ultra kind of love — o, one-month-iversary

[PETER M.]

[align=center][div style="width:450px;font-family:arial;font-size:8pt;line-height:1;text-align:justify;font-family:verdana"]He can remember the first time he kissed Benjamin—it was a short peck, and a joking one. Their lips had touched for all of five milliseconds, and he’d felt like a bit of a jerk because of the blind boy’s reaction, so he’d gone to apologize later on. Surprisingly, he'd initiated a long conversation that spawned something evil—a crush on the blind boy. Then, a few weeks later, he had kissed Benjamin again. It was another joking kiss, he told himself. A New Year’s kiss, one that meant nothing to him. But then Benjamin had tugged him back by his shirt and kissed him in return, and it had felt like his entire world was melting. He’d been told to stop, or to go on a date with the other teenager—obviously, he’d chosen the date. Despite his crippling fear of relationships, he’d gone on that date with Benjamin, and he’d enjoyed it. They’d kissed again, and he’d known exactly what he was going to do someday.

Then, a month ago, he’d done it. After a few more dates, he’d gathered the courage to ask Benjamin to be his boyfriend. He’d been downright terrified of rejection, but the raven-haired Ace had said yes, and now they're dating. It seems that more time has passed than actually has, but maybe that's just because time always seems to go faster around Benjamin. It’s been a month, and in the past month he feels like they have been far too caught up in the affairs of their temporary leadership of the Lodge to focus enough on each other. He doesn’t mind it—they’ve both had bouts of sickness, and they’ve had more than enough contact to sustain them, but he can’t help feeling that he needs to do something special for his boyfriend, to remind Benjamin that Peter is here for him. It’s a nerve-wracking thing, what he’s about to do, but if Benjamin takes it well, it will be worth the anxiety.

The days that Benjamin and Andor were away to negotiate with the Badlands, Peter refused to stay in bed—he’d been far too worried about whether or not his boyfriend would actually return in one piece. So he’d channeled it into a painting, another raised one that depicts flowers. Just as the first one he gave to Benjamin was, the painting is drab in color, made with all the old paint he could find around the Lodge. But the color doesn't matter, because Benjamin can't see it. He can only feel it, which is why Peter globbed tons of paint onto the canvas, creating a lined effect so that anyone feeling it can tell the design from the ridges.

But in one of the flat spaces of the painting lie a series of bumps, arranged to spell out a trio of words in Braille. ”I love you”. He hopes it isn’t too soon, or too much. He hopes Benjamin will take it well. He hopes—he hopes things don’t fall apart. He doesn’t think he could take it if things went bad between himself and the other Ace. But he can’t be thinking of that now; he needs to give this to Benjamin before he loses his nerve. "Benny?" He calls out, poking his head into the common room. It’s the only place he can think of to search for his boyfriend, seeing as Benjamin has been known to sleep on the couch. He doesn’t bother to hide the painting as he steps into the room—there’s no sense in hiding anything from a blind guy, after all. Instead, he simply stands there with the edge of the frame clutched in slightly sweaty palms, shifting slightly on his feet. So many thoughts are racing through his mind, but on the forefront of his scattered thoughts is ”I hope he likes this.”



// ignore the crappiness of this [member=7842]BENJAMIN[/member]

[BENJAMIN]

IM FRESH OUT OF MUSE AND I FORgOT THIS WAS TODAY SO. TRACK FOR LATER HHH

[Beatles.]

It’s  been a month?? Damn I feel old

[dannychan]

It’s  been a month?? Damn I feel old

[BENJAMIN]

[align=center][div style="border:0px;width:450px;text-align:justify;line-height:1.1;font-size:8.5pt;"][ it's now been a month and three days because my sorry ass can't muster up motivation to post like... ever ]

His relationship with Peter had honestly started out as a rocky one, that's for sure. Back when he'd joined this place, he hadn't at all known what to expect from the people here. After being freshly abandoned in the territory surrounding the Lodge by a father he thought had loved him, and after being met with a bunch of people he didn't know who for some reason took him in like he was family without much of a second thought, well... Benjamin hadn't known what to think himself. After being alone for so long, suddenly being around so many people was... Difficult. He'd felt alone for a while, despite the fact that everyone seemed to want to talk to him and include him for seemingly zero reason. He's just never been good at social interaction. All these people could be as welcoming and inclusive as they wanted, and yet Benjamin would still feel like an outcast. He's always been the outcast, so that's not surprising.

One day that had changed, though—not in a good way, but rather a confusing one. Kissing Peter for the first time had been... An experience. It'd been his first kiss. He'd never been in any semblance of an actual relationship before (pining over Michael didn't count), so the sudden romantic act had fucked him up, just a little. ...Okay, maybe it had fucked him up a lot. He'd gotten unbelievably flustered, somewhat angry, and the feeling of loneliness had only intensified. Who did Peter think he was to kiss some random boy? Who was he to make some boy look too far into things, to make him curl up in bed and cry because he'd convinced himself that he was just some joke, to make him scribble in his journal about how much he hates himself over getting some dumbass crush all because of a kiss that meant nothing? Who was he to make Benjamin feel that way over some stupid kiss?

Well, somehow, Peter had eventually realized he'd made a mistake. The apology was unexpected, but it was half-appreciated. Not... Fully, though. He could apologize all he wanted, but at the time Benjamin had still been nursing some sort of half-crush on Peter, and what did that mean? That meant trying for... well, something. And so he had. He'd tried to interest Peter long enough to stay, tried to talk about themselves and learn a little more—and it had worked. For hours, they'd sat and talked about themselves, going back and forth like it was some game, having fun way into the night and just... It was nice. It led to another kiss, this time on New Years. That led to another kiss, this time from Benjamin. A date. Yet another kiss. More dates. The relationship escalated in the nicest ways, and Benjamin had never once decided that Peter wasn't his type, despite the many events that got in the way of their exploration into the idea of a possible future of being... Boyfriends. So many things had gotten in the way, and yet Peter had still asked him out, and Peter had still taken the time to pay attention to him, despite the recent events. It's been hard to keep up with each other when they're tasked with running a whole group, but they've both been trying their very best, and it's payed off. Benjamin's still certain he likes Peter, at least, and that's enough for him.

He's actually not aware that it's been a month since Peter had asked him out. It seems so long ago, and yet... He hasn't been keeping track of the time. Peter probably isn't someone to celebrate monthly, anyway, so what's the point of keeping track of the days? Benjamin hasn't the foggiest idea of what day it is, and therefore he's merely lazing about on the couch, reading the book Peter had given him on the day he'd asked him out, ironically. He pauses as he hears his boyfriend's voice, though, and blind eyes turn upward as he pushes himself up on the couch, offering a warm smile in the silver-haired teenager's direction as he sets down his book, taking a mental note of the page number. "Yeah? What's up?" comes Benjamin's quiet reply, and accompanying the words is a brief head tilt and a lift of his eyebrows. He's not sure why, but he could have sworn Peter's voice had sounded just slightly different. Like it was somewhat higher, or something. This thought bounces around in his head for a while, and after a minute of overthinking things, his eyebrows furrow slightly. "Is something wrong?"