#modern!ben

@kylo-wrecked

A cheshire grin chewed at Brunnhilde's face. She perched beside Ben and tugged his cotton cowl lower, obscuring his eyes so that she could kiss him blind.

"I cannot turn off the sun," she pressed her mouth to the corner of his jaw, "or make you less hungover." She kissed the other side, "but I can bring you toast," and then Ben's cheek, "and coffee," his nose, "and aspirin."

@kylo-wrecked

@kylo-wrecked

His name is illuminated in her palm. "Just Ben". He is still Just Ben.

[b] Checking up on me? [b] I'm fine.

She's smiling. Just a little. Just for being checked up on.

@kylo-wrecked

It had been akin to swimming, the run they had made. Swimming would have gotten them equally drenched.

Brunnhilde felt as if she might not be dry for days. But she laughed, and the sound echoed around the void. Around a pavilion near the banks of Symphony Lake - the only true shelter they had been able to find before drowning.

"You call this rain?" Her throat almost had to yell to be heard over the drumming water. Her dress clung to her navel. To her collarbone. To her thighs. She slicked her hair back with her hands in an attempt to seem composed.

"I don't think we're going to that restaurant." Brunnhilde sucked water from her own mouth, then looked to Ben. Then to his mouth. He, too, looked as if he had been thoroughly baptized. "I like it too."

@kylo-wrecked

"Where else would I be?" She had the vastness of space at her spine - and no question more genuine. Brunnhilde set her gaze on Ben the way one might set a hand in another. The way one might kiss a wrist.

@kylo-wrecked

[text] i'm sorry.

there are only so many ways to type it, and none of them make 3 am any less of a torment. erase the text. type it again. erase it. that's right - dont send it. he's probably got you blocked anyway. you've only just unblocked him - just in case. just in case he had sent something, or if he wanted to. the phone was silent. they had not been silent in parting. not silent, not gentle, not kind. fucked. fuck.

[text] i lov-

shit no. backspace. don't do that. jesus christ, dont do that. what are you, a crazy person? [hello, you haven't heard from me in - gods know how long - and the first thing you get is that?] followed by a frantic [sorry, wrong number]; which is never cool, and never looks unintentional. fuck. be cool and intentional, b.

[text] what wine do your parents like? and flowers? i want to send an apology gift. p.s) i think our mothers gossip about us.

absolutely not. erase. erase. erase. stop flailing around like a lunatic. and dont think about how you both flailed around in this exact spot. thinking about the sex while wondering if you should send his parents wine and flowers - yes, brilliant. you're a fantastic sociopath. imagine them getting that bouquet too. you could write [sorry about your dinner party] on the card. or just [sorry about your son]. dont scream into your pillow, you dramatic bitch.

[text] i'm sorry.

@kylo-wrecked

Oh.

Fucking Ben was fun. It was primal, physical, passionate - all the things fucking ought to be. It certainly wasn't anything Goethe, Rousseau, or Schopenhauer would write about. Or, it wasn't supposed to be. Perhaps, now, they would all sit around a table and laugh as they wrote about it. About how wanting to fill someone's palms with your shapes and sounds was exactly the kind of thing they were famous for.

Brunnhilde inhaled against Ben's temple and imagined she could taste his pulse. She imagined that she could feast upon the soul between his brows and rend his sternum with a spark of cosmic bliss. His fingers drew them closer than they already were. They did what thighs and breasts and bellies could not. They had her making knots in his hair with her free hand. They had her thinking of little more than thunder.

@kylo-wrecked