Archive of Our Own

Reed shouldn't have said it, but sometimes things just came out of his mouth when people were wrong. He knew the second he said it, though. Ben wouldn't believe him - "for a smart guy, why do you gotta be so stupid sometimes?" - but he did know.

("You like it," Reed always argued, and the corner of Ben's mouth always twitched. He knew Ben liked it because Ben always made that face when Reed opened his mouth and shut someone down, the one like he was fighting not to laugh.

"I don't hate it," he said. "Knock it off anyway.")

He had a few minutes until Ben's practice let out, and then they'd walk back to his garage together, just like always. Just like they would until school let out, and until Reed left for Baxter. It was a warm day, and standing outside Reed almost felt like there was nothing in the world beyond Oyster Bay. With his eyes closed, waiting for Ben, for once - the feeling didn't bother him.

Hands fisted in the back of Reed's shirt and yanked him back, pinning him against the wall.

So much for the dream: just him and Ben and a world of undiscovered things. Here in the real world Reed had Brian Wazdowski looking to pay him back for what his step-father called a smart mouth. It's gonna get you in trouble, kid, he'd told Reed, all of six years old. It remained one of the few things he'd been right about.

"I wanna ask you something, Richards," Wazdowski said. "Do you and Grimm like humiliating me? Is that it?"

"Why? What did Ben do?" Reed asked, staring right back. Wazdowski was Reed's height but twice as broad. Back when he'd been on the baseball team he and Ben had been in a fierce rivalry. They'd never liked each other, not since they'd been kids, and as a result Wazdowski had never liked Reed.

"Nothing compared to what I'm going to."

A pair of familiar hands wrenched Wazdowski back.

"You're going to want to let go of him," Ben said. "Now, Brian."

"What is he?" said Wazdowski. Ben's head tilted to the side, hand white-knuckled where he'd locked it around Wazdowski's wrist. Reed tracked the motion, the flex of Ben's fingers. The band-aid around the second knuckle on his index finger where he'd been burned working in the garage with Reed the day before. The old callouses and scars from a hundred other afternoons spent together, matching the marks on Reed's own hands. "Your prom date?"

Ben didn't flinch, but for one second his eyes darted to Reed's face. In hindsight, Reed realized Ben was giving him warning.

"Yeah," Ben said. "He is."

Wazdowski's jaw dropped open. No sound came out. For the first time in their entire history, Reed found himself in the same boat.

"You know what time it's going to be, you don't let go of him?" Ben said, his face a perfect blank and everything in his eyes. It made sweat gather at the small of Reed's back when Ben looked like that. "Tell me what time it's going to be."

Wazdowski let Reed go.

"Thanks," Reed murmured, and Ben looked at him with an equal mix of exasperation and fondness.

"C'mon. Let's go," he said.

Ben's hand slipped rest at Reed's back. Ben had touched him before, casual brushes in the garage and one or two memorable tackles when the shuttle had come a little too close to blowing up, but he'd never touched him like this, the spread of his fingers somehow possessive.

Reed had to put his own arm across Ben's shoulders so they could walk comfortably. Ben gave him an approving nod and a little sideways smirk, head practically resting on Reed's shoulder.

"So," he said, "what dumb thing you say this time?"

"Something smart," Reed replied, fingers and toes inexplicably tingly. "The usual."

Ben huffed a laugh. "You know, for a genius..."

"Yeah, yeah," Reed said, ducking his head to hide his grin. "I've heard it all before."

"You're distracted."

Reed looked up, face hot. Ben was watching him like a hawk from the other side of the garage. It wasn't rare, exactly, for Ben's gaze to make Reed's skin feel prickly, two sizes too small, but today was worse than normal. His palms were sweaty; he wiped them off on his pants.

"Is it because of this afternoon?" When Reed risked a glance at him he found Ben looking at the floor, too, his eyebrows furrowed like there was something about his shoes that required serious consideration.

"Why'd you say it?" Reed asking, twisting a screwdriver between his fingers. Ben shrugged.

"Shut him up, didn't it?" Ben said, shrugging, shoulders hunched as he eyed a particularly fidgety piece of the gate. He wouldn't look at Reed. "It's not like we actually have to go."

"No," Reed said, tongue clumsy in his mouth. "If we don't show up, he'll know that we lied about it."

Ben squinted at him. Reed ducked his head, fiddling with the screws.

