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fbfh · 8 months

Text

curiosity is a wonderful thing - ch. 3

wc: 3.1k

pairing: slow burn childhood best friends to lovers ben x reader, audrey x reader

warnings: ben is stressed, audrey is a bad gf, mild claustrophobia/dark spaces/being under ground warning (description of falling down the rabbithole into twonderland but it's fun and you love it so it's not scary lol), mild exposition dumping

summary: ben prepares for the arrival of the Isle kids, and gives audrey the benefit of the doubt a little too much. you have time to sneak away to your favorite place in the world, and the only thing that's missing is ben.

song recs: in a world of my own - kathryn beaumont, welcome to wonderland - scarlett rose, wish you still felt this way - sophie meiers x 90sflav

a/n: i love this fic. i love this series. this started as a comfort daydream and now it's a thing and I hope yall are ready for the next chapter cause it's gonna be good. I hope this brings yall the comfort it brings me <33

tags @yesv01 @magcon7280 @hopefullhearts @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sunshineangel-reads @strawberry-cake1 @dustyinkpages @kiara7777

After about a week of constant meetings, arrangements, and press conferences, a week of even less sleep and even more coffee than usual - something Ben didn’t know was possible to achieve - it’s finally the day he’s been working tirelessly toward. It’s the day the kids from the Isle are finally on their way to Auradon. He rushes back to Auradon Prep with you at his side after a very stressful, successful press conference. Even though he seems totally composed on the surface, you can tell he’s a bundle of nerves. You walk quickly beside him as he goes over the agenda for their arrival.

“Their rooms are all set up, Fairy Godmother said Jane can help them get settled into their classes - god, what am I forgetting?” Ben rambles, fumbling through all the papers in his bag. His eyes land on his copy of his press conference note cards, and that jogs his memory.

“Right,” He continues as you look up at him, and he knows he has all your attention. “I don’t think I’m going to have time to write a new speech for their arrival…”

He pauses for a moment, seeing if there’s some little pocket of time he can find to make this date extra special for them.

“Ben, you’re more jam packed than a tea cake. You can’t overwork yourself and run into the ground, not when you’re this close.”

Ben considers for a moment, realizing you're right.

"You have a point…" he agrees with a reluctant chuckle. "I'll use the same speech I used for the press conference." He decides. You’re silent for a moment.

“...Alright.”

“What?” Ben asks, able to read your expression like a book.

“Nothing, just-” You hesitate, then give him an earnest look, like you don’t want to hurt his feelings. He chuckles and braces himself, knowing whatever you’re about to say will be a necessary - albeit, hard - truth.

“You don’t think it’s a bit much?” You ask gently. “Too formal, given the circumstances?”

He considers for a moment. He thought it did great at the press conference, but maybe there are a few parts he can revise for the arrival of the Isle kids.

“Uh… yeah. I- I can cast eyes over it, we still have a little over an hour. That should be enough to make any tweaks.” He finishes.

You nod as you follow him into the conference room that he’s turned into a makeshift headquarters for all of his first proclamation business. He sets down his bag and pulls out all his paperwork and his planner. He hears you set your stuff down a few seats away from him and looks up. You’ve been working so hard and helping him out so much with all of this. He couldn’t possibly have accomplished a fraction as much without you. He walks over to you, gathering up your stuff.

“Look bunny, why don’t you, uh,” he starts, leaning over slightly to make sure no one’s about to walk through the doorway. “Why don’t you head down for a while. You have enough time if you go now.”

Your eyes light up at his words. You’ve been keeping your Wonderland visits to a minimum to help Ben and support him as much as you can, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“Really?” You ask softly.

“Yeah, I’ll cover for you.” Ben lets out a soft grunt as you tackle him with a hug. He chuckles lightly, giving your back and shoulders a gentle pat before you pull away a moment later.

“I’ll run my speech by you when you get back-” He begins, then cuts himself off, remembering something. “We got your watch fixed, right?”

