Chapter Text
Sometimes it seemed impossible to get through a week, but after Saturday afternoon Ben was finally free. With everything that happened with his stupid ankle and trying to walk around on it even when everyone told him not to, he felt rather burdened down with stress. He’d taken a test (passing this time) and had to remake work and then still make it to his job. The worst part of it all was paying the urgent bill. That part felt like actual abuse. Taking the money out of his account and giving it to the lovely assholes who made him pay nearly two hundred dollars was like a punch to the jaw and a swift kick to the nuts. Sadly, all of this meant his wallet had to go on lockdown mode. Therefore, instead of going out, he spends his Saturday evening watching ASMR videos on YouTube with Gwilym.
“I’m going to fall asleep,” he said as the person on the laptop screen brushed the mic slowly again and again.
“Okay, new challenge: try not to sleep,” Ben responded despite feeling rather sleepy himself.
“Fine. Your challenge is to pay your half of the rent on time.” Gwilym grinned to himself as the other’s jaw dropped.
“That was out of pocket and you know it.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”
They stopped talking after that. Nothing felt awkward, they could just be comfortable in silence just as they were in talking. That probably explained why they worked well as friends.
A bored Frankie made her way over to the couch, taking a running leap and managing to land directly on Ben’s lap. He wheezed slightly from the impact as his friend laughed quietly. Under weeks of care, she’d gotten proper large and now weighed a significant amount more as she grew. It wasn’t as easy to appreciate her jumping on you without warning as it had been previously.
After a while of watching the lady on screen tap about some objects, Gwilym had indeed fallen asleep. Ben didn’t even notice at first, but when looking over, it was like an “oh. His eyes are closed” moment. It seemed Frankie might’ve been asleep too after he’d been therapeutically rubbing her head. For some reason, the two other sleeping beings made him feel almost more awake. He couldn’t exactly move. There was a puppy on his lap and the two guys were sharing Gwilym’s earbuds (the lack of freedom he felt with wires was aggravating, but bringing it up felt pretentious). With not much else to do, he pulled out his phone and began to text Joe.
19:36
hey : ben
are you and rami busy making out or are you free : ben
joseph :) : why, you wanna join?
joseph :) : jUst kidding. im free tho if you wanna come over or something
nah, cant. ive got two sleeping babies next to me. been rendered immobile until further notice : ben
He sent a picture showing the two asleep on the couch. Joe saw the message and started typing, stopped, starting typing again, stopped for a while, and then finally responded.
19:42
joseph :) : oh. sounds fun.
joseph :) :
nothing between, yall, right?
In surprise, Ben raised his eyebrows. Did he seriously think there would be something? The thought felt mean, so he inwardly apologized to Gwilym.
no? why would there be? weve crossed that bridge, mate : ben
joseph :) : i was just asking. you guys had a thing in the past. kinda have a right to be worried sometimes.
and like i said, we crossed that bridge. friends are all we are. dont be : ben
joseph :) : sorry
dont say sorry. that makes me feel bad : ben
joseph :) : sorry
oh my god : ben
He sighed and turned off his phone. To say he was annoyed was an overstatement. He understood what Joe meant, but it certainly bugged him. Turning his head to look at Gwilym again, a small frown appeared on his face. We’ve crossed that bridge. I’ve crossed that bridge. I cheated.
Not being able to think about the subject anymore, he took out the earbud and picked up the puppy, walking to his room and gently closing the door. Ben couldn’t stand the thought anymore.
Cheater, cheater, cheater.
On Sunday evening, Ben went over to Joe and Rami’s again for dinner. This had become a common end-of-the-weekend activity, although both this week had told him to stay home and not walk over. When they suggested him taking a cab if he so badly wanted to come over, but Ben instead suggested that they were looney for assuming he could even afford ramen at the moment. After a painstakingly painful walk over, he finally arrived to their hospitality. Dinner wasn’t anything fancy. It almost never was. None of them could exactly afford to eat extravagant meals every week. Hamburger helper on paper plates was good enough for all of them, anyway.
