In the locker room, Ben's face lights up like it always does when he sees Chen.

"Good game today!"

"Yeah," and his voice is very very warm. "Good game." 

"I really think we might make it to the championship this year," Ben says, casually pulling off his jersey.

Chen isn't looking at Ben's chest or his arms or the way his shoulders and back move, isn't looking at his wrists or the dip just above his hips. He isn't. 

"Fingers crossed, anyway!" 

"We'll have to work hard and practice but I believe in us."

Ben takes off his pants.

He's still not looking! He's even more not looking than he was before! 

Locker rooms are one of the many reasons he doesn't like tourney. It's not public, really, but it's public enough. He changes as quickly as humanly possible. 

Ben is a little disappointed that Chen changes so fast! It's pretty weird and he tries to avoid thinking about it. It's just sad that Chen doesn't feel comfortable around him.

His stomach growls. "I'm hungry. Want to grab something?"

He isn't particularly hungry, but, "I'd love to." 

"I feel like we never get to hang out."

"I do too, it's the worst." There are reasons for this, some of them good reasons, but they're very easy to ignore when Ben is right there. 

"I'm just really busy all the time with school and stuff. And Dad keeps joking that he's going to abdicate."

"Wow. And I've got the civil service exam in a few months, most of my time I spend studying." 

"Maybe we should study together more."

(His stomach flips, probably because Chen is very cool, and anyone would be nervous in his shoes.)

Ben wanting to spend more time with him feels warm and nice and good. "We should!" 

"Awesome!"

His face hurts a little bit from smiling.

He doesn't examine how much he likes when Ben smiles. 

He's not really sure what to say, once they get where they're going — most of the places that one can get food actually are public. 

Ben sits and his feet brush against Chen's feet. He doesn't seem to notice.

(He notices.)

It doesn't look like he notices either. (He notices.) 

He keeps up a conversation about — nothing, really, or at least, nothing he'd particularly mind if everyone else in the country heard. 

Ben is smiling a lot for a conversation that consists solely of small talk!

He feels electricity running up his skin from where their shoes are touching.

That's good. Ben smiling is very very good. Sorry he can't provide much more than small talk. 

He isn't paying attention to how he feels about the fact that they're touching. 

Ben leans forward to express a deeply held opinion about their history class and their knees brush briefly.

There is no outward reaction, but he listens very carefully. 

Next time he leans forward his knee just. Stays there.

 (Ben is aware he is a terrible person.)

Chen doesn't pull away, doesn't stop smiling. (He should pull away — he doesn't.) 

They can just sit like this until the meal is over.

Ben keeps losing his train of thought.

So does he. There's not much of a train of thought to lose, thankfully. 

He doesn't have any idea what he ate.

"Maybe we can go hang out in my rooms and do homework? Or yours, whatever."

"Your rooms sounds good." 

Something in his veins feels strange and he isn't sure what it is; he sets the feeling aside to examine — later. At some point. 

"We'll see if Asher has fallen asleep on my couch."

"Does he do that often?" 

"All the time. The main difference between my rooms and his rooms, from his perspective, is that mine don't have a kitchen."

He laughs. "That sounds like him!" 

"You know we grew up together, right? I spent like a quarter of my childhood in New Orleans getting into trouble."

"I didn't know that but it's not that surprising. What's New Orleans like?" 

"Naveen is really really bad at punishing kids. He gets two sentences into a lecture and starts laughing."

"That explains so much about Asher!" 

"Asher has his mom's intelligence and work ethic and cooking skill and his dad's everything else, it's a dangerous combination."

"It does seem like it," is all he knows Asher well enough to say. 

"Wonder how many people who are at Tiana's Place when I was there knew their meal was cooked by the future king of Auradon."

That's such a good smile.

"Probably not many!" 

They're at Ben's room and there is no sign of Asher.

"How about you? How was growing up in China?"

And there's the million-dollar question, isn't it. "It was — weird. Weirder than for most people, I knew I was going to be going to school in Auradon from when I was pretty young, Lonnie and I both grew up speaking as many languages as our parents could find people to teach us." 

"I can imagine. Even expecting that you'd go here Auradon must seem so weird."

"It really is — honestly the thing that threw me most at first was the names, I kept introducing myself as Li Chen and they'd look at me like they were expecting there to be more and I didn't realize they thought Li was my given name for months —" 

"That's really dumb! We should teach people how surnames work in China." He thinks. "Although we teach people lots of things and that doesn't always mean they know them."

"I don't think Lonnie minds introducing herself as Lonnie daughter of Mulan, it's just something to get used to." 

"That's up to Lonnie, but you shouldn't have to change your name if you don't want to."

This was supposed to be a fun anecdote about adjusting to a new culture, what does he say. "I mean, I didn't, I just introduce myself as Li Chen and accept that people will call me my full name every time I'm mentioned, it's not a big deal." 

Ben hugs him. "That sucks."

Oh. 

Hugs are really, really nice, and Ben is soft and warm and good. 

Hugs are nice. 

