Chapter 18: Showing
Gwen opened the door to Ben's bedroom after bidding her aunt and uncle goodnight, Sandra's oversized shirt billowing as she moved. It almost fell off her shoulders, the ridiculous thing, but it was comfy and that was really all that mattered.
Her father had just snorted when she'd called to inform her parents that she was staying over, not surprised at all. Gwen had neglected to mention that she'd carried a small pack under her robes all evening with essentials in anticipation of it. Sure, she understood that Ben and her needed to be able to be apart, that being so intertwined was unhealthy. She wasn't stupid. She got it.
But that didn't mean she wasn't going to sneak in every second more that she could. Plus, both their schools had ruled that they'd start at noon tomorrow rather than earlier so that kids could actually enjoy Halloween. It'd be criminal not to make use of the extra time together.
There was a cot prepared for her next to the bed, but she just scoffed at it, stepping right past it to pull Ben's blanket aside so she could get in. He grumbled, already dozing a bit, but didn't struggle as she settled in beside him. She got about half a second of space before she felt warmth snuggle up beside her and she grinned, nuzzling back. Slightly above her face, she felt his nose twitch.
"Your hair is itchy." He complained, but made no move to escape it. In fact, he borrowed deeper.
"You love it anyway." She challenged haughtily. Retaliation came in the form of a tug at the back of her head. She hadn't realized that his arm had snuck around.
"I do." He agreed, voice thick. "It's seriously disturbing. I can't look at orange things anymore without thinking of dweebs. I think I need help."
Gwen suppressed a giggle, feeling her face heat slightly. "You're already getting help, remember?"
"Pretty sure your mom's gonna put two and two together if I start going off about the beauty of red hair. Or she's gonna think I'm flirting with her."
"What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall during that session..." Another tug at the back of her head, but it was so weak it might as well not be there. She could feel his amusement rumble through every inch of him though, every spot that they touched- which really was a lot of spots, now that she focused on them. "Speaking of sessions," Gwen started, crawling up and laying on her side, propping her head up with her hand, looking down at the lazy bum. "how was yours?"
He yawned. "Smooth, dweeb. I almost didn't notice that tactful change of subject." She swatted at him even as she grinned. He only halfheartedly tried to stop her before they settled down. "It was… tiring." He decided, eyes somewhere on her collar, though she didn't flatter herself by thinking he was actually seeing anything with those distant eyes.
"Because she pushed…?" Gwen asked, tentatively. Ben startled from his thoughts, eyes snapping up.
"No! No, not at all." He was quick assure. "She more like, I don't know, tried to get me. Like, what I was thinking and feeling in general."
That… sounded just as bad as being pushed on the actual events, honestly. "Great." She muttered.
The boy snaked an arm around her waist. "You'll be fine, babe. She's not going to ride you harder than she did me."
Gwen snorted. "She absolutely will." The girl grumbled, biting her lip. Her mom was less of a taskmaster these days, for sure, but Gwen wasn't willing to bank on that to pull her through her session tomorrow. And that didn't even begin to cover how they were going to actually go about 'easing their parents' into the idea of, well, them. The best they had was Anna's idea of 'showing' them; but how to toe that line was going to be one heck of a minefield to navigate-
Ben tapped her forehead. "I can hear the gears grinding." He said, voice thick with fatigue. "Go sleep, nerd queen. Give that big brain a break."
"I can't." She groaned, sliding back down and snuggling into his chest, muffling her voice. "Too much to think about." She did feel mighty comfortable right now, though, packed under a thick blanket and huddled up with her favorite idiot. Her body was tired, but her brain just wouldn't shut up.
He burrowed into the crown of her head and she giggle. The doofus really did like messing with her hair. "Want me to help you sleep?"
He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, she felt something tug at her mana, just like yesterday when he'd asked her to reach out. She could see green glowing veins race up Ben's arm, his eyes glowing a deep green as well, and before she could even think she felt her mana reach out for him, as if on instinct, and latch on to those pathways beneath his skin, tracing the branches of the Omnitrix all throughout him.
