a Small Piece of the Ben-Hur fic - I'm obsessed with them and think you should be too lol
He wept, and wept, and wept until his throat was a burning column, his own pillar of fire smoldering with anguish. The smell of his drying blood caught in his nostrils like an animal into a trap, the smell squirming through him and making him curl even deeper into his misery, the room black around him as the night thickened, the day heavy at its corners. Surely his father had retired by now, paying no mind to his wretch of a son just out of earshot, and the sensation of being passed over so parlously had him weeping once again. It was a long circle of sadness, like the great circus of Rome, and he went around and around inside of it without the ability to stop.
It could have been hours, but his ears pricked at the familiar sound of feet against the stone of the balcony, at the blessed way the curtains swept aside to usher in a pool of moonlight across the blackened floor, swishing shut once again to douse the room back in shadow. He pushed his face into his covers, red and splotched with unending tears, and did his best to pull his breath back into his body as he felt the warmth of Judah’s body lie down beside him, the other boy’s hands gentle but insistent against the quivering muscles of his back.
“Are you alright?” Judah whispered, his voice loud against the fragile tension of the room.
Sniffling pathetically, Messala shook his head against the bed. “Don’t look at me, Judah,” he begged, his voice thick with agony, unable to lift his head.
“Why not?” Judah replied urgently, but Messala could only continue to muffle soft, strained sobs into the cushion beneath them. “Would you like to be alone?” he ventured, softer this time, his hand beginning a slow, easy stroke up and down Messala’s back, as though he were a baby to be soothed.
The small action was enough to have him trying once more to gather his breath, the stutter of his cries fought into some measure of control as he swallowed, the feeling hard and painful. “No, I would not like to be alone,” he said, as clearly as he could manage, lifting his head just slightly to smear a palm across his eyes, gathering up the remains of his tears to leave just their burning imprint against his face. It was a useless endeavor and all too quickly more tears gathered against the corners of his eyes, a rain that refused to abate, and he kept his face close to the bed, afraid to be seen.
“What would you like?” Judah asked again, his voice still hushed and searching. “How can I help you?” he went on, his voice lost, and the words made Messala burn with shame at his own failures, at his inability to reassure his friend that he was fine, that he was strong and needed nothing from noone the way a man was meant to be. It wasn’t true, it may never be true, for Messala needed. He yearned. It had never been more true than in this moment, and he wished to be shattered under the wheel of the universe for how awful it felt to want.
The feeling was bone-crushing, horrifying, and as quickly as it rolled over him it was gone. In its place was the sensation of Judah’s arms coming to wrap around him, his shaking body pressed back against the firm barrier of his friend’s chest.
He fought for breath again, but this time his tears only had a little to do with it.
“Does this help?” Judah pressed, his breath hot against Messala’s ear where blood roared through the channel, making his voice sound as though they were both trapped underwater.
Nodding, he knew his voice shook as he said: “Yes.”
“Tighter, Judah,” he whispered, shivering out a gasp as his request was granted. It was gorgeous to be held, and the power of it coursed through him like a river, spilling from his eyes once more as the mingled pleasure and pain soured in his heart. How could he ask this of Judah? How could he debase their friendship by making Judah hold him as if he were a child, as if Messala did not want him far too much already? He deserved to be punished.
Judah held him as the fresh wave of tears flowed from his eyes and down to the bed, the sound of it muffled by exhaustion. “Please don’t cry,” he spoke softly, nose pushing against the nape of Messala’s neck, holding him surely even as his body jerked minutely in their embrace.
“I can’t control it,” Messala replied, voice still a wobbling mess of sound. “My father is right, I’m unworthy.”
He could feel the other boy’s head give a steady shake. “It isn’t true.”
The kindness was a balm to a pain he should have already formed a callous to, and his chest tightened once more with embarrassment. “How am I ever to live?” he asked helplessly, voice no more than a pained whisper as he reached to wipe burning tears from his eyes once more, letting his fingers linger over the sore lids and block out the noisy dark of the room. “How am I ever to take hold of myself enough to change, Judah, how?”
One of Judah’s hands travelled up from his chest to take hold of the hand that Messala had let lie across his face, gathering it into a loose hold and ushering it down. “There isn’t anything within you that needs to be changed, Messala, please hear me,” he spoke strongly, touched with kindness, Messala’s hand buttressed by both of his own. “Were you any different you wouldn’t be yourself, you wouldn’t be half as brave, as spirited -”
A bitter laugh clanged against his throat, and he made an ugly, disbelieving sound. “I’m not brave,” he muttered, sniffing hard against the wetness in his nose. “I can’t even stop myself from weeping.”
