Twink Death is Not a Loss
1993
It's not that Ben was unhappy, growing up.
Sure things were hard. The times they didn't have to scrimp to make ends meet were few and far between, and despite himself he still flinches when someone raises their voices at him. when he doesn't just get angry.
But he also remembers ducking out and wandering the streets with Danny, whining at him until he’d caved and got them both an ice cream in the heat of summer, and sneaking into the back of a cinema.
Fuck, when he'd finally mustered the courage to come out to him, the way he'd cheered about 'finally having a little brother', still makes him tear up sometimes.
So it wasn't a bad time, all things considered.
But things are just so different now.
He doesn't feel guilty for not knowing something that's obvious to Reed. He can make himself a sandwich in the middle of the night.
Things just seem so easy, he realizes, watching a bowl of mac and cheese go round the microwave at 10am (the chunks of hot dog that had been thrown in to make it ‘healthy’ sizzling), because he doesn't need to ask to know that his roommate's forgotten about the concept of 'breakfast'.
Even with midterms looming over him, and the gnawing worry over how he's going to pay off his loans, it all feels less heavy than the way he remembers feeling as a kid.
The microwave goes off, and Ben's pulled from his introspection.
When he makes his way back the hall to the cramped closet that Reed's dubbed 'the study', he finds his roommate sprawled over two different textbooks, face inches away from his notebook.
"You're gonna mess up your back like that," he grunts. "And your eyes, if they ain't fucked already."
Reed mumbles something in response. He hasn't gotten into the coffee yet, and likely won't. He's been talking about going on a 'tolerance break' before midterms truly get going, something that makes the mean voice in the back of Ben’s head snicker relentlessly.
When the bowl is set beside him he blinks. Stares at it like it's inscrutable at first.
"For me?" he frowns. Doesn't look up at Ben, but at this point he doesn't have to for the confliction to be clear in his voice.
Reed didn't grow up hungry; there were some hard times to be sure, but Ben doesn’t think he ever watched his parents choose between food and rent, or had to split a sandwich four ways. He does, however, know that Ben knows what it’s like to have to convince himself he isn’t as hungry as he is, and sees right through Ben’s attempt at self-soothing (someone crueller might think that that’s uncharacteristically intuitive to expect of Reed, but there’s a marked difference between autism and apathy).
The real problem is that Reed doesn’t like gifts; it was one of the first things Ben had learned about him. For the longest while every time he’d gone out of his way to do something nice, he'd had to have some reason behind it, or Reed would tie himself into knots trying to decipher the correct response. Still, Ben can’t help but push.
“Don’t get all worked up about it,” he huffs, rolling his shoulders in mock indifference, “I was gonna eat it myself but then I remembered the, uh, the ham.”
(He hasn’t cared about keeping kosher since he was 16, but watching Reed trip over himself to try and figure out the correct accomodations was funny the first week or so after he moved in.)
“That didn’t seem to matter last night,” Reed retorts, carefully shooting him a look as if to say he’s not actually upset.
If he recognizes the inuendo he doesn’t do a damn thing about it, and Ben suddenly realizes how devastatingly handsome Reed is.
It’s not like it’s some big revelation for Ben, really. He’s known who he was since he was 9 and Tommie Macguire told him he had ‘the best arm on the block‘, and the words had squirmed in his guts for weeks. Growing up queer hadn’t made his life any easier, sure, but he’d rather have been kicked to shit a hundred times over if it meant never having to pretend he’s someone he’s not.
Reed isn’t the kind of guy that typically comes to mind when he’s letting off steam, but he’s handsome in his own right. It’s not a stretch to see the appeal in his narrow jaw, the sharp bite of his teeth cutting through his soft smile. That doesn’t make Ben any less blindsided how much he suddenly wants those teeth on him.
Maybe it has something to do with how good he’s been feeling lately. Something about the way Ben isn’t being constantly flooded with stress makes the daydream all the easier to fall into. Or something like that.
“Are you in there? Ben?”
Suddenly he’s fully present again, standing in his cramped little dormroom, a sudden pang in his chest.
And Reed is pushing the bow of mac and cheese back at him.
“If you don’t answer, I’m going to get out the waffle-maker your aunt sent.” The threat is dire, even if he doesn’t think Reed would follow through. They’ve used Aunt Petunia’s waffle-maker exactly once, and somehow Reed managed to set off the fire alarm three times. “I think I know where I went wrong last time…”
He doesn’t even get to the kitchen before Ben tackles him.