"Reed," Ben said.

"Mm?" Reed mumbled. He chanced a glance up to find Ben watching him, hawk-eyed, suddenly smiling into his palm with his elbow propped up against the table.

"Are you asking me to prom?" Ben said.

"Technically, you asked me first," Reed said. "I'm just suggesting we... keep going to prom." His voice wobbled a little. He didn't know why. It felt like there were butterflies in his throat. His hands felt unsteady, like the time in seventh grade Ben had caught him sick with the flu, trying to work on the shuttle with a blanket draped over him like a cape.

"You wanna go to prom," Ben said, something warm in his eyes.

Reed's tongue felt too thick for his mouth.

"Keep going to prom," he corrected. "I'm saying we should keep going to prom."

"Okay, buddy," Ben said, easy as that.

Reed's suit had belonged to his dad, some twenty years before. It fit alright in the arms and legs but hung loose in the shoulders. He'd only ever seen a handful of photos - his dad was tall like him and unlike his stepdad, and at least back then he'd had a ponytail. Reed wasn't going to follow in his hair choices, but he liked that he looked like him in the suit.

His mother had asked what he'd wanted the suit for, and he'd told her. She hadn't asked who he was going with, so he hadn't explained.

He thought it was obvious anyway, when anyone thought about it. It made sense. What did he and Ben do that wasn't together?

Ben was sitting out on the steps of the junkyard in a tux a little too long in the leg and a little too big in the shoulder. Instantly Reed felt underdressed in his father's old navy suit. He stood when he saw Reed coming, smile soft the way it got when it was just them in the garage.

"Looks nice," Reed said, nodding at his suit.

Ben tugged at a lapel, shrugging one shoulder. He held the door open for Reed.

"Rental," he said, sounding nonchalant. He was happy, though. Reed could see it. "Mom tried to make me wear my brother's."

"You would've been handsome!" his mother shouted from the other room.

"I woulda had to roll up half the pant legs!" Ben shouted back. He rolled his eyes at Reed. "Hope you're ready for pictures."

Ben's aunt appeared with a camera like she'd been waiting for her cue. She was pretty and sharp-eyed like him, but the resemblance was ruined the second she licked her thumb and tried to scrub dirt off his cheek.

"Quit it," he said, ducking away from her and nearly tripping over Reed.

"What, I'm supposed to let my favorite nephew go to his only prom with schmutz on his face?" she said. She squinted at them and Reed took a step back behind Ben in case she came at his face next. "Come on, crowd in together - pretend you like each other, for god's sakes."

That was easy enough; Reed swung his arm over Ben's shoulders and Ben settled in against his side. Simple, like they fit together. Ben grabbed Reed's hand and squeezed, shooting him an amused look out of the corner of his eye as the camera went off.

Ben's aunt looked at the preview and scowled. "Always with the red eyes. One more, kids."

"Petunia, we're going to be here all night," Ben said, arm slipping from around Reed's waist as he made a grab for the camera.

It left Reed feeling empty and off-kilter, at least until Ben's mom came in from the other room and said, "You sure you don't want sandwiches before you go? Who knows what they're gonna feed you at that thing."

Prom was loud. Reed guessed he probably should have seen that one coming, but he could feel the music through his feet and it reminded him a little of the hum of the matter shuttle when the settings weren't quite right. Their repurposed gym was decked in purple streamers with someone's dusty disco ball hanging unevenly from the ceiling.

The backboard was new. Baxter had paid for it.

"Do we...?" he started, then stopped. He didn't know what he'd been about to suggest.

"No idea, buddy," Ben shrugged, shooting him a look. His hands were in his pockets. "If you want to..."

Alyssa, who'd been Reed's science partner this last year, was out on the dance floor, dark hair spinning as she twirled. She waved to him, a half-beckoning motion, like she wanted him to come dance. He shook his head at her.

Ben caught the motion, but Reed couldn't understand the look on his face.

A slower song came on and the room's frantic energy shifted to something else entirely. Ben swayed a little. For one panicky hot-cold second, Reed thought Ben might ask him to dance and he had no idea what to say.

But Ben's elbow just brushed up against Reed's and then he fell still again. The song ended without either of them saying anything.

Ben had his aunt's old flask tucked into his pocket. He waved it at Reed, saying, "Heard this is a prom tradition?"

