Work Text:
Leave me in the silence
I'll let you cut me open
Help me from the inside out
Slow motion
I feel in my blood, baby
Bring your body closer
Love me with your sad eyes
Drain me of my color
We should leave our lovers
We should, we should leave our lovers
But you'll never leave your lover, no
You'll never leave your lover
-Echos, Leave Your Lover
For Riley, it’s always been about the work. With a brother like Doyle, how could it not be? Someone had to be the responsible one in the family, and she knew from the age of twelve that it wouldn’t be him. Even that young, she’d known who she was, known that she was going to have to take care of the family, because Doyle sure as hell wouldn’t. He wasn’t known as the town stoner for nothing.
Riley had done everything right. Everything. She was the perfect child, the perfect student, the perfect employee. But the problem with that was the fact that she was always sort of… forgettable. Back in high school, when her classmates used to speculate about who would be valedictorian, it never even crossed their minds that it could be frumpy little Riley Bevins, stoner Doyle’s baby sister, until she was up on that stage reading her speech.
She’d worked so hard to get where she was, even though no one knew exactly where that was. What did she do for Mayor Grisham? What did she do for the town? It didn’t matter, because she wasn’t Archie Simmons, wasn’t deputy Troy, wasn’t King Falls AM, wasn’t someone who people liked.
A mole, Ben had called her, a rat that did whatever Grisham told her, someone without a mind of her own. It would have stung if she’d had any conscience to speak of. But she didn’t, and so it slid off her back just like everything else did. Being perfect had a price, and that price was everyone in town hating her fucking guts. She wasn’t Ben Arnold, up on his high horse, eliciting smiles and warm hugs and free discounts wherever he went.
Oh, but it was so hard to get people to like you. Riley worked and worked and worked, and no one ever liked her, just for her. And it just happened for Ben, without him even trying. Riley had given up on people liking her years ago. She wasn’t her brother, wasn’t someone like Ben who could crack a smile and all would be forgiven. She actually had to work for a living, had to do the hard shit that no one else wanted to do, that she didn’t even want to do, but had to anyway.
Riley had always tried her best to make something of herself, even when it went unnoticed, even when it was too noticed—her own mother had confronted her about the Grisham rumors, how sick was that? People really thought she’d stoop as low as giving her boss blowjobs underneath his desk. Her morals may not be as rock solid as Ben Arnold’s, but she did have some fucking dignity.
But no, Riley kept her head down and did her job as best as she knew how. Because even if she could never get out of King Falls, she’d make damn sure that she’d at least have a hefty retirement plan in place before the age of thirty.
Which is why it was so annoying that she hadn’t been able to keep her mouth shut when Lily Wright came knocking.
Riley remembers the way that Ben had been back in high school; in elementary school, even. King Falls was a small town, as stereotypically small town as small town could get. They were the same age, so they were always in the same class, in the same school (King Falls had one preschool, one elementary school, one high school, and one college. It wasn’t a place where someone could hide away, no matter how much Riley tried to.)
He’d been so fidgety, always so full of ideas. While Riley was laser-focused, even at the age of eight, sitting still in her chair and patiently waiting for class to be over, Ben was all over the place. He used to drop his pencils underneath her chair in order to have a reason to get up and retrieve them, a reason to move around.
Riley did her book reports on nonfiction: biographies, histories, academic papers. Ben had done his on conspiracy theories and Harry Potter. (She’d always thought that if she just did what she thought was right, what she thought was smart, people would like her. But that’s not how it worked. People liked people who were fun. People liked Ben. She never understood it, when she was younger. Now she just resents it.)
Somehow, Ben had always ended up sitting behind her in school, giving him ample opportunity to tug on her hair and distract her from class. Not that it ever worked, but boy was he persistent. He’d always been like that, hyper-attentive, always looking for something to do, never satisfied with sitting still.
He was always the favorite, always the class clown, always easily forgiven and easily loved, unlike Riley, who always did everything right and never got anything out of it. The anger, the pure bitterness that had started to fester in her, year after year of being alone, really started to wear on her once she hit college.
What she wanted was for someone like Ben to see something good in her. For someone that happy to shine some rays of sunlight her way, even when she didn’t deserve them. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t ever stop thinking about him back then, why she couldn’t leave him alone.
She wishes that she had, now. She wishes that she had never gotten a taste of Ben Arnold, because there’s no getting rid of him now. Once Ben Arnold focuses on you, he never really goes away.