He holds on until it's a little weird, fails to have the willpower to let go for ten seconds, and then lets go.

no don't let go

"It really is fine," he says. He's not sure whether that's true or not. 

"It can be okay and still be something you shouldn't have to put up with."

He nods seriously and — doesn't lean on Ben. 

Ben doesn't lean on him either!

"It must be weird that none of us are Confucian."

"Less so than you'd think — that was one of the things we were expecting, I'd been preparing for it for a while." 

"I'm curious what you weren't expecting."

"I wasn't expecting the sports to be so — the word I want isn't useless, but I grew up doing archery in the expectation that I'd use it someday, tourney was very strange." 

Ben laughs. "It really is useless. I'd say Flynning is better but they systemically took all the useful parts of swordfighting out of it."

"I know! It's terrible! My mom used to watch tournaments and point out all the things that would get you killed if you tried them in real life." 

"Your mom sounds great."

"She is. — she used to bring a chess set to any party she expected was going to be boring." 

"I wish I could do that."

"After a certain age I couldn't get away with it either, but who'd stop you." 

"Lots of people. When I'm king-- which hopefully won't be for a long time-- I'm going to have to keep every human kingdom and all the nonhumans happy. If I offend someone at a party, they might block a law that's really important to me."

He doesn't know how to say 'I guess I thought politics would be different if you had actual power' in a way that is neither unspeakably rude in context nor unspeakably vulnerable in context, so instead he just hugs Ben. 

Gosh! Hugs!

"It's just. Once I become king, I won't have anything that's just for me ever again."

It's one thing for Chen to live like that but he is very very sure that Ben should not. 

"Yeah. Public property of Auradon." 

"Yeah. It's good to have a friend though."

"It is." 

Maybe he should hug Ben a little bit tighter. 

This should not make Ben as happy as it does.

Actually, everything should make Ben as happy as it possibly can. 

Eventually he says, "Probably we should do homework."

"Probably we should!" Most of the homework he has is for Chem. 

He's very smiley while they study.

Their hands touch when he gives Chen a pen.

He's smiley too. 

Whenever they touch it takes him a few seconds to pull away. 

At the end of the afternoon, Ben says, "Do you want to do this again?"

"I do! Day after tomorrow?" 

"I'll be looking forward to it!"

Maybe... a goodbye hug?

Definitely a goodbye hug. 

The goodbye hug goes... maybe a bit longer than goodbye hugs generally do. 

That's totally fine!

Eventually he is going to have to let go, as little as he would like to. "I'll see you the day after tomorrow, then." 

"Yeah."

That night he puts clothespins on his skin and pretends Chen was possessed by an evil spirit and put them there and is about to torture him. 

He curls up and puts a pillow between his knees and pretends it's another person he's holding, and whatever he dreams he doesn't remember it. 

Studying with Chen quickly becomes the highlight of his day. He does tourney and thinks about Chen. Goes to cabinet meetings and thinks about Chen. Attends class and thinks about Chen. Talks to Fairy Godmother about the nature of a true king, and thinks about Chen. Cooks with Asher, and thinks about Chen. Has long loving phone calls with Tiana and Naveen and thinks about Chen. Has stilted boring dinners with his family and thinks about Chen.

At night he has lurid fantasies of Chen being possessed and torturing him, Chen being forced by a villain to hurt him, Chen having to torture him to save all of Auradon, and then Chen holding him and crying and saying he'd never want to hurt him never never.

Studying with Ben was already the highlight of his day. He goes to tourney and thinks about Ben even more than he did before, practices his archery and thinks about Ben, attends classes and thinks about Ben, does his homework and thinks about Ben, talks to his sister and thinks about Ben, writes letters to his parents and stops himself from filling them up with news about Ben. 

And at night he holds a pillow against his chest and curls up under two heavy blankets and dreams about things he forgets in the morning, or things he'd rather forget in the morning; draws his fingernails across the skin of his stomach, bites down on his own arm, and thinks about what Ben's fingernails or Ben's teeth would feel like. 

Chen has another friend. Of course Chen has another friend, he's handsome and popular and likeable and good at sports, it would be silly to think Kaleva would be as important to him as he is to Kaleva. Chen has another friend and it's the prince and the prince is always so nice to Kaleva and it's fine. It's fine.

(He wants to die.)

He doesn't stop talking to Kaleva, doesn't stop studying with him, doesn't stop glaring at Chad Charming when he gets too close. 

But — it's not the highlight of his day, now. 

(He'd apologize but he doesn't know what, specifically, to apologize for.) 

And one day at 9pm there's a knock on Chen's door.

He opens the door and takes one look at Ben's face and hugs him. 

"Can Kaleva be-- not here."

Fine. This is fine.

"I'll go to the library."

He does his best to smile at Kaleva, and then once he's gone says "c'mere, sit down — what's going on —" 

"My dad's abdicating."

"What — why —" 

"He and mom think ruling the world is stressful, they want to take a vacation-- can I cry on you--"

"Yes absolutely cry on me all you want — ruling the world is stressful for him so he's putting it on you —" 

"He says I'll do fine-- all I have to do is listen to my advisors--"

Ben puts his face on Chen's shoulder and wraps his arms around his chest.

