Right Turn

((Wow... this story has gotten a LOT longer than I\'d intended. I don\'t think I\'m bound to ever make a short story. Probably my fault really, for letting the characters get out of hand. Anyway - thanks to EVERYONE who is still reading!

Yue: eep! That\'s the rub, ain\'t it? I hope it clears itself up soon!
Kikvws: Hee hee. Been trying! This story is driving me nuts! I want it finished! I\'d hoped to have been done by now. But the story is refusing to be rushed. (I say that as if I were writing something of social importance! Listen to me! ha!) Glad you liked the car talk. Sorry Jack was being all shy. I have PLANS (read: plans that characters may or may not follow) for Jack to get his kiss in. Cross fingers and maybe we\'ll get it! *s* yay!
Lily: Wow... y\'know... lots of us go through \"Jack\" problems in one way or another. (And more than once in our lives, I\'m sure). You\'re not alone, chica!
Ashlee: Darn post! They say they\'ll get it there, but it\'s always a toss up if it\'ll actually arrive. Hopefully Kyler will survive the trip! :) And as for how many chapters... grah! I hope not many more!
Kay: *hee hee* Oooo.. you like a Ky X Ben pairing too, eh? I\'m amazed by how many people like Kyler! (though I have to admit to liking him myself, so no accounting for taste, eh?)
Earthgurl: You be so amazing, girly! Thank you for reading still! It completely makes my day to see you up here! Yay! (And you know me... happy endings all the way! Ack!)

And from here on out, you\'re on the road to a... ))

Right Turn

Ben stared at the toned, rather bare, terribly sexy, shit I\'m not thinking that, shoulders of his arch enemy as the other young man worked at shoving a pitchfork under the straw. Kyler\'s musculature had a terribly bad habit of sliding under his too tan skin in the most delicious of ways and should have been declared damned illegal to let the boy walk around without his shirt on.

Kyler tossed the pitchfork at the end in what he called \"a sifting of the sawdust and the feces\" and Ben stifled a groan, watching how the muscles on Kyler\'s overly developed back worked to keep him stable. Shit. Why the fuck couldn\'t he call it shit? Then it would be easier to go through this all.

But the question remained, how he had gotten there. That was a no brainer, but it seemed to have the same consequences of an idiot\'s choices. This was Ben, trying to do the right thing. And all he could tell was that the right thing sucked, big time.

Kyler\'s mom professed to knowing him at the first call when Kyler refused to come to the phone. She\'d said \"Ohhh, you\'re That Benjamin, are you?\" and Ben apparently hadn\'t had the intelligence to ask \"which Benjamin?\" and situation from rocketing out of his control.

Instead, he\'d said, \"Yes ma\'am. I\'m sorry.\" Kyler\'s mom had a sweet voice but it didn\'t stop Ben from having an instinctive sense that he\'d be best off acting overly respectful with her. And Mrs. Davis seemed too forward for a first time phone call.

She\'d laughed, in a way that made you think you could tell her just about anything and she\'d find you amusing in a cute sort of way. \"Oh it\'s not me you need to be saying you\'re sorry to, Ben. But like I said, Kyler is busy. He can\'t come to the phone.\"

\"Umm, okay. Well, could you tell him I\'d like to talk to him sometime later? He could probably find me in the phone book. Or.. sorry. Anyway, just tell him I called?\"

\"Actually, Benjamin? Or Ben? Which do you prefer?\" Mrs. Davis had asked.

\"Well... my mom calls me both. I guess I don\'t mind either.\" Ben rubbed his face hard to restore order to his life, he could sense something bad was coming up.

