Work Text:
11:00 PM (This first conversation is in a Discord DM):
superduperanimefan101 (Benji): Hey, Tris, are u sure ur friends are gonna be cool with me for tomorrow, right?
MaroonBat (Tristan): dude, of course, man!! My friends have been OBSESSED with our relationship lately, and they really, really want to meet u. It has been the main topic for my entire group chat for weeks on end; they can’t stop themselves from talking about it!
Superduperanime101: oh… I didn’t expect that to be the outcome.
MaroonBat: Yeah, they can’t wait to meet u tomorrow.
Superduperanime101: def doesn’t put pressure on me tomorrow heh…
IMaroonBat: dw I told my friends that u don’t have the best experiences when it comes to making friends (AKA social awkwardness), so hopefully my friends will try not to overwhelm you or anything like that.
Superduperanimefan101: Hopefully, I can make a good first impression; there should be 0 mistakes.
MaroonBat: dude, it isn’t that big of a deal. Just be urself and my friends will accept u no matter what happens. This isn’t like law school, where they expect to be the most perfect human being imaginable, there are just my friends after and of course, they're chill like me, maybe more chill who knows.
Superduperanimefan101: thxs, Tris, u always know how to calm me down. :D
MaroonBat: np man :)
Superduperanimefan101: So what’s the plan for tomorrow?
MaroonBat: So, tomorrow at 12, Ivy, Zaid, and I will pick you up, and we’ll be dropped off at the park. After an hour or two, we’ll all go to the mall and shop there for a bit until 5:00, I think. Sounds good?
Superduperanime101: Just what I needed! 👍 gn, bestie 🧡
MaroonBat: good night to u too!! 💜
With that, Benji turns his phone off and puts it in his plug station, ready to go to sleep. He has this uneasy feeling, but he managed to calm himself down as he hops into bed and dozes off into the night with the thought of anticipation and also apprehension for the whole hangout.
The Next Day- 11:30 AM - Benji’s Dorm Room:
Benji was deep asleep, really loving sleeping in (it was the weekend, so thankfully he had those days off), it was paradise to him after all of the hell that was his exams, and he wanted to rest there forever-
KNOCK KNOCK!!
Benji woke up, a little bit scared due to the jump scare of the knocks, and a bit sad that he couldn’t sleep in anymore. Still a bit doleful, he decides to open the door and sees his partner, Tristan, clearly enthusiastic about today.
“Hey Tris…” Benji said to Tristan, clearly a bit doleful, as he had just woken up.
“Hey, Benny, come on, get dressed, and then we’ll get dropped off at the park by Zaid and Ivy! LET'S GO!” Tristan excitedly declared.
“Shh…. Do u wanna wake up the other students in the other dorm rooms, again?” He said to Tristan, trying not to sound mean.
“Oh… right, that, whoops,” Tristan whispers to themself.
“Anyway,” Benji grabs his phone and checks the time. “I thought it was at 12, not 11:30.”
“Well, Ivy talked to me, saying that the way to the park will take a bit longer than I thought, so why not drive to the park right now?” Tristan suggested to Benji.
Benji thought about it for a bit and managed to make a decision, “Sure, why not. But can I change and then get some breakfast before we go, Tris, pls?” Benji asked Tristan, while doing the cutest puppy eyes Tristan has ever seen.
“Go ahead, man, but I'd better see u done by 11:45, got it?” Tristan questioned Benji.
“Aye-Aye!” Benji said it in the most quirky possible way.
Tristan chuckled a bit, “Love u, babe,” saying that while kissing Benji on the cheek.
“Love u too,” Benji said to Tristan while blushing from the kiss as Tristan closed the door to let Benji get ready for the park.
11:43 AM - Parking Lot Outside of the University of Ottawa:
Tristan was inside Ivy’s car, patiently waiting for Benji to finish up while having a conversation with Ivy. Tristan always knew that Benji sure likes to take his time while doing stuff, so Tristan didn’t worry too much, but still, they were starting to grow more and more impatient, especially since they're going to the park to see their friends with a planned day of fun, but then they got a text message from Benji:
Benji Hattori: I’m ready!!!!
With that, one of the car doors opened with Benji getting in.
“Hey Tris, hey Ivy!” Benji said enthusiastically as he buckled his seatbelt.
“Finally, let's get this show on the road!!!” Tristan said happily.
“Yeah….” Benji said, Now getting anxious as the car starts and is now headed towards the park.
Tristan gets super excited, but a part of their mind starts to feel a bit worried for Benji.
