"Are you okay?"

Whether he's okay isn't what's important.

"I'm fine. Just — can we just cuddle?" 

It's not an apology it's not even a confession but it's better than nothing, right? 

"Of course," he says. "I don't want to do anything with you that you don't want."

That's because you're a better person than I am, he doesn't say. 

He holds Ben against his chest and puts a hand on the back of his head and doesn't say any of what he's thinking. 

Ben rests his head on Chen's chest and doesn't say any of the things he's thinking either.

He's just. Going to cradle Ben. And pretend that he isn't disgusting, because he's a coward, and live with the fact that he's doing that. 

Well. Kissing is a thing that happened and. It's just going to never happen again. It was sick and wrong and perverted and he hurt Chen until Chen figured out a way to get him to stop and it is one of the best things that ever happened to him but as long as he never does it again it'll be fine. 

He thinks about it whenever he's alone, or whenever class is boring, or whenever an adviser is droning on about the nature of goodness. The sounds that Chen made, his warmth, the way he felt touching Ben. And that's-- okay. At least he has that memory and nothing is ever going to take it away from him. 

The advisers try to get him to pick one of Cinderella's older children as his heir. He stands his ground and gets Asher designated as his heir. Asher has impeccably royal blood, but isn't technically the prince of anywhere, so there's no favoritism. And he's Ben's best friend, so he'll know the ropes going in. It'll piss off Louisiana to have a black king but maybe it'll make them feel better that they have a Louisianian one. 

(And Ben trusts him like he trusts no one else.)

It's the first battle Ben ever wins. Asher makes the four of them a ridiculous six-course meal afterward to celebrate. 

His dad asks him what he's planning to do about the strike. At some point he'll have to stop dodging the question.

He can't let that happen again. He can't, not even if stopping made Ben sad, he can't, can't let himself take advantage of Ben that way, can't let it become a habit, can't let it even get close to one. 

He can't stop thinking about it. At night, in class, when he's alone, during tourney, which he still can't figure out a way to gracefully quit. How soft Ben's hands were, how gentle, the warmth of his mouth, the little whimpery noises he made, the way it felt when he kissed Chen's shoulders — he tries to keep his mind on other things, and. Doesn't succeed. 

He sits next to Chen. He puts his head on Chen's shoulder. He holds Chen's hand. He doesn't cuddle with him alone. He tries not to want things as much as he does.

He sits next to Ben and holds his hand and doesn't touch his hair and doesn't twine their fingers together and doesn't touch him in any way that Ben doesn't initiate. 

He doesn't deserve as much as he's letting himself have, but. Anything Ben wants Ben can have. 

Ben is sitting with his head on Chen's shoulder when Asher says, "You know, you're going to have to figure out something to do about the strikers eventually."

"I know, I just."

He wraps an arm around Ben's shoulders. 

"You know what you have to do. Send Aladdin to negotiate with the genies and then order the use of the anti-magic field to break the strike."

"But the strikers are right."

"It doesn't matter whether they're right. It matters what we can get away with."

...he doesn't say anything, but his mind catches on "negotiate with the genies," there's definitely something there — 

"If I'm king, I'm supposed to be taking care of all my citizens, not just the ones that are the most powerful."

"Yes. That's what I'm saying. Take care of all your citizens, not just the few thousand that have come to your attention right now."

"So, what, it's fine that the fairies and dwarves are slaves because there aren't that many of them?"

"Of course it's not fine! It's obviously not fine!"

"Then why don't you want me to do something about it?"

"Because if you want to get anything done in Auradon you have to appease a bunch of horrible evil people, and if we appease them on this we can work on industrializing agriculture or public health programs or legalizing magic or contraception or getting people off the Isle--"

"You say that every time. 'We can't do anything yet, Ben, we have to save our energy, we have to use this on something important.' This is important!"

"You're a king, Ben, everything you do is important! You have to learn to fucking prioritize--"