storybrooke: ben+dorian (flashback) WHO: Ben "The Bull" Irons and Dorian Grey WHEN: Flashback/backstory, I think this was a few months ago? WHERE: Ben's apartment! WHAT: Dorian's been having an affair with Ben Irons for months now, despite the fact that he's married and despite the fact that he insists to the rest of the world that he's straight. But feelings are in the way now, and Ben asks Dorian to leave his wife. WARNINGS: The usual for Adoribull (sex/BDSM), nothing overly explicit.
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Dorian felt like he lived two different lives.
In his real life, he taught chemistry at the college. He was the prominent son of old money and political influence, conservative and raised in an evangelical religious household. In his youth he was rather known for being rebellious, and once in his teenage years he left home for a while for a little course-correction to find himself. He came back in a far more acceptable state. He was married, he was expected to start a family soon.
But behind closed doors in Ben's apartment, it was another story entirely.
"Oh, fuck, God — fuck me —"
Yeah. It was a different story.
Dorian had been seeing Ben Irons for the past six months. He had a key to the man's apartment, and he let himself in at least twice a week. He gave Maria a lot of excuses, but he probably didn't need to. Maria probably didn't mind if he was out late. That meant less time to spend with him, and that agreed with everyone.
Ben was everything he'd ever wanted and everything he was ashamed to need.
"Jesus Christ, don't stop — harder —"
This was the happiest he'd been in years. He was really only happy here, in his lover's bed. He was usually tied up. There were toys. There were floggers. There were safe words. This was the kind of sex that would have horrified his family if he was with a woman.
But he wasn't with a woman.
Dorian entered another headspace entirely when he was with Ben — or The Bull, as most people liked to call him. For a few precious hours, he let go of everything weighing him down, and he was completely and thoroughly free. He didn't have to think. He just had to want.
"Fuck, I love you —"
He almost sobbed when he came, his hands grasping the headboard so hard he felt he'd break it.
It was quiet now, and Dorian felt boneless and relaxed. Ben was always good about this, about making sure he was cared for. Sex like this got emotional, it could get overwhelming, it could get painful. He was cleaned up, he was untied, and he had a little Mickey Mouse jelly jar of water that he sipped at with a straw. (How was Ben a preschool teacher?)
"I don't know why I spent all these years paying a masseuse," he said lightly, setting his cup down on the nightstand.
Ben was walking around the apartment, tidying up, setting things right, pulling clothes off of the floor and throwing Dorian’s in the washer so they’d be ready for him when he left. Some nights, he couldn’t pull himself out of bed after they finished sex. Some nights, he was just limp and content to lay next to Dorian after he’d been untied and cleaned up.
And some nights, like tonight, he was anxious and needed to move. Ramped up, high on orgasms.
And he damn well blamed Dorian for it, especially tonight. He’d almost lost it when Dorian yelled out those three damn words. Those words that he’d been secretly, quietly, patiently waiting to hear. He’d said similar over the last two months or so, quietly and usually less shouting-it-from-the-rooftops, but with a quiet affection that was reserved for the bedroom.
“Cause nobody compares to me, even for pay. Ass.” Ben laughed, leaning over Dorian to give him an affectionate kiss on the forehead. “You want anything? Sandwich? I’m gonna make a snack.” For Ben, a snack usually meant a giant plate of food at midnight, especially after a workout like what they’d just had. And it was a good way to keep his hands and mouth busy enough to avoid conversation, an evil word between the two of them more often than not.
"Mmm. I could do with a sandwich." Dorian reached up, brushing his fingertips over Ben's cheek. "I feel like I'm the one who owes you a snack." He didn't recommend it, he wasn't a terribly good cook. Or, rather, he was actually an excellent cook, but he was too good to dumb things down. Everything he made was some flashy French technique or something completely overdone. It was delicious, but it was unnecessary. He couldn't just pop pizza rolls in the microwave.
He rolled over, stretching out all of his limbs while lying on his back before flopping back over onto his belly. "I'm going to get dressed. Eventually. Promise."