"I'm sure you will do fine, that's not the point, if ruling the world is too stressful for you you don't put that weight on your child so you can take a vacation." 

He holds Ben very tightly and lets his thumb rub circles into Ben's back. 

"Well, I'll have to do it someday anyway but-- I haven't finished high school. I thought I'd go to college, maybe spend a year traveling around Auradon, gradually take over jobs from my dad--"

"I know," and he holds Ben tighter, "I know, he shouldn't get to do that to you, I'm so sorry —" 

"I want to get someone else to do it-- but then I'll never get to be king at all-- is that selfish, I probably should abdicate if I think I'm not ready to do a good job, lives are at stake--"

"I don't think that's selfish — and I meant it when I said I think you can do a good job —" 

"I think I'd be able to do a good job in ten years and being king is not the sort of thing where you want to get on-the-job training."

"I think whether or not to abdicate in favor of — I don't actually know who the next in line is — is the sort of thing you want to think about for at least a few days before you decide." 

"I'm not sure anyone really knows who the next in line for the throne is, my dad was an only child raised by servants."

"— that's not great!" 

"I mean I assume we would figure something out! Whoever it is would not be sixteen!"

"Maybe in Auradon but in China when the emperor — usually this happens when they die not when they abdicate but when there is no king and no clear next in line you get civil war." He holds Ben tighter. "I'm sorry, I know this is the last thing you need to be thinking about, I just —" 

"I guess. I'm just going to have to do my best. And if I mess up people are going to die."

He's not letting go any time soon. "I'm so sorry." 

He starts to cry on Chen's shoulder.

He puts a hand firmly on the back of Ben's head and doesn't say anything more. 

Once he stops crying, certain parts of Ben remember that having Chen hold him while he cries has been something he's been thinking about at night for several weeks.

Ben's penis. Ben's penis is the part of him that remembers this.

He is definitely not going to comment on that.

Ben has had a really long and tiring and awful day and he does not actually have the willpower to... stop.

Being held by Chen is even more wonderful than he thought it would be. Chen is so solid. He feels safe, like he can fall apart on Chen and Chen will catch him.

He should let go and apologize. If he were a better person he would. 

But this is what Ben needs from him and Chen couldn't not give it to him if he tried. 

"You're so warm."

"So are you." 

"This is nice."

He wishes Chen would touch his hair.

"It is." His hand shifts on the back of Ben's head. 

He makes a soft little noise into Chen's shoulder.

He can just — keep doing that, then. 

Later he is going to think about how he's sick and perverted and taking advantage of Chen when Chen thinks he's just comforting him, how he's using a serious crisis for Auradon in order to fulfill his twisted desires.

Right now he is happy and warm and so so relaxed.

Later he's going to hate how much he enjoys having Ben in his arms, how he can enjoy something that hurt Ben this much. 

Right now he pets Ben's hair and holds him close and lets himself feel warm. 

"Do you think it'll be okay?"

"I do. You have advisors, and your kingdom is conveniently divided into regions with their own governments and traditions and precedents, and you know a lot of people from a lot of different places, and you care a whole lot about doing a good job, and I think it's going to be okay." 

"I'm not sure what I think about my advisers, honestly."

"Well, one advantage of being king is that you can appoint different ones. — what I meant is actually 'you aren't doing this alone, everybody has people to delegate to.'" 

"But even if I delegate it's my responsibility. And I have to figure out who to delegate to."

"Yeah. But — you don't have to do it alone, and there are people there to help you who have experience with the thing they're doing." 

"I should probably tell Asher soon. He'll have plans."

"Probably," he agrees. 

He shows no sign of moving. 

"Do you think you can help me?"

"I'll help you with anything I can — I don't know how much I'll be good for but there are things I think I can help with." 

"I think I need-- people I can trust." Ben sighs. "I'm not sure my dad was a very good king."

"Then I'll be that." He pauses before he says, "I'm not sure he was either." 

"It feels really-- wrong to say that, because he's my dad and I love him and of course he taught me everything I know about ruling. But."

"But," he agrees. "And. Having people around who know anything about the areas you're ruling seems likely to help." 

"Yeah. I should probably go. Talk to Asher and Tiana and Naveen and try to figure things out."

He doesn't move.

"Do you want me to go with you?" 

"I don't really want to move."

"That's fair. You could stay here and text Asher to meet us?" 

He doesn't know how to explain that he'd be uncomfortable with having his childhood best friend watch him do this, in part because he doesn't know what this is and why he'd be uncomfortable with Asher looking at it. 

Instead he just curls up more on Chen.

He curls around Ben and holds him closer, protective. 

"When you hold me it feels like things are going to be okay."

"I'm glad I can give you that." 

Maybe instead of talking to Asher what Ben is going to do is curl up quietly on Chen until he falls asleep.

Ben can do that. 

Chen tucks his face into Ben's hair and lets himself relax. 

Eventually Kaleva returns home and... the prince is sleeping on Chen's chest. Fine! This is fine.

He is uncomfortably aware that he wants to fall asleep on Chen's chest.