12:03 PM - The Park (sorry, they did have a nice conversation during the car ride, though):
“Welp, dorks, we're here. Zaid and I will pick u guys up at 5:00, ok?” Ivy said to both Tristan and Benji as they got out of the car.
“Yeppers, thanks, Ivy. See you at 5:00!” Tristan said out loud as they waved goodbye happily, with Benji also waving bye to Ivy.
“Ok, Benji, let's go meet up with my friends!” said Tristan, holding Benji’s hand while both of them ran towards the plaza, which was near the park.
“Yeah…” Benji mumbled, feeling extremely nervous, now even sweating a bit from the multiple thoughts of meeting Tristan's group of friends.
‘Well, I mean, they're just Tristan’s friends, what's the worst that can happen, right?’ Benji thought to himself, not realizing that his thoughts would get much worse.
As they made it to the plaza, Tristan looked at the anxious Benji and asked him, “You good, dude?”
“Yeah… I’m ok, just scared.” Benji replied.
Tristan puts their hand onto Benji’s shoulder, “Dude, it’s gonna be ok, their just my friends, that’s all.” Tristan says calmly as they kiss Benji’s forehead.
With that, Tristan seems to be relieved and decides to sit down at a table along with Benji. As for Benji, he felt better but still…
His thoughts… still haunted him.
He was not prepared to meet any of Tristan’s buddies; he didn’t feel like he deserved to talk to any of them, and he felt unworthy of himself.
“So Tristan, um… what’s our whole plan once your friends arrive? Lowkey kinda forgot.” Benji said, awkwardly trying to distract his own thoughts.
“Of course you would, you dork,” Tristan playfully said while booping Benji’s nose, “Anyway, when my friends arrive, we’ll go to the park and then after an ho-”
“Hi, Tristan!” said a voice Benji couldn’t recognize, and eventually he saw 2 new faces from his perspective.
The first stranger that Benji looked at seemed to be female with pink hair, even having double buns as some hairstyle, and looked somewhat energetic. The other stranger that he looked at seems to be male, and he looked pretty dang tall compared to his other friends.
‘Man, that guy is definitely taller than Tristan, that’s for sure!’ Benji thought to himself.
He also had black hair and looked like an absolute sweetheart to talk to and pretty dang chill.
“Oh, hey Benji, is that how I say your name correctly or is it something else?” the guy said to Benji, and yeah, Benji was right, he seemed like a very sweet person.
“Oh, um… y-yep, that’s my name all right um…” Benji awkwardly stated to Tristan’s buddies, trying to say comprehensible sentences as much as he could.
“Oh, whoops, almost forgot to introduce myself, my name is Eric, and that lil’ gremlin right next to me is Mei.” Eric kindly said to Benji.
“Dude, of course u call me the ‘lil’ gremlin, even though it’s true sometimes, heh. Oh, anyways, nice to meet you, Benji!” Mei said to Benji, offering him a handshake.
Benji starts to sweat a lot, but awkwardly shakes her hand nonetheless.
“So Benji, I’ve heard many great things from Tristan, like um… your cosplays, so what was your favorite cosplay you pulled off?” Eric said to Benji, genuinely curious about it.
“um…. “ Benji said, trying to answer the question.
‘Ooh, there was the time when I di- NO DON’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR COSPLAYS, WHAT IF THEY DON’T LIKE IT?
They might find it cringe!!
You're just a freak.
You don’t deserve to talk to people.
You're not worthy!’
“Me doing cosplays, imagine,” Benji said back, a little bit annoyed now, which Tristan finds.
“I thought u liked doing-” Mei responds, but,
“DOING COSPLAYS IS FOR GODDAMN FREAKS!” Benji yelled out loud, causing everyone to go silent, with Tristan realizing something was wrong with him.
“Guess that makes me a freak…” Benji said to himself.
Before Tristan can do anything, Benji starts to breathe irregularly, and he starts to hold on tightly to his chest.
“B-benji…” Tristan said, This was their first time seeing Benji having a panic attack.
(Benji’s mind)
It all looked blurry.
They all looked like blobs to him.
Everything looks dizzy.
Mind is a fucking mess.
I’m not worthy.
I don’t deserve anyone.
I’m a freak.
I’M NOT WORTHY.
I’m a freak. I’m a freak.
(Back to Tristan)
Tristan was a bit panicked themself and didn’t know what to do, so as a last-ditch effort, they decided to hug him, making sure it was a soft hug for him. They can feel their heart slowly calming down more and more as Benji starts to breathe regularly, and finally, they wake up, seeing their pretty partner.
