Work Text:
Christmas season! There’s snow everywhere, almost every house has fun colorful lights up and everyone’s been having fun!
Well, maybe almost everyone. There’s some people who don’t like Christmas. And there’s also people who killed all their friends in a car accident during christmas time.
Okay, okay, take a deep breath in.. and a deep breath out.. just like Zoey told you to. Okay. Okay.
This tends to happen when Ben gets nervous, his thoughts scatter everywhere and it doesn’t end well most of the time. It has only gotten worse, a lot worse, since the escape rooms.
On the bright side, Zoey is coming over to Ben’s apartment for Christmas eve! Ben tried to make his apartment as presentable as possible. It’s definitely not the best, but it works. Ben is staring at one of the presents under the christmas tree, specifically the one with a letter attached. It’s his, for Zoey. The letter is a message that has everything. The entire truth about how Ben feels about Zoey.
Ben checks his phone for the time and any messages from Zoey. No new messages. Zoey said she’d be getting here around this time. Is she getting here soon? Ben hopes she gets there soon.
Ring ring. Ah, just on time. Ben gets up and walks to his door, quickly peeking through the hole and seeing it's Zoey. He opens the door for her and welcomes her in. They both sit down on his couch and aren’t sure of what to do.
Ben ends up asking, “You wanna watch anything?” Zoey thinks for a second, she has all the time she wants to think, and decides on something else.
“Let me put on some music!” Zoey says excitedly and before Ben can protest, she’s already taken her phone out and she’s searching for the perfect song to start playing. Ben decides to stay quiet and see which song she picks out. Zoey takes a quick glance at Ben, before putting on a song, maximizing the volume of her phone and throwing it beside her on the couch.
“I know it’s not really a christmas song, but it fits the vibe!”
Lover by Taylor Swift.
“Really? You with Taylor Swift again, haha,” Ben responds lightheartedly.
We could leave the christmas lights up ‘til January
“I really like this song, okay?,” Zoey says as she gets up.
And this is our place, we make the rules
Ben watches Zoey, unsure of what she’s doing. Zoey starts to sing along to the song and dances around a little before getting closer to Ben.
And there’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear
She takes his hand and makes him stand up too. Ben is taken off guard, “What are you doing?”
Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?
Zoey pulls him close, really close, takes his hands and places them on her hips and places her own hands on his shoulders. Ben’s face feels warm, while Zoey is starting to slow dance with Ben.
Ben is frozen in place, “What is this, darling?”
Can I go where you go?
“Darling? You usually call me Hunny,” Zoey responds. Not to the question, but she responds. Ben snaps out of being frozen in place and starts slow dancing with her.
Can we always be this close forever and ever?
Ben isn't sure of what to say.. They're so close together.. Slow dancing. Oh my god. His face feels even warmer and he starts shaking slightly.
And ah, take me out, and take me home
“Are you alright? You look really red haha,” Zoey says, yet her face feels warm as well.
You're my, my, my, my
“Yeah, sorry,” Ben attempts to calm himself down and keeps slow dancing with Zoey. They just stare at each other as they dance, looking into each other's eyes. Zoey connects her hands behind Ben's head, bringing his head closer to hers.
Lover
“I'm having fun,” Zoey admits.
“Yeah… I am too,” oh god they are so close.
We could let our friends crash in the living room
They end up dancing, and sometimes even singing along, to the whole song. When it finishes, Zoey just lets go of Ben and grabs her phone as she sits back down on the couch. Ben is confused, what the hell just happened? Oh my god. But he does end up sitting down besides Zoey.
“Do you wanna watch a movie?” Ben asks, taking the TV controller into his hand. Zoey lays her phone down on the coffee table before them and asks back, “What movie?”
Ben turns the TV on and goes to the movies section, “Do you feel like watching anything christmassy or horror?”
Zoey thinks for a second, “That's such a hard choice! But.. I choose horror”
“Of course you do,” Ben snickers. He filters the movies, so only horror movies show up and questions, “Got any ideas?”
Zoey stares at the screen for a second, before saying “Saw… I wanna watch Saw!”
Ben clicks around on the TV, and before turning on Saw he comments, “We've both seen the movie, but sure.” Ben gets up, walks away and brings out popcorn from his kitchen and they start the movie.
Water noises. “Help! Someone please help me!” Chain noises. “Is someone there? Hey!”
About halfway through, Ben realizes Zoey fell asleep while leaning on his shoulder. Ben makes the TV less loud and puts his arm around Zoey, to make sure that she's safe. The sleeping Zoey ends up taking that as a sign to get closer and ends up getting out of her position to hug Ben instead, making Ben fall with his back onto the couch.
Ben puts his arms around Zoey as well and attempts to assure her by slowly starting to run his fingers through her hair.
They're holding each other like two cats, like an orange and a black cat, like in all the videos they've shown to each other as they declared, “us!” Ben keeps watching the movie, trying not to think too much about their position right now. Zoey ends up waking up as the movie ends.
“Oh, what? Did I fall asleep?” she says as she’s getting up, blushing as she realizes their position.
“Yeah, you did,” Ben sits back up. Zoey is about to apologize, but gets interrupted by Ben adding on “It’s okay though, I would never get mad at you for sleeping.” Zoey knows the reason why, but they don’t need to talk about that right now.
Her answer ends up being, “Thanks, and how was Saw?”
“Man, it was great, I really hope they end up making 10 more movies to this franchise,” they both laugh at Ben’s joke. Ben looks at the clock on his wall, almost midnight. Perfect.
“Hey Zo, it’s almost midnight. Do you wanna open your present?” He looks her in the eyes.
“Yeah sure, let me just quickly go to the bathroom first.” It’s not Zoey’s first time over at Ben’s, they’re basically inseparable actually, so she doesn’t need to ask where the bathroom is.
She comes back not much later and on the way back, she makes a stop at her bag and searches through it. She takes out a present before walking over to Ben.
“For you!” she exclaims as she hands it to him.
“You bought me a gift? Thank you,” Ben says before thinking about something and walking over to his christmas tree. He takes his present for Zoey and walks back to the couch, handing it to her.
“Zo, I want you to open yours first, if that’s okay with you.” Zoey happily takes the present with the letter attached and answers, “I don’t see why not!”
She carefully removes the attached letter and opens it, finding a text inside. A message Ben delicately wrote for Zoey, about how he really really loves her.