"Hi," he says very quietly, doesn't move in any way that would wake Ben. 

"Hi," he says uncomfortably.

"Sorry for kicking you out — I don't think he'd want me to tell you what happened but you'll know by the end of the week." 

"Okay."

Chen knows Ben's secrets. Kaleva's jealous! He's super jealous. It feels like a sick pit in the middle of his stomach.

He can tell Kaleva is unhappy — he's been able to tell for weeks — and he has no idea what to do about it. 

Kaleva goes to bed, unhappily. He dreams about Chen holding him and saying he's the most important person in the world and then the dream gets vague but he knows Chen is touching him and he feels warm and intimate and loved and so so good and when he wakes up his underwear is sticky.

He falls asleep with Ben in his arms and his face buried in Ben's hair, and dreams about holding Ben keeping him safe dreams about Ben underneath him dreams about — 

He wakes up in the morning still wrapped around Ben. 

Ben smiles up at him blearily. "Good morning."

Ben is very very good. "Good morning." 

Ben woke up in Chen's arms and his back hurts and his feet are asleep and his neck has a crick in it and everything in the world is good and okay and Ben is a terrible person.

"I bet Asher has made breakfast."

Kaleva comes out of the bathroom and bows his head and says, "...Your Royal Highness."

"Oh, call me Ben."

He doesn't touch Ben's hair again, even if he does want to. "I bet he does," he agrees. "You should probably go talk to him." 

"You two should come with me!"

Of course Ben is a nice person who invites Kaleva to have breakfast with him, unlike Kaleva, who mostly wants Ben to fall off a cliff.

"Sure."

"Alright." Probably he should not wear the same shirt he was wearing yesterday. 

Ben strips off his shirt and says, "can I borrow some of your clothes? I think we're the same size."

Ben is extremely well-built and Kaleva is jealous and can't stop staring.

He really is. Chen hands him a shirt. 

For some reason, Kaleva feels weirdly eager to watch Chen change.

He's not so quick about it when he's in Actually Private. 

Jealous! That's the emotion he is currently experiencing. Jealousy and admiration and a completely platonic appreciation of the beauty of the male form.

The way Chen's shoulder muscles move is fascinating.

Ben is slightly more aware that the thing he is experiencing is not at all jealousy or admiration or indeed platonic, but he has spent too much time cuddling Chen recently to care.

He is totally unaware of the way they're looking at him! 

"All right," Ben says, slightly disappointed when Chen gets his shirt on, "time to see what Asher's made for breakfast."

He's not actually sure where Asher's rooms are, but he follows Ben, walks next to Kaleva. 

"Hey! Ben!" Asher says. "How did you know I was making breakfast?"

"Lucky guess."

"I have James son of Milo over so it'll be a little tight."

"Somehow I'm skeptical."

"I can stand up if there aren't enough chairs. Hi, James." 

James, a thin and gangly boy with glasses who's in all honors classes with Kaleva and Asher, waves. 

Nobody ever invites Kaleva to spend the night and... study? Probably they were studying?

"I went with a simple breakfast today," Asher says, "because I wasn't expecting three additional people. Cajun hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, toast, and beignets." 

"Not sure simple is the word I'd use. — it looks great, thank you." 

It was sort of unclear to Kaleva whether he was going to eat his feelings or be too upset to eat, and then he saw the hashbrowns cooked with bell peppers and onions and sausage and it became very obvious that the answer was the first. 

He starts shoveling food into his mouth.

Asher kisses James affectionately on the top of the head and says, "Eat, you're too thin."

James laughs. He's much more relaxed than he is in class. "You always say that."

"It's always true!"

That's..... strange but sweet. He eats. The food is very, very good. 

Asher and James talk about class. They're both oddly smiley, and they keep touching each other. 

This is pretty normal for Asher!

Ben barely touches his food, but it's comforting to experience the normality.

"You should eat," he says softly to Ben. 

"I'm not really hungry."

This is why Ben experiences love and Kaleva does not.

Asher looks concerned. 

"...James, you should probably go."

"I know. You should eat anyway." 

James gives Asher a very significant look and then goes. 

"...Who do I need to kill?"

"My dad."

"...That's slightly complicated. What did he do?"

He takes Ben's hand and squeezes it and lets go. 

Ben glances at Kaleva. "Should Kaleva be here?"

Whyyyyyy does the prince know his name.

"It can't be long before he finds out anyway, but it's your decision." 

"...My dad's abdicating."

"What the fuck."

He takes Ben's hand again, doesn't let go. "I know, that's what I said too." 

Probably Kaleva should be having feelings about the fact that King Ben is abdicating but instead he is having feelings about Chen holding Ben's hand. He stabs a hash brown aggressively with his fork.

(Why is he even here.)

Well, that's new. 

"Who the fuck abdicates in favor of a sixteen-year-old?"

"Apparently ruling was too stressful, so he's handing it down to his teenage son." Handsqueeze. 

"...Well, on the bright side, someone who would make that decision has no business ruling a fucking country."

