“Well,” Bentley yawned, “Sorry I don’t have any soulful revelations of my own to spill, but anything else you wanted to talk about?”
Yes! I love you, Bentley! I’ve been in love with you for- “No.” Derek’s lips dictated instead. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to say.”
A light titter bubbled from Bentley’s throat, ripples wafting over his adipose from the slight lurch of his shoulders in the act. “Well, if anything else comes up that you want to talk about, I’ve got eyes, antennae and time.”
There’s still so much more! That voice that once begged Derek not to take that leap of faith now pleaded. Tell him, you idiot! You’ve come so far, don’t give up when you’re so close!
“No.” Said the part of him that had saved him in his biggest tide of need and, in its own change of heart kept the love fluttering in his chest imprisoned. “That’s all I ever wanted to say.”
Bentley’s antennae jittered from hearing those same words with precisely the same inflection as before, his lips defaulting so his mouth was hidden beneath the underside of his head, the way beedrills tended to where one couldn’t tell if they were smiling or frowning. “…oooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaay…”
“N…” Derek ended that damned first word when he remembered its definition. He had made one confession so far, why not this one?! He wasted precious seconds that prolonged Bentley’s uncomfortable stare in rattling his brain through the rat’s nest of stresses and woes for those two wired he needed to connect to ignite that confidence again.
…Confidence.
Something Bentley could donate to hospitals if there were a needle that could draw it, something he always respected for as much that he exuded. Something that for one to obtain his love, they would need to show some of their own confidence back. It was not confidence to assume that it was an internal voice, or some convenience of fate that had taken that first leap of faith. It was he. It could be he, and it always had been he.
He was alone. There was no voice in his heart, or in his chest, just silence between two people in the same room. There were no more mental blocks. No fears of the future or shame for the present. Just a love that was seeing sunlight pour in through the cocoon of fear and darkness waxing away from his being.
…and he spoke.
“Nnnnnnnyeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg...“
Derek blinked.
Bentley blinked.
Derek blinked.
Bentley blinked.
“I love you, Bentley.”
Bentley stiffly chuckled, a white hand ruffling up Derek’s hair. “I love you too, buddy.”
A loud smack came from Derek’s hand clamping Bentley’s arm that made the insect Pokémon flinch, and the initial surprise made itself home at how strong Derek’s fingers were in keeping girthy limb held aloft over his head.
“…Bentley.” He said knowingly.
“Der…?…ek.”
The first syllable of that name carried a questioning to it, the start to questions that wouldn’t be questions at all if he had asked them.
“Oh.”
Derek released Bentley’s wrist, nodding a millimeter.
“…oh…”
Wet glints pooled in Derek’s eyes again. “I’m so sorry, Bentley.”
“I.”
That lone letter carried a finishing inflection like Bentley had finished a sentence. He looked away from Derek, the house’s planks and nails wailing in pain as the Beedrill rose up to full height as the human looked up in fear that his old worst case scenarios would be his best case ones in the moments that were coming, wishing that he could know an iota of what Bentley was thinking.
A hard question to ask, given how much was going on in there. For how long had this been going on? How should he feel? How did he feel? He had no intolerance for gays, nor bisexuals, or pansexual, or anybody else cut from the same cloth, but much like Derek himself, Bentley assumed that the he of sixty seconds ago would politely decline confessions of love from the opposite sex, but that was not what he was doing right now or, the more he thought about it, was going to do. He was more concerned an emotional cocktail brewing in his head that he couldn’t pinpoint.
…and also over why did it reminded him so much of happiness.
Bentley had had girlfriends before, Pokemon he’d had persisting love with for their looks and personalities alike. He was no virgin either, having had flings with them and other females that’d been built on affection he knew well and true. There was not a doubt he had of his ability to be attracted to a woman…which made it all the more of some cosmic enigma to comprehend that the love of Derek, his little human buddy with no muscle or even fat to flesh out his spindly body, a human in a gene pool of so many others eager to throw their arms around Bentley made him feel…exactly that. Joy.