Reed shook his head, then fumbled to take a sip. It burned all the way down. He handed it back to Ben. "Ethanol kills brain cells."

"Well you got those to spare," Ben said, laughing under his breath as he took a swig, but he didn't try and get Reed to drink again.

A fast song came on, the beat pounding at the base of Reed's skull. He felt sweaty and awkward in his dad's suit, looking at everyone else having fun and wondering what he was missing that he didn't get it. Ben didn't look like he was doing much better.

"You wanna get out of here?" Reed asked.

"God yes," Ben replied.

"Best night of our lives, right?" Ben said, laughing as they leaned into each other, practically tripping over each other's feet. Reed's house loomed ahead of them, all the lights off.

"I don't get it," Reed said. Ben had gone through most of the flask on his own and he clutched at Reed's sleeve. Reed grabbed him by the arm and pulled them both down to the ground in the driveway, right next to his stepdad's van. "What's the point?"

"Making memories?" Ben shrugged. "Doesn't matter to us, though, right? We got plenty of those."

Ben rubbed his hands together, breathing on them. He looked out over the dark street, eyes watchful. Reed's heart throbbed at the thought of saying goodbye. The minutes kept ticking down to it: Baxter. Thrilling. Terrifying.

Reed hadn't done anything without Ben since he'd been nine.

"Don't let those labcoats give you any shit," Ben said, like he knew what Reed was thinking. Reed huffed a quiet laugh.

"If they do, I know who to call," Reed said, jostling Ben's elbow with his own. Ben jostled him right back, catching him by the wrist and squeezing before letting go. "The muscle."

Ben's fingers stilled, just shy of touching Reed again, and then he was tangling their fingers together between them. He leaned towards Reed, face serious like Reed hasn't seen since they really had almost blown up the garage and the street was lined with flashing lights, an ambulance and a fire truck and Ben's mom storming the driveway to shout at Reed's stepdad. Reed could count Ben's eyelashes in the faded driveway light the same way he had that day, playing connect-the-dots in his head with Ben's freckles because his ears were still ringing too loud to answer any questions.

Then Ben grinned, sudden and brilliant and goofy like nobody else got to see him. "Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"

Reed burst out laughing. Ben followed suit, throwing his head back. He fell backwards until he was snow angeled out on the cement.

"You're drunk," Reed said, grinning down at him.

"Nah," Ben said, stretching his arms high above his head. He tangled the fingers of one hand in Reed's shirt, and somehow that was funny too. Reed laughed so hard his glasses fell off.

"Okay," he said, fumbling for them, "well, you can say what you want, but you're definitely drunk."

Reed's stomach hurt from laughing and his chest ached from the Ben-ness of it all. Everything felt like so much it was unbearable, but he didn't want it to end, either. He realized suddenly he'd been doing it all wrong. He shouldn't have been building a teleporter - he should have made a machine that let him relive this moment over and over again.

"Hey, hey. Here."

Ben slid his glasses back onto his face, reaching up to brush Reed's hair back from his forehead. His smile was crooked. The moment lasted two beats too long; Reed felt like he was floundering. Like he was missing something right in front of him.

Then Ben slipped his hand around to the back of Reed's neck and tugged him down against him, Reed's forehead pressed to Ben's chest.

"Okay," Ben said, squeezing the back of Reed's neck. "Maybe I'm a little drunk."

"Yeah," Reed told him, closing his eyes. Ben's shirt was soft and warm, his hand grounding with his thumb pressed to the top knob of Reed's spine. It was a little moment that felt big, like a split-second before solving a problem. Like almost but not quite making that connection.

Then Ben sighed, his hand falling away. "You packed yet?"

"Not yet," Reed admitted.

"You've still got a while," Ben said. He patted Reed's shoulder. "C'mon, get up, you're heavy."

Reed shifted. "It doesn't feel real yet."

"It's real, buddy. Always knew some day some men in black types would get you," Ben told him, his smile crooked. He heaved himself up, climbing unsteadily to his feet. "Alright, c'mon, c'mon. Get inside. I should get home."

"Don't," Reed said. "Stay over."

Ben looked at him, then looked away. He nodded and started for the side door.

They stumbled together into the house - Ben still drunk, Reed just reeling. It was dark - his mom and stepdad had gone to bed hours ago - and in the kitchen Reed cracked the fridge for light and made Ben drink a glass of water. They weren't quiet going up the stairs, snickering and elbowing each other, every other stair creaking beneath them, but the light in his parents' room never switched on.