He's just going to hold onto Ben's hand and not comment about whether he thinks King Beast should have been ruling a country. 

"...You know, I was really hoping I would ever get to run Tiana's Place."

"Me too," Ben says, sincere. "You know I want that."

This doesn't feel like something intended for him to see; he doesn't comment. 

"Well, not like we can do anything about it," Asher says, and the sadness disappears from his face. "I assume the reason Chen is here is that you trust him, and the reason the other person is here is-- why."

Kaleva, putting more scrambled eggs onto his plate, really has the same question!

"His name is Kaleva." 

"I still don't know why he's here."

"Chen trusts him, I trust Chen, and I am not really in a situation to be picky about advisers I didn't inherit from my father."

That's.... quite an endorsement. Chen has no idea how to respond so instead he doesn't. 

"In the short term I'm not sure much changes. Your father's advisers will probably do fine telling you how to rule as your father did, and as long as nothing completely unprecedented happens you can be your father while we get enough understanding of Auradon to know what changes we want to make."

"That-- makes sense. I guess we were expecting my father to rule for another decade anyway, even if I'm technically in charge I don't necessarily have to do different policies until I'm ready."

"You can always ask your father for advice if you're not sure. Adults love that kind of thing."

"Nope. My dad's going on a cruise for two years after he abdicates, with no Internet reception."

"What the fuck."

"What." 

"He's concerned I won't get to put my own stamp on the kingship if he's hanging around breathing down my neck all the time, and he thinks advising me won't be restful."

He makes an angry sound in the back of his throat and swallows the words that were going to come after it. 

"...I am really really glad my dad didn't decide to put me in charge of anything."

Wow, an opinion. Kaleva is very proud of himself.

"It's not that bad. He loves me, he wants me to be able to succeed on my own and not jut copy what he did."

"He decided ruling the world was too stressful for him, so he handed it down to his sixteen year old son and is planning to go on a two-year-long cruise because advising his, and I cannot stress this enough, sixteen year old son who he gave this job to, wouldn't be restful enough." 

"He wants me to be able to be independent."

"...Noooot sure it's helpful to argue with Ben about whether his dad sucks."

"—Sorry. I'll stop." 

Asher sends Chen a look that is intended to convey "but I am totally on board with you about this subject."

"...You should fix the tariffs."

"What?"

He gives Asher the same look back. 

(He still hasn't let go of Ben's hand.) 

"People keep doing really really high tariffs because they think the way to have a rich country is to have a lot of gold and silver in your treasury and that's actually totally wrong."

"It's... not?"

"They think trade is a zero-sum thing where one country benefits from getting more gold and silver and the other country loses out because it has less. But it's not. If I give you some money for a candy bar you didn't win the interaction because you got money, we both won because I valued the candy bar more than the money and you valued the money more than the candy bar, and the same thing is true for countries. And if countries do different things they can specialize-- it doesn't benefit anyone if Auradon City is growing its own crops instead of having Morgendammerung grow them, uh, that's a little complicated to explain but I can explain it if you're interested-- anyway everyone keeps trying to win at trade so the tariffs are really really high and if there were lower tariffs there would be more trade and everyone would be better off instead of walking around with a bunch of metaphorical candy bars they have nothing to do with."

"...What."

Kaleva is so good. 

"...You don't ever talk in class."

He remembers that he is talking to a room full of people who are soon to be the most powerful people in the world.

"Uh. Class is scary."

"You're really smart."

"No, I'm not. I just read a lot."

He tries to tell Asher I've been telling him this for a year and a half with his face at the same time as he tries to tell Kaleva you're very very good also with his face. 

"I want to hear more about why Auradon City shouldn't grow its own crops."

Kaleva grabs a napkin and a pen from his pocket and starts to diagram it. "Imagine you're on an island--"

Asher is looking at Kaleva with an oddly warm expression.

So is Chen. 

Eventually Ben says, "--I think we're late to class."

He glances at his phone. "We are. Back here after class is done?" 

"Sounds good."

He can't concentrate in class that day; time feels like it's moving slower than usual. 

(He can't stop thinking about Ben, Ben's smile, what it felt like to have Ben in his arms, his face buried in Ben's hair, falling asleep curled up with Ben —) 

He contributes what he can that afternoon, which mostly boils down to an overview of of Chinese bureaucracy, and watches Ben's face, watches him smiling, and — 

Doesn't examine that. Doesn't examine the pit in his stomach when he sees Audrey in the halls. 

He hasn't told Audrey. Doesn't want to tell Audrey. He keeps thinking to himself "I can't be picky about who my real advisers are, I need people I can trust" and then he just-- doesn't.

Audrey is beautiful, popular, from a royal family, good at dancing and drawing and music and languages. His parents like her. He kissed her and it was fine. A little gross and slimy but that seems like the sort of thing that kissing just is. She's said she's his one true love and he-- doesn't disagree. He doesn't have any sick and perverted and wrong feelings for her, so that might make her his true love.

She can comfort him when he's doing something stressful. That's what your one true love is for. Even if she hasn't studied economics like Kaleva or political activism like Asher or government like Chen she can still be useful in comforting him, right?