Ben's own fatigue washed over her now like a warm blanket, and she could feel her brain slow down in real time. "Cheater." She got out, with a jaw cracking yawn. Ben just gave her a lazy smile and nuzzled her face, the sensation feeling slightly prickly because the mana under her skin was reaching for the network of machinery under his.
It wasn't a bad prickle, though, even if sharing sensations like this was still out of this world weird. Then again, it was brought about by mixing alien tech with magic. 'Out of this world' was kind of a given at that point. At least they didn't accidentally zap each other like when they first tried this on their date.
She didn't even try to resist sleep taking her, the last thing she saw being glowing green eyes.
"Honey I'd hardly recognize you if I passed you in the street!" Aunt Sandra tittered, giving Gwen an amused look across the kitchen table. Gwen, for her part, just blushed with a sheepish grin, looking down at her state of dress. She'd brought along some essentials, but she'd neglected to bring an actual shirt and pants. So it was either going with the leotard she'd worn under her robes yesterday, the robes themselves… or borrow some of Ben's clothing.
She'd gone for the latter; he hadn't been around to stop her after all. Her boyfriend had popped up out of a dead sleep early in the morning, babbling something about promising grandpa something and that he couldn't believe he'd forgotten so quickly while stumbling about.
Gwen had only sat up in bed, feeling slightly cheated as he'd struggled into his pants. So much for lazy morning cuddles, but a deep kiss square on the lips in lieu of a regular 'goodbye' was awesome enough to make up for it.
Now, two hours later, she'd just finished breakfast and was catching up with her family; something she'd rarely done in the past because catching up with her aunt and uncle meant that Ben was there and if Ben was there, it meant that Gwen probably wasn't in the best of moods.
Oh boy, had that running gag done a complete one-eighty.
"I know!" Gwen groaned. "I look like a total doofus." She hadn't even bothered to put her hairclips in. Paired with some of Ben's spare jeans and a shirt that was more creases than clothing, she looked nothing like herself. But what was even worse then that was that she was totally fine with it, even if his pants were a little tight around the hips.
It was official. She'd lost her mind.
She heard the front door open and close, and felt her heart do a little jump. Inwardly, she scoffed at herself. Really? That's all it takes? I used to have standards.
Then again, they couldn't have been that stellar to begin with, considering she settled for the biggest doofus on the face of the Earth. When said doofus appeared in the kitchen, his eyes immediately zeroed in on her, giving her a smirk. "What, still here? Shouldn't you be getting back to your precious homework?" He teased.
She smirked right back, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the way he was looking at her. Oh, it wasn't that she minded him looking at her like she was the only thing that mattered in the room. It was the fact that it was so obvious that it made her nervous.
Her father might have some suspicions. Her mom would only believe it when she couldn't deny it anymore, and then there'd be hell to pay. But they had had some interactions with Ben and Gwen like this, more than aunt Sandra and Uncle Carl anyway. In a way, Ben being more blatant was as good a way as any to get them to 'catch up'.
Their family was going to need to know there was something going on between them without really knowing what it was, or how deep and, as per their friends' suggestion, they had to convince them that this something was a good thing. She wasn't sure how they were going to do all that. It was an awful lot of subtlety and juggling and trying to outsmart adults. They'd done all of that plenty of times, but still.
There was some distance between theory and practice here.
She stood from her chair, turning to face him fully, a smirk gracing her features. "Figured I'd stick around to steal the love of your parents. The poor things are starved for an intelligent conversation with anyone other than themselves."
Ben stepped forward, crossing his arms, sweat glistening on the side of his face. Whatever he'd been doing with grandpa, it wasn't just talk. And judging by the way he was favoring his left leg, she had her suspicions. "And steal my clothing too, I see. And you're just jealous that your mother likes me better than you." He teased back.
Gwen snorted derisively. "Puh-lease, she just thinks you're salvageable. I know better."
Ben grinned, shuffling closer again. "Pretty sure that means she's given up on you, if she thinks she can move on to salvage project 'me'. That's gotta hurt." Oof. Low blow. Good one.
