Chapter Text
He was having a hard time sleeping. It usually happened after a mission. Ben was haunted by the monsters he unleashed, and the faces of those he attacked. He hardly could sleep after using his powers. He silently thanked that Father had stopped monitoring their sleep after Five disappeared.
He sat on his bed, his back resting against the wall, his feet dangling. He looked out the window, the sun was barely up and the streets were quiet. Usually, he was always the first one to wake up out of his siblings—the morning light peaked right on his face. He would wait until the dreaded knock on his door, a sign that they were to face the horror they called Father.
Usually, Ben would sit watching the streets, quietly wondering and admiring the normalcy of it. There wasn’t anything to watch, a couple of cars passing, the tiny garden one of the residents of the building in front tended to, a bus stop that half disappeared on the corner of the sidewalk.
However, today, something got hold of his attention. A girl, standing quietly near the bus stop, just enough so Ben could see her clearly. She had a clear umbrella dangling off her backpack. She wore jeans and a white t-shirt with a print he couldn’t quite discern. She looked about his age, but it wasn’t that what intrigued him,
She looked so lonely. She had a lost look in her eyes. She kept glancing up and down the streets, her face morphing into something sadder each time she saw no one was coming.
His heart beat faster and faster. How come? She looked so kind and sweet. How could someone leave her alone?
He shuffled on his bed, his face this close to the glass window, clinging to her image. Ben watched her with curiosity. She was a new figure in his life, his so controlled and planned life.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there looking at her, but he heard the dreadful knock on the door. It must have been long.
“I’m coming,” he answered to it.
When he looked back to where the girl was standing, she was gone.
Ben woke up earlier the next days. Earlier than he usually did. He spent the entire week looking at her. She stayed at the same place for a while before she walked off to the end of the street, he guessed to the school at the end of it. She always looked lonely, she always was looking for something or someone to accompany her.
He changed out of his pajamas quickly. He was tying his tie when he turned to the window, one knee on the bed, seeing if she was outside. He finished his tie and pulled the sweater on top of it, opting against using his blazer.
Ben glanced one last time out the window. The sky rumbled. He sighed, as he looked up to the sky, little droplets of water fell. He put his shoes on and quietly left his room. He avoided all the spots in the corridor where the wood would creak under his feet. He hoped Pogo was nowhere near the entrance.
He descended the stairs quietly, his heart beating rapidly and strongly. Ben had never done something so sneakily and so exciting in his life. Sure, he had once messed with Allison’s teddy bear and a string of other practical harmless pranks, but this felt different and more criminal than those childish plays.
As he stood in front of the door, his hand gripping an umbrella tightly. His other hand hovered over the handle hesitating. He closed his eyes and, in a rush, he opened the door and stepped outside. He opened his eyes as he felt drops of water hit his shoulders and hair. He smiled and closed the door.
With the umbrella opened, he crossed the streets in long strides, laughing at the thrill of defying orders. He could see her, standing under her clear umbrella looking down at her phone—a luxury he wished he could have. Just as always, she looked a tiny bit sad.
He slowed down his pace, still smiling. He quietly approached her. She sensed him coming her way and looked up right at him. Ben wasn’t counting on how beautiful she looked up close, he had seen her only from afar. He faltered for a split second shocked, but quickly recomposed. He stood next to her, his smile still very much present.
“Hi,” she said quietly.
“Hey,” he breathed out. “I’m sorry,” he laughed nervously, “it must be weird. I mean, you’ve never seen me. I—” he cleared his throat, “I noticed you looked quite lonely and I thought I’d stay with you.”
She smiled. “Okay,” she said quietly. “It’s not weird. I saw you looking last week.”
“Oh,” Ben hadn’t seen her looking. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” she responded. “Someone might have thought it was creepy, but,” she laughed and shook her head, “I somehow knew you didn’t mean any harm.”
“That’s—” he swallowed nervously, “good.”
“I’m Y/N,” she said and his heart stopped for a second at how beautiful and fitting it was.
He smiled at her. “I’m Ben.”
Lightning stroke and she yelped slightly. Both giggled at her scare. Both knew it was the start of something magical.
It became a routine. A routine he maintained for the better part of 2 months.