But that night he pulls Chen aside and says, "I liked it when you held me."

"I liked it too." (He liked it too much.) "Your rooms might be better if you want to do that again, I don't want to kick Kaleva out." 

"That sounds good. Maybe I should try not to fall asleep on you this time." 

"It was sweet, you looked very peaceful. — but it did not look particularly comfortable, no." 

Or maybe we could cuddle in a bed, he doesn't say.

"I'll probably need to actually get a good night's sleep if I'm going to be a king!" He doesn't manage to completely prevent the faint hysteria on the last words.

"You need a good night's sleep anyway. C'mon?" 

"Yeah."

If Ben were a good person, probably he would say something like 'I am pretty sure the reason I like you cuddling me is that I want you to kiss me, and also to torture me, and I have no idea why I want those things but I am pretty sure both of them are gross and wrong and I'm sorry I'm doing this to you'. But Ben is not nearly as good a person as Asher thinks he is, and he wants Chen to think well of him, and he really wants Chen to hold him, so he doesn't.

Being a king when you're sixteen is really stressful. People need stress relief, and being held is really good stress relief, and if it makes him a better king probably it is okay. Ben tells himself this repeatedly but doesn't really believe himself. He's pretty sure if his dad said he wouldn't be king until he was thirty-five he would be trying to get Chen to hold him anyway.

Chen — needs to stop thinking about how much he wants to hold Ben, it can be something he gives Ben when Ben needs it but it shouldn't be something he seeks out — if he were as good of a person as he pretends to be he would admit to Ben that he likes this more than he should, but. He isn't. He doesn't. 

Once they're in Ben's rooms he pulls Ben down to sit on the bed with him and wraps his arms around Ben's torso and puts one hand on the back of Ben's head. 

They're on the bed. He'd thought maybe they could work up to it, he could suggest it very casually and offhandedly and not at all like it mattered, but Chen just pulled him onto the bed and. He's so happy.

He makes a little noise and presses every inch of his skin into Chen's skin, greedily.

...oh. 

Oh, that's very good. Ben should make more noises like that. He adjusts the way he's holding Ben, presses closer still. 

He makes a quiet little whimper.

"It's normal," he says quietly. "Guys should be able to touch each other without it being a big thing, right?"

"Right," he agrees, and — he does believe that, it's just — 

Just that he knows he's lying in all the ways that count, even if he isn't saying anything untrue. Just that if he really cared about Ben he would tell him so, and then leave him alone. But. 

Ben presses into him more. It's not enough.

(They shouldn't be wearing clothes, he should get to see Chen and feel how warm and strong he is and--.)

"Touch starvation is bad for you."

Any objections he might have had dissolve when Ben smiles. "It is." 

"I really like you."

Chen feels warm and partway-melted. "I really like you." 

He smooshes his head into Chen's shoulder and feels the way his chest rises and falls and the warmth of his breath.

Stray thoughts keep wandering into his head. Chen could shove him into the bed and pin him down and he couldn't do anything about it. Their faces are so close, Chen could lift up his chin and kiss him. Chen could wrap a hand around his neck and cut off his air and he could struggle but Chen is so strong he couldn't really resist--

He tries to push the thoughts firmly aside. It does not really work.

He cradles Ben's head and doesn't, doesn't consider what Ben's teeth might feel like. 

He's breathing really heavily and he can't stop thinking about things and. Well.

This is never a problem he has with Audrey.

Maybe if he doesn't move Chen won't notice.

He's not thinking about that he's not he's not. It doesn't mean anything, Ben wouldn't — Ben isn't — 

See? It's fine. It's fine.

It is nice to be held and pretend that Chen wants him.

It's nice to hold Ben. It's good that Ben is happy. He can feel the way Ben is smiling and he never wants that to stop. 

It's just. It's just. 

In principle, they'd agreed that Ben shouldn't fall asleep on Chen.

In practice, that would involve sending Chen away, and he's so soft and so warm and so good, and Ben doesn't want to go back to his cold empty bed, and Ben's eyes close and he tells himself that it's just for a minute and next thing he knows he's fallen asleep.

...oh. <3 

Ben looks very peaceful when he's asleep. Chen pets his hair, so gentle, and doesn't let go of him, doesn't stop looking down at his face, doesn't wake him. 

The next day, Ben's father announces at a press conference that he's abdicating.

Ben answers the reporters' questions. He's excited to become king. He's confident he'll do a good job; he was taught by the best king and dad in the world. Audrey doesn't know, but he's sure she'll be excited.

He feels like he's floating a little to the left of himself. He wants Chen to be there holding his hand.

Audrey is angry, of course, that he didn't tell her. He comforts her, says it was a secret from everyone, says of course he'd tell her if he could. The lie makes his stomach hurt.

He watches the press conference; mostly he watches Ben's face. Wishes he could be there with him, wishes he could help. 

Afterwards they curl up together and Chen does what he can, knows it isn't enough. (Ignores how his stomach feels whenever he thinks about Audrey.) 

The week after the announcement is busy.

