[ Ben's gut instinct is to just keep insisting no, no no no, Klaus has it all wrong, obviously he's wrong, why does he keep insisting when the very idea of it is so silly.
But he doesn't interrupt his brother, and very slowly it starts to sink in that maybe... the idea of it isn't completely 100% absurd and non-realistic. Klaus does know more about this sort of stuff than Ben does, by a mile. He'd figured his shit out way before Ben, even back when Ben was still alive the first time. And he'd had so many more years since then, being involved with people - bad relationships, good relationships, short relationships, and a few longer ones now, too. If anyone could recognize the line between friendship and something different, it would be Klaus, not Ben.
Klaus isn't wrong. Ben does want to make Cole happy. He thinks about it so frequently, and when he does manage it, there's nothing quite like it...
It doesn't feel like he feels when he makes Klaus or Allison laugh. It doesn't feel like it does when he makes Peter or Kieran or Pratt or Cho or Ami happy. It... feels different. More nervous, more charged, more...
Oh. ]
...Oh.
[ Ben swallows, eyes wide, hand coming up to cover his mouth in an unconscious gesture of surprise. Maybe it's not silly, at all. The thing is... maybe Klaus is the one who is completely right, after all. Maybe there isn't anything stopping him. Maybe he's been an idiot this whole time.
Ben just sits there for a moment, reeling as a series of different memories recontextualize themselves in his mind. Cole communicating through the portal that first time. Eating ice cream together after that awful day he'd discovered the hidden cameras. Reading to him at that stupid sap festival and then finding their way out of the Pit. The two of them playing in the hot springs, laughing together. Every time Cole had hugged him, for a long time. All the times they had held hands. How good it always felt, being around him. How safe. ]
I don't... I hadn't thought...
[ He just looks at Klaus, wide-eyed and lost, because this is uncharted territory, and it's good, he knows, but it's also actually rather terrifying. Ben had written all this off so long ago. Figured that he'd missed his chance, if that chance had ever existed. He hasn't put in the time figuring out who he might like and if he might like anyone and what he would want to do with them if he did and all of it is so huge and so important and so vulnerable and so unfamiliar.
His voice is tiny as he admits, voice even further muffled by his hand. ]
no subject
But he doesn't interrupt his brother, and very slowly it starts to sink in that maybe... the idea of it isn't completely 100% absurd and non-realistic. Klaus does know more about this sort of stuff than Ben does, by a mile. He'd figured his shit out way before Ben, even back when Ben was still alive the first time. And he'd had so many more years since then, being involved with people - bad relationships, good relationships, short relationships, and a few longer ones now, too. If anyone could recognize the line between friendship and something different, it would be Klaus, not Ben.
Klaus isn't wrong. Ben does want to make Cole happy. He thinks about it so frequently, and when he does manage it, there's nothing quite like it...
It doesn't feel like he feels when he makes Klaus or Allison laugh. It doesn't feel like it does when he makes Peter or Kieran or Pratt or Cho or Ami happy. It... feels different. More nervous, more charged, more...
Oh. ]
...Oh.
[ Ben swallows, eyes wide, hand coming up to cover his mouth in an unconscious gesture of surprise. Maybe it's not silly, at all. The thing is... maybe Klaus is the one who is completely right, after all. Maybe there isn't anything stopping him. Maybe he's been an idiot this whole time.
Ben just sits there for a moment, reeling as a series of different memories recontextualize themselves in his mind. Cole communicating through the portal that first time. Eating ice cream together after that awful day he'd discovered the hidden cameras. Reading to him at that stupid sap festival and then finding their way out of the Pit. The two of them playing in the hot springs, laughing together. Every time Cole had hugged him, for a long time. All the times they had held hands. How good it always felt, being around him. How safe. ]
I don't... I hadn't thought...
[ He just looks at Klaus, wide-eyed and lost, because this is uncharted territory, and it's good, he knows, but it's also actually rather terrifying. Ben had written all this off so long ago. Figured that he'd missed his chance, if that chance had ever existed. He hasn't put in the time figuring out who he might like and if he might like anyone and what he would want to do with them if he did and all of it is so huge and so important and so vulnerable and so unfamiliar.
His voice is tiny as he admits, voice even further muffled by his hand. ]
I... think maybe. You might. Be right.