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onlyherefortheshowmances · 2 years

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I’ve posted a new one-shot of what I’d like to think happens after the end of Love, Victor S3.

Title: After the Ferris Wheel

Word Count: 4,140

Description: This is my brief continuation of what I'd like to think happened after the final scene of 3x8. Discussion of Victor's 'relationship' with Nick and discussion of Benji's conversation with his parents and past drinking and them just generally being shitty parents.

LINK TO READ ON AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39732780

Also below the cut in full.“Just you?” the ride operator asks.

“Yeah, just me, and I’m okay with that,” Victor responds with a nod, realizing that if it’s not going to be Benji, maybe he really isn’t ready for it to be anyone else either, and maybe that’s okay.

“Okay,” the ride operator says, clearly, silently begging to not be subjected to this teenager’s life story. He gestures Victor onto the ride.

Victor walks up the ramp toward the vacant seat, but as he’s about to reach it, an all too familiar voice says “Wait!” from behind him and he whirls around instead. “Room for one more?” Benji asks when their eyes meet.

Victor stares at him, barely daring to believe what he’s seeing right in front of his own two eyes. He blinks, but Benji is really standing there, watching him. They stare at each other for a long moment, neither sure what to say next. “I, I thought you left,” Victor finally manages to stutter out.

Before Benji can respond, the ride operator interrupts. “Hey, buddy? You in or you out?” he asks, gesturing between them, looking at Benji.

Benji doesn’t answer, looking at Victor instead, leaving this decision to him alone. Victor can’t say no and he knows that. “Come on,” he says instead, gesturing for Benji to join him on the ride. Benji’s lips press together in an almost smile as he passes his ticket to the ride operator and goes to join Victor.

“Enjoy,” the ride operator says. Benji is nervous, but somehow also confident as he sits down, and Victor can’t help but watch him as he swings the safety bar across their laps. The other ride operator slides the pin that holds the safety bar into place.

Victor finally looks away and Benji starts to talk. “After you left today, I had a really long talk with my parents. About you, about what my dad said to you, and going behind my back like that.” Victor’s lip rolls in as he looks down at his hands, away from Benji’s face as he waits for the rest of the story. “And I told them that… you’re not my trigger,” Benji says, also looking away. He looks back at Victor before he continues. “They are.” Victor looks back at Benji in surprise; that’s not the answer he was expecting. “I want us to be together, Victor.” The ride stops then, they’re halfway to the top.

Victor had told himself for weeks that that wasn’t possible. At first, after Benji got back from rehab and broke up with it was that that wasn’t possible right now, but after Mr. Campbell showed up at his apartment door the night that they went to drag queen bingo, it became ever. He was inspired by his own speech, earlier the same day to be brave, to go after what he really wanted and who he really loved. As he walked from Benji’s house to his own apartment after what he thought was a failed attempt at a love confession, he thought that that may be the last time he ever saw Benji. He was too late. It took him too long to be brave. But now, only a few hours later, Benji is sitting next to him on this winter carnival Ferris wheel and there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be. He hates that their story went the way it did over the past couple months, but he still loves Benji more than anything and hearing him say that he wants them to be together isn’t what he woke up this morning anticipating or even wanting really, but he couldn’t be happier that it’s how this night is ending. His eyes dip briefly to Benji’s lips.

“But I still have to work on myself,” Benji continues. Victor knows that, but Victor also wants to be part of that. He cares about Benji; he wants to support him if Benji will let him. He nods and looks down at his hands again. “Like… a lot.” When Victor looks back up, Benji’s still watching him as he talks. “And I have no idea how it ends between us, which scares the hell out of me.” Victor looks over at him again. There’s still an ‘us’? he wonders. “Does it scare you?”

Victor raises his left eyebrow and nods barely perceptibly as he bites his lip. “Yeah.”

They both shake their heads and look away again. Victor wondering where this conversation is leading, but then Benji asks him another question that he’s not expecting. “Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if we’d just gone on that Ferris wheel together when you first moved here?” They look at each other again.