You’re glad he remembered, and you fish around in your tea pot bag for a moment before pulling out the weathered bronzy pocket watch. Time works differently in Wonderland, and it’s hard to keep track of. You've tried everything you can think of, and your pocket watch is the only thing that seems to keep you from constantly being late. Granted, you're still late or nearly late a lot, but it’s much better than it used to be.

“Yes,” you nod, showing him the little ticking hands, currently resting at the words ‘on time’. A fresh bubble of excitement pops inside you and you let out an excited giggle, hugging Ben tightly one more time.

“Thank you!” you exclaim in a soft whisper before he sends you off. You run over to the corner of the room to summon a rabbit hole. Ben watches in fascination as the tile floor begins to crumble in front of you, giving way to grassy dirt before continuing to crumble, going down, down, down. It’s a large, vaguely irregular circle about half as wide as your wingspan. You look back at Ben with another silent thank you, before jumping straight down into the hole. As soon as the last of you is out of sight, the tiles rebuild themselves without leaving a trace of you. Ben stares at the spot where you disappeared, feeling vaguely melancholic, but mostly happy that you’re getting to spend time doing what you love. That you’re happy.

“There you are, Bennyboo,” Ben whips his head around at the sound of Audrey’s voice, and he’s relieved she hadn’t shown up sooner. It’s not that sneaking off to Wonderland is a bad thing, but most people tend to discourage you from visiting too often. Wonderland is a timeless domain, like Neverland, and it and all of its inhabitants are much different from those from Auradon - usually referred to as Overland or the Main Land by people from Wonderland and Neverland.

Wonderland runs on pure, neutral chaos and nonsense, which is a very hard concept for people from Overland to grasp. Overland runs on a fundamental structure of good vs. evil, so it’s easy for people to perceive things from Wonderland as good or bad when they’re really just made up of madness. The reason people try to keep Wonderland contained is because you can’t fight nonsense with sense, you can’t fight chaos with logic. If something powerful from Wonderland got into Overland, like the Jabberwocky, or any number of powerful plants, animals, or magic, Auradon would be practically defenseless. That’s one of the reasons that Belle and Adam decided to reach out to your mother, and continue to form such a strong bond with her. If Wonderland nonsense managed to get out into Auradon, it would be uncontrollable chaos, and the only person who could stop it would be your mother - and now, you.

It took Ben a while to understand Wonderland, to understand you. You and your mother are very special cases; Alice was from Overland, but adapted to be part of Wonderland, and Wonderland became a part of her. You, however, were born in Wonderland and raised in Overland. You’ve adapted as well as you can, but you always do much, much better when you can sneak away for regular little trips. Ben has asked to join you before, but it’s too dangerous. People from Overland rarely adapt to Wonderland nonsense and usually end up going mad, which is why your mother is such an asset to the Auradon government - she’s actually able to serve as a liaison between Wonderland and Auradon, and keep an eye on things.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of stigmas surrounding Wonderlandians, stigmas Ben has grown to resent more and more over the years, but most of it boils down to Wonderlandians being weird, crazy, dumb, and volatile. The more Ben has come to understand you, the more he hates the small comments and little stares directed toward you. Luckily Ben has been able to protect you from a lot of it. People very quickly found out that if they said anything bad about you or Wonderland, it wouldn’t end well for them. He can’t get rid of the stigmas, but he can protect you from them as much as possible.

Audrey flounces over, sitting next to him.

"You are never going to believe what Arabella just told me at cheer practice."

“Uh-”

“She said-”

“Um, Audrey.” Ben finally manages to interrupt. She looks confused about why she’s not the one talking right now.

“I want to hear all about this, I really do,” Ben says, “but we’re going to be greeting the kids transferring from the Isle soon-” Audrey huffs, already disinterested.

“And I wanted your feedback on my speech.” He finishes, handing her the papers.