Of course she should have expected him to waltz into her front office after the podcast, of course she should have. The ease of him, leaning against her doorway, like he has every right to be there. When he’s the one who talked about her to Madame Lily Wright, Queen of Journalism herself. It’s odd, the confidence that he has, something that listeners of the show would never guess from him, hearing him stumble and babble his way into love with Emily Potter. But it’s there in real life, in the way that he holds himself, how he’s always so convinced that what he’s doing is right and everyone else be damned.
“You actually got Riley Bevins to look up from her computer to talk? Impressive.” The way that he said it, like he still knew her, like he still knew anything about her, god, it made her blood boil. Riley had just been doing what she always does, focused on the work in front of her, focused on her goal, on getting enough money to maybe one day get the hell out of King Falls forever, and he just had to comment on it. If she was a weaker woman she’d have gone up to the station and given him a piece of her mind, yelled until her throat was raw about just how fucking wrong he was about her.
Ben clears his throat.
Riley doesn’t look up from her computer.
“So, uh, you gonna tell me what that whole thing was about? Mayor Grisham and his cronies are suddenly protecting the town, are they?” Riley still doesn’t look up, but she feels that wry grin that Ben has plastered on his face as he walks closer towards her and plops down in the chair in front of her desk. It’s the same smile that he used to get back when they were kids, when he’d finally gotten her to turn around in her chair to tell him to knock it off.
“I’m sorry,” Riley says in her most fake-sweet voice, the one that she reserves for people she really hates. She crosses her legs, too, makes sure that Ben can see them clearly underneath the glass desk, his eyes pursuing her entire body like he hasn’t seen her in years. (Which might even be the case, for all she knows. They certainly haven’t spoken in at least five.) “Do you have an appointment? Mayor Grisham is out of the office at the moment.” She types a few random letters in a blank Word document just to piss him off.
“Is that really how you’re going to play this?” She’s trying so hard not to look, but she knows even without doing so that Ben has that telltale scrunching in between his eyebrows, that I’m so concerned for you look that he gets when he really cares. Saint Benjamin, here to protect, here to save the maiden from her captor once again.
But the thing is, Riley doesn’t need saving. She’s done well enough on her own, thank you very much, without anyone else interfering. Least of all Ben Arnold, late-time radio talk show host and resident conspiracy theorist.
“I’m really not playing at anything, Ben. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Click, click, click. She can almost hear his teeth grinding.
“What does Grisham have on you?” He blurts it out so suddenly that she isn’t even sure that she heard him right. It’s the one thing he could have said to get her to look away from that glowing screen, the one that forced her to need glasses way too early in life, even though she wears contacts and pretends like she doesn’t.
Riley shifts in her seat, crosses the other leg over. She doesn’t miss the way that Ben’s eyes flit there, almost as if against his will. So she’s not an ugly duckling anymore, sue her for relishing in it. “He really has nothing on me, Ben,” she says, and it’s the first time in such a long time that she’s said his name that she almost chokes on it. “Is that so hard to believe?”
Ben frowns at her, crosses his arms. It’s been so long since she’s been able to look at him like this, so long since those nights in her dorm room, eating him up with her eyes, wishing that she could just be brave and lean into him and let things happen. He’s filled out since then, no longer the string-bean that he used to be, not that she ever had a problem with it. She drinks him in, the messy hair, the lean, fit form of him. It really was unfair that someone so gorgeous could be so annoying. “I just want to know what happened to you, Riley. This just…” he frowns, unsure of his next words, “isn’t really like you.”
“Well, you forfeited the right to know what I’m like a long time ago,” she snaps, reverting her gaze back to the computer screen. The moment is starting to be too much, starting to dredge up parts of her past that she has long repressed. Ben Arnold has always drawn out mushy, awful parts of her that she tries so hard to keep on lock.
“Riley,” he says, and his tone forces her eyes back up to him. How does he do that? How does he manage to be so unassuming and command so much attention at the same time? “Riley, I still remember—” his mouth shuts in a tight line. She follows the curve of his throat as he swallows the words down. She almost wants to roll her eyes, because what, like she doesn’t remember? She remembers it very well. Remembers him, remembers spending time with him.
They never really did anything, back in college. They hadn’t even kissed, but somehow that’s almost worse, that she never got to have him, not even for a little bit. Because she used to think about it all the time, What would he do if I just leaned over, if I just kissed him right on his neck, right where I stare at, that curve at his shoulder? What would he do?
“It’s too late, Ben,” she says, but she’s squeezing her thighs together, trying to control herself. She shouldn’t have worn this skirt today, it clings too much, she can feel everything too much, his eyes sweeping over her again and again.
“We can still—” he shakes his head, like he’s not sure about what he’s saying. “We can still be friends. I can get you out of this.” And then his lips curve into a wry, sarcastic grin. “And don’t tell me you meant any of that global warming bullshit you said on Lily’s podcast, either, because I know you. You used to drag me to rallies, you—”
“People change, Ben.”