Reed's narrow bed was barely big enough for him, let alone Ben, but they fell into it together anyway, back to back like always. Reed kicked off his shoes and put his glasses on the bedside table, but he was too tired to bother with the rest of it. Ben's back pressed up against his, spine to spine, a comforting warmth.

He closed his eyes, but he couldn't sleep. His head was buzzing.

"Reed," Ben said, barely more than a whisper in the dark. "You still up?"

Reed turned over. Ben's eyes were open, his gaze stony. The streetlamp outside threw strange shadows across his face.

"I'm up," Reed said, even though it was obvious.

"When it's ready, you call me," Ben said. "I don't want to miss that."

"You won't," Reed promised. Ben nodded.

"Okay. Good," he said. He sounded half-asleep. Reed wondered if he'd remember the conversation in the morning. "Don't forget. I wanna see it."

"I won't," Reed said. "I won't - it's the two of us, you know? You should see it. I'll call you. Promise."

"Good," Ben said, bumping his knuckles against Reed's chest. He yawned and his eyes fluttered shut. Reed waited until Ben's breathing had evened out before he touched his wrist, keeping the back of Ben's hand pressed against his sternum.

"Y'know, you could have the flying car," Ben said the morning Reed left for Baxter. He shouldered Reed's bag where he was waiting on the sidewalk. "Wouldn't matter. We still wouldn't be able to find anywhere to park."

"We could idle by the fifth floor," Reed said, trying to smile around the feeling in his stomach. Ben huffed and rolled his eyes, knocking his knuckles against Reed's shoulder.

"You got everything?" he said.

"It's not that far," Reed told him. "I can come back if I need anything. Come on, we'll miss the next train."

Ben nodded, but his eyes scanned over Reed's house like he was going to develop x-ray vision and spot a comb or a toothbrush or reveal that Reed hadn't packed any socks or underwear. "Said goodbye?"

"Yeah," Reed said, shrugging. Ben nodded, then grabbed another of Reed's bags. Reed tried to pull it away from him, but Ben won out like he always did.

"Alright," Ben said, "then let's go."

"I swear," Johnny said, hovering over them. Reed could feel the heat of him, only slightly less alarming than his panicked face and the unsettling sensation of being invisibly caught in midair. The gym roof they'd smashed through was hovering inches above the heads of a couple dozen promgoers and Sue's face was screwed up with the effort of keeping it all afloat. "I swear I only wanted to make you guys crash into that billboard."

"Everyone to the other side of the gym!" Sue shouted. The students scattered, dress hems fluttering and shoes squeaking.

"What a revolting development," Ben muttered, a phrase of his mother's Reed hadn't heard in a very long time. It was weird how four words could trip his heart up - he heard them in stereo: current Ben's gravel rough voice and past Ben's muttered breath.

A whole year back and Reed still felt like he had double vision. He wondered if it would ever stop. If, one day, when (when, and not if) he fixed it, if he'd look at Ben and still see rock, and underneath that rock flesh and blood. Like a matryoshka doll, all Ben.

Slowly, Sue lowered them to the ground. The hair at her temples was matted with sweat. Ben closed one huge hand over her shoulder as soon as it was safe.

"You did good," he said. She flashed him a small smile, back of her hand pressed to her forehead.

"Thanks," she said. "You hold my brother while I kill him."

Johnny's cry of wordless indignation was drowned out by the students rushing them. Suddenly there were a hundred questions in the air. Where had they come from, was it space, and hey I saw you on TVs alongside but you were just on fires. Reed traded a miserable look with Sue.

"Are you Bigfoot?" a starry-eyed girl in a magenta dress asked Ben. Reed cringed.

Ben, though - Ben only sighed and said, "Sure, kid. Why not. Merry Prom-mas."

Someone - a woman in a smart suit with a neat haircut, so Reed was going to go ahead an assume principal, because she looked kind of like the one he and Ben had had - broke through the crowd. She didn't have to say anything: she looked from the neat pile of wreckage Sue had swept against the wall, to them, and then once over again. She cleared her throat.

"I don't see any strange lights in the sky and nothing else has crashed through the roof," she said, "so I'm assuming we are not under any sort of attack."

