'with hands like his father's,' ben/margene, r, 3000 words
Title: With Hands Like His Father's
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom, Pairing: Big Love, Ben/Margene
Word Count: 3000
Notes: It's not incest, exactly, but if it squicks you out, then no need to read on. Set post-series, with no real spoilers beyond "Ben likes Margene and she's one of his father's wives." lulabo was kind enough to beta, even though she's not totally caught up on the show, and any parts of this that are worthwhile are either a) accidental or b) hers. Cut-tag text from Precognition, by Margaret Atwood. Also at Porn Battle XIII
----
When he comes into the hotel bar, there's still rain clinging to the shoulders of his coat and the ends of his hair. He runs a quick hand through his brown curls and shakes off the moisture from his fingers as he looks around for her. Her voice had been small on the phone, quick and timid, "I'm in the area, not too far away, come meet me, don't tell your mom." She knows if Barb knew about this, she'd be furious, that hard, pinched look on her face that Margene remembers so well. Then again, it feels like it's been a thousand years since Margie's seen her, since she’s seen any of them, and Barb may have changed as much as she has.
Ben spots her at the end of the bar, and she sees him straighten and stand taller. As he walks toward her, she gets a better look at him, and her breath escapes all in a rush. He's still tall, but now full, solid in the ways men are, and it shakes her to think that he's all grown up. There are even a couple lines around his eyes, and a new broadness to his chest and shoulders that makes her think of Bill and his wide, warm arms around her. Ben closes the last few feet between them slowly, hesitantly, his head bowed, a little unsure. And this is where she sees the Ben she knew most: the lines of his neck as he pulls toward her and away, the nervous fumble of his fingers on the back of the barstool as he finally looks up to meet her eyes and says, "Hi, Margene."
She swallows hard and stretches her smile across her face, pulling him toward her into a fiercely tight hug. She hadn’t realized quite how much she’s missed him. Her eyes are wet by the time she lets go, but she turns away and keeps her voice steady as she says, “Hi, Ben,” gaze on her hands until the tremor in her fingers goes away.
Ben orders a drink and they sit, make the small talk of friends who’ve not seen each other. There are pauses, long gaping holes where they don’t say the things they want to. It’s hard to find their footing at first, so much distance, so much time. It’s been ten years since she’s seen him, since she packed her bags and her boys into Sarah’s car and left town in the middle of the night, took her life in her hands and ran as fast as she could, as far as she had to. She knows she only beat the police by a few hours, can’t imagine the turmoil and havoc she just narrowly missed, but Ben does not say, and she will not ask. They open up slowly, backs relaxing, fists releasing, and she tells him about Maryland, settling down with the boys and starting over. She tells him about the ocean, the shore, the ways the boys have grown and taken shape as young men. She does not tell him that they look just like Bill, but her voice catches in her throat in odd moments and she thinks he understands.
He only tells her in so many words the reasons he left Salt Lake, and the church, and his family, but she knows it all already, knows the way things changed in their houses, the way fear crawled inside and settled, and finally broke them all. He tells her about the places he’s let life take him, about California, then Seattle, and the ways he had to change inside to be able to face Utah again. He came back for Barb, that much she already knew, but he doesn’t tell her about that at all. He is so grown and so sure now, and it makes her fingers buzz and her heart beat faster. He is a man now, in the set of his shoulders and the broad of his chest, and the sharp, piercing look in his eyes refuses to let Margene forget that.
They talk around so many things-Nikki, Sarah and Teenie, Barb’s illness and Bill’s jail time. They skirt around the edges of they way they used to be, how close, how caring, their own unit in a sea of pandemonium. She doesn’t mention his presence on her couch so many nights, her hands pulling blankets over his shoulders and under his chin. He doesn’t mention the boys’ hands in his, the way he played and parented, and held her hand when it all got to be too much. She wants to take his hand now, turn it over in her own, and trace the lines of his palm beneath her fingers. It feels like another lifetime, and yet-not so long ago. But he is so changed, and she hopes that most of it has been for the better.
