i'm reaching out (but i can't reach her)

✃°˘

coke on my teeth so i'm hard to understand

posted in space, i'll barely ever land

axel, axel, axel. it's the one thought that keeps him lucid through the insanity induced by axel himself.

sweat tickles his sheets raw. light smears the walls blue in broad strokes as ben tries to unjumble the strings of feelings tight in his head. he picks up the blunt on his nightstand and takes a drag.

it's a shame that even once he transformed his room into a hotbox, ben's head spins a million miles an hour.

he's a fucking wreck, inside and out, mind littered with choreless fantasies and glittery hearts. ben's ashamed to not be ashamed, for feeling for one of his closest friends, someone that he's meant to adore like a brother and not a lover.

ben repositions himself on the bed. he uncrosses crossed ankles and stretches limbs to the edge of the bed just to shuffle himself all over again. the blunt in his hand comes down to his hip.

he's been crushing and yearning and coveting for what feels like forever, the moment he met axel.

he hates that it's probably not the same for axel, too friendly and too gorgeous and too sweet to want anything more than a friendship from him.

but in his spine trickles sweet, unrequitable desire that eludes him yet flowers throughout every cell in his body.

ben loathes the idea of love, loathes the fact that he is in love and loathes that axel doesn't feel love for him.

it's four in the morning and ben knows exactly how he ended up lopsided in his bed, fucked up as ever.

hazy off party drugs for no party, dizzy from being wide awake in his bed since nine. and it all bubbles down to his prolonged crush on his best friend.

so he calls the one person who knows how to make it better. axel. his number is memorized by ben's fingers, muscle memory in the way he thinks dialing his number would be faster than clicking his contact. it's his way of letting everyone (absolutely no one) know how well he knows axel.

a smile carves its way onto ben's face at the way his call is answered right away. ben doesn't even have to wait a full ring for axel to be on the other end.

"benji, you good?" and he can't do anything but melt at the voice of axel, thaw at nicknames of glucose. "dude...don't tell me you pulled the same shit again on a motherfucking wednesday!"

"i could be better," he softly sighs at the end of his sentence, moving on to answer the latter half of axel's statement. "jus' wanted to hear your voice. i got so fucked up and i couldn't even like, remember shit."

there's a gentle giggle on the other end of the line. and being as disgustingly in love as he is, ben soaks up every drop of it till his tongue runs dry.

"you got fucked up last night, huh..." ben attends to the rummaging of unknown objects on axel's end, forever clueless and curious as to what he's doing. "what was the occasion this time?"

axel asks this every time ben calls him hungover on hennessy and potentially crossed on molly. and usually, ben lies, but fortunately (maybe unfortunately) ben is at an all-time low in the early hours of dawn, and all he craves is to spill his heart out to the boy over the phone.

"i-um," he chokes, so many words desperate to seep through the ugly knife in his throat, ben trying his best to suppress them. "i-i thought it would be fun, you know? my self-control went to shit and i couldn't keep myself from being shitfaced."

"i fuckin' hate when you lie!" he exclaims, and axel's smile is practically heard from across the screen, ben's sure that he's hallucinating an image of him from the powerlines. he always forgets how long acid lasts, and at this point, he doesn't even remember what he's taken. "what was the occasion?"

"i hate you," he playfully spat, hair dreadfully tousled in the pillow beneath him. "i'm just– hung over this one girl, alright?"

"ben? hung up over a girl?" the call runs static when axel's voice goes high on the last word. "are you fucking with me!"

"god damn, axel, i'm not!" he kinda is, seeing as axel is not a beautiful girl but his male best friend.

ben can't help but feel a little upset knowing that axel doesn't mind him obsessing over someone who isn't axel, further driving the idea that axel doesn't love him like he does.

"that's new, benji," axel comments, words draped sourly for a reason ben can't comprehend. "she's hot enough that you'd get shitfaced over her?"

"h-she um, well i'm mean, she's hot , but like, she's shown no interest in me and i still have all these feelings for her," ben says brokenly. the statement is true, minus the she's and the her's and his talk of pretty girls.

"but i mean, i don't think she was like, the reason for tonight, just like an, um, excuse, y'know?"

"so...you got high, did molly, and drank, just for fun?" sarcasm rings through the speakers and this time, ben's the one who can't help but laugh. "benji, i didn't know you were a fucking junkie!"

"you don't even know what i did!"

"i'm damn good at guessing. tell me i'm wrong!"

"you're–" ben thinks, and realizes he's at fault, "well, you're right."

"told you!" he yelps, and ben has no idea what's given axel so much energy this early in the morning. "now, there's no fucking way you can tell me that you got high for no reason. you're totally down bad for this girl!"

and they talk. ben slurs here and there, slipping in and out of consciousness simply at the sound of axel. he tells him about this 'girl' and how much loves her and ben feels light as ever being able to indirectly spill everything he feels for axel. but being as wasted and naive as ben is, the truth is fated to come out.

"axel," ben says firm, stiff as putty warm in his hands. "i don't—i'm not in love with a girl."

and axel laughs. for ben's spent a whole night mourning over a girl, and what ben just said makes sense with nothing that's happened tonight. "what? ben, are you fu—"

"just," he takes a deep breath, hopeful this isn't the last time he hears such a pretty voice. "promise me you won't hate me?"

"hate you? you're my best friend, dude, i love you," ben hears it all the time, knows it's not meant how he hopes for it to. axel's tone of voice completely shifts, and it scares ben more than it should. "i don't–i could never be mad at you."

but he takes it with a grain of salt and decides that the most effortless and briskest way to break up a friendship is to cut straight to it.

"i-i, honestly, i'm still not sure i'm even ready to, um, tell you this," he exhales, and his chest heaves in a way that axel won't ever know. "you know i pull this shit, like, every other week. get high till dusk and rant to you about it."

"and it's not—i don't do it for no reason."

axel doesn't dare open his mouth, ben can't hear an inhale or an exhale or any sign that axel is even still listening.

"'cause i–" in two swift, careful breaths, "'cause i'm in love with you."

and experiencing his utmost regret, ben thinks that the world might end when not a word coaxes out of axel.

time recesses and he devours an inexpressible period of time staring at his fucking phone, waiting for it to read that the axel left the call. it only makes him more anxious with every passing second that the call resumes.

"oh," and there's a pause in the line, ben despises the fact that axel's breath doesn't bounce off the floors of his room but rather the speaker of his phone. "can i—do you want me to come over?"

and ben is relieved beyond satisfaction that axel can't see him, for his cheeks stain too pink and his lashes droop too longingly.

"ben?" his name is spoken in the sweetest of honey, cushioned by the softest cotton. axel's voice only dips him deeper into hypnosis. "do you want me to?"

"you should—you should come over."