He reached back, his fingertips tracing over the backs of his thighs, the curve of his ass. "Ben, what's the damage?" Sometimes there were bruises. Sometimes there were welts. Dorian avoided being naked around his wife as much as possible, but he did like to know how cautious he had to be.
“Something veggie? Cause you already had a lot of meat tonight.” Yeah, he was waiting to be able to use that joke. His grin held no shame, and Ben crossed the room to his kitchen - not exactly a far walk, given everything he owned fit in the studio room.
He paused briefly to give Dorian a look over his shoulder, eyebrow going up as his eye roamed over his lover’s delicious behind. “Mmm-” Well, now he was getting distracted. Shit. Clearing his throat, he shrugged. “Few bruises on your hips, mostly from my fingers. Some red marks on your back. No welts. Rest up, I’m not gonna kick your pretty ass out while you’re giving me a view like that.”
And sure as hell not before Ben got in a few words.
Dorian hummed, content, and bundled up the blankets with all four limbs to snuggle with in Ben's absence. He liked the marks. He liked it when it ached the next day, when his body still felt sore and raw — he wanted those reminders of his lover, things that would tide him over until the next time they were able to see one another.
It also gave him a private little thrill to feel that ache when he was trying to be a perfectly good example of a straight, conservative, religious man.
Jesus, if they only knew.
While Ben was in the kitchen, Dorian's phone buzzed on the nightstand. He usually turned it off or turned it on silent, but apparently it was on vibrate. He groaned, rolling over to grab it and scroll through his notifications. Part of why he liked being here so much was that the real world didn't have to exist, but if he shut off his phone entirely people thought he was dead, or something.
He had a series of texts from his father, which he briefly read through and then closed without replying. Nope. He didn't need this now.
Ben groaned quietly when Dorian’s phone went off. That was usually a good signal that the evening might be coming to an end, though not always. Enough that it started veering Ben towards a potentially bad mood. So he busied himself making both of them giant sandwiches, not even hissing when the cold of the refrigerator hit him in the private parts.
He kept his head trained down as he worked, years of experience let him listen to what Dorian was doing without ever moving his head in that direction. But damn if he wasn’t curious.
Finally, he gave in. He was too nosy, especially after Dorian turned the phone back off. “Maria?”
His tone could’ve easily been bitter. He was the other “woman”, but he liked Maria. It was pretty obvious to anybody watching more than five minutes that she didn’t want to be in the marriage either, and she’d never been outright rude to him if they happened to be stuck in the same room.
But damn if he wasn’t jealous.
"My father. He wants to stop by this weekend, which inevitably means checking in on my life and how it's going, and then judging it." Dorian buried his face against the pillow. Nothing he ever did was good enough for his father. His mother was a little less strict, but she didn't really come to bat for Dorian very often. He was expected to have a certain reputation and live a certain life, and for all intents and purposes, Dorian did leave that life. He'd left his rebellious, sinful teenage years behind and he'd become quite the productive member of society.
Whether or not he was happy didn't matter, because this was supposed to make him happy. Happy, successful people lived this prescribed way. Good, respectable people who wanted to live righteously lived this way. It left Dorian screaming on the inside, hating himself, but he didn't have a choice.
.”Ah.” It wasn’t a lot coming from Ben, but it was still full of meaning. Fuck, he hated Dorian’s parents. He dealt with a lot of people in his life, between the military and the damn horrendous parents he dealt with on a daily basis, he was typically of the live and let live mindset. But Dorian’s dad just had a damn punchable face.
Not that he had. No. He’d been on his best behavior. Ridiculously so. He curbed his tongue, he softened his words, he wore a shirt around the man. Not that they had to see each other often, but someday-- Shit.
Ben finished up the sandwiches and carried the plate over to the bed, his expression passive even as he threw a curveball. “Could just tell him to fuck off and that you’re with your male lover.”
Dorian had opened up considerably around Ben. He'd told him about his behavior in high school, that he'd been drinking and doing drugs and sleeping with any boy who looked at him for a moment longer than was supposedly normal. He hadn't necessarily been happy, but he'd been trying to figure out what was wrong in his life and trying to fix it.