\"Benjamin then. It\'s a beautiful name. And truth be told, though don\'t snitch on me and tell Kyler that I\'m telling tales, he\'s only working outside. You could come over and talk to him.\"

Ben was quick to babble something that was the beginning of a protest only she just puttered on by like some scary silvery haired grandma in an eighteen wheeler doing fifteen in a thirty five. \"You see, Kyler can be rather grumpy when he thinks he\'s been wronged. And again, don\'t tell on me. He\'d kill me if he knew I was talking about him.\" She laughed. Ben smiled weakly, but she couldn\'t see it and he hadn\'t the heart to interrupt. \"And I don\'t know much about what\'s happened. I do know though, that if you want him to forgive you,\" damn, the woman hit the nail right on the head! \"that it would be best to catch him outside while he\'s working. It keeps him calmer. His father and I tend to talk about the hardest things with him when he\'s working.\"

Long story short, Ben found himself taking down directions \"should he choose to come by\" and as King of the Brainless Ones, had driven the six miles out of town in his sister\'s car to go and visit Kyler so that he could get Claire to talk to him again.

It was a flimsy excuse, he discovered, when he drew up to the two story farm house with a vegetable and herb garden in front instead of a rose and tulip garden like his mom had at his house. An enormous brown dog wagged a tail in a friendly way and refused to announce his arrival vocally.

Mrs. Davis was a small woman, wiry with a huge smile and curly brown hair so tight she must have had some other ethnicity in her besides regular European. She couldn\'t have been more than five five and she wore jeans that were worn through at the knees. Her hair was drawn into a kerchief and her hands were covered in dirt. She waved him in, showed him her potting plant area, told him she was glad to finally meet him as \"Claire and Kyler talk about you so much,\" and then ushered him out to the back yard (another garden and what looked like a wild lawn with a decidedly obvious lack of mowing.

\"Kyler! Company!\" she\'d called and then pointed to a small barn just cresting the wash the house was built alongside. \"He\'s right on down there. Go ahead and meet him. There\'s a path through the field that starts just over there.\"

And she, sweet goddess of torture, had set him on his own.

Ben had stood at the edge of the worn path from the house, through the field (he decided that is what she\'d called the wild lawn they had out back), to the barn. He fidgeted, took a deep breath, and headed down the dirt way.

Kyler met him half way down it. Or rather, Kyler saw him as he was half way there and the young man had stood, a shovel end in his hand, his shirt off, looking like Mr. Farm Boy, Red Neck Prince Charming, sweep up on a White Tractor and -

Never mind.

\"Benjamin,\" Kyler\'s voice was cold. \"What\'re you doing here?\"

Ben forced his mind off of the smell of earth and sweat and something deeper, like a honey or a vanilla scent, sweet and primal. \"Uhhh... apology?\" he asked, unsure of where to begin.

Kyler lifted a brow. \"Not accepted. Go home.\"

Ben watched the other boy turn and felt suddenly that maybe he\'d have to risk a severe beating with the shovel. It\'d be convenient. Kyler could kill him and then he could bury him. Easily managed. Easily rendered justice to a serious asshole who obviously deserved to die being beat by a blunt object over and over again.

So stupidly, or perhaps with a desire to die a sudden, early death, Ben followed. \"No! I mean, I wanted to apologize. Look, I was way out of line and I don\'t know. I mean, I was an asshole and you\'re not. Hell, I\'m sorry for everything. I was a prick. I was the asswipe. I am Mr. Prick Wad, not you.\"

\"You never called me a prick wad, Ben,\" came the sigh and a note of surprise, though Kyler didn\'t turn around and entered the barn, smelling sweetly of hay and of something else, goats? Did goats smell good? Or was it cows? Or something?

It turned out to be miniature horses. A stall door was open and a female mare thingie was sitting there snuffling through the bars. She was fat as a barrel of oil and Kyler picked up a pitch fork.

Ben saw his life flash before his eyes. It contained one huge sign at the end besides \"The End\" and it was \"And he died a virgin.\" He thought he could hear laughter somewhere, hysterical.