She takes a breath and sighs out long, and her voice is thick in her throat when she speaks. “You’ve gotten so old,” she says, running her fingers against the bar. She turns to face him, settles her gaze on the lines of his face, the creases around his eyes. “You’re all grown up now, Ben,” and her voice cracks on his name, and she tightens her fingers and turns away.
His hand is soft over both of hers, his voice a whisper that stops her heart in her chest, his shoulder brushing hers as he leans closer and says, “Come upstairs with me,” and his breath is hot against her cheek.
There are photos, he says, things he wants to tell her, show her, questions to ask and answers to give. She remembers the slide of his gaze along her hips, her chest, the timid want of a boy all those years ago as he looked at her across the yard, or the table. There's a part of her that wants to take him in her arms and hold him, love him like the mother she was, the mother she was supposed to be, and fix him, apologize for making his life so confusing, and so hard. That's the part of her that knows this is a bad idea, that knows this will lead to more confusion, and more hurt. But for as long as she can remember, she has wanted to make him happy, this boy now a man with honest eyes like Bill that pull at her and ask her to come, and to stay. So she nods her head slowly, tosses a few bills onto the bar for the drinks they’ve had, and follows him to the elevators. The ride is short and silent, the both of them keeping their eyes at their feet, and she leads him down the hall to her room.
She pauses outside her door, one hand holding the room key and the other on the door handle. "Ben," she says, "I'm sorry." She sees him out of the corner of her eyes, this man that he's become while she’s been gone, while she’s been waiting for all the dust to settle and her whole world to stop spinning. From the way she’s unsteady on her feet as he looks at her, she’s not entirely sure it has. She knows she owes him at least this much, an apology for leaving him to deal with the mess they all created, but she can find no words to make it right. So she meets his eyes and stands and does not falter, and hopes it is enough.
He sets his shoulders back and something changes in his face, his eyes darker and deeper than she’s ever seen them. He takes the room key from between her cold fingers and leans into her as he opens the door, whispers, "I know," as he guides her into the room with his hand at the small of her back. He leads and she lets him-she owes him so much-and she doesn’t pull away when he backs her up against the wall just inside the door, as soon as the lock has slid into place.
His hands are wide and warm against her hips and when she tilts her chin back to meet his mouth, the angle of her neck is so severe that she prickles with pain, but does not flinch or pull away. He is not fumbling or unsure, the way that she'd expect him to be, but he is confident in the way he slides an arm around her waist and pulls her toward him. She hesitates for just a moment, then runs her hands up the long, solid lines of his back, bunching his shirt between her fingers as she goes. His kisses are long and deep, wanting and almost pleading in the way he bends his face to hers, and her eyes sting and squeeze shut tight. When he makes a low sound in his throat as he leans further into her, she is startled enough to pull back, and just look at him.
His lips are slightly swollen and his eyes hooded and dark, but he suddenly looks like the 16-year-old boy she watched over and cared for all those years ago. She puts her hands against his chest to push him away, but his grip is tight on her waist.
"Benny, we can't," she say, eyes down. She can hardly stand to meet his eyes. "I'm your mother," she whispers, her throat narrow with a sadness so full it makes her dig her fingers harder into Ben's chest, but she does not pull away.
He releases one hand from her waist and puts a finger under her chin, lifting her face to meet his. He sets his jaw and raises his chin, and there, she sees them, Bill and Barb in the hollows of his cheeks and the tired, flat look in his eyes. Even Nikki she recognizes in the sudden pinch of his lips and the pressure of his nails against her skin. I'm your mother, she thinks again, tears finally coming to her eyes. "No, you're not," Ben says, as he guides his knee between hers and pins her hips to the wall with his own. He is hard against her, she feels, and stronger than Margene has ever known him to be.
He kisses her again and this, this is different, this isn't like Bill at all. Ben's hands leave her waist and come up to hold her face, thumbs fitted just against her cheekbones as he leans himself long against her. He slides a hand to the back of her neck, the other resting just against her collarbone, and works her thighs apart with the hard angle of his knee.
