Ben Loves a Challenge Ch. 08

**I promise this isn't the end, there's more Dean and Ben to come. I hope you enjoy.

-Penny**

What he'd felt after Laura left him felt shallow in comparison to the pain-coated emptiness inside him now. Nothing mattered anymore, Dean's cold dismissal broke something in him. Worst part was that he couldn't figure out where he'd gone wrong. Dean didn't call, didn't text, didn't do anything, and he just couldn't, not with the way Dean had dismissed him. He didn't know what he would've said anyway, couldn't put words to the suffocating pain.

The remainder of the weekend destroyed his heart, his confidence, and his will to do anything at all. Time passed in an indiscernible blur, nothing seemed to matter. It was overly dramatic, he knew it, but he couldn't stop feeling the intensity of his rejection.

By Sunday afternoon his cat had enough of him moping around the house, and had taken to walking all over him as he began to fuse with the couch. Just when she'd seem to get comfortable laying on his legs, she'd get up again, making sure to step on his balls with each foot as she climbed his body, then sat on his chest. She yowled in his face, her breath a terrible mixture of old fish and cat stink.

He pushed her off only to have the whole episode repeated. If he thought he'd tire her out, he was wrong. Six times later he realized she'd hold out longer than him. He got up and fed her as she twined impatiently between his feet. She really was trying to kill him.

Now that he was up he realized it was Sunday night. Not sure where the weekend went, and not really interested in remembering, he made the decision he wasn't going to work on Monday. He wasn't prepared to see Dean again, not this soon. He grabbed his phone from the closet where he'd hidden it from himself so he wouldn't send embarrassing texts. The screen was black, and his chest tightened with fear, had he broken it when he threw it earlier? No, he needed to calm down, the phone was probably just dead, he hadn't charged it since Friday on his drive to Dean's...

He forced himself to move, but it took him twenty minutes to work up the willpower to find a charger, and another ten staring at the blank screen before it was charged enough to turn on. His heart clenched, hoping, and dreading, a missed text from Dean.

There were no missed texts. No missed calls. No nothing. He texted his boss that he wasn't well, then threw his phone across the room and buried himself under layers of blankets, wallowing in his own misery. He knew eventually he'd have to clean himself up and go back to his life, but that was for Later-Ben to figure out. Now-Ben didn't give a shit about Later-Ben. Later-Ben could go to hell. Past-Ben had ruined everything, and Now-Ben was miserable.

Sunday night turned into Monday night, but Ben didn't pay enough attention to really care. It was maybe dinner time, as dictated by his feline, when his phone rang. He ignored it. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

He tried to sleep, but he wasn't tired. At some point, though, he must have dozed off, because he woke up in the wrong part of his sleep cycle, his heart pounding and his throat tight. He was sweaty from sleeping with too many blankets, and his bed was moist, and bore a funky, sweaty, three-day unshowered man stank. He forced himself to roll out of bed, then pulled everything off his bed in a fit of rage, throwing pillows across the room, tearing off the comforter and sheets in a fit of self-pity fueled rage.

It felt good for a second, but the feeling was fleeting. Disgust at himself quickly replaced it, and he suddenly needed a shower. He was in only long enough to wash the filth from his body, then threw on some sweatpants without underwear, because who cared, really? He pulled on a clean shirt, then frowned at his bed for its lack of bedding. His bed was such an asshole.

His phone rang again, and he instantly hated his ringtone, Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, though it was one of his favorite songs. He scowled at the disheveled, naked bed, then begrudgingly went to find his phone. It stopped ringing before he could answer it, buried somewhere beneath the mess of bedding. Eventually he found it and saw that he'd missed three calls, one from Dean, which made his heart hurt, but also gave him unfair, secret hope, and two from D'metrius Matthews, whoever that was.

As he held his phone, staring hard at Dean's name in his missed calls log, it vibrated. A text message from D'metrius Matthews. He opened the message. 'Answer your phone, straight-bait. Call me.'

Straight-bait? He ignored it, pocketing his phone, the weight of Dean's missed call heavy enough that he was considering calling off for Tuesday, too. His bed, even without bedding, was calling him.

He ended up on the floor, curled up in his foul-smelling, discarded blankets and sheets, suddenly feeling too empty to change his bedding and get back in bed. He wallowed until his phone rang yet another time, ruining the song even more. He only answered it to stop it from ringing, he hadn't looked to see who it was.

"H'llo?" he mumbled, his voice raspy from lack of use.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Benjamin! You need to answer your phone when a Queen calls you," said a voice he failed to recognize, though it sounded familiar.

