#AND I CAN DANCE TO IT AND HUG MY SIGNED VINYL COPY AND HOLD IT IN MY ARMS FOREVER AND EVER

[acaesic]

is it just me or is feb 23 is taking years and years to get here. its so close but so far away

[pennylanefics]

“Why do you hate me?” - Ben Hardy | part 10

a/n: i didn’t plan this part out very much, so i filled it with a few flashbacks. enjoy! :)

“I think you should go see him.”

Gwilym’s words repeated over and over in your head as he still sat in front of you, waiting for you to say something; although, he didn’t want to rush you, he wanted you to take your time.

“S-should I? I don’t even think he cares about me anymore.”

“I’m pretty sure he does, (Y/N). He loves you so much, ever since the first day on set, you were all he could talk about. Well, obviously behind your back because of that whole situation the first month.”

“He said he knew he was going to love me the second he saw me,” you whispered, thinking back to that moment in his trailer. Gwil smiled at your small ounce of happiness, but frowned when he noticed your tears.

“You don’t have to, darling. But, if it’ll help you two get some closure, or even fix things between you guys, you really need to.” You nodded softly and tried to regain your breath.

“He’s honestly an absolute mess. When he invited the guys and I into his apartment when we came to pick him up, his place was awful. Beer bottles everywhere, a few pictures were on the ground, broken. He looked worse. His eyes looked sunken in, they were red and puffy, looked like he had been crying for months. I’m really starting to worry about him. He stays in his room a lot, he told me that to get his anger out, he drums almost every day, and almost all day. He doesn’t look healthy, he seems to have lost some weight, although he still looks pretty buff,” you giggled at the unexpected comment and wiped some tears away. It was no use because more and more fell as Gwilym continued to speak.

“And seeing you today confirmed my suspicions that something happened between the two of you. You look almost as awful. You look like you haven’t slept, your eyes are puffy as well. Not only am I worried for Ben, but I’m worried for you as well, love.” You listened intently to his little speech, taking in everything he was saying.

“Okay,” you whispered. He looked at you, a surprised look taking over his features.

“What?”

“I’ll go and see him. Tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“You don’t have to, but if you want, just to make sure nothing happens.”

“I just don’t want him to lash out on you. He’s been extremely sensitive, as soon as I said something about you, he flipped out and started yelling at me. And then proceeded to kick me out of his apartment.” You chuckled a little and shook your head.

“Strange. It doesn’t seem like he cares about me if he doesn’t want to talk about me.” You stared down at your hands, now contemplating if you should go.

“His expression changed when I brought you up, though. It wasn’t angry, he looked hurt, regretful, and broken. I think he’s finally come to the realization that you two are most likely not going to be together.”

“I feel the same,” you whispered.

“Then go see him. Do it for the both of you. Who knows, you may rekindle your relationship. Or what was to be. This could turn into a happy ending.” You grinned a little and nodded. You always wanted a happy ending with Ben, after all you two have been through. He always promised that you would get your fairytale wedding, and that he would always treat you “like the princess you are”, as he said often.

“I will. Thank you so much, Gwil. I don’t know what I would do without you, seriously,” you told him, leaning into his body to hug him. You poured all of your emotions into the hug, holding him tightly as to say ‘just hold me.’ He caught on and gripped your body tighter, bringing your closer, if that was possible.

“Just tell me what time you plan on going over there. I’ll be there earlier just so I can make sure he’s not in a completely pissy mood, and most likely upset you more.”

“Probably not until late at night. I know I’m going to be drained by the time we’re done talking, and all I’m going to want to do is sleep.” He nodded and rubbed your back as you started to calm down a lot.

Once you felt relaxed, you pulled away from Gwilym and thanked him quietly.

“I’ll leave you to yourself. Are you going to be okay?” You nodded and gave him one last hug goodbye. You exhaled loudly once the door closed, feeling overwhelmed with everything that just happened, and is going to happen tomorrow.

Looking at the time, you hadn’t realized that you and Gwilym spent three hours together. You decided to write for the time being, to try and get everything off your mind for a few before you made some dinner.

You started jotting down your thoughts into your journal, the worn and ratty pages struggling to stay open. Your thoughts turned into a small letter for Ben. Tears dropped onto the blank page as you finally put what you wanted to say to him into words. The note turned out to be a couple pages long, front and back, so technically four. You noticed as you went to rip those pages out; you had to give him this, it is better than anything you could say vocally.

Checking the time once more, you realized it was now five, did it really take you two hours to write that? Seems right. You kept messing up, sometimes writing a whole page then scrapping it. But you were happy with the final copy. Setting the pages together on the coffee table, you slowly got up and made your way to the kitchen, getting ready to make a simple dinner. You chose mac and cheese, and as you waited for the water to boil, you sat back down in the living room. Something however caught your eye, something you haven’t seen in months, you completely forgot it was there. Your record player. You immediately started to cry, so many memories of you and Ben filtering through your mind.

You and Ben entered your apartment after going out to dinner for Valentine’s Day. Carrying two boxes of leftovers, you entered the kitchen to put them in the fridge. Ben, however, stayed in the living room and looked around; it was the first time he had been over there, and he was of course staying with you for the night. His eyes landed on the record player sitting on top of a small stand. He smiled softly as he remembered how much you love them. Looking through the stack, he picked out a Queen album of course, one of his favorites, A Night at the Opera. His smile grew as you came back into the room, looking at him strangely, wondering what he was up to.

“Just something for the background.” You chuckled and sat on the couch with him. The two of you continued to talk about random things, but that mostly consisted of reminiscing about moments on set, since filming ended about a month ago.

