This Is Your Demise

Looking around the room at James and Cameron, Danny felt uncomfortable. He didn’t know how they were going to react to Ben’s outburst last night and everything just felt awkward.

Cam though, he was walking around and as if it hadn’t happened at all; he was even whistling as he heated himself some frozen waffles.

“Why’re you so cheerful?” Danny asked him, stealing one of Cam’s waffles and nibbling on the end of it.

“Why not?’ Cameron made a face when Danny took his food and popped another waffle in the toaster. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t be. Actually, I should be even more cheerful than usual. Ben finally did it.”

James and Danny held their eyes on Cam, who was oblivious.

“I. Are you talking about what Ben said last night?” Danny chewed slightly on his lower lip, his mind running at a million miles an hour.

“Duh. I’ve been hoping he’d tell you for months but he never did. Until last night, I mean.”

“You knew about it?” James sat down on the couch and messed with his hair, his eyes still on Cameron.

“Yes, I knew about it.” Cam rolled his eyes and poured large amounts of syrup over his waffles, sitting down at the little table to eat his food.

Danny stared at Cameron. He wondered how long Ben had liked him, and how long Cameron knew about it. It seemed strange to him, knowing that Cam and Ben had probably talked about how Ben liked him, and that Cam had tried to convince Ben to tell him about his feelings. It was just weird in general to have those two keeping secrets from everyone else, because Danny never really got that they were close. Himself and Ben were the closest out of everyone in the band, and the others were just good friends.

Danny was forced from his thoughts when he heard Sam walk in the room, and he frowned. He knew that Sam had gone into the bathroom with Ben, and he didn’t like it. He should’ve been the one to go comfort Ben. I mean, it only made sense, right? Danny was the reason Ben was upset, so Danny should be the one to fix the problem.

Speaking of Ben, he walked out into the room a few minutes after Sam did, and the whole room got quiet. Ben pretended not to notice, or maybe he didn’t notice, and headed over to sit across from Cameron, stealing a bite of his food as he sat down. Everyone else returned to what they were doing after Ben made no motions to say anything, and Danny stared at him.

Ben seemed different to Danny, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He looked more sure of himself maybe? More confidant? Whatever it was, Danny liked it. Ben looked better like that, instead of having this constant look of worry and fear on his face.

Then Danny mentally slapped himself for thinking that.

A few hours later Danny was on stage working on sound check, and his thoughts were tormenting him. Earlier, he had seen a girl that looked exactly like Myca, and his heart crumbled. All this madness with Ben had driven any thoughts of his ex-girlfriend out of his head, but now they were all rushing back.

Danny gently rubbed his temples with his finger tips and tried to focus on what he was doing, but of course it was harder than expected. Everything he thought about to try and forget, it would remind him of something about her or that they did together and he would break a little bit more. He didn’t know what else to do.

“Oi, Danny,” Ben called from backstage and he groaned. Ben was exactly not what he needed right now.

“Yeah?” he replied grudgingly, eager to get Ben away but also nervous to even speak to him.

“Can you c’mere for a sec? My guitar strap is tangled but I can’t reach it to fix it.”

Danny pouted inside his head but went over to where Ben was anyway, barely looking where he was going. He didn’t want to look up and have to face Ben at all, but he knew he was going to have to eventually.

He couldn’t help himself though, and he laughed when he saw how tangled up Ben’s guitar strap was.

“How the fuck did you manage this, mate?” Danny was still chuckling, but now again he was nervous. He had to touch Ben in order to fix it, and he really didn’t want to do that. Partially because Ben might somehow notice how tense Danny was, and questioning him about it Ben would realize that Danny was not okay. Also, Danny wasn’t sure how it would affect Ben if he touched his skin. Granted, it wasn’t his actual skin, but a thin t-shirt wouldn’t really hide the fact that Danny was touching him.

“I don’t know, but just fix it,” Ben whined. Danny could hear the pout Ben was wearing easily.

Danny let out a small laugh to hide his nerves and reached a hand out, trying his hardest to only touch the guitar strap. Danny twisted here and pulled there and soon the strap was almost normal, but then the tips of his fingers brushed against the material of Ben’s shirt and Danny froze, staring at the back of Ben’s head.

Ben was still humming one of their songs as he waited for Danny to finish, what sounded like Another Bottle Down, and Danny relaxed. He hadn’t noticed, everything was still okay.

As Danny was moving his fingers away from Ben’s skin, he noticed how warm Ben was, even with his shirt on Danny could feel the heat was radiating from his body. Knowing that he probably shouldn’t, Danny slowly placed his palm between Ben’s shoulder blades, and then allowed his fingers to set there as well. He was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t notice Ben had stopped humming.

“Whoa,” Danny breathed softly, his voice barely making a sound. Ben was just so warm. Danny knew it was probably just from the adrenaline rush they all got before preforming a show, because he didn’t remember Ben being this warm when he was in his bunk.

Before he knew what he was doing, Danny had wrapped his arms around Ben’s small frame and pulled, making Ben’s back press against Danny’s chest. He could feel the warmth from Ben even more now, and he sighed softly, resting his forehead on Ben’s shoulder. Danny felt so damn good right now. He was relaxed, his thoughts that had broken him down just a few minutes ago had ceased to exist and he was very comfortable like this.

Danny closed his eyes and let his mind wander, trying to soak up as much of Ben’s warmth as he could. He could hear the usual noises of sound check going on, but they were oddly muffled, like he had earplugs in his ears or he was listening from behind a closed door.

He had absentmindedly started rubbing his thumbs against Ben’s small waist, and now let his hands travel up further. One of his fingers ghosted over Ben’s navel and he felt Ben twitch in his arms. Danny smiled at this reaction.

“Jesus fucking Christ Danny! If you don’t let go of Ben soon he’s gonna have a fucking heart attack.”

Danny’s eyes snapped open and he looked around. James was standing a little to his right, a look of surprise and uncertainty on his face. As Danny looked at James, the noise suddenly returned to its normal level and he could hear Ben’s heavy breathing, which he didn’t hear before. As he let go of Ben, the smaller man quickly yanked off his guitar and mumbled stuttered excuses to head to the bathroom, which he hurriedly did.

Danny leaned against the wall and smacked himself on the forehead. “Oh god, he hates me.”

“Oh I highly doubt that,” James giggled out. Danny gave him a look and James explained. “He had a boner the size of a mountain, dude. Whatever you were doing, he was far from hating it.”

“Really?” Danny looked over in the direction of the bathroom and bit his lip. He didn’t know why he liked the idea that he can turn Ben on, but he did. It bothered him.

Danny heard James clear his throat and he looked up, James losing the surprise on his face and just looking uncomfortable. “You, uh. You ‘re hard too, mate.”

Danny quickly looked down and gasped softly. James wasn’t lying, he was definitely turned on. “I’m uh, I’m just gonna—just gonna go this way…”

As he hurried to bathroom, Danny was panicking. No way, no way, no fucking way. This was not happening. Ben did not make him hard. There had to be some logical explanation for this.

As Danny pushed the bathroom door open, he remembered something very important: Ben was in here.