She feels something inside snap and break free, something that has been held in tightly for far too long. The Margene that runs her hands to the waistband of Ben’s jeans, that digs her thumbs against his belt buckle and pulls him into her, is not his mother, or his father’s wife, or his mothers’ sister. She is not the woman who cleaned his sheets, and changed his brothers’ diapers, and spoke to him sternly when he slipped in past curfew. And this Ben beneath her hands is not her son, or her husband’s child, or her sisters’ boy. They’ve both shed the parts of themselves that they were back then, the quiet, hidden parts they were made to keep closeted out of fear, and shame, and desperation. The Margie who married Bill, the young, carefree girl who took his hand in the backyard and promised her way into a world she couldn’t understand, she’s as dead and buried as the Ben who swayed along to Christian rock and hung his head before his father like he already knew he’d lost.
They shed those parts of themselves as quickly and surely as they shed sweaters and shoes, pants and undershirts. Ben’s hand gets tangled in Margene’s hair as he backs her up against the bed, the mattress soft against the backs of her knees, and there’s a hard, knotted tug as he pulls his hand free and slides it to her back, guiding her down onto the bed. He settles himself against her and she sighs low and muted at his weight, the broad sureness of a man above her, something she hasn’t felt in too long a time. He runs his hand against the cotton of her underwear, the tips of his fingers coarse against the parts of her that are smooth and soft, and when he works his hand against her, under the cotton, where she is warmest, and wet, he stills and pauses.
He kisses her then, deeply and long, and he slides his tongue against hers as he dips one finger inside her. He pulls back slick and slides in, back and again, and then another finger strong inside her makes her bite her lip and arch toward him, and they are Bill’s hands then, right there, right were she always wanted them, but softer, slimmer, and she remembers: Ben. It is enough to make her falter, but she does not stop. She bites down gently on his lower lip and he grinds against her thigh, moving his hand more quickly, his kisses coming rougher and more wild. When he pulls away, he lowers his head over her breast, teases her nipple with his tongue before licking firmly against it and pulling it into his mouth, against his teeth.
Margene has never been one to keep quiet, and when he curls his fingers inside her and tugs gently at her nipple, she lets out a deep, throaty moan that makes Ben push her deeper into the mattress. She slides her hands along his back and further down, pushing his boxers off his hips and down his thighs as she readjusts them, moving him between her legs. He works a thumb against her as she dispatches with her own underwear, and she feels a heady tingle as he leans down and kisses her from collarbone to jawline, as he positions himself against her.
They come to rest like this, forehead to forehead, his weight on his arms as he holds himself above her, her hand splayed wide on his chest. She pulls away slowly and he leans back, and their eyes are locked tight on each other, no sound in the room besides their breaths, shallow and sharp. Margene raises a hand to Ben’s forehead, his curls between her fingers as she pushes the hair from his brow. They are silent as she runs her thumb along the ridge of his nose, down across his lips and against the flat of his chin-Bill’s chin, she thinks-her hand cupping his face just so. He leans into her touch so slightly, his eyes falling closed for just a moment, and a feeling settles in her chest, heavy but wholly welcome. She knows that there is no one in the world who will ever understand her like Ben will, like Ben does, no one who will ever know what it was like in those houses, their lives stretched out painfully across that big backyard. She knows how he has been broken, and how he’s healed, worked the pieces of himself out slowly until he fit together again, and was whole. She knows because she did it too, years of burdens falling away until she could get here, finally free of all that history, and all that shame. She knows it won’t make sense to anyone else, but she feels sturdier here than she’s felt in longer than she can remember.
He leans down slowly and kisses her, lips soft and patient against her own. She presses her palm more firmly against his cheek and knows he understands-that there is no amount of water, holy or otherwise, that can ever wash her clean. That she left him because she had to, and has been missing him ever since. She cannot rewrite the past, knows it is foolish even to wish to try, but she’ll make it up to him now if he’ll let her. Her lips at his jaw are an offer, her promise, his hand on her hip his reply.