“So, how are things up in Ben’s World?” Rami asked, handing him a glass of water.
He shrugged. “As things usually are.”
“That phrase means nothing to me. There’s something new going on with you every day. Always something dramatic. Our little drama king.”
Joe laughed into his sip of water, holding his hand up to prevent any liquid from spilling out. “Wow, there was no need to do him like that.”
“If anything, you’re the drama king! You slapped me across the face when I didn’t do something!” Ben said, pointing at Rami. “Back me up here, Joe.”
“Woah, woah, woah, when did he slap you? I’ve never heard of everyone’s favourite guy, Rami, doing such a thing.”
Rami shook his head with a smile. “The situation was dire. He wouldn’t tell Gwil.”
“Tell Gwil what?”
There was an awkward pause. Ben found himself focusing intently on the side of the table. Why did this have to be brought up again? It wasn’t as though he wasn’t struggling enough feeling bad about it.
The lack of answer seemed to make some sort of sense in Joe’s mind. It wasn’t hard to guess, after all. “Oh.”
Him responding seemed to have no other effect on their inability to speak. The air felt so unbelievably tense. Most of it radiated from Ben, stewing in his own guilt once again. Jesus, do I ever get a break? His gaze hadn’t left the side of the table. To avoid thinking about anything else, he mentally brought up the most random subject he could: country capitals.
Turkey - Ankara.
Philippines - Manila
Iran - Tehran
Clearing his throat, Rami could see how visibly uncomfortable he’d made everyone by bringing up the subject. He hadn’t meant to, honestly. He was just joking around with Ben by calling him dramatic. It wasn’t really his fault that all this stuff kept happening to him.
“So, uh, anyway…”
Sweden - Stockholm? Or is it Oslo? Is Oslo in Norway?
A conversation came back, but the voices of Joe and Rami melted into nothing as absolute gibberish passed through one ear and out the other. Joe seemed to notice how out-of-it he was getting from the glazed over look in his eyes. Something was stewing. It was easy to guess what, as well.
The evening went on for a short amount of time before Rami suggested getting Ben home before it was too dark and he couldn’t even walk right, so they made precautions. Joe volunteered to walk him home, despite his own fears of walking home alone that have recently sprouted. Walking in what was silence to everyone else but music flowed through what was now the pair’s trademark shared AirPods. It was down quieter than usual, as Ben kept expecting Joe to say something.
He didn’t.
He didn’t for a while, at least. When they got to the front of Ben and Gwilym’s apartment, they slowed to a stop. It was the same area where things went wrong the first time. If Ben had just not been terrified of getting hurt, he wouldn’t be in the situation they were in now. This interaction might be avoidable in general.
“So,” Joe cleared his throat, “Gwilym.”
Oh god. God, just please, don’t do this right now.
“What about him?”
“You still feel bad?”
The question was a little surprising. Was Joe serious? “What do you mean? Of course, I still feel bad. You got the good end of everything and he got the worst possible scenario.”
“But I thought you resolved this issue with him.”
The fact that Joe was making him angry was about to bring out a side he hardly brought out on anyone. “You don’t live with him. You don’t see the way he deals with how I left him for one of his friends, not to mention the fact that I cheated. He keeps his cool and stays mature about the scenario even though I know for a fact that it hurts him to do so. Yes, I do still feel bad because I live with that guilt every goddamn day and you don’t have to.” His voice was low, but getting faster and more upset with the ongoing words he spoke.
Joe took a moment to take in what he said. “I get what you’re saying. But you need to get that I’m genuinely worried that your guilt is because you still like him. That you want to go back to him.”
You’re joking.
“Are you joking? Maybe I feel bad because I hurt my friend! I’d like it if you could actually trust me. I messed up once with someone and I’m seriously trying to not do that again. Don’t be the biggest mistake of my life, okay?”
Rubbing his brow, Joe stared at Ben’s shoes before taking out the AirPod and handing it to him. “I just need time to think over this. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you later. Goodnight, Ben.”