“Oh, sure. There’s that…” Audrey says, pretending to read it over for a moment. Before she finishes, she sets the papers down on the table, and gives Ben a chipper look.

“I’m sure it’s fine, Bennyboo. You never disappoint.”

She sits on the table in front of him, continuing to tell him all about what Arabella said Herkie did. Ben tries his best to listen, he really does. He just can’t keep his mind off his speech, and he can feel himself beginning to spiral and overthink. He has so much riding on this, he can’t afford for his speech to be fine, he can’t afford for anything about this whole ordeal to be fine. Her words keep echoing in his mind, you never disappoint, Bennyboo. He knows she meant it to be supportive, but he feels like all the pressure he’s been convincing himself he can handle is just reinforced. He was hoping to get some real feedback from Audrey, maybe a little encouragement, but-

He stops himself before the thought can go any further. Audrey is his girlfriend, and Ben should be able to trust her word. You would never lie to him about something this important, so he chooses to trust that Audrey wouldn’t either. He tries to shut up the worries clouding his mind and tries to pay attention to what Audrey is saying. She’s probably just trying to distract him from worrying, give him something else to think about for a while. You can always tell when he’s overthinking, so Audrey is probably trying to show him that she cares, that there’s nothing to worry about. That if she’s talking about something like cheer team gossip at a time like this, when Ben is getting ready for one of the most important days of his life, then everything must be under control. Besides, if he needs to he can look his speech over by himself after Audrey leaves. He might have time to. It will all be fine.

The moment you let yourself fall into the dark rabbit hole, your stomach flips as you begin free falling through the darkness. A little dirt sprinkles down on your head from where it closes up above you, and you narrowly manage to avoid some roots snagging in your hair. After a few moments, your descent slows. You spin slowly as you glide down, and in the pitch black darkness, you can feel your internal gyroscope going crazy. You breathe in the heavy, earthy air, and for a few moments, you don't know which way is up or down. You have absolutely no sense of direction for those few beautiful moments, and you don't want to. Soon, your descent speeds up again, and you find yourself tumbling through tree branches, eventually landing on a rough surface in the dark.

“It should be here somewhere…” you mutter, feeling around for a doorknob. After a moment you feel it, cool aged metal in your hand. You twist it, revealing a beam of light through a doorway. It’s going to be a close call, but you think you’ll just be able to fit. You manage to squeeze through the entrance, exiting out of the door - which is situated in a large tree trunk, and into Wonderland. You crawl forward, taking it all in. You take in a deep breath of the still, earthy, floral air. It’s heavy in your lungs, like a deep dream. You fully exit, and the door slowly closes behind you.

The world is quiet.

There’s an almost suffocating stillness in the atmosphere of Wonderland, one that would be uncanny and unnerving to you if it weren’t already so deeply comforting. It’s the same grounding sense of peace and stillness you get when you’re young and walk carefully through your dark house at night in search of a cold glass of water. There’s that feeling in Wonderland, everyone is asleep except for me. I ought to be asleep too, I best not wake them. The world around you is still, still, still. It’s as still as a stone, or a lake made of glass. You soak up the familiar surroundings, and you feel like you’re finally visiting an old friend.

In spite of the pitch black sky, which is barely visible through the treetops, you can see what’s around you just fine. But if you look too far, there’s a darkness off the beaten path, one that stays just at the edges of your sight no matter where you go. It always looks to you like those hazy dark shadows around the edges of old photographs. You look down at the beaten path - this one being made of black and white irregularly shaped checkerboard tiles nestled right into the dirt. They twist and turn, splitting out and reconverging haphazardly into the darkness. They’re a bit worn and dirty, but you suppose any outdoor tiles would get that way eventually.