Instead, his parents had opted to fix him, sending him away for a summer and receiving what they thought was a changed son afterward.
He just kept things hidden better.
At Ben's suggestion, he laughed. "Oh, yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do. 'Sorry, Dad, can't have you over because I'll be busy having my brains fucked out by my boyfriend'."
Boyfriend. Dorian's word, not Ben's.
Ben’s step faltered with that word. It was easy for them to joke about this shit after it had been a topic of conversation for so long, but Ben had been getting antsy lately. In the past, he'd tried to be patient, understanding, and he sure as hell never tried to pressure Dorian. It was the opposite of how he acted in public, really.
But he wanted more. He could admit that now, staring at Dorian sprawled out in his bed. He wanted that every night. He wanted Dorian to spend those entire nights with him and goddammit, he wanted to be seen with him in public. Cause he was fucking proud.
“Why not? “ it was a stupid question, he knew why not. “Could tell Maria while you're at it. Finally get a divorce and stop letting your damn dad rule your public life.”
Dorian glanced over his shoulder, frowning. "Excuse me?"
It hadn't come up before. He thought that he and Ben were on the same page with this. Yes, it had lingered on for months and Dorian was intensely close to him, but they had an arrangement. Things were a certain way for a reason, and Dorian wasn't just about to upset the apple cart because he felt like being selfish.
"You're kidding, right?"
Of course he wasn't fucking kidding, but there was no way Ben could say that flat out with the way Dorian was looking at him, not without fucking up the entire evening.
He set down the plate of sandwiches on the edge of the bed and shrugged, as if he maybe, just maybe didn't care.
“How often do you tell Maria you love her?” It probably wasn't fair- no, it definitely wasn't fair. Words said in the heat of the moment during sex didn't always bear meaning to real life, and Ben squared his shoulders and steeled himself for the possible incoming reminder of that.
Dorian tugged the blanket around himself and pushed himself up to sit. He had said that, hadn't he. He'd said I love you.
He could have blamed his headspace. He could have blamed being in a slightly altered state of mind when being Ben's submissive partner. He could have realized that he was in way over his head, and he'd brought Ben into this, and now Ben wanted something serious. He wanted to talk about his feelings. He wanted Dorian to uproot his entire life for this. He'd had a feeling it would come eventually, but Ben hadn't said anything before now.
"Ben…"
He didn't deny it. He did love Ben.
“Dumb question. You don't gotta answer.”
Fuck. He couldn't say he didn't know what he was getting into with this… affair. It wasn't a relationship. But Dorian was smoking hot, funny and managed to push every last one of his buttons on a regular basis. It was exciting and fresh, full of passion and still managed to provide them with a service they sorely needed. Why was he suddenly getting weird about it now? Selfish reasons, he supposed.
“Eat your sandwich, need to regain your strength.” Ben pushed the plate closer and looked towards the utility closet. “Gonna check on your clothes so you don't gotta wait around too long.”
Dorian took the sandwich and picked at it. He opened it up, picked it apart, and ate some of the crust, a little bit of lettuce. He wasn't always prissy when he ate, but he was so distracted by the question that he didn't feel like digging into the food.
He let Ben check on his clothes, let Ben wander around for a while, and then finally he said: "I don't."
He looked up, frowning. "I don't tell Maria I love her. I care about her, I care about her reputation, and I care about what would happen if we split. I like Maria, but we've settled into an arrangement where we're better off drunk when we're at home together, and I … no. I don't tell her I love her."
Ben ended up leaning against an open doorframe, staring at Dorian from across the room. It was better to keep his distance during the conversation, given how easily they had a tendency to get distracted. Dorian didn’t say anything he didn’t already know, but shit.
That didn’t make him feel any better.
The thought that they were both driving themselves and each other into early graves because of fucking reputations was never going to sit well with him. But Ben felt selfish making demands when he knew what he was getting into at the start. Just- shit. He wasn’t the type of guy to sign himself up for torture that was unending.