Ben’s mouth went agape as Joe walked away, street lamp light only extenuating the parts of him that he normally found beautiful. Now, it was just infuriating.
“Oh, fuck you,” he mumbled to himself, hobbling upstairs and putting his key in the door. He was done with him for the night. There were more important things to worry about rather than him.
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you so much.
Ben was busy typing up an email to a professor much later that night when a knock came at the door. Lowering the screen slightly, he looked up. There was an uncomfortable moment where his eyes adjusted to no longer staring at a screen for so long.
“Yeah?” he called, watching Gwilym open the door.
“You busy? I realized we never finished that season of Love Island and I wasn’t sure if you wanted to join me or not.” He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms slightly.
A little smile grew on Ben’s lips. “No, that sounds fun. Just give me a minute, yeah?”
“Sounds good.”
“Cool, sounds good.”
He left, leaving Ben to finish typing up the email and pressing send. Part of him halted as he swung his left leg over the side of the bed to get off. Why had the thoughts been worse now? Jesus, it had been bad before. What reason was there for it to come back? Was one apology not good enough for the universe?
Apparently not, seeing as his phone slipped from his jogger’s pockets onto the floor with a loud noise. At first not sure what to think, Ben stared at it on the floorboards. Bending over to pick it up, a pit of dread soon opened up in his stomach. This feeling was justified, sadly, as the entire screen had practically been shattered. One little fall had brought on the downfall of his phone.
“Gwil?” He called out, not even sure what to do. Rolling it around in his hands as he turned it off and on, he was sort of relieved to discover that it still worked. It was just… difficult to see near anything.
Gwilym made his way into the room, watching Ben stare at his phone for a moment before speaking up. “You, uh, you alright?”
“It seems that I’m in a patch of bad luck at the moment.”
“How so?”
Instead of explaining the phone, the statement appeared to have broken the dam. Everything was about to come flowing out. “Gwilym, I’m so sorry.”
He didn’t understand. “What?”
“I’m sorry for doing you so dirty like I did. You didn’t deserve that and I still feel bad about it.”
The next few moments were filled with an icy silence as Gwilym’s expression changed from almost hurt to just stoney faced, as though he were trying if anything to appear as though nothing could have bothered him at all. This expression scared Ben, giving him the impression that if anything, he was mad.
“Stop apologizing for that. It’s in the past and bringing it up just makes it worse. I forgave you for it, just stop apologizing please, ” he said, his arms visibly tensing from how he held them in his hoodie pockets. Gwilym was stiff and he was hiding his perturbed feelings.
How was he to react well to that? “I- oh, well, uh, okay. I’m sorry.”
They stood awkwardly, horribly straining energy between the two. There would be no way to watch Love Island normally after this. Might as well not even watch it. Gwilym seemed to understand this as well.
“On other thought, I’ll just watch by myself,” he mumbled as he left the room. He didn’t even give time to Ben to think about it.
Standing there now alone, he felt like the biggest asshole ever. Again . How did this always seem to happen? Was he just destined to be some sort of horrid villain? Was that his role in life?
With great uncertainty, Ben limped his way out of his room. Gwilym must have retreated behind locked doors, because he was nowhere to be seen. It was awfully cliche to sit on the fire escape, but they’d never used it before and he might as well feel as if he were in a movie at this point. He just kept messing up today, didn’t he? The two roommates had quite literally never used it or gone onto it. There had been no fires and there had been no escapes, so it didn’t seem necessary. Now, as he made his way to sit, feet hanging over the edge, Ben wished they’d done it before. They’ve sat on their small porch, yeah. They’d done that many times. But this rusty, old, and rather dingy looking fire escape had such a different feel to it. Looking up at the sky, he’d hoped to gaze at the stars and feel some sort of intimacy with the heavens.
However, the night sky was crowded with light, drowning out the universe. There would be no intimacy with anyone tonight, it seemed.