Gwen tilted her chin up haughtily, looking down her nose at him, channeling her best superior brow arching. She'd already been a master, but spending more time with her mother and with Anna recently, she was confident she nailed it even better nowadays.
"Wrong way around doofus: I'm already perfect. She's moving on to bigger challenges now." She trailed her eyes up and down his lithe frame, from his sloppy state of dress to his mussed up hair. At least, that's probably what it looked like to Ben's parents. She also took in the tautness of his arms, the mischief in his grin and his ridiculously appealing flush. "Way bigger challenges."
He grinned. "I'm worth it!" He teased, winking at her the cheeky little- "And I don't know about 'perfect'," Ben mused, closing the distance to hover right in front of her, both of them still studiously ignoring his parents. "You try, but I just can't get passed that hair." Hair that he loved. She knew it. He knew it. He knew that she knew it.
A part of her really wanted kiss him senseless right about now, just because that smirk was begging for it. Another part wanted to jump apart, to cover up, to break the tension they were having. But most of her wanted to do as Anna had suggested and somehow show their family that they were better together than apart, just as they'd shown their friends.
The thing was, they already knew that they were. It was getting them to think about them as a couple and be okay with it; that was the challenge. And if they succeeded, maybe, just maybe, that would convince them not to try and pull them apart when the time came to come clean.
Because it was a 'when.' Grandpa hadn't just been right about them slipping up when it came to their hero story; they were also starting to slip on their story. A large part of that was because they only discovered after the fact that they were basically acting like a couple before ever even kissing, but the reasons didn't really matter: they weren't going to be able to keep this a secret forever. Lizzie had probably summed it up best when she said that, if they hadn't been cousins, their parents would already have seen it easily and be sending out wedding invitations.
Her and Ben seemed to be in the clear for now, but there was only so much they'd write off, and Gwen was determined to have won them over before they realized what they were looking at.
Speaking of which, Sandra cleared her throat while uncle Carl, leaning against the kitchen counter, gave them an amused look. "Do we need to give you two a minute alone?" He asked, eyes dancing like grandpa Max's always did when he teased. With him, it always meant he wasn't taking the situation seriously at all; which probably meant he thought that Ben and Gwen hadn't noticed that they were inches apart.
They'd had plenty of spats in the past where they got up in each others faces, and recently they had obviously been more lenient with personal space. It had mostly been her parents that had been exposed to that, though. Had it been her parents in this moment, they would likely have jumped apart. It's what her brain told her to do. It's what his brain told him to do as well, probably.
Ben had always been good at ignoring his brain, and Gwen gave it a shot too. So rather than jump apart, they just turned their heads to their parents. "I think we're good so long this doofus remembers that he's in reach of my karate skills." Gwen remarked, dryly, elbowing her cousin. He just snickered.
His parents snickered as well, probably thinking she was referring to Ben's habit to pull pranks. She totally wasn't, but she had to admit that there was a strange sort of fun in having an inside joke. It made the knot in her stomach ease somewhat.
"Had fun with your grandfather?" Sandra asked, slightly forced. Gwen almost winced. She'd hoped that grandpa convincing them to seek help and the fact that Ben was doing better would help reconcile the old man and his daughter in law. Clearly, she still had reservations.
Ben gave them all a big grin. "Yeah, it was great! Had to get up super early though..."
Gwen snorted. "You're telling me. You woke me up when you nearly knocked me out of bed." She grumbled. Uncle Carl quirked an amused brow at her while aunt Sandra hid a grin behind her hand.
"You did notice we put out a cot for you, right?" The man questioned. Gwen very nearly snorted. Secret romance with her cousin or not (and how weird was her life that that was actually a thing?), they really should know by now that Ben and Gwen preferred having each other as close as possible when they slept.
At least that way, when either of them woke from a nightmare, they'd immediately know that the other was safe and sound. Even after what felt like years, Gwen still reached for her phone when she woke up alone in those moments.
