It Ain't Me, Babe (Ben)

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt stood up and circled the room aimlessly for the thousandth time since Ben called. The younger man had called last night and wanted to talk. Even Cobalt knew what he wanted to talk about. It was completely obvious. They had argued, and they had said horrible things to each other and had fought to hurt this time. It had been a vicious fight, and they had said things that were unacceptable.

The worst of it was that Cobalt wasn’t even sorry for the most of what he said.

Just thinking about it made him angry, and he took a deep and steadying breath, cracking open his fists. He hadn’t realized he had clenched them in the first place. This wasn’t good.

Cobalt sat down again and pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing up his glasses to rub tiredly at his eyes. This was ridiculous, and he was tired of it.

A knock on the door caused him to start, a feeling of dread and unease washing over him. Absurdly, he wished either Elaine or Danny were here. And then he refused to unpack all of the things wrong with that.

He limped to the door, gently nudging away Jules, who obligingly ran to hide under the couch when he opened the door.

“Hey,” He greeted Ben, who stood in the doorway, "Come on in, take a seat."

"So," He crossed his arms across his chest protectively as he stared warily at the younger man, "You wanted to talk?"

[Benjamin Rhodes]

There was a part of Ben that was going: "RETREAT PLEASE" last night when he called Cobalt. It was sort of stupid, especially since he'd gotten used to being the one to break things off in relationships. The huge squeeze in his chest was undeniable but he ignored it in favour of plastering a huge "I don't give a fuck" exterior before going over to Cobalt's the day after the phone call.

Surprisingly, his mind was blank the whole journey over to Cobalt's apartment. When he didn't hear Jules at the door, he sighed inaudibly. Just as well, Ben thought to himself.

The sight of the older man brought a smile on his face but Cobalt's tone quickly killed the smile and Ben entered the apartment wordlessly, moving straight to the window sill. "I wanted to apologise." He started, not wanting to beat around the useless bush. "I was out of line and I should have known better. I'm sorry." Ben looked straight towards Cobalt, his lips set in a thin line.

[Cobalt Weaver]

A part of Cobalt wanted to sigh and run a hand through his hair, to sit Ben down and explain what had hurt so badly, and why he had said what he said. He had played to hurt that day because Ben had hurt him first, but that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. And a part of him wanted to try to fix this and try to make it all better. Because Ben had somehow wormed his way into Cobalt’s life, and he didn’t know what would be missing if Ben left. And he was afraid to find out.

But most of him was tired and blisteringly angry and seeing Ben look fairly indifferent—albeit rather grim—about this whole thing made it worse. So he huffed out a sigh and glanced up at Ben’s face before turning away to look at a wall, gathering his thoughts.

“I was out of line as well,” He said finally, stiffly, pulling his eyes up to meet Ben’s, “We both sort of…we were both out of line.” He ran a hand through his hair and was irritated to find that it was shaking slightly. He clenched his hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets.

He finally hung his head briefly, “This isn’t working.”

And there, just like that, the words came out. It didn’t require any sort of tearing from him, no effort. It was almost a betrayal, how easy it was to say this. He hoped it would remain easy. Tilting his head to look up at Ben, he shrugged helplessly, “I don’t know what else there is for us to do now.”

[Benjamin Rhodes]

Ben couldn't even hold the gaze when Cobalt looked up at him. His eyes dropped down to the floor as Cobalt, in his own way, apologised. Or at least that was what Ben thought the older man was doing. He couldn't tell.

The inevitable happened but it still made his chest squeeze in itself. There was a moment where Ben almost hoped that this was just a joke. A cruel, mindless and completely asinine joke. The sudden realisation that this was actually happening, that he was that eighteen year old boy getting dumped for the first time all over again, hit him hard right then and there.

Ben was right all along. Sooner or later, Cobalt was going to realise that it was just not worth it. That they wouldn't work. It was just sooner rather than later.

"Yeah," his voice cracked, annoyingly enough to Ben. "For the best." Ben gave Cobalt a forced smile and ran his fingers through his hair and without another word, pushed himself off the window sill and walked past Cobalt. "I'll show myself out." Slowly closing the door behind him, Ben shuddered out a breath he didn't know he was holding and shook his head.

He had forgotten how much everything ached after.