can anybody find me... // hardzello [FINISHED]

can anybody find me

Beams of sunlight stretched from the window filling Ben's eyes and hurting his head. How long was last night? How much did he drink? His last memory was laying on the couch, resting his head in Joe's shoulder and singing softly to "Doing Alright". It was a nice last memory. Ben's mind clicked at that moment, curious to see where was he finding himself in; it was the couch, the same one he sang with Joe, but he was alone this time, lying down covered in a soft grey blanket and with his phone on the floor instead of in his pocket.

He sat himself up, his head pounding because of last night, and took his phone from the floor. He scrolled through the lock screen, finding a couple of random notifications from instagram and twitter, and lastly, eight notifications from Joe. A small grin formed from Ben's lips, what had Joe sent him?

Joe, 11:34pm: hey ben, you just did a small photoshoot of us in my phone and i thought you'd want the pictures lol
Joe, 11:35pm: seven images

Ben scrolled to the images. One of both of them in the couch, Joe's arm around Ben, both making funny faces. Ben was making a duck face and crossing his eyes and joe was sticking his tongue out, but you could see he was about to burst in laughter. The next picture was an evidence of that: Ben laughing with his eyes shut and Joe with his head thrown back, also with his eyes closed, but in a calmer way. The next one was one that Ben probably took without Joe noticing. Joe was singing and smiling and Ben had one of the corners of his mouth turned up, Ben liked that picture a lot. The fourth one was a selfie Ben tried taking of Joe, but his hair could easily be seen in the corner of the picture, while Joe was rolling his eyes and smiling widely. His hair was all ruffled up and his lower lip was slightly tinted from the wine, Ben noticed.

The next three pictures Ben assumed were taken by Rami, because it was Joe spinning Ben around with one hand, which seemed hard since Ben was taller than Joe. The other one was Ben hugging Joe and lifting him in the air, and the last one was Ben and Joe in that waltz position, Ben leaning forward and holding Joe from falling on the ground. You could see that Ben and Joe were both about to fall since they had huge laughing smiles, and Ben's balance was probably really off because of the alcohol.

Ben, 11:34am: Cheers mate, those are some good pictures haha

Ben sent the text and put his phone down for a second, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. He heard steps coming from one of the rooms in the house.

— Good Morning Ben.
A familiar voice said yawning, a voice that yesterday was singing "Doing alright" to him...
— Joe? Did you sleep in?
— Yeah, Rami invited me to stay the night and didn't let me go. — Joe smiled — Which was good, otherwise you would've drank Lucy's entire liquor storage and would also have interrupted Rami and Lucy at some point in the night.
— No! Are you serious? Did I almost get in their room while...
— Yup. And you whined when I pulled you away from the door, because you needed Lucy to paint your nails and do face masks.

Both of them bursted in laughter, but quickly toning it down so they wouldn't wake the others up.

— It was all nice before that, though. — said Joe
— I mean, the last thing i remember is singing Doing Alright with you, the rest is kind of flashes that i can't really connect but yeah, from what I rememberer everything was nice.
— So you don't remember dancing? Running away from Lucy? Crying on my shoulder?

Ben went red over the thought of crying. The last time he had cried in front of someone was in front of Tony, his abusive ex, when they broke up. Then alone, always alone after that. Not even drunk, not even high, not even hurt.

— Did I... Did I cry in front of you?

Joe also blushed, although way more lightly. Ben cleared his throat quite loudly.

— Yeah, you did. You... you seemed scared to do it, though. I felt you holding it in, and you needed to let it out. I couldn't let you be so hard on yourself.
— Thank you Joe. Really.
— No worries Ben. Just make sure you don't deal with the whole Maddie thing by drinking every time.
— Not every time.

They laughed, facing each other, Ben on the couch and Joe standing up. That was a simple moment but Ben liked it, a wave of warmth ran through his body and for a second he forgot the hangover, the pain in his heart and there was only beams of sunlight stretching from the window and the sound of the laughter.

But that was a second. Now Maddie came back to his mind, the feeling of her hand slipping off of his, of her eyes shifting away from him, the blunt look on her face when he expected a smile.

— Hey Ben, what's going on? Is it Maddie?
— Yeah...
— Okay, this is it, I'm making you waffles!

Joe headed to the kitchen and Ben couldn't be more happy to have a friend like that. He missed people that knew how to comfort him. It's not like Gwil, Rami and Lucy didn't try, it's just that their timing was almost a beat off. They did an amazing job every time, it just took longer. Joe got in the beat, he knew when to laugh, when to hug and when to be serious.

When the waffles were ready and Ben walked over to the kitchen, he came to his senses:

— Joe it's a bloody Thursday! What time is it? I need to get to work! Jesus fucking Christ I—
— Relax Ben, I woke up earlier today because of my alarm and I warned for both of us, I called in sick for me and told Gwil to do the same for you.
— Joe you're my angel.

Joe blushed, clearly. Ben felt embarrassed, he didn't meant to let him uncomfortable, and now he was blushing. Joe snapped out of it quickly, and returned to the conversation.

— Uh, well, what do you want your waffles with?
— Only butter.
— Oh God you're dull! — Joe said Jokingly
— Shut up! Give me my waffles! — Ben laughed and nudged Joe a little — If you think it's so dull good, I won't have to share it!

They laughed and ate their waffles, Ben sitting in the kitchen counter and Joe on the floor rested on the wall — very gay ways to sit — with the plates on their laps and Joe's phone softly playing music. It was essentially Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Bowie and everything that Ben liked. It was relieving, of course he already knew Joe liked rock and roll but saying that doesn't mean you like the same type of band as each other. Ben could almost forget the events with Maddie from last night.

Almost.

heya! first of all thank you for the 500 reads (i know it might not seem much to some, but for me is a biggie) and second, i pretend on making this a relatively long story, so if i'm able to, this will be very extended! if not, that's also fine, i'm just planning ahead lol!
see you with a new chapter soon my loveys, bye bye =)