Chapter Text
Ben jolts awake to a faint sound coming from next door.
He’s always been a light sleeper, easily waking up at the slightest of sounds, and he’s never been more grateful for that fact until now, because he realizes the sound is coming from Devi’s room.
He practically throws himself out of bed, fear gripping his gut when he hears another sound. What if something’s happening to her? What if she’s in trouble?
It’s barely a two second walk from his door to hers, but it feels like an eternity. The door’s unlocked, but the room is dark, and he gently pushes open the door to see Devi sitting up on her bed. The tension leaches out of his body instantly when he sees she’s alone, and he pushes the door open a bit further, and the creak makes her head shoot up.
For a second, she tenses, as if she’s afraid of him, but in the dim light given off by the hallway, he sees recognition flash through her eyes.
“Devi,” he says, tentatively stepping into the room. “Devi, are you all right?” She slumps, as though the energy required to keep her body upright is too much for her.
She lets out a choked sob then, and he disregards any hesitations he previously held and goes to her side, crouching down beside her bed to look her in the eyes. “Hey. I heard some noises. Are you ok?”
As soon as he asks the question, he wants to kick himself. He’s just found her with tear tracks running down her face, panting as if she’s run a marathon instead of simply waking up. Of course she’s not ok. What kind of idiotic question was that?
She opens her mouth, as if to speak, but then closes it and shakes her head.
He’s worried about her. Devi’s never been like this, so overwhelmed with emotion that she can’t breathe, and he doesn’t know how to handle it.
Back when he got like this, the only thing that could calm him down was touch. And he’s never been more terrified of anything in his life, but, if Devi needs him, he’s not going to refuse her. Not unless she tells him to go away.
“Ok,” he says, climbing up onto the bed. For a split second, he wonders whether or not to do this, but then notices she’s shaking. Fuck this. He’s going to help her in the only way he knows how.
He pulls her to him, rubbing his hand down her back like he wishes someone had done for him when he had a nightmare. “You don’t have to explain. Just breathe.”
She buries her head into his side and he thinks his heart stops. Ragged breaths puff out onto his shirt, and he can feel the pounding of her heart from where her chest is pressed into his side. She deserves more. He wishes he could do something more than just sit here, wishes he could banish all her demons and keep her safe, but he can’t. Plus, Ben’s never been her knight in shining armor. No, Devi is her own warrior, and he loves her all the more for it.
(he’d be lying, though, if he says he doesn’t wish she needs him. it’s a stupid, sexist wish, and he knows that, but he loves her. he needs her. sometimes, he wishes she felt the same about him, and then when he realizes what he’s thinking, he wants to slap himself in the face. he needs to stop acting like he’s entitled to any of her feelings now that they’re married and because he loves her. she doesn’t owe him anything. but god, he wishes she would want to give him something)
He presses a kiss to her head a few times, but he can tell she’s not ready to talk. So he does the only thing he can think of: make her laugh.
Somehow, recounting the story of his stupid science experiment with his mom’s glass vase seems to do the trick. Since she’s curled into his side, he can feel her body relax, slump into him as if a weight has been taken off her shoulders, and it’s worth embarrassing himself so that she feels better.
(what wouldn’t he do for her, is the real question, and the one he never lets himself ask)
And it helps, because the sound of her laugh is like a balm to his aching soul.
He’s smiling down at her when she finally admits what happened. “I had a dream about my dad.”
Oh. Oh. Ben doesn’t know much about Devi’s father, in all honesty. All he knows is that her dad passed away from a heart attack when she was fifteen, and that she was incredibly close to him when he died. He’s one of the topics Ben never pushes Devi on, ever. Ben can be a dick, he’s well aware of that fact, but he’s not cruel. He’s not going to bring up her dead dad if she’s not ready or if he’s curious. So, he waits for her to come to him. For her to talk to him.
“I think this was the first year I forgot the anniversary was approaching,” she admits, and Ben can see the guilt in her eyes as she says it. “You know, it hasn’t even been that long, he’s only been gone for twelve years, but every year before now, it was like it occupied every piece of my mind. But this year, I didn’t even realize the date was coming up until you mentioned it.”
