Chapter Text
It would have been better if that shot had killed him, Ben thought not for the first time this morning alone, as he had to swab more antibiotic ointment across his jagged line of stitches. With his fingers drenched in oily paste and hovering over his abdomen, he had to steel himself with a deep breath before actually touching the incision. It hurt, sure, but the pain was muscular — he couldn’t even feel the pass of his own slick fingers over his skin. In spite of the nasty hematoma blossoming color all the way up to his ribs and down across his hip. The severed nerves leaving at least one part of this experience blissfully numb. It was the texture of the sutures underneath greased fingertips that left Ben breathless and trying not to gag. This wasn’t his body, didn’t feel like his body, broken and gross and he couldn’t stand to look down while he smeared bacitracin across his surgical site, instead he watched his own reflection in the mirror as he did so.
He accidentally looked down when his fingers skid too far and he smeared ointment into the low-slung waistband of his sweatpants. The very same sweatpants he put on to leave the hospital three days ago that George hadn’t been able to talk him out of just yet. Even if the man had only seen him in them for just over twenty hours. Ben had to swallow a mouthful or two of saliva as it slowly flooded his mouth, the first warning that his stomach was about to revolt. Maybe it was the combination of the pain killers wearing off in tandem with the glass-fragile mood he’d been in since being discharged. Or maybe it was the hideous, heinous looking wound and half-full drain bulb pinned to his pants that made him nauseous.
Either way, Ben found himself clutching the edge of the sink, eyes closed, head bowed, and focusing on taking steady, even breaths. After a few minutes, or maybe closer to twelve, he was able to relinquish his grip on the porcelain and stand without leaning on the counter. Catching sight of his reflection again once his gaze focused on his own face left Ben scowling.
Misery was not a new bed-fellow, but it had never been this deep or abiding. He couldn’t shower and get his stitches wet or wash his limp, greasy hair — or anything else — but he couldn’t let them dry out either and if that wasn’t a maddening mess of instructions...a real shit show of a balancing act that left Ben in the bathroom more than was probably advisable.
George found him out of bed no less than six times since he’d been home from his mini-tour of Western Europe, which he’d been advised was unacceptable. George had only been home for one day, the lion’s share of hours actually spent down in his office in briefings.
He should be sleeping.
He should not be moving so much.
He should be taking his pain medicine more frequently.
He should not be emptying his drain so often since it pulled at his skin when he moved it.
He should wait until the drain was full of that viscous, straw colored liquid before flushing it so he can check for solid discharge.
He should not be standing for so long in the bathroom with his wound exposed to the open air because the arid cold was bound to dry out his stitches.
And while Ben knew that his partner was worried about him — how could he forget that he was only injured because he saved George’s life (maybe, who knows if that shot would have even hit the President) — he couldn’t help but resent the unsolicited advice. Or the decidedly timed-out reminders his phone was now pinging at him after the man had asked to borrow the device for a moment and Ben was too exhausted to turn off. He knew what the doctors told him, what the advice from Nurse Able was. George meant well. George was just looking out for him. And Ben had to keep reminding himself of those things every time he wanted to just shush the man and tell him to go back to doing literally anything else than paying him attention. The worrying was an emotional burden that Ben would normally gladly undertake and actually enjoy but he was worn down to the nubs in terms of patience and his understanding was hanging on by a well-worn thread. It was a good thing that he spent the majority of whatever time he wasn’t in the bathroom asleep, otherwise he would have probably said something incredibly rude or damaging to their relationship.
“Get it together, Tallmadge,” he muttered to the dark circles and fatigue staring at him from the mirror.
All Ben wanted was to be back in Fairfax in his tiny apartment, tucked into his full-sized bed in the corner of his bedroom. The Residence was decorated to George’s decadent navy and gold tastes and full of vast, empty space. Ben preferred to be in tight quarters, had learned to live in cramped spaces and found himself missing them once he was let loose in a place where he couldn’t touch two walls simultaneously from his bed.
