding to the forefront of his mind in fuller force. All that Caleb’s been through.
His hand hovers a few inches from the scars, too alarmed, too apprehensive to touch them.
“Yeah?” Caleb asks flatly. There’s no real question in it.
Ben recoils in guilt. “I -”
He finds his tongue is tied, his throat constricted.
Caleb doesn’t seem impressed.
“Not as though you didn’t know,” he points out at Ben’s silence, his eyes dulled but his tone sharp. “Sure you’ve seen worse.”
Ben isn’t sure that he has. A bullet wound is - ten bullet wounds are - nothing to this, to Simcoe’s butchery, crushing salt into lacerated flesh to the point that even now the skin has scabbed over but won’t heal.
Ben flinches, and suddenly they’re back at the tree, Caleb sunk to his knees, drink- and tear-sodden in equal measure, too far gone to pick up Abe, too far gone to speak sense to -
He remembers his infuriation, the surge of incredulousness, the harshness with which he had spoken. He’d half-known then that he’d handled it wrong, storming off with gritted teeth and Caleb still slumped beneath that tree thinking himself the downfall of the ring; a danger to his friends; a useless, worthless screw-up.
Ben can imagine Caleb’s thoughts too well, because they are precisely what he’d been thinking of him as he’d left.
He loathes himself for it. Bitterly. The worst thing was, he hadn’t apologised for it, hadn’t ever taken back what he’d said aloud. They’d moved on from it in the current of the war somehow, but with what resolution? And it was Ben’s own fault to begin with, for not noticing how out of sorts, how broken Caleb was, for not caring to try and fix him, for not -
All the blood has drained from his face. His skin is ashen, his hands trembling. Caleb’s just watching him - distant, detached.
“I’m sorry.” He stammers, crushed by guilt. “For the way I acted -” for what he’d thought, and what he hadn’t done. He can barely lift his eyes from shame, but he senses movement and swears Caleb is going to hit him. That’s not a tenth of what he deserves.
Instead, Caleb leans forwards and pulls him close, wordlessly enfolds him in steady arms. Ben clasps him back, undeserving. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, his cheek scratching against stubble, his chin buried firmly into the dip of Caleb's shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he breathes, over and over, wishing the words counted for anything now. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Caleb chuckles into him, comforting and familiar and true. His palms rub soothing circles on his back, and this is wrong, all wrong, because Ben shouldn't be the one being comforted. He’s too late, unforgivably late, and Caleb has been undone and already mended again, has stitched up his own wounds, has had to fill in the holes alone, and get back up without the help he should have had.
And somehow he seems as good as new.
Ben pulls back, shaking his head. They’re face to face on the bed, almost how they used to sit together sometimes as boys, whispering into the dark.
“I’ve been a terrible friend.”
He’s not seeking reassurance, just needs Caleb to know that he is finally aware of this.
“I hear ya,” Caleb agrees, serene.
“You must hate me.”
“I don’t.”
Ben frowns. “You should.”
“You ain't the one who gave up the ring to Simcoe,” Caleb says, and try as he might, there’s no mistaking the heaviness in it, or the hollowness of the laugh that follows.
“Neither are you,” Ben asserts. He squares his gaze, prepared to stare at him in earnest for an age if he has to, until Caleb believes it's true.
He might’ve blamed him at the time, but he knows Caleb, and there’s no one he’d trust more with his life, with the fate of the war, with anything, than him. It wasn't Caleb's fault that he was captured. It wasn't Caleb’s fault that Simcoe already had the pieces of the puzzle for figuring out Culper, already had a clue. The secret had been leaking out for months.
Caleb makes a noise, non-committal.
“You’re not to blame, I promise. You never were.” It hardly matters now - didn’t make a difference in the end - since they all scraped through with their lives, and the war on their side to boot. It doesn’t excuse how Ben acted for half of it, though. “I don’t know what the war did to me,” he confesses, wondering how much of himself he finds familiar. “Consumed me, maybe.”
“You were a damned good soldier. Washington was lucky to have you,” Caleb offers, and there’s no injury in it. He lets out a faraway sigh. “The war took its toll on us all, I s’pose.”
“You said Simcoe was in your head,” Ben remembers, tentative. He winds his fingers in Caleb’s hair. “Is - is he still?”
Caleb shrugs. “Not anymore,” he says slowly. “Not since we won the war.”
He musters a smile, a true Caleb grin. “Shootin’ him in the gut helped some.”
Ben does his best to smile back.
“If there’s anything I can do now, you’ll tell me,” he insists, the won't you left off so it has the echo of an order.
“Forget about it,” Caleb instructs gently.
He knows Ben can’t do that.
A moment passes, and then Caleb adds: “Think that’s enough talk for one night?”
Ben starts, half-expecting Caleb, after all that, to get up and go. He is awash with relief when, instead, Caleb leans in close again.
“The war’s over and done. We won, didn’t we?” Caleb reminds him. “Tonight’s simple. We’re free.”
This kiss is tender and slow. Now Ben’s touch is reverent, their mouths lingering; Caleb unplaits his hair with nimble fingers, sees both of them unbound. The night stretches out before them once more. Forgiveness flows easy.
Ben wakes from a doze to the compounded warmth of tangled sheets and Caleb beside him, and a rosy dawn. Bleary eyed, he pushes himself up onto an elbow, brushing sleep-mussed hair from his face to see if Caleb’s awake. His fingers trace along Caleb’s arm, dance over the back of his hand.
Caleb folds his fingers into his, squeezes his hand in a silent good morning. His eyes are alert, like he’s been awake for a while.
“Hard to believe, hey?” He says, letting Ben in on his present thought. He sounds as untroubled as ever. “That it’s real. That we’ve got a proper country, here. Somethin’ new.”
Ben left independent America’s practical affairs over on the desk last night, so it’s still a vast thought to digest from here, he admits.
It gnaws at him that he doesn’t know what Caleb’s plans are, going on. It might be the one fraction of the future he doesn’t want to hear. Nonetheless, he asks it. “What are you going to do?”
For a long moment, he doesn't think he’ll get an answer. Caleb is turned to the window, so Ben can't see his face, just the sunlight splintering through clouds.
And then Caleb looks at him and beams. “I’ll be here,” he says steadily. “I’ll be here ‘til you change your mind.”
Ben thinks it’s pretty clear from his own smile that - wherever here is - they might be here together for a very long time.