He can do nothing but pull her closer to him, and thankfully, she reciprocates, holding tightly to him. How else is he supposed to help her? This is one demon neither of them know how to slay.
But when she admits her deepest fears, of forgetting her father, he starts to understand where the nightmares are coming from, where the grief and sadness is coming from. Ben’s never been through this, losing a parent, but he knows what it feels like to have a hole in your heart, in your soul, to be empty and no matter how hard you try, that hole never gets filled.
He pulls away from her the slightest bit, not enough so that she stops hugging him, but enough so that he can cup her face with his hands. His thumbs brush over her soft, soft skin, and he presses his fingers against her chin so her head tilts up and she can look him in the eyes.
“Your dad isn’t someone you can forget, Devi,” he says. “He’s not like that. He’s a part of you, more than you even know. I know you’re scared of forgetting who he was, but that’s ok. I can’t promise you won’t forget those things, but I can promise you you’ll never forget the most important thing in the world: how he loved you.”
He wants to pull the words back and burn them as soon as he says them, but he can’t. What sort of half-assed comfort was that? He can’t bring her father back to her, he can’t promise her she’s not going to forget him, because he won’t lie to her, but what else can he say? What else can he promise her? That he’ll be here the whole time, supporting her? That she can always rely on him?
(both of those things come too close to sounding like he is promising to love her forever, and while he has already promised both of those things to himself, he cannot promise them to her. plus, now would be the most inopportune time in the world, even if he was considering telling her, which he’s not. he can’t tell her how he feels. he never will)
He holds his breath in anticipation as he waits for her response, and her answering smile, however small, draws the weight off of his shoulders.
And then she’s holding his hand—fuck, she’s holding his hand, and he’s forgotten how to breathe again. What was it about this girl that made him lose all sense of who he was, made him forget everything in the world but her?
He thinks of his own parents for a split second, and as always, the war of emotion starts up in him. He loves them, god, he loves them, he doesn’t think he can stop, but they were never there for him, not in the way he needed them to be.
It’s Devi’s voice that breaks him out of his trance as she thanks him, and he smiles at her.
He can tell something is wrong though, by the way her eyebrows draw together, and she sits up a bit more fully, looking at him with those dark, dark eyes that could rival outer space with their beauty.
(perhaps that is what devi is, a constellation, two eyes that shine as bright as stars with a smile that could rival the sun, a black hole at the heart of it, unabashedly sucking him in, he, helpless against the pull of her magnetic gravity. perhaps she is his way home, his north star, the celestial body he relies on to find himself again. it is easy to see how the stars have captivated people for millennia, because if they are anything like devi, he does not understand how one would not be captivated by them. she takes his breath away, ever time)
And then she asks the question he has been dreading ever since they met. “What about you? What about your parents?”
Ben clenches his jaw and looks away from her. He doesn’t want to answer her, doesn’t want to peel back the layer of pain that exists, doesn’t want to deal with whatever the fuck his messed up relationship with his parents is, but he can’t just say nothing. And plus, in the grand scheme of things, with her dead dad, his absentee parents were—not a big deal.
“They’re not like yours, Devi,” he whispers. “I don’t really know how to talk about them.”
She promises to listen to him, though, and the thing is, he knows she’s not lying, that she truly means, it, because Devi can let nothing go unpaid, and he knows she sees him sitting with her as a debt, but the thing is, he—he doesn’t know how to talk about them.
But he does. He tries, at least, and even when he tries to convince Devi that it doesn’t matter, he’s never spoken about it before and his walls come crashing down. It’s—fucking pathetic, is what it is, but the floodgates have opened, and he can’t stop himself from telling her how they have made him feel.
And then she’s hugging him, and she smells like everything good in the world, like home, and it feels like this one hug, this one touch of her against him, makes up for the thousands of hugs he’s never gotten, the thousands of absent kisses and distracted pats, the the thousands of moments he’s never gotten with his parents.