You follow it back the way you came, spinning around as you do, and notice the way it splinters into little shards, cracking and fragmenting into a mosaic of sorts before petering out at the base of the tree, with grass and dirt poking up in between. You feel yourself begin to settle, at home with the lack of time flowing around you, and you take in another breath. Your nose and lungs are kissed gently with the smell of damp, freshly turned earth, plant life, and that unmoving sort of smell that shows up after it rains, but still before any birds and animals come out from their hiding. The type of smell when flowers are wet, and have not yet opened themselves back up.

Reaching into your trusty teapot bag, you fish around in there until you find your camera. It’s old, very old, and completely obsolete ever since the boom of technology that appeared around the time you and Ben were born, but you love it nonetheless. A year or two before you and Ben - and most of the other kids your age - were born, Auradon successfully made an alliance with Atlantis. They traded their protection of Atlantis and a promise to leave them alone, in exchange for a little bit of their technology and power sources. Adam also promised to make sure Rourke never saw the light of day again, a promise Queen Kida was happy to accept. The trade led to light speed innovations based in Atlantean tech; smart phones, computers, video games, and countless other innovations that brought Auradon into its new age. Flash forward to now, Atlantis is the tech capital of the world, and magic is obsolete. Your camera can’t give directions or tell time or backup to cloud storage, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

You snap some pictures of the tiles before you begin exploring. You never know what entrance to Wonderland you’ll fall through, and you love documenting each one. You walk carefully through the forest of dense trees, looking at flocks of haughty looking dodo birds and peonies that gossip to each other, whispering with a laugh as you pass them by. Soon you stumble into something very interesting. You thought it was a cluster of blue bushes, but were surprised to find out they’re really birds. The bird bushes (or maybe bush birds) startle at your presence, squawking and leaving feathers (leaves?) in their wake before they fly off.

You manage to get a few pictures of them too, and you’re excited to show Ben. You’ve tried taking pictures with your phone before, but Wonderland makes technology… unreliable at best. Plus, there’s no service down here anyway. That’s why you took to journaling, drawing pictures and taking photos and writing down everything you see. This way you can share it with Ben, this way it’s almost like he’s here in your favorite place with you.

You follow the blue speckled bush birds - as you’d dubbed them - until you lose track of them. It’s no matter though, since you soon hear some lovely singing coming from under a sparkling berry bush growing fruit shaped like bells. You crouch down, lifting up the leaves, and find a choir of inchworms practicing their harmonies. The leader looks up at you in a huff.

“I’m terribly sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt.” You say. He huffs, and turns back to his choir, conducting with a little twig. You decide to sit and listen for a while as they rehearse under the coverage of glistening pink leaves. You find some oversized, brightly colored mushrooms growing nearby, and sit down on a comfortable one. You pull a teacup out of your bag, trying to decide which tea to drink while you watch the inchworms and listen to their masterpiece slowly come together.

You zip the lid closed, and pour the spout to the cup, settling on some raspberry tea. With honey, you think, and lemon. You smile as a lemon wedge falls from the spout, plopping gently into your cup. You take a sip, and it’s perfectly brewed as ever. You go through several cups of tea, growing more and more invested in the drama between the inchworms. One is insisting on taking the high harmony, even though it’s obviously out of his range. You’re half way through… one of your cups of tea, you lost count rather quickly. By now the inchworms have perfected their harmonies for the chorus, and the first verse. Your attention is ripped away from the inchworms when your bag starts ringing. You open it up, digging out your pocket watch. The bronze hands have spun all the way past most of the little notches, and you nearly drop your tea when you see where they are. Your eyes follow the hands, which are nearly pointing to the word Late! in fancy script.

“Shit!”

#curiosity is a wonderful thing #ben florian #ben florian x reader #daughter of alice!reader #descendants #descendants x reader #OOF #ya bitch is going through it #but it okay #it ony a movie #pls tell me smwn gets that reference #i say it ony a movie about 30 times a day #oh and i got the 'i thlammed my penith in the car door' song stuck in my head again #i sang it for i think 15 is minutes straight at the end of my shift at work today #silently ofc

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