----
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom, Pairing: Big Love, Ben/Margene
Word Count: 3000
Notes: It's not incest, exactly, but if it squicks you out, then no need to read on. Set post-series, with no real spoilers beyond "Ben likes Margene and she's one of his father's wives." lulabo was kind enough to beta, even though she's not totally caught up on the show, and any parts of this that are worthwhile are either a) accidental or b) hers. Cut-tag text from Precognition, by Margaret Atwood. Also at Porn Battle XIII
----
When he comes into the hotel bar, there's still rain clinging to the shoulders of his coat and the ends of his hair. He runs a quick hand through his brown curls and shakes off the moisture from his fingers as he looks around for her. Her voice had been small on the phone, quick and timid, "I'm in the area, not too far away, come meet me, don't tell your mom." She knows if Barb knew about this, she'd be furious, that hard, pinched look on her face that Margene remembers so well. Then again, it feels like it's been a thousand years since Margie's seen her, since she’s seen any of them, and Barb may have changed as much as she has.
Ben spots her at the end of the bar, and she sees him straighten and stand taller. As he walks toward her, she gets a better look at him, and her breath escapes all in a rush. He's still tall, but now full, solid in the ways men are, and it shakes her to think that he's all grown up. There are even a couple lines around his eyes, and a new broadness to his chest and shoulders that makes her think of Bill and his wide, warm arms around her. Ben closes the last few feet between them slowly, hesitantly, his head bowed, a little unsure. And this is where she sees the Ben she knew most: the lines of his neck as he pulls toward her and away, the nervous fumble of his fingers on the back of the barstool as he finally looks up to meet her eyes and says, "Hi, Margene."
She swallows hard and stretches her smile across her face, pulling him toward her into a fiercely tight hug. She hadn’t realized quite how much she’s missed him. Her eyes are wet by the time she lets go, but she turns away and keeps her voice steady as she says, “Hi, Ben,” gaze on her hands until the tremor in her fingers goes away.
Ben orders a drink and they sit, make the small talk of friends who’ve not seen each other. There are pauses, long gaping holes where they don’t say the things they want to. It’s hard to find their footing at first, so much distance, so much time. It’s been ten years since she’s seen him, since she packed her bags and her boys into Sarah’s car and left town in the middle of the night, took her life in her hands and ran as fast as she could, as far as she had to. She knows she only beat the police by a few hours, can’t imagine the turmoil and havoc she just narrowly missed, but Ben does not say, and she will not ask. They open up slowly, backs relaxing, fists releasing, and she tells him about Maryland, settling down with the boys and starting over. She tells him about the ocean, the shore, the ways the boys have grown and taken shape as young men. She does not tell him that they look just like Bill, but her voice catches in her throat in odd moments and she thinks he understands.
He only tells her in so many words the reasons he left Salt Lake, and the church, and his family, but she knows it all already, knows the way things changed in their houses, the way fear crawled inside and settled, and finally broke them all. He tells her about the places he’s let life take him, about California, then Seattle, and the ways he had to change inside to be able to face Utah again. He came back for Barb, that much she already knew, but he doesn’t tell her about that at all. He is so grown and so sure now, and it makes her fingers buzz and her heart beat faster. He is a man now, in the set of his shoulders and the broad of his chest, and the sharp, piercing look in his eyes refuses to let Margene forget that.
They talk around so many things-Nikki, Sarah and Teenie, Barb’s illness and Bill’s jail time. They skirt around the edges of they way they used to be, how close, how caring, their own unit in a sea of pandemonium. She doesn’t mention his presence on her couch so many nights, her hands pulling blankets over his shoulders and under his chin. He doesn’t mention the boys’ hands in his, the way he played and parented, and held her hand when it all got to be too much. She wants to take his hand now, turn it over in her own, and trace the lines of his palm beneath her fingers. It feels like another lifetime, and yet-not so long ago. But he is so changed, and she hopes that most of it has been for the better.