Bentley’s jaw was still hanging agape, but in an awed wonder that he was feeling such happiness over his friend’s love while at the same timed soaking in that glee, everything that Derek had thought Bentley had already found in life from that time he was sleeping in the living room. It wasn’t Derek’s parents, or his family, or his friends and boss that Derek had confessed to first, not the most important people to him out of fear of losing their approval…because that person was him. For how much effort it took of Derek, Bentley knew with factual clarity that in the few words it took for him to announce it, how honest, true, how genuine the human’s love was in the face of all that terrified him, Bentley wished it was a real person so he could hold it close and rub its back, whispering that everything was alright and he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to it.
The good news for him being that that was exactly true.
“Bentley, if…” The water in Derek’s eyes pooled enough that a drop could roll. “If you don’t feel the same way, I understand, all I ask is…?” A set of fat wasp hands hooking under Derek’s armpits shook him lucid in holding up so he and the eyes of his roommate were aligned. His red eyes shone with delight, but not enough to manifest a smile. “W-What are y-MHRRMPH!!!”
Bentley looked equally surprised as Derek when their lips met, even in spite of him being the one to pull them both together. Nothing meager like a peck on the cheek: full lip-on-lip contact. It didn’t happen for very long, and they didn’t partake in any gross-sounding grunting or licking the insides of one another’s mouths, but it was something that when Bentley broke them apart that they knew it happened, that it didn’t come from nothing, and that things would never be the same again.
With what happened in his mind still so fresh, it filled all of Bentley’s thoughts over where to go and what to do, and he pulled them both together again. And they kissed again. And they went eye-to-eye in shock again for as long as their first kiss had landed, and then twice as long. Thrice as long.
…then a faint sound with a semblance to pleasure came from Derek as he shut his eyes and returned Bentley’s kiss, hands gliding along Bentley’s swollen, furry cheeks and taking the Beedrill’s neck in his arms, and Bentley stopped holding him like some object and instead something he loved and treasured. He wrapped around his newly more-than-a-friend’s waist, pulling him not so close that he would break his spine, but submerge him deep into the warm blubber of the warm globe stemming off him enough for Derek to feel Bentley’s heartbeat between where their chests met.
Derek pushed back in their kiss, but Bentley slid past, earning a brief panic and longing from his human cohort, but the Beedrill nuzzled the rounded point of his head into the crick of his neck and kissed him, then Derek shrank with delight when Bentley licked him, his thick tongue painting saliva from his shoulder and up to his earlobe. Being one for order, Derek let go of Bentley’s neck to instead dig into overstretched the collar of his jacket so he could grapple the heaving mounds that constituted Bentley’s chest and pushed deep with his opened hands and elbows, kneading vigorously. The beedrill’s head shot back with a wet, shuddered breath, and like a hunter spying its prey’s weak spot, Derek shot in and kissed him under the chin, another down lower into the multitude of chin-rolls that didn’t leave much else of.
With that done, Derek just took to nuzzling his face into the base of Bentley’s head, who tilted it forward to envelope his friend in more warmth. When the human drew in and blew out air that coursed Bentley’s fur, he peeled back so the two cold see one another, and they both saw not the object of their attraction. Just the object of their love.
Tears kept coming from Derek, but laughter substituted sobs when he flopped his face into the chest of what was NOT his biggest dream come true, for dreams could not match what had really happened. His shoulders heaved with violence and vocalizations into soft bee blubber that an outside would’ve assumed was of somebody who’d witnessed a traumatic death, but Bentley grinned and pat Derek’s back at seeing it for what it was, all the stress of yesterday dissolving to joy that doubled in on itself into overwhelmed tears from his wholesome little dork of a cuddler.
…and he wouldn’t have loved him with anything less.
Choice 1: After everything the two have learned about each other, all they’re really in the mood for is some good, wholesome cuddling.
Choice 2: Bentley has another thing to be grateful for; he has a new loofa buddy to shower with!
Choice 3: The two get quite passionate in their kissing, then a bit…sweaty…
Choice 4: Bentley’s stomach rudely cuts them off, needing more food, but thankfully Derek’s now available for stuffing/belly rub duty!
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