Just do be sure. Just to know that he wasn't off somewhere staring at a ticking time bomb and hadn't left her alone-
"Yeah, I saw it." She remarked, casually, shaking off the thought. Before either adult could pursue the point, Ben busted out a jaw cracking yawn and sagged against her back, cheek resting against her hair. Gwen couldn't stop a smile even if the snuggle was over the top obvious. Idiot doofus. Always knew exactly what to do.
"All this talk of beds makes me sleepy..." He mumbled. Gwen just exhaled, reaching up to pet his head with a fond smile, turning her own to plant a kiss on the side of his. She gave his parents a helpless look.
"See what I gotta deal with here?"
Aunt Sandra just shook her head. "Honestly, you two are just ridiculous." She complained in good humor. Gwen felt Ben's snicker tickling against her neck and she did her utmost to not visibly shiver. She was pretty sure that if she gave into that, she'd, well…
Well she wouldn't just kiss him. She was smart enough not to do that. She'd just drag him upstairs and kiss him there without any prying eyes.
...that probably wouldn't be any better. It'd still be a little more on the nose than she wanted to be.
Uncle Carl shook his head fondly at the room at large, stepping forward to place his hands on his wife's shoulders, smiling down at her. "Let them be, babe. They need all the affection they can get." Ah, so that's where Ben found that nickname.
Sandra turned her head, glancing up at the large man, grinning mischievously, and Gwen very nearly facepalmed. And that's where he got that mischievous grin."I might need some too..." The woman pouted, crossing her arms, giving her husband an endearing look and, for real, just swap the hair color and have a slightly different shade of green and she was pretty sure she'd be glomping the woman herself out of sheer force of habit.
She felt a quick nip at the back of her neck, Ben's way of letting her know that he knew exactly what she was thinking and she pointedly did not look back at him. She knew he was giving her the exact same look his mother was throwing around. She did pinch his thigh, though, because even with the adults distracted, no nipping you little freak.
But as uncle Carl's eyes softened Gwen could feel Ben turn green behind her. "Oh no, they're gonna get chummy." He moaned before his father leaned in for a deep kiss on Sandra's lips. Gwen ignored the adults, instead looking over her shoulder at the doofus, confident that she could face him now.
"So do my parents, and you weren't moaning then, you big baby."
"Those are yours. Not the same."
She patted his cheek before pushing him away with the same hand. "I think it's cute." She asserted, putting her hands on her hips.
"It's gross." He shot back when he righted himself beside her, pointedly looking anywhere but his parents.
"I'm not complaining!" Sandra exclaimed cheerfully. Ben gagged in response, looking like he'd swallowed a lemon, causing the others in the room to laugh.
Gwen gave her doofus a teasing look before shifting her gaze to his parents with a wistful sigh. She saw him twitch nervously from the corner of her eye. "I hope I have something like that someday." She mused, delighted to see him twitch again beside her, head snapping back and forth between her and his parents before he stilled.
The dry, foul look he gave her was priceless. She quirked a brow in challenge. Oh yeah, I am so raising the stakes, freakazoid.
His eyes narrowed. I am so taking you up on that, cootie queen.
Aunt Sandra actually gasped at her, pulling her from her non-verbal discussion with the doofus. "I knew Frank's romantic heart was in there!" She cheered, sounding delighted. Uncle Carl just facepalmed with a grin, inching back from his wife; though never straying far.
"The one trait you get from that man..." He grumbled. Gwen turned a teasing grin their way, raising a hand to stage whisper.
"Oh it's not just my dad. Mom can be a total sucker for it too."
The two adults gave her scandalized shocks. "Say it ain't so!" Carl exclaimed. Gwen could only nod solemnly.
"It's true." Ben admitted with a sigh beside her. "Bunch of saps, this entire family."
Sandra leaned forward, brushing her blonde hair out of her face, quirking a brow at the boy, who shrunk back from it with a suspicious look. "Does that mean you're going to be alone forever? Because I'd like grandkids at some point, young man." She teased her son.
Ben was not to be outdone though, even if Gwen felt strangely put on the spot by the comment. He simply shrugged, jabbing a thumb at the girl, and her heart skipped a beat in anticipation because she felt he was going to say something stupid-
"I'm just about married to this know-it-all already. Get a girlfriend on top of that? No thanks. I've got enough crazy girls in my life."