"Queen? What? I answered, didn't I? But, I think you have the wrong number, man." He tilted the phone to see who was calling. D'metrius Matthews again. "You definitely have the wrong number."

"Bitch please," the man said, and suddenly it fell into place. "You're Benjamin DeLuca, right?"

His brain suddenly caught up. "Zion?"

"Yes, Zion. I'm just D'metrius right now, though. Boy, you sound like hell."

"Ah, yeah." The only reason he didn't hang up was the connection to Dean through D'metrius, however thin it was.

"You sick?"

"Something like that," he agreed. "How do you have my number? Why are you calling me?"

"I have my ways," D'metrius said coyly. "Also, you should really put a lock screen on your phone."

"Dean said the same thing," he mumbled, sitting up. Thinking about Dean was painful, so he didn't. He put the phone on speaker, then rubbed his temples as a headache bloomed across his forehead, not completely sure why he didn't just hang up.

D'metrius laughed. "He would. It's good advice. You should follow it."

"Why'd you call me?" he asked, too unhappy to have any patience. "And text me? And call me again?"

"Princess said you didn't come to work today."

That was why he didn't hang up. Dean. "Why do you call Dean Princess? Does he crossdress too?" It wasn't what he wanted to ask. He couldn't ask what he wanted to ask.

D'metrius snorted. "I'm sorry, but I thought I just heard you ask if Dean crossdresses, too. Did I hear you right? Did I hear you say you think I'm a transvestite?"

Ben rubbed his eyes, then stretched his back. "You were wearing hot pants and a tube top. You have breasts. You weren't crossdressing?"

D'metrius sighed dramatically. "I will forgive you once, for you are yet but a pure vanilla boy. I am not a transvestite. I am a Queen. I dress spectacularly to entertain and impress, but I'm one hundred percent male. I don't wish I was a woman, I enjoy the power wearing women's clothes makes me feel. Hence, I'm a Queen. The breasts are fake, by the way."

"So Dean's a Queen, too, then?" he asked.

"Is that a bad thing, Benjamin?" D'metrius asked, the hint of threat in his tone.

He wanted to snap at him, but he wanted information about Dean more. "I just meant, is that why you call Dean Princess?"

D'metrius snorted. "We call him Princess because he refuses to do drag. I got him half dressed once, and he stormed out and locked himself in the bathroom until I promised not to ever do it again. So, he's not a Queen, just a Princess."

Ben chuckled. "Yeah, I can see him doing that. He probably had that squished up irritated face he gets, where he wrinkles his nose." He could see Dean doing it. He tried his best to keep his heart glazed over so he wouldn't start feeling the intensity of his rejection again. Would Dean ever look at him like that again? Probably not.

D'metrius chuckled, too, then sobered quickly. "No, straight-bait. You aren't gonna make me like you. You broke Dean, and I'm gonna find out how. Talk. Dean said you didn't come to work today."

"I didn't break... Fine, whatever." Ben closed up. "Yeah, I skipped."

"Why?"

He sighed. "What's it to you? Just leave me alone."

D'metrius was quiet for a breath. "Is that what you really want? Cause, I'm beginning to think that you're not actually sick."

His throat seized up. "Of course I'm sick," he squeaked, too late to sound anything but guilty as charged.

"Why didn't you go to work?"

"Sick, remember?" he snapped.

D'metrius snorted. "My ass you're sick, straight-bait. Why'd you skip work? The real answer."

"None of your business," Ben growled. "I'm hanging up now."

"No, you're not," D'metrius replied, his tone smug. "You wanna know about what's wrong with Dean."

"Don't think you know..." He trailed off. D'metrius was right, but he wasn't going to admit it to him. "Dean's fine. I'm sure he's fine. Why wouldn't he be fine?" He couldn't help how is throat tightened up at the end, his own words hurting him.

"Oh. I guess I was wrong about you, then. I thought you cared for Dean. As a coworker, of course."

D'metrius knew what to say to hurt him. He couldn't stop the words from coming out. "Is... Is something wrong? He's okay, right?" he said, forcing each word from his tight throat.

"Oh? Thought you didn't care if Dean was okay or not..."

"I didn't say that!" he barked.

"Mmm-hmm. Of course not, Benjamin."

There was a moment of silence. "So, is something..."

"Hmm? Dean? He's definitely not doing well."

Ben's blood pressure spiked. "Not well? Is he..."

D'metrius sniffed. "Straight-bait, are you sure you wanna know? Hmm?"

"Dammit, D'metrius," he growled, losing his patience. "Just tell me, what's wrong with Dean?!"

D'metrius chuckled, then sobered. "Some straight-bait shithead tore his heart out and pissed all over it."