"I'm so sorry," Sue said, stepping forward. "It was a mistake." She slid a long glance Johnny's way. "A stupid, reckless mistake."

"I don't know, open air gym could have a lot going for it," Johnny said, then hissed when Sue jabbed an elbow in his side.

"We'll pay for everything," Reed promised. He eyed the hole their fall had punched through the ceiling. "We'll pay double."

"Well," the principal said, sighing, her hands on her hips. "I'm not about to end the school year kicking four super people out of prom. That's asking for my car to get keyed. So you might as well stay."

They all exchanged glances.

"I don't think," Reed started, stopped, shrugged helplessly. Johnny echoed him.

"We might not have much of a choice," Sue admitted. "I need a break, and unless you want to take a cab all the way back..."

"Oy," said Ben.

That was how the four of them ended up awkwardly clustered together in a corner.

"You're a dead man when we get home," Sue told Johnny, who kept nodding his head to the beat of the music.

"I'm at the only prom I've ever been to with a rock monster, Gumby and my sister," Johnny said. "I think this is punishment enough."

"Hey, I don't have to be here," Sue said as she flickered out of view. Ben snickered, a low rumble in his chest that Reed felt through the floor almost as much as he heard. They watched as Johnny sprang forward to chase after her.

"Sue!" he said. "Sue, come back! Where'd the seventh grade Electric Slide champion go, huh? You need to show these kids how it's done!"

"I'll be hiding by the punch if anybody needs me," Sue's voice whispered in Reed's ear. Her invisible shoulder bumped his visible one as she slipped past. "Don't tell Johnny."

"And then there were two," Ben said.

"Terrific Two," Reed tried. Ben snorted, shaking his head.

"Stop trying to make Fantastic Four happen." He sighed, crossing his massive arms across his chest. He cast an eye at the dance floor - what was left of it. "We were better dancers."

"We didn't dance," Reed reminded him. It felt strange to talk about it, like it didn't belong to them anymore - it was some other Reed and Ben's thing, and it had never happened to these new versions of them.

"Exactly," Ben said, sounding amused.

Reed looked out at the dancers - Johnny had ingratiated himself with a group of them, no real surprise there - and, like a man possessed, said, "Did you want to?"

Ben went very still beside him. Immediately Reed wished he could take it back. That wasn't something he was allowed to ask anymore. Like a child, he wished for a time machine - but if he had a time machine there were so many more important things to fix than his own stupid, ill-timed question.

Ben's huge hand came down heavy and gentle against his back.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess I kind of did. You?"

Reed swallowed, his mouth dry, throat tight, heart aching. Hindsight was 20-20: He shouldn't have called Ben that night at Baxter. He should've danced with him that night at prom. A hundred revisions he could've made and none of them seemed as important as those two.

"I didn't know I did," he answered honestly. "But I think I should've."

Ben turned his head to look at him. Even when everything else was different, his eyes had stayed the same. Reed was caught between wanting to run away and wanting to stay exactly where he was, pinned like a butterfly underneath Ben's heavy gaze.

Then Ben started to laugh, just a deep rumble at first before he threw his head back with it. Reed couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Ben laugh like that. He'd never heard it from like this, deep and grinding, the way a mountain would laugh. He wanted to rest his cheek against Ben's massive chest and feel it.

Ben made the decision for him, pulling him in tight.

"Why do you have to be so stupid, huh, smart guy?" he asked.

Easy as repeating an old joke, Reed felt himself smile and say, "You like it."

They were quiet for a minute, standing there in their shadowed corner with Reed's temple pressed against Ben's side and Ben's huge hand on his back. Reed remembered sidling in close together in Ben's mother's house while his aunt took photos. He ached with wishing he had a copy.

The hard, tall press of Ben against him was so different than the compact boy at his side, but it was still Ben. There was no one Reed would have rather had.

"Brings back memories," Ben said as the song changed to something slower. Reed nodding, his eyes drifting shut. If he tried, he could almost make himself believe it had happened: just one dance with Ben's hands locked at the small of his back, Ben's head on his shoulder.

"Do you want to," he started, before he could stop himself. Ben stiffened, his grip on Reed gone a little too tight. Ben wouldn't hurt him, though. Even in Panama, full of anger and betrayal so strong the memory of it made Reed's stomach burn, Ben had captured him and stopped there.

("Would you ever have come back?" Ben had asked him, their first week in Central City.