It wasn’t that he thought recovery would be easy. From the moment he woke up from anesthesia with tears spilling hot and uncontrollable down his face, Ben knew this was going to be one of the hardest things he would have to endure in his life. He hadn’t known, couldn’t have known, just how awful he would feel. If asked, Ben would readily answer that he would not have done anything different. He wouldn’t be lying. Protecting George was his job. His most rewarding job and he took it incredibly seriously. He would not hesitate to put his life on the line for him again. But the fact that he also had to walk away from his job at the end of this suffering or face George firing him as a means of ‘protecting’ him... That felt like the light at the end of the tunnel being cruelly snuffed out the instant he was out of said tunnel. Cold coals being dumped on a fire that were meant to grow the flame but instead suffocate it.
Ben managed to ensure that his stitches weren’t smothered or too dry and took care to slip on the tank top he was going to throw out in the morning anyway. The cotton adhered immediately to the bacitracin and sutures, discomfort settling over him with a shiver down his spine.
Crawling back into bed was another hurdle he hated to have to hobble over so he put it off as long as he could manage. But he was entirely exhausted and could barely stand on his own two feet by the time he was gingerly lifting one knee onto the massive bed. Sucking in air through his gritted teeth, Ben laid himself out on his back in the center of the bed and dragged a pillow over his face. He stayed like that as long as he could manage before the thrumming of his pulse in his side turned into a violent pounding that left him breathless. At least more breathless than the down pillow covering the majority of this nose and mouth already was.
George had at least laid out his oxycodone in a zip-loc bag for him after he complained about the child-proof bottle giving him difficulty. It was easy for him to give in and take his first pain killer of the day (the one he took last night was almost fifteen hours ago {he was doing so well with acetaminophen until he wasn’t}) when all he had to do was slide a plastic tab and pluck one chalky pill from a bag. Problem was he didn’t have much water left in his Nalgene bottle and the acrid taste of the opioid always demanded that he wash it away with an abundance of liquid or choke on the bitterness left behind. Too much turned his stomach these days.
Just as he was perched on the edge of the bed, hands fisted in the sheets and torso curled toward his thighs, the bedroom door swung open.
“Oh, I was just coming to check and see if you ate lunch,” George said from the doorway, concern evident even though Ben’s back was to him.
“No,” Ben replied, voice tight even to his own ears, sticking hard in his throat. “I didn’t.”
“You should lie down,” George murmured. Suddenly at his side, Ben had almost forgotten just how long the man’s stride was and just how quiet he could be.
A large, tentative hand settled on the nape of Ben’s clammy neck and his first instinct was to duck out of the touch. That avoidant instinct struck him like a bolt out of nowhere and he looked up at George through his lashes and felt immense guilt flood through him immediately at the look in those brown eyes. The tender affection masked only slightly by worry was like a caress. George could cow people with a single look, render them speechless or terrified, but Ben never bore the brunt of the man’s temper and only flourished under the weight of his unadulterated affection. Usually only flourished under it. Ben kind of felt like he was just punched right in the gun shot wound and subsequent crime scene of the abdominal reconstruction. All of his earlier anger replaced with guilt for even thinking any bitter thought about this loving, if occasionally overwhelming, man.
Tears flooded his eyes before Ben could will them away. Blinking only made them spill over his lashes and down his cheeks as his lip trembled like he was a damned frightened child. The concern in George’s eyes spread to the rest of his face and he had both hands on Ben as he stooped down to be at eye-level with him.
“Are you in pain — Ben, what’s wrong?” George sounded just as gobsmacked as he looked and it only made Ben cry that much harder.
It was out of his control now. Restlessness, pain, and guilt made for a powerful combination leaving him bereft of words. In spite of the hard twinge that shot through his side as he leaned forward to bury his face in the crux of George’s neck, Ben trusted that the man would be able to support his weight. Hiding his face was so much easier than facing that unbridled concern that he didn’t deserve right now. Both of George’s arms came up to surround him, huddle him close and he heard the muffled thud of the man’s knees hitting the carpet as he struggled to keep from falling backward.