His face flushed. "That's not true! He hates me! He can't be broken-hearted. He's the one who rejected me!" He stopped abruptly, realizing he'd said too much.

"Oh? He rejected you? How's that work, straight-bait?" D'metrius asked, the smugness in his tone making Ben angry. "You arent gay."

"I drank the milk, D'metrius! He's the one who won't let me keep the cow. Or whatever."

D'metrius snorted, then laughed. "Jesus, Benjamin. That's a terrible analogy."

"It's your analogy!" he snapped.

"Hmm..." D'metrius chuckled. "You two are hopeless. Really hopeless."

"He doesn't care about me. He made that super obvious."

"Oh?" D'metrius asked coyly. "He doesn't? You sure about that? But you care? About him?"

D'metrius was the first person he'd talked to since... well, the last time he'd talked. To Zion. He sighed. "You're making fun of me."

"Probably. But, it's important. Do you care? About Dean?"

"Of course I care!"

"Oh. Well, that's good. How?"

"How? He's a good person. Why wouldn't I care about him?" he asked, confused about the question. This conversation was confusing, he couldn't find his footing with D'metrius.

"Care about him like a coworker? A friend? Something... more?"

Ben deflated. "He's the one who said we were just coworkers. I thought..."

There was a short pause. "Ben, you drank the milk? Whaddya mean by that?"

Ben's face bloomed with heat again. "Nothing, nothing," he dismissed. "I should go."

"Benjamin, don't you dare hang up on me, or I'll find where you live and come bother you in person. I'm very diligent when I set my mind to something."

Ben exhaled loudly. "Fine. I... At first, I just wanted to pay him back. He cleaned me up when I was drunk, took care of me, and I was an asshole. I wanted to make it up to him, but he wouldn't let me. It's my fault, D'metrius, I chased him, even when he didn't want me to. I pushed him, and I guess I pushed him too far this time."

"Hmm," D'metrius hummed. "Interesting."

"What's interesting?"

"Oh? Nothing, nothing. Go to work tomorrow, Ben."

"Don't tell me what to do, D'metrius."

D'metrius laughed. "Or what? Go to work, okay? Oh, hey, I gotta go. Go to work, straight-bait. Okay now, by-ee!"

The phone disconnected and Ben sat there flustered, trying to figure out what had just happened. Dean was upset? Was D'metrius just messing with him? He sighed, then picked himself up off the floor and cleaned his room up just enough that he could sleep on the bed.

It was a long, painful night as he lay awake, worrying about seeing Dean at work, and also longing to see Dean. Sleep didn't come easily, and even when he did finally fall asleep, he had fitful dreams of rejection, the cold look on Dean's face haunting him.

He almost called off on Tuesday just to spite D'metrius, but he was an adult and he'd go to work because it was his job. Justin poked his head into his cubicle a little after eleven, and he wasn't sure where the time went. He hadn't accomplished a damn thing all morning.

"You wanna go to lunch?" Justin asked, leaning around his cubicle wall.

"Kinda early, isn't it?" he asked, spinning his office chair around to face him.

Justin shrugged. "I'm hungry now. I forgot my lunch. You feeling better?"

"Huh?"

"From yesterday? You called off sick."

God, Justin had on his stupid Hawaiian shirt today, the yellow one with the bright blue birds and large red flowers. It was obnoxious, and instantly irritated Ben. He shook his head, knowing Justin's stupid shirt didn't deserve his angst. But, seriously, how was this abomination considered business casual?

"Oh. Oh, yeah, I slept all day, I feel a little better now. Sure, I could eat, but, ah, maybe just soup?" His stomach was upset, but mostly from stress. He longed to see Dean, but was also terrified.

"Yeah, sure. Let me just go get Hugh, I'll be right back," Justin said, turning to leave.

"Let's just leave him," Ben suggested.

"What? We can't leave without Hugh. I'll just be a minute," Justin said, then skipped away.

He sighed, leaning his head back to look at the ceiling tiles above his cubicle. The vents really needed cleaned out, there was a thick layer of fluffy grey dust hanging off one of the plastic diffusion squares. He really didn't want to go if Hugh went, but he didn't really have any reason not to go.

"Aw, was baby sick?" Hugh asked, zipping up his coat outside of Ben's cubical. "Is baby feeling better?"

"Shut up, asshole," Ben snapped. "Like you've never been sick." He got up and shrugged on his coat.

"I'm not a baby about it," Hugh said, looking smug.

"No, you're a massive infected cunt," Ben agreed. Maybe he wasn't up this today. "Why don't you two go without me?"

"Ah, come on, I was just messing with you," Hugh said, laughing it off. "Don't be so uptight."