Victor wasn’t sure Benji even knew about or remembered that night. The winter carnival last year. The night he road the Ferris wheel with Mia instead, because it was easy, because it was safe, because he was too scared to ask Benji even though that’s what he’d really wanted to do. He always thought Benji probably would’ve said no anyway, at least after he found out about Derek, but now he’s Benji asking a question that makes it sound like maybe he would’ve said yes after all, and it makes Victor think… think back to that first day in Atlanta last winter. He’d seen Benji at the water fountain, but then Benji walked over to him, to Felix. Benji and Felix weren’t friends then. Felix seemed surprised that Benji had come over to talk to them, though he brushed it off like it meant nothing. When at lunch the very same day, someone decided to push Victor to the ground, knocking his lunch everywhere, who had offered him the hand to get back to his feet? Benji. So, maybe he wasn’t just imagining things that day after all. He used to wonder about those what ifs all the time, but not anymore.

Victor shakes his head. “No.” He looks away again, but Benji watches him, seemingly confused at first. “Not really.” Benji looks away and this time it’s Victor looking at him. “Because… that isn’t our story. This is. And… it’s perfect.” Both of their eyes flit to each other’s lips and then Victor decides to be brave again. He stretches his right hand out to cup Benji’s jaw and pull their lips together. Benji’s left hand moves to Victor’s cheek almost immediately and they’re kissing. Not just kissing; kissing like they mean it as the Ferris wheel stops again, this time with them almost at the very top.

The ride eventually moves again, but neither of them are even aware, not until it stops with them at the bottom. The ride operator removes the pin from the safety bar and throws it open. They still don’t notice. “Jesus Christ in heaven,” he grumbles. “Your ride’s up!” he snaps loudly.

They snap apart, both red-faced and biting their lips. “Sorry,” Victor mumbles, scrambling to his feet. He can’t help but smile as he turns back to offer Benji his hand. Benji takes it without a moment of hesitation and gets to his feet, too. They walk down the ramp, hands still tangled together between them. Victor pulls Benji to a nearby empty bench and they sit down without words, both staring straight ahead at the people still milling about. Eventually Victor swallows and glances over at Benji. “What now?” he asks.

Benji bites his lower lip. “I don’t know,” he says, “but I do know, I was just torturing myself trying to stay away from you because I wanted to believe my parents were right and that they knew best, but they didn’t. I figured that out a couple nights ago, actually… um.”

“The night you saw me and Nick. That’s why you were coming over.”

“His name’s Nick?” Benji asks.

Victor closes his eyes and sighs. “He goes to church with my family. My parents met his parents one week and invited them for dinner as some kind of set up. It was whole thing, but it’s over now. I never… I was trying to move on, because that’s what everyone was trying to get me to do. I tried to tell them I wasn’t ready for that, but no one would listen, so I figured… they know best. I’ve never gone through a breakup before. I mean with Mia, but does that even count?” He sighs. “It was fun at first. It was distracting, but…” He almost laughs and glances at Benji’s face. “Um, it was just hooking up… in his parents’ car most of the time, in his little sister’s playhouse once. That was the last time… because I got poison ivy and thought it was something else.”

Benji tries not to laugh. “Oh my God.”

“Shush,” Victor grumbles in response. “But, yeah, I mean, um, after I decided just hookups weren't what I wanted, I downloaded the app at Rahim’s insistence and well you know what happened after that.”

“Wait, if that was after Nick, why did I see you kissing him two nights ago?”

Victor closes his eyes and lets out a loud breath through his nose. “Um, because after our thing and your dad coming to yell at me and him telling me that if I actually cared about you, I'd stay away from you... I asked my mom if I could go to church with her and Nick was there. He apologized. Um, I’d told him that I decided casual hookups weren’t what I was looking for anymore. I was more interested in maybe going on some dates or something instead, and that wasn’t his vibe. Um, he apologized at church and the next night he texted me and told me to come outside. I tried to say no because I thought it was just… what it always was with him. But I eventually went down, and he'd brought me flowers… and asked if I wanted to go to dinner some time. He tried, um, I immediately said yes. It was nice." He shrugs a little and glances at Benji again. "Um, the night you saw us, we’d, uh, we’d actually just gotten back from a double date with Rahim and his new boyfriend, maybe? I don’t know if they’re official yet, but he’s cute, his name’s Connor. He’s a waiter at a fancy restaurant which is how Rahim met him, while on a pretend date with my sister because his homophobic uncle was in town from Iran.”