But George was holding him for the first time since the shooting. The forced distance having taken a toll on Ben that he hadn’t realized.
“It’s fine, it’ll be fine, I’ve got you,” George said. It only made Ben start sobbing.
To be fair, he was already on the precipice of a full meltdown, having choked back every single feeling for the past week that wasn’t easily palatable. Playing the part of the Good Patient to minimize the reaction of everyone else around him — George and Caleb and Abe and Anna and and and — was too much and Ben hadn’t even cried about the residual terror of being shot or over the omnipresent pain. That dam was apparently slowly cracking with deceptively minuscule fissures and Ben couldn’t be bothered to try to cover those faults and instead just...let it go.
Ben let George huddle him as close as he would dare to. It wasn’t close enough. George’s arms were steadying but not crushing, not curling tight around his ribs like he usually would after a hard day of working through lunch and even dinner. That bracing hug filled to the brim with longing and relief was a mere courtesy. Ben felt like he was prone to break more thanks to the way George was holding him, like he was a hollow-boned bird or an elaborate butterfly caught in a gale.
“Benjamin,” George sounded wounded himself, gutted almost. Feeling useless was one of his his capital F Fears and Ben couldn’t stand to know that it was his fault that he was feeling that right now. And still, he cried into George’s collar until he couldn’t breathe, until his sinuses were so inflamed he could feel his racing pulse in the bridge of his nose just beneath his eyes, until his head was aching and his throat dry. It didn’t take too long, in all actuality, for Ben’s crying to stop, but it had been long enough.
When his shoulders were still trembling, but not shaking, and his wet, open-mouthed breaths got a little less desperate, Ben tilted his face up. Throughout the entire bout, George had been holding him and all but chanting that he was fine, it was fine, fine, fine. But even that came to a halt once Ben quieted down. Though it was hard to say which one of them he was trying to reassure with the repetition. Feeling Ben pulling away even slightly had George tightening his grip even just a little.
It wasn’t really enough.
Blinking through the haze of residual tears and now evident-through-ache-alone puffiness, Ben stared at the tight clench of George’s jaw until his sight focused. It took a prolonged moment before George turned his face to press a too-tender too-tentative kiss to his forehead. Were this any other day he would have asked the older man how his clammy, unwashed skin tasted.
“Benjamin,” George repeated.
“George, hi,” Ben eventually managed to say. His throat felt constricted and too tight to even manage a couple words. Gulping in a few deep but shaky breaths, he tried his best to steady himself enough sit back onto the bed. Pulling back from George’s embrace forced him to plant his feet on the floor and the grimace that unfurled over his lips was unintentional but unavoidable. He couldn’t meet that heavy gaze that was scrutinizing him, not yet, not when his face was tear-streaked and hot with shame. The heavy weight of a hand settled on his left thigh and Ben trained his eyes on the spread of those familiar fingers over the cotton separating their skin. Though even the crook of George’s first knuckles, tentative, into his pants seemed to be too gentle to Ben.
“Hello,” George said, voice so unsure that it made Ben’s heart ache a little more. “Do you want to talk about...anything?”
Ben didn’t reply because what was there to say? A burst of broken laughter poured out of him without his meaning to let it out. No, he didn’t want to unload on George, but that didn’t seem like an option he was being afforded when he felt two fingers curl under his chin and his face was tilted up so that he was facing George directly. George’s right hand stayed close, sliding across the front of his throat before settling on his shoulder. The contact was not unwelcome, even if Ben hoped for a spacial anomaly to occur right beneath him and the bed to swallow him whole if only to help him avoid the repercussions of his slight break down. When he still said nothing, George sighed.
