Chapter Text
Ben was drunk.
Completely, stupidly drunk.
And he could still see her.
It had been a few hours since Mal had stood at the edge of their booth and ripped his heart out.
I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. Find yourself a new Queen.
He could still see her. She was standing right there. Right next to his barstool. Next to the jukebox. Across the street when he stepped out for some air.
She was haunting him.
He didn’t know if he wanted to remember the way she’d refused to meet his eye when she said she was breaking up with him.
Or the way she’d smiled so brightly when he’d proposed in the Rose Garden two years before. The way she’d jumped up and down as she said yes.
Or the way, barely two weeks ago, they’d made out in a dark corner of this very bar. Acting like lovesick teenagers just because they could.
They’d been talking about trying for a baby, even though they hadn’t got around to the wedding yet.
He didn’t know how they’d got from there to here.
The good memories hurt even more than the memories of tonight.
When Mal had walked out of the bar without saying goodbye, Ben was at the bar before the door closed. He’d ordered a whisky, downed it, and made straight for the nearest store. Twenty minutes later he was back in the bar, another glass and two cigarettes down.
Now, hours had passed. He was in the beer garden of the bar, uncaring of whether or not the paparazzi spotted him. Sat alone, with a double whisky in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he did not look like the Crown Prince of Auradon.
That didn’t mean they wouldn’t recognise him.
Didn’t mean there wouldn’t be repercussions. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
He’d turned his phone off after his second drink.
He didn’t want to see that she hadn’t messaged.
Didn’t want to deal with Cogsworth and Jane wondering why he hadn’t come back to the castle.
Didn’t want to deal with the messages from Evie and Doug when Mal inevitably ended up at their place.
He wanted to forget.
He wanted to be anyone but Crown Prince Ben.
Ben studied the smoke rising from his hand intently, as if it held all the answers in the world. Mal would kill him if she could see him. It was a habit he’d picked up in high school from Audrey. Helped with the stress and the relentless pace of their lives. As long as it was never caught on camera, it was the one vice all royals were allowed.
He’d never forget the first time Mal caught him. They weren’t even dating, but she’d clicked her fingers and made it disappear.
Hades likes his souls without unnecessary years removed.
The admonishment had been enough to make him stop there and then. Mal’s disapproval somehow hitting him harder than the fact he’d been caught. He’d never asked her why she chose those words. How she knew that. He’d never asked her a lot of things.
The Mal in his mind was furious. Standing by the table, arms folded, eyes blazing, ready to rip the cigarette from his hand and stamp it out.
In retaliation he took a long draw, and the spectre growled. At least his memory of her still cared.
He heard a song start over the speakers, and his stomach dropped as the melody hit him. He’d know those opening bars anywhere.
A million memories flooded his mind. Their first dance at their senior Homecoming. Their first kiss by the Enchanted Lake. Dancing in the kitchen of their suite while cooking dinner. A million stolen moments at a million official functions.
He didn’t see it coming.
He didn’t know she felt like that.
He thought they were happy.
He was supposed to be living his happily ever after.
Maybe his big number wasn't serenading his True Love in the middle of a tourney match.
Maybe it was singing softly to himself, half drunk, in the middle of their favourite bar.
“Can't go home, so I'll just stay here, find a way to make you disappear.”
He took another mouthful of the whisky, desperately trying to remember how many he’d had. Wishing that this would be the drink that made him forget. Even just for a little while.
He couldn’t go home.
Not like this.
Mal couldn’t see him like this.
And he couldn’t face going home to find her gone.
He didn’t know what was worse. Stumbling home, smelling of whisky and smoke, only to find her asleep in their - her - bed. Facing her wrath in the morning instead of begging her to come back. Or stumbling home to find everything that she owned was gone. And that he was just left with the shell of their life together.
Gasping at the pain that shot through his chest at that thought, he decided he needed more whisky. Stubbing out his cigarette, he finished his drink in a gulp and slammed the glass down as he stood.
Spinning on his heel, he strode back inside with the purpose of a man with nothing left to lose, “Take a shortcut to the jukebox, to the barstool and a double shot, I'm smoking even though I quit.”
He needed a break. Needed something. Anything.
Needed to be numb.
“I need a song to remember.”
Reaching the bar, he signaled to the barman for another glass.
“And a drink to forget.”
Turning around to survey the room, Ben leant back on his elbows against the bar.
He was almost anonymous here. No one was staring openly. There were no phone cameras pointed his way. No one was live-streaming his life falling apart.
Couples were hidden away in the booths. College co-eds were over by the pool tables. A few lone drinkers were scattered along the bar.
Anonymous was what he needed right now. Not an audience to his heartbreak.
He didn’t know how to be Ben without Mal.
Not anymore.
Throwing his head back, he stared at the ceiling as he tried to convince himself that it would work out, “I'm on my way to gettin' over you, but I ain't there yet.”
Another song started up over the speakers, another knife to his heart.
This one was newer. But he’d never forget the remix Carlos created for Lonnie and Jay’s wedding - Good Girls Go Isle - and the accompanying dance routine Jane had somehow talked them all into.
Lonnie had been speechless. The video went viral.
Was that really just six months ago?
What was he going to do now?
“When the melody hits me, little coke in my whisky, I’m as close to good as I’m gonna get.” He turned and dropped back onto the stool. Leaning forward, he ran his hands roughly through his hair, gripping the strands as he tried to ground himself.
“I need a song to remember.”
He needed to get it together.
Too many people were counting on him.
Even if he was broken.
“And a drink to forget.”
The bartender came back with his drink, sliding it the last few centimetres down the bar. Before Ben could grab it, a perfectly manicured hand shot out to intercept it.
Ben groaned audibly, recognising that shade of pink anywhere. He didn’t bother to look up as he remarked, “Good news travels fast.”