...or something cleverly joking which you can read too much into but can just as easily take at face value. And given the pointed glance he shot her… yeah. Her doofus was doing something here.
"It's not exactly the same though, is it?" Aunt Sandra mused in challenge.
Ben just looked back at her and said nothing. And continued to say nothing, only staring at his mother in adorable confusion, and Gwen had to use all her considerable willpower not to burst out laughing as she saw both parents start to slowly shift nervously. Even if she felt a bit uncertain about what he was trying to do here.
"Oh!" The boy exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "You mean because we're not together, right?" He asked, innocent as the day he was born (which was about as innocent as your run of mill demon, as far as Gwen was concerned), gesturing between him and Gwen.
"Yes!" Sandra enthused, sounding more than a little relieved. Oh woman, are you in for a rough wake up.
Uncle Carl chuckled ruefully. "I get that it sometimes feels like that, little man, but it's not quite the same."
Ben quirked a brow at that and turned to give her a long considering look, one that clearly said work with me here, dweeb. Rolling with it, despite feeling her stomach tie itself into knots of nervousness, she eyed him back with the same thoughtful air about her, taking it as an excuse to trail her eyes up and down him briefly.
...okay, she liked what she saw. Feeling what he wanted to do, even if she didn't quite get why, she mimicked him.
Their gazes met again, and Ben snickered. "Yeah right. Can you imagine me together with this nerd?" Ben asked his folks, gesturing toward her grandiosely.
It clicked and Gwen almost laughed out loud. Stupid, insufferable, brilliant doofus.
She shuddered, leaning away from the boy, giving him a look askance. "That'd never work." She agreed. "We are like, super not compatible. At all." They certainly didn't used to be. Nowadays, the story was a little different.
"I tolerate the cuddles. That's it." He elaborated, looking like he was trying to convince himself more than anything.
Gwen rolled with that too, grimacing. "And no way am I ever kissing that ugly mug." She said that, even if she knew her gaze lingered a little too long on his face as she did.
"Hey!" Aunt Sandra interrupted, seeming more out of instinct than anything. "I worked hard on that mug!"
Never one to leave a joke hanging, Ben went severely cross-eyed, poked out his tongue and saluted. Gwen took it in with the most neutral expression she could muster.
It was tough going and she totally expected props for it later. She turned back to her aunt. "Yeah, great craftsmanship." Ben swatted her arm for that one as Sandra spluttered her protest.
She swatted back automatically, turning back to the boy- and stopped when she just caught him looking at her with a critical eye, way more intense than the look before, and longer too. It lingered on her face, and she mirrored the gesture. In the context of what they'd just said, she could hear the subtext loud and clear, so loud that she was sure Ben's parents could hear it as well.
Can you imagine us together?
The boy swallowed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I think I'm just going get a shower." Which was as lame an excuse to get out of there, because Ben rarely did showers if he could avoid it. And he knew that they all knew it. "Walk to your house afterwards? Pretty sure we can make it easily before your school starts."
And he could easily make it to his school from her house in time as well; disregarding that they could speed the journey up whenever they wanted to. She nodded, licking her lips. She didn't have to fake feeling a little flustered. "Sounds good to me."
With another lingering look the boy moved out of the room and up the stairs. Gwen breathed out a sigh as he took the tension with him and turned back to face his parents- ah. Well, they'd noticed the tension too. She was met by two adults whose brains seemed to have gone into overdrive.
It was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.Well, guess that's one ball rolling.
"Err, I think I better go pack my stuff." She backed off. "You know, the doofus only showers for like five seconds so I better be quick about it- bye!" With that she raced off and up the stairs, grinning to herself.
Those two were going to be thinking about this all day without them ever, explicitly, letting on that they were a thing but hinting like crazy that they could be. And Ben had played it perfectly. Spotting him near the bathroom door, and estimating that they had a good two minutes before one of his parents came to 'check up on them' she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly.