“Whatever it is that’s bothering you won’t get any less burdensome if you keep swallowing it down.” George pointed out as if Ben had not already come to that conclusion when the tears had started.
“I’m tired,” Ben started, heavy eye lids drooping closed for a moment as he tried to gather his thoughts. When he forced his eyes open again, George was patiently watching him, waiting for him to say more than the obvious. “I’m tired and I hurt and I want to take a shower. Wet wipes make me feel even dirtier and I just want to feel clean.” Once he started, though, more words piled up in the back of his throat and spilled out of his mouth like a overfilled cup toppled over onto its side.
“It hurts to breathe and to move, it hurts to sleep. Everything hurts and the pills make me feel sick even when they make existing tolerable.” Ben shook his head a little, mostly to avoid the flicker of emotion in George’s eyes. “But I really, truly, just want to wash my hair and sleep without waking up every hour or so. I don’t want Anna or Abe to come up here and check on me because you’re stuck in a meeting, I don’t want them seeing me like this and they keep waking me up because the door opening makes me think you’re finally coming in lie down beside me.”
Ben hadn’t spoken so much since getting shot, not in one day and certainly not at once. To be fair, he was alone the majority of the time, but he didn’t have much to say to anybody recently besides describing his pain and the consistency of whatever was leaking out of his surgical site. But he felt lighter, if only a little, for telling George precisely what he was feeling. And though the man was frowning, he didn’t seem angry or hurt.
“This is the most you’ve touched me.” Ben said, breath hitching a little as another wave of what he could only describe as despair threatened to overwhelm him and start the waterworks again. He swallowed audibly as he reached up to grab at George’s wrist. It took a little awkward fumbling, but Ben managed to guide the man’s hand to his cheek so he was cupping his face. “I won’t break more if you hold me, I promise.”
If he hadn’t seen the slight wavering of George’s lower lip for himself Ben would have sworn that the man was entirely unflappable in the face of emotional displays.
George curled his fingers around the edge of Ben’s jaw, fingertips slowly sliding back into his messy, stringy hair. He leaned into the touch, soaking in the sensation of physical affection like he’d never been touched before in his life. There was a visible moistness to George’s eyes but he had always been in better control of himself than Ben could ever hope to emulate.
“I’m sorry. I truly am sorry, Ben. It’s not that I did not want to touch you, that I don’t want to, I was...afraid of causing you any more pain,” George said. Limiting his hand from Ben’s thigh, he used the side of his thumb to wipe at the still-damp tear tracks under his eyes. “I’ve been so worried about you being up here alone, but I’ll stop sending people up and let you rest.”
“Thank you,” Ben said, the relief in his voice palpable.
Silence fell over the room again, but neither of them moved. George was still kneeling on the floor in front of him and cupping both sides of his face, occasionally stroking a small circle against the arch of his cheek bone with the pad of his thumb or pushing his hand back into his hair. It was almost overwhelming just how good a simple touch felt. It was almost enough to make him forget the veritable fire in his abdomen that sitting up set.
“We can manage to wash your hair, I think, between the pair of us in that giant tub in the bathroom,” George said eventually. Either he could pick up on Ben’s discomfort psychically or Ben really was miserable at keeping his emotions off of his face. Both was likely.
“Can’t submerge my stitches, though,” Ben said, trying not to get his hopes up. Washing his hair sounded like the best sort of luxury and the thought of not smelling himself ripen in his own filth was enough to make his eyes tear up again.
“I won’t let that happen. We still have the soap and the instructions from the hospital, I know we can work this out together. Get you clean and maybe a little less uncomfortable.” George offered him a small smile, hopeful.
“OK, alright. Yes,” he babbled a little. But he was smiling, too, and turned his face to press a grateful kiss to George’s palm. And another for good measure.
George helped him get to his feet and stuck close to his side, an arm up around Ben’s rib cage. If he could have gotten away with it, Ben would have asked George to carry him, dignity be damned, but this closeness was more than enough for now.