With Every Single Beat of My Heart

Five

I wanna love you
I love every little thing about you
I wanna love you, love you, love you
Born - to love you

Having a service dog was enough for them for the time being, but Ben still wanted more. He wanted Joe to have the best treatment humanly possible. Even if it meant going against his wishes and using his money to get places.

He had spoken to Tom about it, about getting Joe under Tom's insurance but the older man was reluctant. Not because he didn't want to help, but rather it was more paperwork than anything. Legal issues. Ben was different. Legally, Tom was his stepfather and had a bit of relationship with him. Joe wasn't anybody to Tom, making it harder for the insurance company to take him on.

However, there were ways around that. To beat the system. It wasn't like Tom could just adopt Joe or anything of the sort but if there was another way they'd be legally binding to one another. Say he become his step-son-in-law, things would be different.

Ben didn't even think twice about it. Marriage wasn't going that ever crossed his mind. His parent's marriage crumbled without an attempt to fix it and while his mum and Tom were happy, Ben refused to accept them as role models.

He knew good marriages existed, he just never saw himself in one when he looked to the future. All of that had changed however after he met Joe.

Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months. It was a year to the day they met that Ben decided to throw caution to the wind.

He took Joe to the hospital, up onto the roof. It was their quiet place and the only place he could imagine ever doing this.

"I never imagined meeting someone like you," Ben had confessed to him. "You have completely flipped my life upside town, Joe. Before I met you I was . . . nothing. Some trust fund bastard who used those around him to get by. I never cared for anybody other than myself. And then I met you. Someone so utterly stubborn who calls me out on my garbage and puts me in my place."

"Ben, why are you saying all this?" Joe asked cautiously.

He wasn't smiling or blushing. He wasn't confused, but rather concerned. Leave it to Ben to feel joyful and bashful at the idea of proposing and leave Joe to see right through it all.

"I'm saying this because you've made me the happiest man on the planet, and because of that, I want to ask you a question."

Ben moved back to get down onto one knee, but Joe stopped him. "Ben! Ben, no. No, no. Whatever you're going to ask — don't."

"Don't? You don't even know what it is."

"I'm not stupid or blind. You have seen my film collection. Do you know how many proposals I've wanted in my lifetime?"

He was annoyed and it caught Ben off guard. Weren't people supposed to be happy when their significant others popped the question?"

"You said you understood that when we started this," Joe told him, pacing swiftly on the rooftop. "You promised me!"

"What does that have to do with me proposing?"

"Everything!"

It wasn't rare for them to have this argument. They had avoided it for a while now, thanks to Frankie, but Ben knew their pure happiness wouldn't last. Not when Joe was like this. Stubborn and hateful and angry.

"Why?" Ben asked him, his voice low. He was flexing his fingers, itching to punch something. He was too tired of it all. Of the fighting, of Joe refusing to just throw caution to the wind and do what he really wanted without having to worry about his heart. "Why can't you just do what I want for once?"