She takes a breath and sighs out long, and her voice is thick in her throat when she speaks. “You’ve gotten so old,” she says, running her fingers against the bar. She turns to face him, settles her gaze on the lines of his face, the creases around his eyes. “You’re all grown up now, Ben,” and her voice cracks on his name, and she tightens her fingers and turns away.
His hand is soft over both of hers, his voice a whisper that stops her heart in her chest, his shoulder brushing hers as he leans closer and says, “Come upstairs with me,” and his breath is hot against her cheek.
There are photos, he says, things he wants to tell her, show her, questions to ask and answers to give. She remembers the slide of his gaze along her hips, her chest, the timid want of a boy all those years ago as he looked at her across the yard, or the table. There's a part of her that wants to take him in her arms and hold him, love him like the mother she was, the mother she was supposed to be, and fix him, apologize for making his life so confusing, and so hard. That's the part of her that knows this is a bad idea, that knows this will lead to more confusion, and more hurt. But for as long as she can remember, she has wanted to make him happy, this boy now a man with honest eyes like Bill that pull at her and ask her to come, and to stay. So she nods her head slowly, tosses a few bills onto the bar for the drinks they’ve had, and follows him to the elevators. The ride is short and silent, the both of them keeping their eyes at their feet, and she leads him down the hall to her room.
She pauses outside her door, one hand holding the room key and the other on the door handle. "Ben," she says, "I'm sorry." She sees him out of the corner of her eyes, this man that he's become while she’s been gone, while she’s been waiting for all the dust to settle and her whole world to stop spinning. From the way she’s unsteady on her feet as he looks at her, she’s not entirely sure it has. She knows she owes him at least this much, an apology for leaving him to deal with the mess they all created, but she can find no words to make it right. So she meets his eyes and stands and does not falter, and hopes it is enough.
He sets his shoulders back and something changes in his face, his eyes darker and deeper than she’s ever seen them. He takes the room key from between her cold fingers and leans into her as he opens the door, whispers, "I know," as he guides her into the room with his hand at the small of her back. He leads and she lets him-she owes him so much-and she doesn’t pull away when he backs her up against the wall just inside the door, as soon as the lock has slid into place.
His hands are wide and warm against her hips and when she tilts her chin back to meet his mouth, the angle of her neck is so severe that she prickles with pain, but does not flinch or pull away. He is not fumbling or unsure, the way that she'd expect him to be, but he is confident in the way he slides an arm around her waist and pulls her toward him. She hesitates for just a moment, then runs her hands up the long, solid lines of his back, bunching his shirt between her fingers as she goes. His kisses are long and deep, wanting and almost pleading in the way he bends his face to hers, and her eyes sting and squeeze shut tight. When he makes a low sound in his throat as he leans further into her, she is startled enough to pull back, and just look at him.
His lips are slightly swollen and his eyes hooded and dark, but he suddenly looks like the 16-year-old boy she watched over and cared for all those years ago. She puts her hands against his chest to push him away, but his grip is tight on her waist.
"Benny, we can't," she say, eyes down. She can hardly stand to meet his eyes. "I'm your mother," she whispers, her throat narrow with a sadness so full it makes her dig her fingers harder into Ben's chest, but she does not pull away.
He releases one hand from her waist and puts a finger under her chin, lifting her face to meet his. He sets his jaw and raises his chin, and there, she sees them, Bill and Barb in the hollows of his cheeks and the tired, flat look in his eyes. Even Nikki she recognizes in the sudden pinch of his lips and the pressure of his nails against her skin. I'm your mother, she thinks again, tears finally coming to her eyes. "No, you're not," Ben says, as he guides his knee between hers and pins her hips to the wall with his own. He is hard against her, she feels, and stronger than Margene has ever known him to be.
He kisses her again and this, this is different, this isn't like Bill at all. Ben's hands leave her waist and come up to hold her face, thumbs fitted just against her cheekbones as he leans himself long against her. He slides a hand to the back of her neck, the other resting just against her collarbone, and works her thighs apart with the hard angle of his knee.