After school, he locks himself into a room with his father's advisers for hours, trying to understand exactly what it means to be an absolute ruler; after his meetings with his fathers' advisers, he sits with Chen and Asher and Kaleva and talks about tariffs and macroeconomic policy and development and public health and cultural diversity. His homework doesn't get done. He schedules a date with Audrey for Friday and feels guilty about how little he misses her. He should probably skip tourney, but he doesn't; it's nice to do something he's actually good at, something that doesn't matter, something that leaves him bone-tired and unable to think.

He doesn't sleep with Chen every night, but he does about half the nights, and he's acutely conscious whenever Chen holds his hand or puts an arm around his shoulders or rests their knees together. His fantasies when he's alone are more likely than usual to be about being locked in a prison cell with nothing to do except sleep.

Ben is nice.

Ben is nice, and he's funny, and he's handsome, and he's intelligent, and he's likeable, and he listens to what Kaleva has to say and asks good questions, and he clearly cares about doing a good job as king, and it is literally impossible to hate him. If someone is going to steal Kaleva's only friend he should at least have the grace to be a terrible person so Kaleva can hate him properly.

But he can't. It is just-- obvious why Chen wants to fall asleep holding Ben, and doesn't want to fall asleep holding Kaleva. Kaleva can't be resentful at all, not really. If Ben showed an interest in him he'd do the same thing. 

He stays up late and hopes that Chen will come home. When he does, Kaleva pretends to be asleep. When it's late enough that Chen is clearly sleeping at Ben's, he cries. 

He sleeps best the nights he sleeps curled up with Ben. He does his level best, which is still not great, to concentrate in class; he spends a lot of time in the library reading up on the details of things he only knows the broad strokes of. He's noticeably worse at tourney, but he doesn't quit yet. 

He has Audrey in two of his classes and he does his best to avoid looking at her or thinking about her or going anywhere near her. 

And then he has a fight with Audrey, and a worse fight with Asher, and Chen is the worst person to talk to about it but he doesn't know where else to go--

He runs into Chen's room and checks that Kaleva is at the library and blurts out, "I'm going to have to marry Audrey."

"— like, in the next couple of months, or in the next couple of years, or —?" 

"Well, not until after the coronation, but prooobably before I'm eighteen?"

"Do you want advice or do you want a hug." 

I always want you to hug me, he doesn't say.

"Both."

Chen stands up and hugs him. 

"What happened? — What happened today, I mean." 

"Well, Audrey was talking about 'when we're married' and I was like 'what, I'm fifteen, don't you think this is a little fast' and she was like 'you're fifteen and you're about to be king, do you really think you're going to be a king without a queen' and then I went to talk to Asher about it and Asher pointed out that I don't have any siblings or cousins and I really do need several heirs as quickly as possible."

He hugs Ben tighter. 

"You can designate someone else as heir, if you do it in advance — and that would be better anyway if something happened, because any kids you have spend a while too young to rule and you'd have to designate someone as regent anyway unless you want Audrey ruling —" 

"I mean, she'd probably do fine, right? That's the point of having a queen, so you have someone to step in who already has practice."

Gosh! Subtext!

"I'm sure she'd make a lovely wife —" his stomach twists at the words — "but I do not particularly think she'd make a good ruler, no. And in the short term she wouldn't have practice.

And I don't think you actually want to be married to her." 

"I mean, she's very pretty and smart and well-liked both among nobles and among common people and she has an excellent family background."

"And you came here because you had to marry her." 

He's hugging Ben very, very tightly. 

"I love her! It's just a little overwhelming to think about getting married when I'm fifteen!"

"Then don't. The last thing you need is to be more overwhelmed, and — there are going to be things you have to do even though they're overwhelming and thinking about it is terrifying but getting married shouldn't be one of them." 

"I love her, I guess, I just."

I just talk to you when I'm upset and not her.

He hugs Ben tighter still. "...I think my real feeling here is that you shouldn't plan to get married while that's still an 'I guess.'" 

"Then I might not ever end up getting married to anyone at all."

"I don't know about your parents, but one of the things my mom was always very careful to warn me about was getting married too soon because I didn't think there'd ever be another chance." 

"My parents were not really big on the, uh, useful life advice."

He laughs, a little. It's not really funny. "It's still true. And — not only is that something you definitely can't know while you're fifteen — even if it was true, if you didn't get married and instead designated heirs you already know and already trust, would that be such a bad thing?" 

"I think certainty of succession is important. The way you prevent civil wars is having it be very very clear who the heir is. Adoptive monarchies typically tend to be less stable."

(It sounds like Asher.)

"First of all I can tell you're quoting Asher. Second of all, you aren't wrong, but adding more things you're overwhelmed and freaked out about when you don't have to do that isn't going to make you more capable." 

Hugs are really nice.

"...I... am pretty sure I'm right that I'm not really going to fall in love with someone."

There's a pang of something. Chen isn't sure what. 

"Okay," he says, instead of 'why.' "Do you want to talk about it, do you want to lie down so we can cuddle more, do you want both —" 

"...I do want to cuddle you. I don't know if I want to talk about it, I don't want you to think less of me..."