(and in the deep, dark, recesses of his heart he does not let anyone else see, he knows it does not. he knows that the pain is there, that it will come bursting out one day, that there are thousands of things he has not yet talked to her about. and when he admits to her that no one has ever wanted him, perhaps a very, very small part of him wants her to admit she wants him. but she doesn’t, and so he accepts his fate and tries to make himself happy with it)
He makes a dumb joke about therapy, and then she’s drawing back from him and framing her face with his hands, and his heart just—stops, in his chest.
“No, Ben. You are wanted. Trust me. You are one of the best friends I’ve ever had. You’re such an amazing person, and I’m sorry your parents can’t see that. They were so lucky to have someone like you.”
Ben hates the fact that his heart breaks a little in this moment, because this, this is the truth of what is between them: nothing more than friendship. And he hates himself because his heart is not satisfied with that, even though he should be.
Devi is bright and beautiful, and to think that he could even hope for something more than friendship with her would be to chase a fool’s dream. And he does not have the right to want anything more from her. He loves being her friend. He gets to pelt her with popcorn and debate Riverdale, he gets to hear her laugh and snap at him and cook with her, he gets a million things out of her friendship and to give that all up because he doesn’t get her kisses or to hear her say she loves him—that’s something a fool would do, and he’s not a fool.
He is her friend, and Ben cherishes that fact like one would cherish a diamond or a piece of gold, like one would cherish a family member or a friend, because their friendship is alive and well and breathing, and he is not going to kill it. He cannot. He can’t survive, without her as his friend. He’s sure of it.
“Thank you, Devi,” he murmurs, thumb brushing over her cheekbone. He wants to kiss her so badly, so much it hurts, but he stuffs that impulse down and snuffs it before it erupts into a blazing fire he cannot control. “I’ll let you sleep, now.”
He moves off of her bed and means to leave the room when he feels her hand wrap around his wrist.
“Wait! I—I know this is a lot to ask, but would you mind staying here tonight?” Her gaze falls to her bed, and he’s glad because she can’t see him gaping at her like an idiot. “Just—just until I fall asleep.”
Her eyes then flicker up to look at him, and Ben deeply hopes the shock that’s swirling in his gut is not written all over his face.
This is dangerous. This is treading into territory he can’t cross, things they do not do with one another. They do not share the same bed, they do not touch each other casually, they do not do things that lovers did. Because she is not in love with him, and he has to remember that.
He needs to keep his own sanity, and so he can’t say yes. He can’t, he really, really can’t.
So, naturally, because it’s Devi, he says yes.
(how can he deny her anything?)
“Yeah. Yeah, of course, Devi. Whatever you need.”
She sighs, and he can see the flicker of relief cross her face, even though Ben wishes she wouldn’t look so happy, if only to soothe his aching heart. These lines are being dangerously blurred, and he’s worried he might do something stupid, like, try and kiss her.
He runs his hand down her back absently, lost in his own thoughts, but she tucks herself further into his side, eyes fluttering closed.
“Fuck,” he mutters, so quiet he knows she can’t hear him. What the fuck was he doing?
No. The second she falls asleep, he’ll leave and go back to his bed, and his skin won’t sear at her touch and he won’t think about the way she smells as he stares at the ceiling.
But then she reaches out and grips his shirt, clutching in her hand and burying her head into his side, and he can’t move without waking her up. He’s frozen, and he groans, tipping his head back and letting it smack against the headboard.
It’s another twenty sleepless minutes before he realizes his hand is still tracing circles on her hip, and he jerks away like he’s been burned.
(and he has, hasn’t he? he’s been burned in the worst way possible, and now it feels like his heart is leaking out into his chest. but he chose this, and he chose her, and he’ll continue to do so at his own expense for the rest of his life)
But eventually, exhaustion wins over, and Ben moves further down the bed without even thinking about it, arm still wrapped around Devi. He spares one last glance at her, soundly asleep, before he closes his eyes, and hopes that sleep will give his heart a reprieve, at least for a little bit.
It probably won’t, but he can pretend, and here, with her wrapped up in his arms, safe and sound next to him, is the closest he’s ever going to get to being with her, and so he is going to remember this moment for the both of them, hold it precious and perfect in his heart.
He traces a hand down her face, tucking her hair behind her ear, before he closes his eyes and falls asleep to the sound of her heartbeat.