Side one ended a little too quickly so you got up to switch it. After The Prophet’s Song, Love of My Life sounded quietly through the room. Ben grabbed your hand and dragged you to the open space behind the couch.

“What are you up to?”

“Dance with me, love,” he whispered, wrapped his arms around your waist. Your hands automatically went around his neck, softly playing with the hair at the back of his neck.

Love of my life, you've hurt me

You've broken my heart and now you leave me

Love of my life, can't you see?

Bring it back, bring it back

Don't take it away from me, because you don't know

What it means to me.

Freddie’s beautiful voice echoed against the walls, Ben softly singing along all while staring into your eyes.

You will remember

When this is blown over

Everything's all by the way

When I grow older

I will be there at your side to remind you

How I still love you (I still love you)

“You know, (Y/N)?” He questioned while keeping his gaze on you. Humming in response, he took that as a sign to continue with his thought.

“You’re the love of my life.” His voice was just below a whisper, quiet enough that if you weren’t standing so close to him, you wouldn’t have heard. Tears pooled in your eyes as he grinned softly, bringing a hand up to pull your face closer. He captured your lips in his, the kiss so soft and innocent.

“I love you so much, Ben.”

“I love you too, darling.”

Remembering you had water boiling, you broke out of your daydream and jumped up, running into the kitchen. Thankfully, the water had just started to boil, so it wasn’t going to be a disaster. You continued on with the steps and finished it. Grabbing a bowl, you took your place back on the couch, turning on The Office to pass some time.

Once you finished eating and cleaning the dishes, you returned to the couch for the third time tonight, deciding to stay there for the rest of the night; you really didn’t feel like getting up, in all honesty.

One thing you did get up for was to put on that same vinyl. And now, you were back to looking through pictures from filming. You don’t know why, but you wanted to look through every single one. You wanted to go back to a simpler time, when you and Ben were soon to be in a relationship after the press tours, and not stuck in this mess. You picked up on the picture you left off on earlier today, swiping a few pictures before coming to one similar to one where the guys were under the king cape. Instead, it was you and Ben, and there was a cute story behind it.

Shooting was well underway, you and Ben now made up and becoming closer and closer after deciding to wait to be together. Although you weren’t needed on set anymore, as all your scenes had been shot and finished, you wanted to stick around, mostly to spend time with Ben. Obviously, he would be filming all day, every day, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t spend nights with him, or grab lunch with him during a break. Sometimes you didn’t show up until late at night, when everyone was ready to leave, so you could leave with him. No one really minded you being there, as you were apart of the movie anway, and you weren’t exactly bothering anyone.

Today was a day where you came up closer to them being done. They weren’t allowed any breaks for the day, unless they were about five minutes or less because there was so much to be done. When you did arrive, however, you couldn’t find Ben anywhere. He wasn’t in his trailer, he didn’t seem to be on set, and he wasn’t in any of the tents. You found Gwilym, who was dressed in his Live Aid costume, confusing you a little.

“I thought you guys finished Live Aid last month?”

“We did. However, we needed promotional pictures of us, and everyone was so caught up in focusing on starting new scenes, we forgot. So we’re doing that right now,” he explained as Joe showed up next to him, in his Live Aid outfit and hair as well.

“Have you seen Ben?” They both said nothing, but pointed down to the ground behind them. On an air mattress, who knows where it came from, laid Ben under the king cape Rami wore for the party scene, asleep in his Roger getup.

You laughed a little, noticing he was asleep and made your way over to him. Before you could caress his cheek like you always do when he’s asleep, Rami jumped on the mattress right behind him. This prompted Joe to plop in front of Ben, and Gwil to lie in front of Joe. Rami and Joe helped to spread the ‘blanket’ out, waking Ben up in the process. He groaned and laughed at the three guys trying to fit under the ‘cover’ as well. He still hadn’t noticed you, but continued to laugh.

You quickly took a video, taking a few pics in the process as well. You moved a little to the left and stepped into Ben’s view. His eyes lit up as he finally saw you.

“(Y/N), you’re here!” You captured his reaction in a picture, laughing at how happy and shocked he looked; it was the most adorable photo of him, even though he’s dressed as Roger still.

“Alright, you guys had your fun. Now move!” He shoved Rami, causing him to slide off and fall to the ground, then moving to push Joe and Gwil off so you could lay with him.

“I’m done with my shots for now, I went first because I was tired. But I have to stick around so we can do group pictures when the individual shots are done,” he explained as you sat next to him. He was still lying down, eyes closing a little, hinting that he is still tired.

“Go back to sleep, bub,” you whispered, leaning over to run your hand against his cheek. He hummed softly and fully shut his eyes.

“Cuddle with me?” He whimpered, opening his arms for you to slip into. You giggled softly and lifted the cape to slide under it. His arms were immediately around you, keeping you close to his chest.

“Missed you.” Your cheeks heated up a little at his confession. He shuffled his body a little so he was now cuddling into you, his head resting on your shoulder, lips softly pressing against your neck.

“I missed you too. Now get some sleep.” Ben quickly fell back asleep, quiet snores escaping his slightly parted lips. You followed shortly after, your hand that was rubbing his back coming to a halt.

You didn’t know that the entire cast had taken at least one photo of you two at that moment. No one wanted to bother you just yet, so they waited even longer between individual shots to give you two some time to rest.

Thinking back to that moment, that was the only time Ben ever cuddled into you, to the point where you were holding him instead of the other way around. A smile made its way to your lips as Love of My Life came on, bringing you a sense of comfort.

A sense of hope that everything will go well tomorrow.