Ben would wake up earlier—they started to meet earlier and earlier, craving for more time together as they became closer—jump out of bed, and fly out the door (he started climbing out the window when he had a near encounter with Pogo one morning). He would stay with her until she had to leave for school. With that he would climb to his room and put on his blazer. Sure, he would come to breakfast a few minutes later, but it was all worth it. She was worth every second of the few minutes they spent together.
He discovered a lot of things about her. She lived a couple of blocks away and she went to school just down the street. She was a year younger than him and she wanted to be a scientist after school. She read a lot, mostly contemporary books, but there were some classics that she absolutely loved like Peter Pan and To Kill a Mockingbird.
Some would argue she was absolutely, positively ordinary. To Ben, that was what made her extraordinary. He was surrounded by things he couldn’t really explain, that most couldn’t even begin to wrap their heads around it. His whole existence was one of mystery and, quite frankly, horror.
Y/N was the opposite. She was normal. No powers, no buying kids to experiment on them. She had both parents, normal balanced adults who loved her very much. She was an only child, no crazy siblings for her. She went to school and learned normal things, she didn’t learn a thousand different languages and advanced calculus or whatever. She said she didn’t have many friends, but he was her friend. He believed he was her friend because she was his only friend.
It was a sunny day, hot, nearing the end of the school year to her. Ben was sweating in his button up, and she adorned a sundress. Some would say it was behaved, playing it safe, she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. To Ben, it was perfect. She glowed. Her hair was down and she clutched her backpack tightly, the clear umbrella always hanging off of it.
They chatted lightly. As they talked, Ben lost track of time. She was supposed to be heading to school and he was supposed to be on his way down the stairs as the breakfast hour neared. His eyes drifted to the academy, his brother Klaus looking out his window with a smirk framing his face.
“Shit!” Ben said, frantically looking down a watch he kept in his pocket.
“What?” Y/N responded confused. “Is everything okay?”
“We lost track of time,” Ben said looking up the window one more time, Klaus signaling to his wrist as if Ben was running out of time. Y/N’s eyes trailed to where Ben was looking. She raised her eyebrows at the sight of a boy at Ben’s window, absolutely amused at the situation. “We need to go.”
“Yeah,” she breathed out, her eyes peeling off the window and settling on Ben. She smiled. “See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ben shook his head, already halfway across the street in a rush. “See you!”
Shit, shit, shit, shit, he muttered all the way up to his window in the second floor. As he got up there, Klaus helped him up the ledge, helping bring his brother into the room. He didn’t wipe the smirk off his face, as Ben frantically composed himself in the mirror, straightening his tie and fixing his hair. He picked up the blazer on top of his bed and put it on.
“You’re lucky it was me who caught you,” Klaus said amused.
“Shut up, Klaus,” Ben muttered.
“Wow, Benny boy, you wound me,” he said dramatically. “I guess you won’t mind then if I tell dear old dad that Number Six is sneaking out of the academy to flirt with girls,” he completed with annoying kissing noises.
“Don’t tell Dad,” he gritted angrily. His eyes softened and he quietly begged, “Please, Klaus. She—,” he swallowed, “she has nothing to do with this. Don’t involve her.”
Klaus wasn’t one to show softness: he hid it under a much dramatic persona, alcohol and drugs—not necessarily in that order. Ben was lucky his brother was sober that morning. “I won’t,” Klaus said. “But you have to more careful.”
With that, Klaus was out the door. Ben exhaled deeply and muttered a small yeah before he was off to slay that morning’s demon.
Ben laid awake that night.
He had spent the entire day on edge, hoping Klaus wouldn’t spill his biggest secret to everyone, especially their Father. Thankfully, he wasn’t that much of an asshole, and even when Klaus was higher than high that afternoon, he managed to keep his mouth shut—which was greatly appreciated by Ben.
He started to reflect on every single conversation he and Y/N shared, his heart racing at the memories. It started with a simple glint in her eyes, and it escalated to Ben feeling like he couldn’t breathe right if he didn’t see her regularly.