\"Well, maybe I did behind your back but it\'s not true!\" he stammered. \"Look, Ky.. I\'m a shit. I don\'t have a good reason for doing that. I mean, we\'ve always fought and shit. And I don\'t care if you\'re... well, whatever you are.\" Oh but there, in the slightly dimmed light of the barn with Kyler standing looking at him as if he had born another head, curiosity on the handsome face, eyes so pale they almost had an inner light, like a demon of hell and ten times more sexy, Ben could almost wish that the athlete was ... Yeah, anyway. \"Look, beat me up and shit, but don\'t kill me okay? I mean, I have to apologize to Claire first. Then you can kill me with whatever you want to kill me with. I mean, I\'ll even let you and your buddies break a mirror or a sink or whatever with my head in the bathrooms. It\'s not all that different. Marti and Bruce almost did the other day so it won\'t make any difference. I got a hard head! But you gotta let me apologize. Well, then she\'ll be pissed at you for ... \"

Ben backed up because Kyler had taken a step forward. And if he hadn\'t been completely lost in fear, he\'d have said that Kyler actually looked... amused? There had been a smile there for a second. Maybe? Looked like it, anyway.

\"Ben,\" Kyler wasn\'t smiling when he shoved the shovel in front of him. \"Work. You talk way to fucking much.\"

And that was how he\'d ended up here. Up to his knees in SHIT (he refused to call it feces) with a shovel and in his best pair of pants and his best Pumas; shoveling sawdust out of a stall. Ky called it mucking, but it was really shoveling. Because mucking sounded too much like fucking and somehow, that kind of word was the wrong kind of word for a boy who was working hard at not watching another boy bent over and shirtless and hotter than an ungreased ball bearing in a car going ... however fast. He wasn\'t a car person.

Kyler straightened and cricked his back. It made it obvious how built his front was because his stomach had to work at keeping him from falling over. He turned his light grey eyes onto Ben and grinned. \"So you\'ve been calling me Prick Wad? That\'s so gay.\"

Ben\'s shoulders tensed and he got ready for a fight. He was going to get pummeled. He could see the wickedness burning in Kyler the Demon from Hell\'s eyes.

But Kyler held up a hand and laughed. \"I mean, it is. Think about it, Benjamin.\"

\"Ben.\"

Kyler didn\'t notice. \"You\'re like talking about a wad, man. And before you were calling me a homophobe. Dude, I think you\'re a heterophobe.\"

\"A wha-at?\" Ben was agog. \"Fuck you!\"

Kyler refused to get upset. Instead he laughed. \"No, man. That\'s your job..\" and he walked past Ben with a snicker.

\"Oh-ho.. I get it. You\'re being a prick because I was being a prick. So now you\'re gonna make fun of me being gay. I never thought you\'d be like that.\"

Kyler smiled over his shoulder. \"But you so deserve it, Ben.\" Then his eyes brightened and he turned. \"Okay, deal. Forgive you and I won\'t make fun of you but I get to call you Benjamin whenever I feel like it.\"

\"That\'s not forgiveness!\" Ben was red faced. Kyler was too close and he DID smell like sweat and earth and vanilla or musk or something scary. \"That\'s blackmail!\"

Kyler shrugged one of those gorgeous shoulders. \"Call it what you will. Take it or leave it.\" And he walked out, leaving Ben panting from sheer energy drain of being too near demon fire.

Ben took it. He told Kyler later when Kyler was cleaned up and Ben was still covered in shit. And to be fair it was only on his shoes a little bit. That little bit came off easily. Ben just needed something to help keep his pride somewhat. He told Kyler over a glass of coke and a plate of caramel cookie bars that Mrs. Davis made from scratch and then he actually survived a dinner with the family. Mostly because Mr. Davis cooked and because the man invited him. Mr. Davis seemed to know all about Ben being \"That Benjamin,\" Ben felt like it could be construed as rude unless he were willing to stay a little longer.

Getting home, he thought for sure he was in the Twilight Zone. He was still in one piece and all he\'d had to do was half heartedly shovel shit and ogle a half naked demi god in the dim light of a warm barn for an hour.

He doubted Claire would be so easy.