She feels something inside snap and break free, something that has been held in tightly for far too long. The Margene that runs her hands to the waistband of Ben’s jeans, that digs her thumbs against his belt buckle and pulls him into her, is not his mother, or his father’s wife, or his mothers’ sister. She is not the woman who cleaned his sheets, and changed his brothers’ diapers, and spoke to him sternly when he slipped in past curfew. And this Ben beneath her hands is not her son, or her husband’s child, or her sisters’ boy. They’ve both shed the parts of themselves that they were back then, the quiet, hidden parts they were made to keep closeted out of fear, and shame, and desperation. The Margie who married Bill, the young, carefree girl who took his hand in the backyard and promised her way into a world she couldn’t understand, she’s as dead and buried as the Ben who swayed along to Christian rock and hung his head before his father like he already knew he’d lost.
They shed those parts of themselves as quickly and surely as they shed sweaters and shoes, pants and undershirts. Ben’s hand gets tangled in Margene’s hair as he backs her up against the bed, the mattress soft against the backs of her knees, and there’s a hard, knotted tug as he pulls his hand free and slides it to her back, guiding her down onto the bed. He settles himself against her and she sighs low and muted at his weight, the broad sureness of a man above her, something she hasn’t felt in too long a time. He runs his hand against the cotton of her underwear, the tips of his fingers coarse against the parts of her that are smooth and soft, and when he works his hand against her, under the cotton, where she is warmest, and wet, he stills and pauses.
He kisses her then, deeply and long, and he slides his tongue against hers as he dips one finger inside her. He pulls back slick and slides in, back and again, and then another finger strong inside her makes her bite her lip and arch toward him, and they are Bill’s hands then, right there, right were she always wanted them, but softer, slimmer, and she remembers: Ben. It is enough to make her falter, but she does not stop. She bites down gently on his lower lip and he grinds against her thigh, moving his hand more quickly, his kisses coming rougher and more wild. When he pulls away, he lowers his head over her breast, teases her nipple with his tongue before licking firmly against it and pulling it into his mouth, against his teeth.
Margene has never been one to keep quiet, and when he curls his fingers inside her and tugs gently at her nipple, she lets out a deep, throaty moan that makes Ben push her deeper into the mattress. She slides her hands along his back and further down, pushing his boxers off his hips and down his thighs as she readjusts them, moving him between her legs. He works a thumb against her as she dispatches with her own underwear, and she feels a heady tingle as he leans down and kisses her from collarbone to jawline, as he positions himself against her.
They come to rest like this, forehead to forehead, his weight on his arms as he holds himself above her, her hand splayed wide on his chest. She pulls away slowly and he leans back, and their eyes are locked tight on each other, no sound in the room besides their breaths, shallow and sharp. Margene raises a hand to Ben’s forehead, his curls between her fingers as she pushes the hair from his brow. They are silent as she runs her thumb along the ridge of his nose, down across his lips and against the flat of his chin-Bill’s chin, she thinks-her hand cupping his face just so. He leans into her touch so slightly, his eyes falling closed for just a moment, and a feeling settles in her chest, heavy but wholly welcome. She knows that there is no one in the world who will ever understand her like Ben will, like Ben does, no one who will ever know what it was like in those houses, their lives stretched out painfully across that big backyard. She knows how he has been broken, and how he’s healed, worked the pieces of himself out slowly until he fit together again, and was whole. She knows because she did it too, years of burdens falling away until she could get here, finally free of all that history, and all that shame. She knows it won’t make sense to anyone else, but she feels sturdier here than she’s felt in longer than she can remember.
He leans down slowly and kisses her, lips soft and patient against her own. She presses her palm more firmly against his cheek and knows he understands-that there is no amount of water, holy or otherwise, that can ever wash her clean. That she left him because she had to, and has been missing him ever since. She cannot rewrite the past, knows it is foolish even to wish to try, but she’ll make it up to him now if he’ll let her. Her lips at his jaw are an offer, her promise, his hand on her hip his reply.
----