“Not that much. Just tell me, come on. What does he have over you?”
“Nothing, Benjamin. Are we done here?”
“No.” He sets his jaw, thinking. Then, abruptly, he hops out of his chair and drags it right next to her. Riley frantically closes the fake document, and then all of the real documents that could possibly betray Mayor Grisham and any confidential information that she’s in control of. She doesn’t trust him anymore, even though every instinct that she has is telling her to. That’s one thing she’s always been good at, though. Ignoring what she wants.
Ben settles in right next to her, arms crossed again. Her entire body is tense, on edge. What is he doing? This isn’t who they are anymore. Riley gets up to leave, unable to handle the tension anymore. Ben’s hand reaches out to catch on her skirt, and she freezes in place. All of the breath leaves her body. Jesus. Jesus Christ, Ben. His face softens when she looks down at him, taller only because of her position relative to him sitting in the chair.
“Remember in high school,” he asks, fingers rubbing at the hem of her skirt, her heart racing, “when I used to drop pencils by your desk so that I could get close to your legs?”
Riley sucks in a deep breath. “You what?”
Ben laughs, a sound that warms her all over. (She’ll never admit it to him, but she’s listened to every episode of his show. Obviously he knows that she listened because her boss told her to, but it’s more than that. She loves his voice. She hates that she does, but she does, stupid fucking cocky amazing asshole, she does.) “Look in a mirror sometime, Riles, come on. Of course I did.”
And somehow they end up here, Ben’s hand creeping up her leg, pushing the length of her skirt up, up, up. Riley standing stock still, frozen in place, unable to move as he does it. Is this really happening right now? Is she actually just sitting at her desk hallucinating this entire situation, a decades-old fantasy that’s crept up into her consciousness from hours of overwork?
“Mayor Grisham’s not in the office, huh?” Ben asks her, cocking an eyebrow. “Any idea how long he’ll be gone?”
Oh, this is bad. This is so bad. Never in her life has Riley broken the rules like this. And yet, somehow, she’s allowed Ben Arnold to seduce his way into both her boss’s office and under her fucking skirt. This is so, so bad. She’s never going to come back from this, propped up against the wall of Grisham’s office, Ben Arnold’s hand between her legs, the door locked from the inside.
“I used to fantasize about these legs,” Ben pants into her ear, this mouth grazing her neck. All Riley can do is whimper in response. This isn’t... this can’t be her life, it really can’t. What is she going to do when he leaves her again? “Do you know how hard it was for me to get your attention back in school?” he asks, talking to himself more than to her. “You never turn off, do you? Always working, always so serious. I never knew how to get you to notice me.”
Riley huffs out a laugh, fingers scrambling to gain any sort purchase in the hair on the back of his neck. “I always noticed you, you fucking idiot. I noticed you too much.”
“Great way of showing it,” he mutters, eyes searching her own. She squeezes them closed before he leans in to kiss her again. She wants to remember this, wants to remember the way that he feels against her. How long has it been since she’s had human contact like this? She can’t even recall the last time she’d been on a date.
Ben crooks his finger against her and Riley cries out, burying her face in his shirt. She wants to cry from the intensity of it. “Shh,” Ben says, talking her through it. It’s almost embarrassing, how fast this happened, but she doesn’t dwell on it. “It’s okay. I got you.”
“Ben,” she says, and she can’t say anything else. Ben, Ben, Ben.
Hours later, when Mayor Grisham comes back into the office, Riley tries to control the blush that creeps up her neck and into her cheeks. She’s back in her constant position, ramrod straight in her office chair, typing away on that insufferable computer.
“Ms. Bevins,” Grisham greets her. Please don’t notice, she thinks to herself. Please, god, don’t notice.
“Mayor Grisham,” she says, not betraying an ounce of her anxiety.
And then that night, it’s like an unspoken agreement between them, Ben on the doorstep of the home that no one knows Riley is wealthy enough to afford. She wants to ask, What about Emily? What about the girl you’re in love with? but isn’t brave enough to do it. So she just lets him in, lets him settle in on her couch like he used to settle in her twin-sized dorm room bed while they studied whatever it was that was so important at the time.
(Besides, Riley’s used to being the second choice. It’s not like this is anything new.)
And it just feels… good, to have him like this, finally, she wants to say, even though she doesn’t know how long she’s been waiting for it. How long has it been like this, Riley and Ben, an entity in and of itself? Did he ever think about it, like she did? She knows what he said back in the office, but somehow can’t quite believe him, can’t let herself be that naive about life, about the reality of what they’re doing when she sits down on the couch next to him, still in her work clothes from earlier.