"That," she whispered, pulling back, "was do that more often." She knew for a fact that Ben could be very clever when he put his mind to it, especially when it came to strategy, and it was clear that that's how he had approached this here and, well...
It probably said a lot about her that she was incredibly attracted to him when he'd just pulled a very manipulative little stunt on his parents. Same way he got a little weak in the knees whenever she did magic, she supposed. Whatever. Clever Ben was hot Ben.
Her cousin seemed satisfied himself, if a little dazed, at the gesture. "If you reward me like that every time, you bet I'm doing this every day."
"I think we could win my dad over if we'd try the same strategy." She mused. "But my mom..."
"Your mom will kill me the second she knows."
"She won't kill you." She waved him off. That aside, her mother did present a problem, though not really in the way Ben seemed to think. What they were doing with the rest of the family was trying to warm them up to the idea of them being together, of leaving breadcrumbs. But that wouldn't work with her mom. "Though I'm not sure how we're going to handle her." She admitted.
At Ben's quizzical look, she elaborated. "I mean, what we just did with your parents, won't work with mine."
Ben looked ahead, chewing his lip in thought. After a few seconds, he hesitantly contested the point. "I think it might work on your dad. He might have an idea anyway." He finished, looking sheepish and more than a little guilty.
She gave him a glare. "What did you do?"
"Nothing!" He defended, holding up his hands. She walked around him to stand in front of him, stopping the boy in his tracks, crossing her arms. He looked around nervously before giving up, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "...we may have bonded over red hair. Once or twice… ish."
Gwen facepalmed. "Boys. Can't trust you to be subtle about anything."
"Hey, we just totally pulled a subtle on my parents!"
"Beside the point, and you know it." She retorted, bluntly, worrying her index finger between her teeth. "Okay. If my dad thinks something is up, than he's probably told mom. But seeing as you're still breathing, we can assume she talked him out of believing it, and probably doesn't believe it herself."
Ben seemed very relieved at the deduction for a few seconds before he paled as the clues fell into place. "Which means that if we start dropping hints-"
"My mom's gonna catch on quick." She finished, slumping a little, posture be damned. Her mom finding out before they'd swayed the rest of the family would mean… well that wouldn't go well. She'd kick up a fuss as soon as she thought whatever they were having was real, and that would bring things to a head before they wanted to. "So she can't find out before everyone else is won over."
The look Ben gave her was so flat that Anna would be proud. "...so we just need to keep our thing a secret from a woman who's smarter than both of us put together-"
"You're not putting much weight in the scale there, doofus."
"-while we try to clue literally everyone around her in on the fact that this is happening." Ben surmised, ignoring her jibe.
...when put like that, it was a pretty tall order for two ten year olds. She grimaced, nodding. Ben just looked at her silently for a few long seconds before he chuckled.
"I am so dead."
Gwen rolled her eyes. "I keep telling you: she won't kill you. Heck, how do you know your mom isn't gonna go ballistic on me-" Wait. "Your parents are thinking now." Gwen realized, feeling dread pool in her stomach. "What if they tell mom what they're thinking-?" Because that would be a breadcrumb the size of an anvil dropping straight on her mother's head-
Ben snorted. "Our parents don't talk to each other, remember? At least not about things like this."
Gwen didn't respond, mind whirling. She placed a hand on her hip and raised the other to massage her temple.
If they did talk… they'd have to act fast. Gwen wanted to groan. Brilliant as Ben's stunt had been, it wasn't the best idea in hindsight. Not before they'd thought it through. They should have discussed what they were going to do about her mother before they'd pushed the ball downhill.
But maybe the boy was right. If they talked about anything, it wasn't about their love life, but about how the kids were doing psychologically. But talking about their mental health that was pretty much a no-go zone for as long as her mother was treating them, as they couldn't discuss it anyway-
Gwen felt her brain click. "I got it!" She exclaimed, eyes snapping up to meet to Ben- whose eyes were not focused on her face. Very not. "...are you checking me out?"
"...maybe?"