Reed nodded desperately, throat almost too tight to speak. "Yes. Yes. I was trying to fix it. I -"

"They said," Ben cut him off with a great shuddering breath, the moment before a landslide. "They said you wouldn't come back. That you'd left us."

They'd sat there together, pressed shoulder to shoulder, for what felt like hours.)

Reed leaned his full weight against Ben and waited.

"Not here," Ben said. Reed's heart fell, even though he knew he had no right to expect different. They couldn't go back.

"Sorry," he said, pulling away a little. It was hard to disentangle himself completely from the press of Ben, the dry desert heat of him. Ben's fingers twitched against his side and Reed looked up to see him shaking his head, chin tipped down.

"No, I meant," he broke off, sighing. "Not here. But. Outside?"

Outside the air was crisp but not cold. The music floated soft and faraway, and Reed could close his eyes and just breathe. It was like being eighteen and in Oyster Bay on a quiet afternoon: just him and Ben and a world of possibilities. It was better, though, because if he let his mind wander he could feel Sue and Johnny not too far away, blips on the radar. It felt like something clicking, like that connection made, like a new idea he couldn't wait to start on.

He opened his eyes and found Ben watching him.

"That look," Ben said, shaking his head. At first Reed hadn't been sure he was allowed to learn the new ways Ben smiled, but then it had been easy. The curve of Ben's mouth warmed Reed straight through. "What're you thinking about?"

Reed was thinking about how one day, one day he was going to get it. He was going to fix everything. But for now he had Ben, and Sue and Johnny, and they were all fantastic. That was all that mattered.

"Who's going to lead, mostly," he said.

Ben snorted. "Go ahead. Try. It'll be funny."

He held out his hand, palm up, and Reed curled his fingers around Ben's thumb. They stumbled a little, not quite in tune to the music. Reed kept stepping on Ben's foot - "Better than the other way around," Ben said, dry - and Ben's other hand hovered unsure in the general vicinity of Reed's entire side.

Then Reed took one cautious step forward, putting his ear to Ben's chest and wrapping his arm around Ben's waist. It was easy from there, more swaying than anything else, falling into steps Reed hadn't known he already knew. It was just Ben. He knew Ben.

Reed's heart beat too loud in his ears as the song drew to a close. "Can I -?"

"Reed," Ben said, simple as that, his fingers curling around Reed's side, his head tilted down. Reed stretched up, fingers splayed against Ben's face.

The hard press of Ben's mouth against his own was impossibly gentle. It lasted only a second, and then Reed was falling back on his heels. His eyes stung. His heart felt fit to burst.

The song that came on afterwards was bright and fast, the kind of thing Reed had never known how to dance to even in the privacy of his own room. They fell away from each other without a word, but Reed kept his hand in Ben's.

Ben sighed deep in his chest. "Some prom."

"We didn't break this school's backboard," Reed offered and Ben snorted. He curled his fingers around Reed's, carefully, delicately.

"Do you even know where we are?" he asked.

"The coordinates we were following," Reed started, only to stop when Ben turned a glare on him. "Okay. Okay, no. I have no idea."

"You should build us that flying car," Ben said. Reed laughed, resting his forehead on Ben's rocky chest.

"You told me once it didn't matter because we'd never be able to find parking," he said.

"I'm reconsidering," Ben said. "I'll make us parking."

"I'll help with the car," Johnny called from somewhere behind them.

"I'm not riding in anything that has fins on it," Sue said, fading back into sight at her brother's side. "I'm going to be clear on that now."

"You're not fun," Johnny said to her. He jogged around them, grin bright under the parking lot lights. "Hey, so, Sue and I found a motel a little ways away. I figure we check in for the night and head back tomorrow? Four rooms?" He squinted at them, then shook his head. "Actually, wait. It's prom night. Three rooms."

Ben made a grab for him but Johnny only danced out of his way, laughing. "Happy prom, guys!"

Sue slipped past them, shaking her head. "Sorry about him. Eternally."

Reed couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up, but he chose to hide it, pressing his forehead against Ben's arm as they walked.

"You want to go to the prom we just crashed with me?" he asked.

"Dork," Ben said. Then, quieter, "Buddy, all I want to do is go home with you."

"Okay," Reed said, twisting his fingers until they wrapped all the way around Ben's wrist. "Let's go."