She doesn’t say anything, just lets him loom over her smaller frame, taking his time, making her wait for it. His hand slips into her underwear and she can’t even think to say no, can’t think to ask him about Emily because that would stop this, and Riley has a reputation for being selfish.
That Riley Bevins, always thinking about herself, always doing what’s good for her and Grisham and no one else. Well, Ben’s making her moan louder than she has in years with anyone else that she’s been with, so what does she care? If people think she’s selfish, then fine, she’ll be selfish.
She moves Ben’s hand away from her thighs and straddles him instead, taking what she wants. Ben moans into her ear as she kisses her way down his neck, unbuttons his t-shirt, his jeans.
She sinks onto him and lets out a breath, "Jesus", fuses her mouth to his so that she doesn’t blurt out something stupid like, I missed you, I want this so bad, I wish you would pick me. Because it doesn’t matter, does it? As long as there are Emily Potters in the world, Riley Bevins will never get what she wants. She only takes what she can have for seconds, minutes at a time, a desperate grasp at things that she can never keep.
And it’s all fine, fine, fine, the way that she has to work for years to accomplish things that others get handed to them. And it’s all fine, Ben’s hands twisting in her hair, his hips snapping up to meet hers, the fact that she’ll never be able to keep this. She’ll have to live off of the memory of it for years to come, just like she used to when she was nineteen and desperate for something to hold on to, for someone to want her.
It’s slipping away from her even as it’s happening, and she wants to hold on to every detail, wants to make it mean something that Ben chose her, just this once. She tries to memorize what he looks like, eyes closed, moving underneath her like this, for further down the line, when she’s alone in the office night after night after night.
God, she’s so close, and she doesn’t want it to be over. Because she knows that when it’s over she’ll never see him again, he’ll feel so guilty, and she’ll be stuck alone.
She buries her head into his neck as she comes, that spot that she used to fantasize about back in college, so that he doesn’t see the tears that start to well up in her eyes. When she finally feels okay enough to get up, Riley pulls herself off of him and goes to the bathroom.
Riley’s surprised to find Ben still in her living room when she gets out of the bathroom, all cleaned up and dressed again. She figured he’d be gone by now, because she’s Riley, and that’s what men do. But then again, no matter how little he cares about her, he’s still Ben.
“Riles—” he starts, and she shakes her head, sadly, curling up her hair into a bun behind her head just to give her hands something to do.
“It’s okay, Ben, really. I get it.”
“Do you?” he asks her, taking a step closer, and Riley hugs herself to stop from reaching out for him. It’s so easy to want him, to want to be with him, that it makes her forget who she is sometimes.
I’m just me, she wants to tell him, and it’s never been enough, can’t you see that? And I know it’s not enough for you, either, because you left me, too. Everyone always does.
“I want—” Ben starts to say, but then cuts himself off. What? What is it that you want? An Emily substitute? Someone who can fuck the pain away while you patiently wait for her to come back? We all know how the stories go, Ben, when the soulmates pretend like they aren’t supposed to be together. The temporary love interests don’t last.
But Riley can’t say any of it, just stands there in her long t-shirt and sleep shorts, willing for him to surprise her, to do something different. She knows that he could. He’s Ben Arnold, of course he could. He’s been surprising their town for years.
“I really do want us to be friends again,” he says, and Riley closes her eyes at the sound of it. “I miss being around you.”
In her head: I miss you, too, Ben. So fucking much. Instead, out loud, “You know we can’t. Not with my job and yours.” His eyes searching her face, so smart and intuitive, and yet so unable to see the bigger picture. “It was really good to see you, Ben,” she says, and he nods, eyebrows furrowed yet again.
“You too, Riley. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Right.”
Ben strides forward, suddenly, running his hands through her tangled hair and pressing a kiss to her forehead. They stand there like that, in the darkness, for at least a solid two minutes before he pulls away. “I meant what I said about getting you out,” he tells her, hands warm and solid as he strokes them down her hair, resting them on her shoulders. She looks up at him, trying not to feel like a child again, when she used to believe in salvation, in needing someone to take care of you. Before she realized that the only person you could rely on to take care of you is you.
She smiles weakly. “I know, Ben. I’ll see you around, okay?”
And then he leaves, her apartment Ben Arnold free, all trace of him gone. Like he’d never even been there. And Riley falls asleep thinking about leaving a town that she’ll never have the strength to, because there are always things holding her back, always some tug on her heart that she can’t bear to say no to.
Always a Ben Arnold to get her hopes up for, no matter how many times she tells herself that she was never his first choice and never will be.