She spluttered, feeling her face heat because, sure, flattered, but- "C'mon Ben, focus!"
"I was focused!"
"On the problem at hand, not me!"
"What's there to focus on when you do your brain thing for five minutes straight- wait, you said you got it?" Ben's expression shifted from miffed to openly curious in all of half a second. Gwen almost groaned. Can be brilliant, sure, but still has the attention span of a fruit fly.
She was about to tell him when she felt nervousness rise up in her. "Err, yeah. I do."
When she failed to elaborate, he looked at her curiously for a few seconds before his eyes narrowed. Now it was his turn to lean in with a miffed expression, and he somehow managed to loom over her despite still being shorter. She grinned in his face, innocent as she could be. His left eye twitched. "I'm not going to like this at all, am I?"
Gwen winced. "Sorry."
The boy sighed before giving her a long look. "Alright dweeb, hit me. What ya got?"
"Nervous?" Her mother asked as she put down a tray of tea, pouring some for Gwen. Accepting the cup, Gwen grinned ruefully, perched on the edge of the couch seat.
"That obvious?"
The woman's eyes twinkled with subdued amusement. "Ben's not the only one who can read your tells."
Probably the only one that can read them correctly, though.
They'd gotten the pleasantries out of the way already, how the party had gone (just fine, her friends were awesome), how she was doing today (also fine, it was always easier with the doofus there) and if she wanted a drink.
They were going to get started. Gwen was trying very hard not to bolt.
Her mother sat down on her own couch, looking at Gwen over the rim of her teacup as she inhaled the scent of her tea. She quirked a smile. "Usually, the first session is dedicated to getting to know each other." The expression turned coy. "Perhaps even more so than with Ben, though, I think it's safe to say that we're pretty familiar." The woman quirked a brow at Gwen, inviting her to add to this, and it took all Gwen's willpower not to just nod meekly and agree.
She took a steadying breath. This wasn't just her mother, this was her therapist. And she was there to help. And Gwen needed help. She needed to remember these things.
But she also needed her mother.
Tricky.
She swallowed. Might as well get the ball rolling, it wasn't like this could wait anyway, not if they were as on the clock as Gwen feared. But if anything her mother had taught her, it was that you could hope for the best but always prepare for the worst. She needed to heed those words.
"What if we're not? Familiar, I mean." The girl asked, eyeing her mother intently, leaving a myriad of other questions she could have asked unspoken. What if she only thought she knew Gwen, as opposed to really knowing her? What if she only knew parts, but missed other important bits?
She didn't need to vocalize these and others. Even if she could sometimes doubt her mother emotional aptitude, she was a darn good psychologist for a reason. She could tell what Gwen was asking.
Natalie stilled, cocking her head slowly, eyeing Gwen intently in return, and the smaller redhead prepared herself mentally for the woman to scoff for even suggesting that she wouldn't know her own daughter-
"Then this will be a learning experience." She concluded, simply. "We've already talked about how my perspective might be biased, and that this is both a blessing and a curse." Her mother put down her cup, leaning forward intently. "So if there's things that you think I need to know, even if you think I should already know them, tell me."
Gwen licked her lips, inwardly relieved. Alright, going in the right direction here."Even if you won't like what you'll hear?" Let her think Gwen was talking about criticisms of the way she'd raised her or something. It was never too early to start being a teenager, right?
The older woman relaxed in her seat, even if Gwen could tell it was forced. She'd seen Ben hide his worry often enough. She knew feigned relaxation when she saw it. She'd seen it in the mirror, too. "Even if I won't like to hear it as a mother. I'm here as your therapist first, your mother second. You getting better is my priority, so if you need to tell me something for that to happen, tell me."
Gwen put her own cup down, eyes intense. "And you won't treat me differently for it?" She pressed, desperately wanting to know this. "And you won't tell anyone else?"
Natalie's gaze softened, and she leaned back on her couch. She thought she'd caught on. She probably hadn't, not quite at least.
