It's a Hard life | Hardzello♡

8. Movie night

"Ben? What's wrong?" Concerned, Joe walks over to Ben's bed. He kneels down next to the bed, and puts his hand on Ben's back to comfort him.
But as soon as Joe's hand touches Ben, the boy flinches away from him, letting out a whimper. He brings his knees up to his chest and lowers his head, still sobbing softly.
Joe sees how fast he is breathing. "Ben, I'm gonna help you. You need to stop panicking." He says in a calm voice.
Tears are flowing down Ben's cheeks. His whole body is shaking and his head is aching lik never before. But knowing that he isn't alone already calms him down a bit. "Joe I- I'm." He stutters.
Joe sits down next to Ben on the bed and pulls him close to his chest. "Shh, you don't have to talk. Just to calm down, okay?" He says. He takes Ben's hand, and places it on his chest. "Follow my breathing." Joe really hopes that Ben doesn't notice his increased heart rate. His heart is beating like crazy now he's holding the blond this close.
Ben nods, trying to synchronise his breathing with Joe's.

After a few deep breaths, the tears have stopped flowing as well as the sobbing.
Joe pulls the boy in a hug, and feels Ben's muscles relax a bit.
"T-thank you Joe. It's just...-" Ben starts when they pull away from the hug. But he doesn't finish his sentence.
When Joe sees him struggling to find the right words, he takes his hand to reassure him. "You don't have to tell me. Don't worry about it, everyone has baggage from the past. I only have one question." He says.
Ben looks at him questioning.
"Do you have these kinds of panic attacks often?" Joe asks concerned.
Ben thinks for a moment. Normally he would lie to people about it, and say that it is just a one time thing. But he trusts Joe. And so he nods. "Yeah. Sometimes I just panic and I don't know why." Ben admits. But that last part was a lie. He does know what causes his attacks. But he isn't ready to tell Joe about it.
"Well, just yell my name whenever it happens. Then I'll help you, okay?" Joe says with a sweet smile.
Ben nods and smiles relieved at him. "Thank you." He whispers.
Joe gets up and offers Ben his hand to take so he can get up. "Time for dinner, don't you think?" He says with a smile.
Ben nods and takes his hand.

///

After the two have had dinner, Ben asked if they could watch a movie together.
Joe hesitated for a moment, because he actually planned to keep some distance from Ben, hoping that his feelings for the boy would disappear.
But after Ben looked at him with his green puppy eyes, Joe gave in.

Halfway through the movie, Joe suddenly feels a certain amount of weight on his shoulder. He carefully turns his head, only to see that Ben is peacefully asleep. With his heart glowing and beating twice as fast as normal, Joe strokes some of Ben's small blond hairs from his face. After that, he focuses on the movie again.
After a while, the blond boy stirs a little. Not much later two green eyes stare at Joe sleepily and quite confused.
The ginger has already noticed that Ben is awake, but keeps looking at the tv, pretending like he doesn't notice. For five minutes long, he feels two eyes focused on his face.
Suddenly Ben's eyes meet Joe's. As soon as he notices that Joe is looking at him, he quickly sits up straight. "Sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep." He says with a nervous chuckle.
Joe smiles. "Don't be sorry, I almost fell asleep too." He says.
"Well, maybe we should go to bed then? The movie will take another hour or something." Ben suggests.
Joe shakes his head. "No, I wanna watch this movie. But you can go to bed if you want?" He says. He secretly hopes that Ben will stay to watch the movie together.
Ben shakes his head. "No, I'll watch it with you then." He says with a big smile.
Joe feels his heart make a small leap of joy. His heart starts beating even faster when Ben sits down on the couch again, and scoots closer to Joe. 

After about ten minutes of watching the movie, Joe closes his eyes for a moment. He feels how nice it is to have his eyes closed. He is tired as hell. The previous night he didn't sleep much because he was worrying about the kiss.
Before Joe even realizes it, he is sinking deeper and deeper. He yawns, fighting the exhausted feeling. But despite that, it doesn't take him long until he is fully asleep. He doesn't even notice that he has fallen asleep against Ben's chest. 
With a smile, Ben watches the boy in his arms. He runs his hand through Joe's ginger hair. When Joe stirs a little, he quickly withdraws his hand and shifts his gaze to the scenes on the TV.
Joe groans softly in his sleep and snuggles closer to Ben's chest.
Ben lets out a sigh of relief when Joe peacefully continues sleeping. "You're cute ginger." Ben whispers.
He is happy that Joe doesn't know that Ben started to feel more for the boy. He had to try really hard to hide his disappointment when Joe told him he pushed him away when he tried to kiss him. Ben knows that if Joe finds out about his crush, thing will chance between them. Maybe Joe will even kick him out or something.
And so Ben decided to just enjoy the moments like this. Joe sleeping against him, close to his chest.

When the movie is done, Ben grabs the remote to turn the tv off. "Joe, the movie is done. We should go to our rooms." He gently shakes Joe to wake him up.
The ginger groans loudly and nuzzles his face into Ben's chest. "Don't wanna move." He mumbles.
Ben can't help but smile at Joe's sleep-drunken state. "Come on Joe, let's go to bed." He says while getting up from the couch. 
Joe makes a whiny noise before shaking his head.
Ben giggles softly. "Want me to carry you?"
With his eyes still closed Joe nods as a small smile appears on his face.
The Brit giggles softly. He takes off his sling, and puts his arms around Joe. Carefully, he lifts the boy, biting his lip to surpress a whimper. Even though his shoulder is almost healed, the weight of a whole person still hurts to carry. 
Joe immediately clings onto Ben's chest, letting out a yawn.
The blond walks towards Joe's room, and puts the ginger down onto his bed.
Joe curls up into a ball and yawns again.
Which makes a big smile appear on Ben's face. "G'night Joe." He chuckles before going to his own room.

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I'm back! It took a while but here I am with a new chapter.

I'm gonna wish y'all an early merry Christmas because othherwise I'll forget it🙃 So a merry Christmas and a happy new year to everyone reading this♡

Much love from me xxx