"Be nice, Hugh," Justin soothed. "He was sick, you can pretend to be nice for one day."

Hugh and Justin chuckled as they waited for him, watching him expectantly. When had hanging out with his friends become so much work? "Fine, whatever. Let's go."

He followed Hugh and Justin outside, and they walked the short distance to Bob Evans. "You can get soup here," Justin explained when he looked confused.

They were seated, surrounded by groups of old people and mothers with young children. It felt weird. The waitress came almost immediately and they ordered. Once the waitress left, Hugh leaned across the table conspiratorially.

"You'll never guess what," he said, smiling, and Ben could tell he'd been waiting to tell them since they left. It was Hugh's mean smile, the one he used when he was being gossipy.

"What?" Ben asked, pursing his lips to the side. He dreaded what Hugh was going to say, somehow knowing it was going to be about Dean.

He could have been a psychic. "Dicksucker Dean's been skulking around our department," Hugh announced as if he was a great detective who'd just solved a cold case.

"Huh? Skulking?" Ben asked. "He's in IT. His job is to fix computers and shit. Did anyone's computer break, or need updating? Cause, if so, then he was just doing his job." Was he hiding how nervous the news made him? He tried his best to remain cool while his insides churned violently.

"Seriously? How often have you seen Dicksucker Dean in our part of the building on the same day? He was in our office at least four times yesterday, by my count. Maybe more," Hugh said with a shrug, one eyebrow raised.

"Doing what?" Ben asked, trying to remain bored on the outside. "What was he doing, exactly? Maybe, I dunno, IT stuff?"

"Yeah, actually he was updating our antivirus software," Justin admitted.

Ben sighed dramatically. "So, is the news that we have new antivirus software? Cause, that's hardly exciting at all. I mean, I guess I'm glad I won't get a virus-"

"Jesus, will you listen to me?" Hugh snapped, eyes narrowed. It made Ben feel a little smug, that he was annoying Hugh so easily. "He was being weird, like, snooping around and shit."

Ben rolled his eyes. "Snooping through our office, doing his job? Why are you so obsessed with Dean, Hugh?"

"I'm not obsessed! He's interested in someone in our department. He was looking for someone yesterday."

"While updating our antivirus software, like it's his job maybe?" Ben asked, suddenly aware of where this line of conversation might be heading.

"Who'd he be looking for?" Justin asked, sipping his diet Coke.

"Who wasn't at work yesterday, Justin? Who do we know who's been acting super weird since Sanjay's party? You know what?" Hugh leaned in, dropping his voice a little. "I heard a rumor, Ben. Wanna hear it?" Hugh's enthusiasm over his news, the vile pleasure he took from gossiping, had Ben feeling sick.

"Not really," Ben admitted, then smiled weakly at the waitress as she brought their food. "Thank you," he muttered as she placed his chicken noodle soup down in front of him. He instantly dug in to keep his mouth shut, but it was too hot and burned his lips. He drank his ice water straight from the mason jar glass to soothe the burns.

"You don't think he was looking for Ben, do you?" Justin asked scandalously, holding his burger. He took a big bite, then looked to Ben. "You fink he'f looking for fu?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Ben chided. "That's disgusting."

"Who do you think he was looking for, Ben?" Hugh asked, leaning forward again. He forked a homefry without looking, then shoved it into his mouth.

"How should I know?" he snapped, then blew on another spoon of soup until it was cool enough to eat. It was too salty, and he wished he'd ordered something else. At least he had a biscuit. "I wasn't there yesterday." He regretted the words instantly.

"He was looking for you, moron! You were the only one not there yesterday!" Hugh announced.

"You pay an awful lot of attention to Dean," Ben noted, looking sideways at Justin. "For someone who dislikes gays as much as you do. You changing teams?"

"You wanna know the rumor I heard, Ben?" Hugh asked, ignoring his question as he shoved a forkful of eggs smothered in ketchup into his mouth.

"Again, not really," Ben snapped. "You're really a gossipy bi... cunt lately." He stopped himself from calling Hugh a bitch, the word meant something to him now, and he refused to sully it. The thought stabbed him in the chest.

"Gossipy cunt? Fuck you, motherfucker," Hugh snapped.

"Hey now, guys," Justin smoothed. "What'd you hear, Hugh?"

"Remember Sanjay's party?" Hugh asked, happy again now that Justin was playing along with his game.

"Sure do. The one where you assholes stranded me." Ben narrowed his eyes at Hugh.

Hugh smiled his conniving smile, and he was suddenly very worried about where this was going. He strained his brain, trying to remember anything from that night, but nothing in particular jumped out, other than Dean, but he couldn't remember that, either.