He hadn’t felt that way before, but he wasn’t exactly daft to the symptoms he was feeling. He had read enough novels to conclude he was either having panic attacks—which weren’t all too weird for him or his siblings to have—or he was in love. He quickly dismissed the first option. It wasn’t prompted, not like it usually is, and he couldn’t even imagine Y/N being a source of panic for him. Not when she felt like the only good thing in his life.
The logical conclusion was love. But a part of Ben was reluctant to admit that. It wasn’t planned: he hadn’t planned on loving her, he just wanted a friend. It was too soon for it. They’d had only two months of friendship, something he held so close to his heart he didn’t tell anyone he had a friend outside the Academy. It was an accident—a slip, really—that Klaus had found out.
That also prompted the elephant in the room: she didn’t really know who Ben was. She knew who he was, of course, he was Ben. He hadn’t lied and maintained his personality a secret in a weird catfishing way, no. She just didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know his surname, she didn’t know why he only wore white button ups, shorts and ties, she didn’t know why he had an umbrella tattoo at only 16 years old, she didn’t know he housed monsters inside of him.
The worst part is: Ben chose to omit that part of him. He didn’t want her to befriend him for his powers or for who his siblings were, he wanted her to like him for him, just plain old Ben. He wanted to prove to himself he was more than a number—sadly, quite literally—that his whole world was a mere detail in the grand scheme of things, that he mattered outside of being a tool for world salvation.
And she had helped him prove that. He knew that, now. He knew by the way her face would light up when she saw him cross the street, coming at her encounter. He saw by the way she would laugh at his sarcastic remarks on some random anecdote she was telling him about school. He saw at the way she would smile and listen attentively to what he was saying, even if it was the silliest thing to ever leave his lips. He knew he mattered to her. More than he could imagine, maybe. And, somehow, that was the world to him.
Smiling, he shifted in his bed, laying on his side. He looked at his night stand, the book she lent him staring back at him. She said that when she read, it had reminded her of him. He could hear her saying that—the memory too fresh from the previous day—it sent butterflies to his stomach and his thought became all fuzzy.
He hadn’t opened it yet. She said he was to open it. He felt bad for a second, he hadn’t had the time to do what she asked him to, but that thought quickly subsided with the memory of the exhaustion he felt after the training he had endured. If she knew, she would understand, right?
Ben picked the book up sitting upright in his bed. The clock flashed a 9:37 pm in a sickly green. If he could read at least the first chapter of it, he would finish it in minutes, and it wouldn’t leave him too exhausted for tomorrow’s training and he could comment his thoughts with her.
His fingers trailed lightly over the creases of the title. My Sweet Orange Tree, it read. He opened it and an envelope fell. He put the book aside and opened the envelope. He first took out a paper, folded in itself a couple of times. He then noticed there was another item inside of the envelope but opted to read the letter first. Ben turned the lamp beside his bed on and read.
Dear Ben,
I know you often choose to read intellectual books, your brain too smart to waste time on fickle fantasies. But I ask for you to waste time on this one. You’ll find that there’s more than meets the eye. Just like you, I suppose.
There’s a moral to this story you’re about to read, one I hope we get to discuss more than the few spare minutes we have before I go to school and you have to do whatever mysterious things you refuse to tell me. I hope you find it fitting, just like I found it fitting for you and me.
I know it seems early and even cowardly to say this through letter and not to your face, but Ben, my god, you mean so much to me, more than my brain can process. My heart surely can. I hope you know this.
It sounds silly and old fashioned, but I put a photo of me in the envelope. So, you’d remember me if something were to happen, or just remember me in general. I didn’t mean to sound so pessimistic. Behind the photo there’s my telephone number: home and cellphone. If you ever manage to, perhaps we can call each other?
After that sequence of random topics, I bid you farewell, my Ben. I hope to see you tomorrow.
Love,
Y/N.
He threw the letter aside, reaching for the envelope he had abandoned a few moments ago. He took the small picture out of it. Y/N was smiling at the camera, wearing that amazing sundress he loved, looking carefree. He smiled at the picture, his heart threatening to jump out of his chest. He flipped the picture, the numbers in black ink and her penmanship.
He put the letter and the picture on his night stand, making a mental note to get a frame for her photo. Ben sighed happily and opened the book. Chapter one.