Chapter Text
Jason POV- 2018
okay so like. here's the thing.
jason didn't really do emotions, right? like, obviously. that’s not his brand. his brand was more like, y’know, shotgun a beer on the roof of beta phi kappa, maybe do a front flip off a table during pong if someone dares him. post it to close friends. wake up the next morning with a traffic cone in bed and zero clue how it got there. classic jason.
he wasn’t like, deep. not in the poetry way. not in the “let’s talk about our feelings and trauma and childhood wounds and how maybe our dads were emotionally unavailable or whatever” way. nah. if anything, he was emotionally available in a “yo bro u good?” followed by a slap on the back and handing you a warm twisted tea kind of way.
and that was enough for most people.
like. frye got it. or used to, anyway. him and frye were still best friends, even if they only saw each other during winter break and like, maybe one time over summer if they weren't both working or too hungover. they'd still send each other weird TikToks at 2am and have three-second convos that made no sense but were, like, deeply meaningful in the bro way. that was the language. no hearts, no “miss you”s. just: “this sound is so you” and “remember sophomore year? LMAO.”
but then there was ben.
and ben was—okay.
so. ben was different.
not in a special way. jason wasn’t, like, writing his name in glitter gel pen in the margins of his psych notes or whatever the hell. (he doesn’t even take notes. he just borrows them from oliver and hopes for the best. shoutout oliver.) but ben was—
fuck. okay so it’s like this:
you ever get a song stuck in your head?
but like. not the whole song. just a weird part of it. like one little chord or one line, and it loops, even if you haven’t listened to it in forever. you’re walking to class or eating a burger or something, and boom—there it is. some annoying little snippet, curling around the back of your brain.
that was what it felt like with ben.
except the song was like. his stupid face. or his hoodie. or the way he texted with no punctuation and always said “lol” even if nothing was funny. or the fact that he never really smiled all the way but when he did—like when he actually did—it hit like, uh. like a brick to the chest. or a shot of tequila that’s way stronger than you thought it was gonna be. like “oh, shit. that’s in my bloodstream now.”
jason didn’t get it.
which, y’know, fair. he didn’t get a lot of things.
he was in a frat. he majored in communications. his primary skillset was public speaking while drunk and never getting caught cheating. (that was a joke. kind of. mostly.) he didn’t, like, analyze shit. he wasn’t ben, with his little scribbly notebooks and dumb cargo jeans and—whatever. he wasn’t weird.
but still. they were friends now.
yeah, like, real friends. not just the weird “sorry for, uh, ruining your life” kind of ex-enemies who had a redemption arc. not just the “hey man we’re cool now” nod in the hallway kind of thing. actual friends. like texting memes at 1am friends. like “you good?” “yeah u?” “eh.” “lol.” kind of friends.
which was honestly wild, considering the whole incident. (jason didn’t like thinking about it. he made it right. he did. ben said so.)
anyway, ben went to a school across town. not in a frat. obv. worked at some niche-ass music store that smelled like dust and vinyl and sadness. played in a band that jason lowkey thought slapped, even if he’d never admit it out loud because ben would probably like. implode from embarrassment. he had his own thing. his own people. like these weird lanky dudes with dyed hair and three nose piercings each who said stuff like “yeah we jammed last night” and “capitalism is poison.” which, whatever. jason vibed.
they weren’t his friends, but they were ben’s, so he learned their names. mostly.
and even though ben didn’t like parties or drinking or jason’s idiot roommates or loud anything really, jason still found himself texting him a lot. like. more than usual. way more than frye these days. which was kinda messed up, but also not, right? like they were in different states. what was he gonna do, FaceTime him while doing keg stands?
ben was close. just one bus ride away.
and sometimes—like when a party was winding down, and all the guys were passed out or yelling about DoorDash, and there was this weird kind of silence in jason’s chest—he’d just. open his phone. scroll past all the other notifications. find ben’s name. text something dumb.
u alive
jamming 2nite?
tell ur boss 2 eat ass
sometimes ben replied. sometimes he didn’t. but he always read it.
and that was something.
—
anyway, jason wasn’t like. obsessed. okay?
he just cared.
like a normal amount.
like, yeah, maybe he noticed when ben dyed his hair darker or wore that one band tee with the tears in the sleeve that jason had definitely seen before and had definitely once commented on and ben had definitely looked flustered about. maybe he noticed ben’s Spotify activity sometimes. maybe he had the tab open right now. who was asking.
he wasn’t weird about it.
it was just. ben was weird. but like. his weird.
quiet. sarcastic. always looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but still showed up. said shit under his breath that made jason bark-laugh. would go dead silent when jason got too loud, but never left. just like. endured him. even when he was being a dumbass. maybe especially then.
and jason didn’t know why that made his stomach do that stupid thing.
that annoying little flip.
he didn’t like ben.
like, okay, he liked ben. as a friend. duh. but not like. liked liked. this wasn’t middle school. he wasn’t thirteen and watching Skins thinking maybe freddie was kinda hot. no. he was a man. he was twenty-one. he bench pressed grown adults. he’d made out with like five different girls this semester already.
he wasn’t—he didn’t—
whatever. not important.
the important thing was that ben was cool. chill. they had history. jason liked texting him. he liked hanging out, when ben let him. and yeah, maybe sometimes he caught himself staring too long. or feeling a little weird in the chest when ben said he couldn’t hang. or like. overthinking every emoji he sent.
but that didn’t mean anything.
probably.
probably.
man, whatever.
college was weird. sue him.