“Hey, dude, wanna do something to help your mind? ” Tristan asked Benji, but he managed to get up and just dashed through the park, clearly really panicked.
“Sigh… Eric and Mei, stay here, ok. I’m gonna help Benji, be right back!” Tristan panickedly said to Eric and Mei as they started to run towards Benji’s direction in the park.
“Um… Eric, should we follow Tristan or not?” Mei said to Eric.
"Come on, let's give them some space for a bit, and then we could try to find,” Eric responded to Mei.
“Man… I really hope Benji is doing fine,” Mei said.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tristan has been looking over the park for a couple of minutes now.
‘Where has my boyfriend gone off to?’ Tristan thought to themself, trying to remember the memories of both of them at the park.
Tristan and Benji always loved the park, mainly to run for their daily exercise whenever they both had free time (which is rare, especially for Benji).
‘Well, we like to run around the park, but we also like to hang out and chill mainly at the… Aha! I know where Benji probably is!’ Tristan again thought to themself as they run towards the direction of where Benji could probably be.
After about a minute or so, Tristan managed to rest for a bit, drink some water, and they walked towards this huge oak tree. They feel the cool breeze, they can hear the animals' many noises, and most importantly, they see a depressed Benji sitting near the tree.
Tristan uses the last of their energy to run as fast as they can to go to the oak tree and hug Benji.
Benji starts to break down into tears from Tristan’s embrace, and Tristan continues to hug him tightly as if it were the end of the world.
Benji’s tears kept pouring down like a waterfall as Tristan tried to calm him down, and eventually Benji stopped crying and took a couple of deep breaths before talking to Tristan.
“Fuck Tristan…. *sniff sniff, I’m sorry for f-freaking out in front of your friends…” Benji mourned to Tristan. “You know how I am with people sometimes and how well… I’m just a freak and no one will ever care about me as much as you do, and I’m just nothing…” Benji said, before crying again, with Tristan hugging him, and then pushing him back to make eye contact.
“Benji… don’t you dare say anything like that, ok? You are something, man, you have purpose, and I’ll make sure you will absolutely never forget that, ok dude, and besides, this is all my fault. I should have known that you were not ok and the panic attack and oh my god…” Tristan is sadly almost getting emotional, too.
“Hey, hey,” Benji said while trying to hold Tristan’s hand, “this isn’t your fault, ok? But you helped me a ton during that, so thank you for that.” He said happily to Tristan.
“Fuck dude, you… y-you helped me a lot more with my life than you probably have ever realized, and I’m not even joking at all.” Tristan stated to Benji, who was obviously getting very curious about what Tristan said.
“What do you mean by that, Tris?” Benji curiously said.
“My life literally sucked before I auditioned for S4. I had lots of friends, yes, but my parents were literal monsters who hated my guts for just everything I literally did, including me being non-binary and well, I almost was gonna- well, you know how that almost went …” Tristan said while starting to tear up. “But then you came into my world, you silly, dorky, goofy lil’ goober. You somehow always managed to look at the bright side of things, and just, I don’t know, made things fun, Benji! And man, I thought I was gonna be the optimistic one in this couple, man.” Tristan said while laughing for a bit.
“Do you… Do you actually mean that? Like for real?” Benji questioned Tristan while he started to self-doubt about what they said.
“Yeah, dude, I don’t know how many times I have to say that, heh.” They said while cupping Benji’s chin, causing Benji to get extremely flustered in the process.
“Damn it, you know how to make me happy, thanks, Tris,” Benji murmured, with him starting to feel happy again.
“You're welcome, Benny boy, and hey, if you feel any self-doubt or just have a bad day in general, I’m always here for you, dude. I love you, Benji. You do deserve friends, and you especially deserve all the love in the world.” Tristan said with their voice starting to crack a little.
Without hesitation, Benji and Tristan share a nice and passionate kiss, with both of them not caring about anything else for each other.
“I love you too, Tristan, and also I’m here with you too… just in case you didn’t know that.” Benji awkwardly said as he tried to cuddle with Tristan, causing their face to go bright red.
“Man, you're really trying your hardest to make this moment even better, huh?” Tristan playfully said to Benji, clearly just messing with him.
“Maybe, maybe not, who knows?” Benji chuckled for a bit, Tristan trying to mess with them too.
“Heh… hey, what a minute, um… where are Eric and Mei?” Tristan said clearly, getting a bit anxious.
“I don’t know but… hey there they are,” Benji said to Tristan him pointing at the two goobers trying to run towards both of them.