"You don't have to." Bed? Bed. 

Bed!

"I don't... like... girls. In the normal way."

"Does Audrey know?" 

"I don't think anyone knows except you and maybe Asher but if he knows he hasn't talked to me about it."

"Then you definitely shouldn't marry her, that's a disaster waiting to happen." 

"I could try to hide it forever?"

"Any plan that involves hiding from your wife forever that you don't love her is not a good plan." 

"I'm not sure that I... can love people. Not really."

"...then maybe you find someone who you like and trust and is okay with a political marriage. And maybe you don't, and instead you figure out something else for heirs. But trying to hide from your wife forever that you don't love her is still going to blow up." 

"Okay." He snuggles up to Chen. "You're so good."

"You're so good." 

"Do you think I should keep dating Audrey?"

He considers the question, tries to separate it from how tight his stomach gets whenever he sees her. "....I think that if you don't love her and she doesn't know and she's already thinking about marriage and won't take 'not that fast' for an answer, that's going to blow up and it's going to blow up soon." 

"I think... I love her as much as I can."

"I still think it's going to blow up if you keep dating her." 

He really does think that, it isn't just that he's — 

"You're probably right." He smooshes his head into Chen's shoulder. "You're such a good friend."

He cradles Ben and very quietly glows. 

(If he knew, he wouldn't say that. Still.) 

He feels-- better, having told someone and not having them judge him.

It feels like a load off his mind.

"If I break up with her will you hold me afterward?"

"Of course I will. — I'd hold you even if you didn't, you know that." 

"I know! You're really sweet."

"I try." Ben's hair is very soft. 

Ben breaks up with Audrey.

She cries. She stomps her foot. She calls him awful names. She says that she'll never love anybody ever again, and then she says she'll date Chad, and it might be to make him jealous but honestly the thing he feels is relief.

And that night he curls up in Chen's lap and cries into his shoulder and shakes and falls apart and doesn't say anything at all.

He cradles Ben and pets his hair and sings, very quietly, just so Ben has something to focus on, and holds him firmly together and lets him fall apart, and doesn't say any of the things he's thinking. 

"Your voice is beautiful."

"Thank you." Hairpets. "— if you want I can switch to English." 

"No, I like it. I just wish I knew what it meant." Maybe if he wraps his fingers around Chen's and doesn't comment on it Chen won't comment on it either. "Maybe I should try to learn Chinese."

"I'm not the best teacher but I've heard having native speakers around helps." He won't comment but he will squeeze Ben's hand. 

"I can say"-- he switches to Chinese-- "'hello, I'm so glad to be here in the wonderful country of China.'" His accent is atrocious.

He laughs a little, not unkindly, and corrects the pronunciation. 

Ben eventually gets it right!

His smile is huge.

He's so good. He's so, so good. Chen never wants him to stop smiling like that. 

He will just have to keep cuddling Chen and then he won't!

An excellent solution all around. 

The next morning, once Ben has gone off to class, Asher appears in Chen's room.

"Can we talk?"

He doesn't know what this is about. 

(He has a sinking feeling that he knows what this is about.) 

"Yes, of course." 

"Ben likes you. A lot."

"And I like Ben a lot." 

"--Ben is the most important person in my life."

"He's very quickly becoming the most important person in mine." 

"Right. So we should get on the same page."

About what, he doesn't say. 

"Yes," he says. 

"...Which I'm not entirely sure how to do because up until now all the other people in his life have been"-- he gestures-- "Audrey."

"At least they aren't dating anymore?" 

"She was. Unobjectionable."

"She was unobjectionable and he treated dates like they were a chore and I'm glad he isn't doing that anymore." 

And he won't have the twisting hollow pit in his stomach anymore. There's that too. 

"I hope he'll find someone to date that he doesn't object to."

"Not sure 'doesn't object' is the criteria I'd use, but yes." 

Asher is watching him very very closely.

"I imagine he has a very specific type."

"I'm not sure why you'd think that?" 

"When you're someone like Ben you can wind up having a public persona that's very different from the person you really are in private."

"...yes, I'm familiar with the phenomenon, but what does that have to do with having a specific type." 

He shrugs.

"Just that there's a certain kind of person Ben is supposed to like and I am pretty sure that is not the sort of person he actually does like."

He nods. 

He is quiet for a while and says "...I suspect he is concerned that if people knew the sort of person he liked then they would judge him or be upset with him. Which, of course, I would not."

"I don't think there's anything I could learn about him that would make me disapprove of him," he says honestly. 

"Me too. I am his"-- Asher waves a hand-- "vassal, I guess? I am loyal to him no matter what. It's not even that I wouldn't, it's that-- it doesn't make sense in the relationship that I have to him."

— oh. Vassal is a good word. "I think right now I'm just his friend. I just — can't imagine it ever happening." 

"He needs a friend, I think. He needs a friend very very badly."

"Then I'm glad I can give him that." 

"Ben wants to be a good king, and I want to help him be a good king. But being a good king is different from being happy and-- he needs someone who cares most of all about whether he's happy."