Not usually, anyway.
There were a lot of things he could’ve said, most of which would’ve started a fight. Instead, he settled on, “You don’t actually gotta justify anything to me, Ke aloha.”
"Yes, I do," Dorian insisted immediately. He needed Ben to know that Dorian wasn't doing this to spite him. He knew this hurt Ben, he knew how much Ben wanted a different kind of relationship, something more open, but Dorian couldn't be that selfish. It wasn't just about his own reputation. He didn't want to ruin Maria, he didn't want to bring shame upon his family, he didn't want to devastate his father's political career.
He'd learned years ago that he wasn't allowed to be selfish. Being selfish meant pain for other people. Living honestly just hurt his family, and he'd had it instilled in him that family was more important than anything, even if they treated him horribly when he tried to live as his most authentic self.
"But I can't do that. I can't."
“You’ve been selfless your entire goddamn life, far as I can tell. Didn’t expect anything less in this case.” Ben shrugged, trying to be as nonchalant about this whole thing as he possibly could and probably failing. He knew all of Dorian’s reasons, sure, and it was selfish himself to ask more of him.
Maybe someday he’d even be ready to be selfish enough to give an ultimatum. But that wasn’t today. He had enough issues that he didn’t need to add shit onto it with one of the main good things in his life. And he knew that. “Not gonna bring it up again, you can put away those damn puppy eyes.”
"What puppy eyes. Please." Dorian scoffed.
He set his sandwich aside and flopped back down onto the bed, patting the mattress beside him. "Come back," he murmured. When they were in bed, things were fine. They didn't have to think about anything else. Ben wasn't going to bring it up again, they could go on ignoring the outside world, and everything would be fine for now. "Jaan, come back."
Now he gave Ben those puppy eyes.
“Those fucking puppy eyes.” Ben laughed, but didn’t resist. With purpose and an odd amount of grace for such a big man, he walked to the bed with his eyes trained on Dorian. “How’s your back?” The question wasn’t meant to be as much of an invitation as it sounded in his low, rumbly voice, but he couldn’t help it sometimes.
Not that they’d be doing anything strenuous after that conversation. Ben had his limits, and taking things to bed that were at all distressing wasn’t going to happen. Even if Dorian used those pet names and eyes on him.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t be down for some life-affirming sweet shit, though.
"I'm barely sore," said Dorian, taking Ben's hand and lifting it so he could kiss his knuckles. He was exhausted and wrung out, but it felt good. He looked in need of some of that life-affirming sweet shit, too, and it was the very least that he could offer when he knew he was a disappointment. He knew that Ben was disappointed, and all Dorian wanted was to at least try and make him know that he was wanted and loved, even if Dorian wasn't yet willing to upend everyone's lives over it.
He pulled Ben back down to bed with him, guiding Ben to crawl over him so he could settle in under him, his legs wrapping around Ben's waist. "Look at me," he murmured, touching his cheek.
When Ben did meet his lover’s gaze, his eyes were already well adjusted and full of every damn bit of love he had in him. Even if he was disappointed, he’d never let it flicker across his face like this. Never let that kind of emotion show in a raw situation where Ben knew what he was in for. He wasn’t going to be yet another person in Dorian’s life that Dorian felt he let down.
No damn way.
“Hey.” He softly murmured, leaning down to kiss against Dorian’s collarbone. “Love you. Alright?” A few more gentle kisses and his eyes were back up and on Dorian, mouth curving into a small smile.
"I love you," Dorian said solemnly. He didn't want Ben to think that wasn't true. It was. He adored Ben.
No, it was more than that. He was hopelessly, painfully in love, the kind of feeling that stabbed at his heart and sometimes quite literally hurt. On nights when he was home with Maria, he just wanted to be with Ben, curled up and doing domestic things that had nothing to do with sex.
"Please don't ever doubt me when I tell you that I love you." He knew that Ben might doubt him, because he wasn't ready to come out and upend his life, but that didn't mean he didn't love him. It just meant he wasn't brave. It meant he loved his family, however misguided it was.