Work Text:
“Hey, Reed?”
Reed hummed a response but did not tear his eyes from the teleporter’s control panel.
“Have you ever –” Ben faltered and the words caught in his throat before they could be heard. Restless, he kneaded the back of his neck with a calloused hand. Man, this was awkward.
Eventually, he swallowed the tangle of unsaid words that clogged his throat like a drain.
“Have you ever thought about – about kissing?”
Now it was Reed’s turn to falter. Kissing?
“I – uh –” Reed fumbled with a loose wire. “No. No, I can’t say I have.”
He slid out from underneath the mess of circuit boards and wiring to shoot Ben a pointed look. “Why? Have you?”
He sounded so dramatically accusatory that Ben had to stifle a laugh with the back of his hand.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Just… Someone tried to kiss me today.”
Ben caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar expression that flickered across Reed’s face. Was that pain he saw? Not that accident-prone Reed was a stranger to pain. Ben recalled the time when a spark leapt from a faulty wire and bit his finger. And, then, the time after that, when he twisted his ankle trying to jump the scrapyard fence. Ben was all too familiar with Reed’s pained expressions, but there was another kind of hurt lingering behind that face.
“Who was it?” Reed asked. The genuine curiosity in his voice snuffed out Ben’s sudden concern.
“So there’s this girl who helps out with fundraising events for my baseball team. You might have seen her around. Short red hair? At the bake sale last month?”
Reed shook his head. Exasperated, Ben continued.
“Anyway, I’d just finished up practice and she was there waiting for me. Said she wanted to talk and, well – I guess it was some kind of confession? She said how she’s liked me since eighth grade and wanted to go out with me. Then she leaned in really close and tried to kiss me but –”
“But?” Reed pressed.
“But I stopped her.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t really want to kiss her, I guess.”
The hand returned to the back of Ben’s neck, rubbing a feverish red trail from his nape to his cheek. He swallowed. “You know, I’ve never been kissed before.”
“Wha-at?” Reed dragged out the vowel to emphasise his shock. “You’ve never been kissed before?”
“Man, shut up,” Ben grumbled into his hand.
“No, I’m being serious! You’re a good-looking guy! I just assumed that people would want to kiss you all the time.”
Ben peeked through his fingers. “You think I’m good-looking?”
“I mean, sure! You’re good-looking and I can’t believe no one’s kissed you before.”
Flushed, Ben smothered a laugh with a fake cough. “Yeah, well. I just want it to be with someone special."
“How special can exchanging saliva be?” Reed joked, earning him a light punch on the arm.
“Hey, I’m sentimental like that.”
“OK, so what’s your ideal first kiss like?”
Admittedly, Ben had pondered this matter many times before.
“It has to be with someone I like a lot. Someone I trust. And care about. Someone who’s special and really close to me.”
“So it doesn’t matter if they’re a good kisser or not?”
“It’s a bonus if they are but, no, doesn’t really matter.”
Reed nodded absently, chewing the inside of his lip. Ben recognised this look – he was deep in thought. About what, well, Ben could only imagine.
"Ben?"
“Yeah?”
“Would you kiss me?”
Ben froze. He could hear his heart pounding in his throat, the kick drum rhythm reverberating in his ears.
“What?"
He repeated himself, this time slower and with deliberate articulation. “Would you kiss me?"
Ben could swear his heart was rattling his rib cage. "Why?"
Reed shrugged. "I guess, just the way you described it just made me think that- Ben, you're my best friend and I think if I'd wanna kiss anyone, it'd be you."
“I dunno– I –” The words vanished; scattering like dandelion florets in the wind. He groped for an excuse but found nothing.
The strange thing was, Ben liked the idea of kissing him. Really liked it. There were times he would catch himself staring at Reed’s lips and wondering what they would feel like against his. He would quell these thoughts almost immediately.
He’s your friend, a part of him had always insisted. Your best friend. You’ll ruin everything.
But now he knew that Reed wanted to kiss him too. This would change everything.
After a moment of trying to find the right words, Ben continued. "I just don't want to make anything weird between us, you know?"
Reed seemed to mull this over. His jaw twitched; an indication of more thoughtful lip-chewing.
"What if- what if we just said that it doesn't count."
"What do you mean?"
"Us kissing. It doesn't have to matter. We can just pretend it never happened afterwards."
“Really? Just like that?”
“Yeah. There's no one here but us. No one else has to know."
Ben licked his lips, only realising just how dry they were. "So, we keep going like nothing's happened?"
"Exactly."
Ben's heart stuttered; a restless and flighty pattern. This was actually happening.
"It doesn't count," Ben whispered, "just like you said."
Reed nodded and inched closer until the two of them were a hairsbreadth away.
“OK, so what do we do?”
“Did you, uh, want to do the honours?”
Reed paused, then nodded. "Fair warning, I don't know what I'm doing." A smile tugged at the corner of Ben's mouth. Classic Reed.
Without any prompting, he closed his eyes and waited. This is how it works, right?
Anticipation coiled around his gut like a python. The summer haze coupled with the heat rushing to his face threatened to melt off his skin. In the dark, he squashed a bead of sweat with his thumb. Come on.
“Should I close my eyes, too?” came Reed’s inquisitive voice.
“Up to you, buddy.”
“OK.”
Silence. Then –
“Glasses on or off?”
“Reed.”
“OK, glasses are coming off.”
Ben sighed and shifted. His world was dark and silent. Fluorescent colours danced on the back of his eyelids. Wait for it. Wait.
And Reed leaned in, his nose brushing Ben’s and then –
A new warmth – softer, brighter – bled into his face, his throat and then pooled in his chest. Right now, it was just the two of them. Alone. Together. Intertwined.
The kiss itself was clumsy. Reed missed Ben’s mouth entirely and got the corner of his lip instead. Clumsy, but it was Reed. And that’s all that mattered in that moment.
With Ben’s hand cupping his face, he guided Reed back to his mouth. Their lips locked tentatively. Shy. Careful. So unlike Reed, yet it was all him. He could feel the heat of Reed’s breath grazing his cheek; could smell the grime and oil and cheap deodorant that clung to his skin. He was kissing Reed and he didn’t want to stop.
And the whole time, there was a voice, telling Ben over and over:
He’s your friend. It doesn’t count. This is nothing.
When they broke apart, the warmth fizzled out. Nothing, the voice repeated.
The silence was stifling, especially under the shimmering blanket of humid summer air. Something weighed down the bottom of Ben’s stomach and, suddenly, he wished he could just evaporate in the heat. At length, Reed found his voice.
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow,” Ben echoed.
“We should, uh –”
“–finish repairing the teleporter.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
The afternoon proceeded with an uneasy sluggishness. Reed rattled off a stream of science jargon, more animated than usual, while Ben pretended to listen. His mind was elsewhere.
Every so often, he would trace the outline of his lips; as if to map out the last impressions of the kiss – to map the feel and shape of Reed’s lips on his.
As promised, neither of them mentioned the kiss for the rest of the afternoon.
----
“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, see you then.”
“Ben, wait.”
A hand closed around Ben’s wrist and he turned, startled. Reed removed his hand as if he’d touched hot coals.
“I – um –”
Ben tried to ignore the hopefulness that welled in his chest. There was a desperate hope for something more, but he couldn’t exactly place it.
“You forgot your multi-tool.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
It turns out that Ben couldn’t place the disappointment that followed, either.
----
Later still, Ben lay awake, his thumb still grazing the corner of his mouth.
“It’s nothing,” he murmured.