“There’s no shame in it, Messala,” Judah assured. “Please don’t shame yourself for the pain that others have brought you.”
Swallowing once more against the pain in his throat, Messala cracked his eyes open. “I bring it on myself, Judah,” he admitted, small and soft but unable to be reigned back. “Every day I feel such hopelessness, such sadness for what I can't help but feel. My heart is not my own, I can’t control it. It beats inside of me like the wings of a bird, and it moves outside my reach. It’s awful."
Judah allowed him to speak undeterred, Messala’s tears tapering off as he talked himself towards a semblance of composure, control. “Why are you so sad?” he asked finally, cautiously. “What brought your heart to this feeling?"
His stomach churned against the truth, and he went cold all along his bones. If he allowed this moment to pass him by he may never be able to say the words again, and each day he would slowly wither away at their stain across his soul.
He must be known fully by at least one person, or he would forever be half what he could be. How may a human being exist with only half their heart?
Fighting his hand from between the other boy’s, Messala pressed his hand once more over his eyes, unable to bear it. “I love you, Judah,” he admitted, nothing more than a weakened whisper that seemed to ricochet around the room.
“And I love you,” Judah replied, insufferable and beautiful.
Shaking his head, Messala didn’t allow him to posture. “I don’t love you as I should,” he said harshly, all teeth, hating himself and hating the world in equal measure.
He had said it, and it was done. Their friendship could never be what it was ever again, and Judah would leave him to his sickness and become a prince of the world, loved by all for his goodness. He didn't deserve to be touched by Messala’s wrongs.
Silence permeated the moment, a long and deathly pause as Judah took in his admission. “Messala, I…” he began, his voice as soft as a dove’s breast, almost difficult to hear over the pound of Messala’s own heartbeat in his ears. “You might not want to understand me. Sometimes I’m reluctant to understand myself,” he noted, a touch of darkness in his voice even as he refused to stall. “But you have to know that there’s no way you could love me that I wouldn’t grasp with both hands, that wouldn’t humble me just by speaking aloud."
He couldn’t allow himself to believe in it, and opened his mouth to plead with Judah to stop being kind to him but found his voice trapped in the maze of his heart. It was impossible to allow, it was too much for him to accept.
Judah moved gently, slow like a cat before its prey, turning Messala onto his back and angling his body above him. Messala was too dumbstruck to care for his face, as horrible as it probably looked, and could only gaze up at him with a hope that was too dangerous to name, drinking in the sight of Judah’s loose, parted lips, his eyes where they narrowed against his own.
“I’d be your friend if that was your wish,” Judah spoke simply, his hand cradling Messala’s bruised jaw. “I’d be your brother if that was your wish. All I want is your love."
A breath trembled from his mouth, and he blinked up at the other boy with a furrowed brow. “You can’t mean what you’re saying."
Judah half smiled, and the gentle twitch of his mouth bent in towards Messala’s own, closer than they had ever allowed themselves to be before. “I would be loved by you,” he breathed, the touch of air between them making Messala part his own lips in return, eager for the breath that gave him Judah, that carried the words that sang themselves into his spirit. “I would love you."
Head shaking, Judah closed the space between them to press a kiss against the drying wound at Messala’s temple, the touch both chaste and breathless with passion. “As your lover, Messala,” he spoke lowly against his skin, the words making him quake like the earth beneath a thunderstorm. “I would lay my love down for you to wrap around your shoulders, for you to trample over in anger,” his words hushed across both of their lips, close enough that they seemed to come from both of their mouths. “I would give it to you for it’s yours - it always has been."
A sharp, startled smile broke over Messala’s lips, breath tumbling from him like a collapsing tower. “Judah…” he began, awed, feeling himself close to weeping once again. “I could never deserve it."
Judah seemed pained by the idea, and pressed another soft kiss against his face. “Take it anyway,” he said simply, an entreaty that afforded no recourse as his mouth murmured against Messala’s skin. “Take it anyway."
Breath catching once more, his tears broke free again as he allowed himself to reach for the other boy, but this time it was not touched by sorrow, pain, but instead with an otherworldly joy. “Judah…” he said, all reverence, his hand sliding between the soft strands of his love’s hair, pulling him into a kiss that he had dreamed of, a kiss that he had lived for the hope of. Their mouths slotted against one another as though they had done so a thousand times, and the way their noses knocked and smushed together was also perfection, something pure and divine at once. Judah’s arms snaked beneath him and crushed them both together, Messala’s legs moving to wrap around the other boy’s body, afraid to be parted, the two of them pushing against the power of the moment as though through this one connection they could be made a whole, singular being.
He could no longer smell blood. His pain, it seemed, melted away from him like rain into parched earth.
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