With that, they both got up and started running towards the exhausted Eric and Mei.
“There you guys are, thank god we didn’t know where any of you went!” Eric stated clearly, just relieved.
“I mean, we were just cuddling towards the oak tree… that’s about it,” Benji said awkwardly.
“Dang guys, you guys didn’t have the patience for us to walk to you guys, huh?” Tristan asked their friends.
“I guess so, heh,” Mei said back.
“Oh yeah, guys, um…” Benji tries his best to make words, but feels too awkward to do so. Tristan puts their hand on his shoulder, trying to help, which gives Benji a bit of courage.
“Sorry about the whole um… whole running away from you guys as soon as I met you situation.” Benji apologized to both of Tristan’s friends, clearly feeling remorseful for what he had done.
“Hey, man, it’s ok, no need to say you're sorry, we both easily understand why you did that.” Eric happily said to Benji.
“Especially after what Tristan secretly said about their friends,” Mei grinned with Tristan, instantly blushing.
“Tristan??? What did u tell them?” Benji anxiously said, also blushing a bit.
“Well, um… so…. Shouldn’t we go to the mall, guys?” Tristan, panickly, said, trying to change the topic.
“Oh yeah, we should probably go now, huh?” Benji declared.
With that, Tristan and Benji start walking out of the park and trying to find where the mall is.
However, Tristan’s friend still stayed near the oak tree, looking almost scared to say something.
Eventually, Tristan looks back, wondering where their friends are, and starts to get worried about Benji just being a bit confused.
“Hey guys are you guys coming to the mall or what?” Tristan yells out towards their friends.
“Wait, Tristan, can you please come back to us? We both have a suggestion for a place to go to!” Eric yelled out loud towards Tristan.
So Tristan and Benji walk back, meeting up with Eric and Mei once again, with both of them being just curious and stuff.
“So, Tris? We both were thinking about going somewhere else that isn’t the mall.” Mei said.
“I don’t know, we always go to the mall every single time. How about we just explore town instead of…” Eric Proposed, but then,
“Walking for all eternity to go to the mall.” Mei groaned, which made Tris giggle a little.
“I mean, that would be awesome, right, Benji?” Tristan enthusiastically said.
“I mean, sure, I’m not a huge fan of malls anyway, so this would be epic.” Benji confidently said.
“Ok, let’s go!” Tristan declared, and so the friend group headed towards the local town, trying to explore as many stores as they possibly could.
“Um… do we have any form of money?” Benji questioned.
“I have a couple bucks, but it’s all about the exploration anyway, Benny Boy!” Tristan said, kissing Benji on the cheek.
“Y-yep, yep,” Benji said, still flustered from the kiss.
“Let’s go find someplace to go already, come on!” Mei enthusiastically said clearly, just a bit bored.
“Ok then, Miss Impatient, let’s go.” Eric mocked her clearly just for laughs.
“Hey… where’s Benji?” Tristan asked Eric and Mei, who were looking around, and then they all heard…
“Oooh… look at that antique store!” Benji happily said, “Maybe that could be fun.”
They all looked at the store, and they all were really ecstatic about it.
“Great, find Benji, let’s go!” Tristan also happily said.
5:15 PM - The Parking Lot of the Mall (idk they all had fun exploring places, sorry, I lowkey lost some motivation while trying to write this)
“Bye, guys!” Tristan waved goodbye to Eric and Mei.
“Bye!” They both responded.
“See ya, guys!” Benji waved too as they both waited for Ivy to pick them up. “So how long is Ivy gonna come pick us up?” Benji asked Tristan.
“About a minute or tw- speaking of that,” Tristan responded to Benji’s question as Ivy finally arrived to pick up the goobers.
“Hey, guys!” Ivy yelled loudly to Benji and Tristan as they ran towards Ivy’s car and got inside the car.
“Hey Ivy!” Tristan responded as they buckled their seatbelt.
“Hi,” Benji said while yawning, trying to get their seatbelt in.
“Looks like someone is tired.” Tristan smugly said to Benji.
“Shut up.” Benji tiredly said while proceeding to immediately fall asleep shortly after.
“So Tris.. how was it?” Ivy asked Tris while she was driving both of them home.
“Oh, it was great minus… Benji is having a…” Tristan was reluctant to go any further but Ivy knew what they were likely referring to (this sadly isn’t the first time Benji got a panic attack).
“Are they ok?” Ivy said to Tristan.
“Yeah, yeah, he’s ok, my sweet lil’ pumpkin,” Tristan quietly said to Benji, kissing his cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Benji responded.
fin.