Work Text:
March 2023
Ben Pincus never sleeps. Seriously. He doesn’t. Not unless he feels 100% safe (which, for him, is basically never). And yes, this does mean locking his dorm room at night, spending half the night cross-legged on his bed watching the clock, pulling all-nighters where all he does is wander around like the world’s most bored ghost.
Not sleeping, as it turns out, is also not conducive to a good injury recovery. At all. As in, it will make his symptoms a lot worse. The doctors tell him this, even when he’s snapped several times that he knows, he read the websites (or rather, Gia read them to him. Screens hurt his eyes now, which is... not great for a college student.) He knows about his... about his brain injury. He knows how bad the blood loss is, and for someone who came so close to death, you’d think he’d take a little more care over his health.
But he shuts his eyes, and he’s getting slammed into the tree with the force of a hurricane. He shuts his eyes, and he’s going limp in the rain. He shuts his eyes, and he’s fading in and out of consciousness in Darius’s arms. He shuts his eyes, and bolts awake seconds later in a raw panic that’s sometimes bad enough to set off his heart monitor and alert the nurse.
Something scares him, but — ridiculously enough — he isn’t certain what it is. He knows it’s to do with dying, but that, he’s come to learn, encompasses a lot. Is he scared of the pain? Is he scared to lose everything he loves?
Is he scared of dying without seeing the camp fam again?
Gia eventually told him, after a lot of begging on his part, that the camp fam were arrested shortly after they left Biosyn. It fills Ben with a weird, twisted regret he isn’t there with the rest of them; after all, if he hadn’t been impaled, he’d be with his family, and at least that way it would feel fair.
If he hadn’t been impaled, maybe they would’ve made it out in time. Before the authorities showed up. Before the camp fam were thrown into separate jail cells, and... Gia didn’t tell Ben all the details, but he sneaks glances at her burner laptop when she thinks he isn’t looking, and it’s bad.
Then, suddenly, it’s good. It’s all good. They go on trial, and court proceedings jumble into one another, and they’re finally free. Ben can join them soon, go back home (maybe it’ll be easier to sleep there), and draw the curtains on this nightmare.
.o0o.
Moving in is nothing short of stressful. Gia bustles around making sure Ben has his heart medications, and all the camp fam know exactly when he takes them (and not a minute late), unloading his bags with Kenji’s help, and making sure she’s happy with his setup.
Especially his bed.
“He’s barely slept a wink,” Gia says to Kenji, equal parts fond and concerned, as they spread a duvet over his bed. “I almost got him on sleeping pills.”
“Oh.” Kenji’s expression is one she can’t decipher. “Maybe he’ll sleep better with— out of the hospital.”
With us, Gia finishes. She’s not a fool; she knows the camp fam have a weird, close bond beyond even their definition — and she’s always wished she could be part of something like that — but she can’t help but feel rejected by the implication Ben is in better hands with the camp fam.
Although... he’s probably right.
And from the way Gia watches the camp fam crowd around Ben that evening, curling into him like very affectionate cats, it only confirms her suspicions. Ben seems more relaxed than ever with them, laughing and smiling like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He sinks deeper into the sofa like he trusts it to hold him, and he sinks deeper into the camp fam’s arms, like he trusts them to protect him from anything.
It’s a sense of protecting Gia was never able to give him. Maybe it’s because she wasn’t on those godforsaken islands — and she doesn’t want to have been, to be clear! She’s heard the horror stories, and she knows she could’ve died there. But those islands have scarred something into them that’s untouchable, hidden deeper and darker than doctors go. It’s like they all grew an extra organ to survive that they all can’t live without now. Removing it would only do more harm than good. She’ll never share that same damage.
“I should... get going,” she announces to the quiet living room.
A few of their heads whip around, almost like they weren’t expecting her. Like they’d forgotten she was there.
“Oh— yeah, course,” Darius says.
“You sure you don’t wanna stay the night?” Sammy asks.
“I have an overnight flight back to my campus,” she explains. “I’ve missed enough classes.”
Sammy nods knowingly, and for a moment Gia entertains a possible spark of understanding in those warm, caring eyes. “Hope you have a safe trip, Gia.”
“Thank you.” She says. “Take care of him, won’t you?”
“Oh, you don’t need to tell us.” Sammy resumes her original position with her head nestled on Kenji’s chest. A yawn splits her mouth, as she says, “That’s what we do.”
The word — we, as in, the six of us — grates on her like nails, and the happy sight of them, sprawled across the sofa, most of them sleeping soundly, fills her mouth with a bitter taste. Yaz and Darius, tiny as they are, make a joint effort to spoon Ben from behind. Kenji sits on Ben’s side, letting Ben’s head loll on his shoulder, and Brooklynn lazily drapes her residual limb across his chest.
And Ben, fast asleep, is tangled up in their arms.
Gia smiles, the tiniest shred of sadness bitten behind her teeth.
She’s careful to click the door open with a steady hand. She’s better than to disturb them out of her own heartache. Bonds like that will come her way. She just has to wait for them.
“Bye, Bennissimo.”
And she closes the door behind her.