"Pumpkin, I want you to feel better, and I'll do what is needed to achieve that." She said tenderly, and Gwen understood that for just a brief second this was her mother talking, not her therapist. But for all that tenderness there was a fierce affection that caught Gwen off guard. She was used to that from grandpa Max, from Ben (Ben practically turned it into an art), even her father-
But it wasn't a common thing from her mother at all, and Gwen could feel her father influence at work here. He'd always been pressing her mother to be more open about that she cared for Gwen; not just in the clinical 'you have a roof over your head and support you' sort of way, but emotionally. She'd heard them fight over it often enough.
It was really nice to hear, and Gwen wished she didn't have to soldier passed it, as she'd much rather have lingered in that feeling for a solid week.
She bit her lip. "I need this. Just like Ben does." Gwen admitted, averting her eyes to the tea on the table, watching the dark liquid glimmer in the late noon sun. "I still feel like a crazy person for needing it, but I do. Just knowing how the panic attacks work has helped us both so much-" She cut herself off. Stick to the script, Tennyson. You can ramble later. That's what these sessions are for, but this one is not.
"But I need to be sure that I can tell you anything," She raised her gaze, looking her mother in the eye imploringly. "and that I won't be judged for it, treated differently, and that it won't leave this room. Even if it's things you don't like. Even if it's things you hate."
Natalie raised a brow, comprehension dawning. "You want a clean separation of my roles." She surmised. "You want to tell me everything you need to, and be sure that it won't matter outside of these sessions- at least not for us," She gestured between them, "as mother and daughter. Is that what you're asking?"
Yes yes yes, please let that be the case-
The woman nodded, taking her silence as the confirmation it was. "As we already discussed, I can share my findings with Max, but you can revoke this for any topic, session, or entirely whenever you want to. This seems to be one of those, so I'm not sharing what I hear today, or any day, with anyone until you confirm I can." Her lips quirked. "And I won't treat you, or anyone else, different because of what you tell me. So don't worry, I won't go grill your grandfather because he wasn't there when you needed him. Or for the garbage he fed you."
Not the family member she was worried about, but it did illustrate the point. She nodded, satisfied. "Thanks, mom. Err, Mrs. Tennyson."
Natalie waved her off. "Whichever works for you." The woman's expression turned studious. Hesitating for a moment, she moved on. "What is this about, Gwen? Even if I don't know you as well as I may have assumed, it's pretty clear you're leading into something here."
She picked up her tea, sipping it, trying to feign calmness and get the shakiness in her hands under control, all while feeling cold sweat trickle down her back. Her lips worked for several long seconds, and darn it she'd just about rehearsed this when she was doing schoolwork on autopilot today and it shouldn't be this hard!
"B-Because some things, I want to tell you. As my mother." She bit her lip and- screw it. She wanted to do this as a calm collected adult person, or as close as she could manage- but this was her mother. And she really, really didn't want to have to hide that she was terrified. "But I can't." She finished in a whisper, and for the first time in the conversation, she felt genuinely lost.
Not because she had no idea where the conversation was headed, or even that her mom was throwing her for a loop, but because it dawned on her how messed up her life really was; and that really drove home how out of her depth she was.
Her mother reached across the salon table, placing a comforting hand on Gwen's knee; a privilege, Gwen knew, no normal therapist could get away with. She almost wanted to smile. Yes, having it be her mother was a bit weird and hard, but it did have some great advantages.
And Gwen had to admit, she'd rarely felt so cared for by her mother. This was the longest time they'd ever talked about how she was doing without it involving school in… ever. That alone almost made this all worth it.
"Tell me."
Gwen exhaled a shuddering breath, sucking it right back in to steel her nerves, not quite feeling them harden like she wanted to. Her mother wouldn't let it leave this room. She wouldn't treat Gwen differently. She wouldn't act on it. She knew her mother well enough to know that Natalie did not take these things lightly; she'd keep her word. Gwen knew this, but she was still so very scared...
"A hero doesn't run away from a fight. A hero doesn't cower in his bed. A hero doesn't take the easy way out." ...she was a hero too, and if her doofus could face his greatest fear, she could do this.
She looked her mother in the eye. "There's a boy."
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