OUT OF THIS WORLD .. ben tennyson x reader

x. do it for..

Ben wonders if this is what a hangover feels like.

He could feel just about every bone in his body in a way that could rival whenever Coach decided to give them hell during practice. There was a pounding in his head that was only amplified the longer he walked through the gas station aisles.

Gwen had called him dramatic and blamed it on the fact that they'd gotten back to the hotel at three in the morning and because Kevin likely punched a few organs out of place (which she had recorded on live TV and laughed in his face about!).

Ben almost loses his balance when he reaches for the top of the pyramid cookie boxes. The sleeve of his jacket rubs against a box the wrong way and almost sends it all tumbling down, but Gwen is quick enough to catch it.

"Smooth, Tennyson," she scoffs, poking a box into the right position.

Ben rolls his eyes but yawns a quiet "thank you," under his breath.

Ever observant, Gwen's head tilts at his zombie-like sludge to the refrigerated drinks. She trails beside him at a pace just as slow and sucks her tongue at the scar below his newly-acquired eyebags.

Ben raises a brow when she doesn't say anything, reaching into the refrigerator and grabbing his beloved iced pop-flavored Prime. "What?"

"You look.." Gwen struggles to find the word. She rubs at her eyelid the longer she looks at him, lips thinning. "I don't know. Something's wrong with you, and it's not because you got beat like a punching bag. You even grabbed the wrong drink."

Ben wants to argue it, but one glance down at his hand and he finds a Life water in his grip instead.

(Was he honored she remembered his usual lazy gas station order, or was he annoyed she called him out on it? He couldn't quite tell.)

Fixing his mistake with a scoff, he shuts the door by slamming it. "So?"

"So," Gwen parrots, grabbing her own Lipton green tea, "what happened last night? It was obviously enough to make you all.. fish-brained."

Ben couldn't tell anyone why he started following her when she started making her rounds to collect things she thought [name] would like. He couldn't even answer the question for himself to be entirely honest.

Shrugging and rolling his neck with the action, Ben lets out another sigh that sounds like a yawn. "We party hopped, Kevin started tryna get us to help him with some alien tech, he tried killing someone for something, we beat him, I got my ass beat, what else is there to say?"

When Gwen suddenly stops in her tracks, Ben does too.

It takes him a second to realize why exactly she stopped and turned to him with wide eyes, but a pointed finger and furrowed brows make her school her expression with a giggle.

Rolling her eyes, Gwen snags a few bags of this and that before making her way back to the refrigerator and grabbing a coffee. "I don't care what you say," she laughs, handing some items off to Ben so she can pull out her wallet. "But if Grandpa finds out.."

"Did you know [name] calls him Grandaddy?"

Gwen squints an eye while they approach the counter. Throwing a glance outside the windows that covered the front of the gas station, she can see Grandpa Max and [name] working together to wash the Rustbucket.

"Did she do something to you?"

This startles Ben into waking up and nearly dropping the items in his hands on the floor. "What? No!" He was trying to keep his voice low even though there was no one else in the store and the clerk was too busy blasting music they could hear through her cheap earbuds. "Of course not! I thought you liked her!"