“I knew about the uncle. Didn’t know about the pretend date with your sister.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how it happened exactly, but it did. Anyway, we’d just gotten back from that. Nothing even happened that night, even though, I think we both were going to at some point, but um, he left and I went inside. Um… today…” Benji blinks at him. “I don’t have to tell you about this if you don’t want.”

Benji bites his lip. “Uh, no. I think we should be honest with each other. Not talking about things is what got us into trouble before.” He nods almost encouragingly.

“Right, um, so, today, before the assembly, um, he was there and I thanked him for coming and he called himself my boyfriend and I just let it happen, but it scared the shit out of me. And it actually made me change my speech and made me realize a ton of stuff, but mostly that if it wasn’t you calling yourself my boyfriend, I didn’t want it to be someone else, either.” Benji almost smiles. “Um, yeah, so I accepted the gay award, because that’s definitely what it was. That's what I was contemplating, by the way, In the hallway the other morning, when you asked if I was okay."

"Oh."

"Coach Ford told me I was getting the 'bravery' award which we all know is just the gay award and I didn't want to accept it at first because I thought that if I was getting an award it should be for my talent, not for being gay. I didn't want to be 'gay Victor'. I just wanna be Victor, you know?" Benji nods. "Rahim convinced me. He's smarter than I give him credit for."

"I mean, he is the reason I'm now passing Calc."

Victor laughs a little bit. "Yeah, he mentioned that. Um, anyway, after the assembly ended, um, I apologized to Nick, and then I shoved my trophy at my mom and ran to your house so I could catch you before you left for Connecticut.”

“So, what you’re saying is, I can also thank my dad for you kissing someone else?”

Victor laughs. “Yeah, kinda. If he hadn’t shown up at my door, I don’t know if I would’ve agreed to the dates with Nick, so yeah.”

Benji sighs and shakes his head. “God, I really wish he hadn’t done that. Um, that night after Bingo, when I got inside, I, uh, I wanted to drink. It was the first time since I got back… I uh, I found a meeting instead… and went. My dad probably dropped me off, came to yell at you and then came back for me.”

“Oh,” Victor says quietly.

“Um, but, at that meeting, I talked to an older guy. I’d told the whole group why I was there. That I’d seen my ex-boyfriend and that I felt like I was torturing myself staying away from my favorite person, but everyone was saying that’s what I was supposed to do. And that…” he takes a deep breath. “That you made me happier than anyone else in the world and that you were the first person to ever make me feel safe and loved and like I was enough. Even my parents can’t manage that.” He swallows and blinks. “Um, afterward, I was talking to this guy and he said that it didn’t matter what everyone else said was right or wrong, I had to do what was best for me. And it was then that I knew, staying away from you wasn’t what was best for me. It was making me more anxious, and when you wouldn’t talk to me in the hallway and when I saw you kiss another guy, I… I thought leaving was the only option I had.”

Victor immediately feels monumentally terrible. “I… I thought… You’d said… Your dad had said… I just… I thought it wasn’t an option. I thought I was doing you a favor. I was… I was trying so hard to move on from you, because I thought that was my only option.” He closes his eyes and drops his chin toward his chest. “I just… I wish I would’ve known.”

“I’m sorry,” Benji says. “I’m sorry for making you think that… that you couldn’t talk to me at all… for… for everything my dad said to you… for… for believing my parents and the therapist who believed parents instead of believing myself. I’m sorry, Victor, but I’m ready to do better, and I… I know I still have a fuck ton to do as far as working on myself and my anxiety and learning how to cope with all that without alcohol, but I… I want you to be part of my life, too. You were… you were always the part of my life that I loved and these past couple months, and especially the past couple weeks and days, I’ve… I’ve missed that. I’ve felt like I wasn’t… like I wasn’t allowed to be happy. That everything had to be working on myself, or going to meetings, or going to therapy, or work, or school. I felt I wasn’t allowed to have anything else. I started playing my guitar again, but the night I chose to do that, my dad walked into my room and told me, that without asking me first he, uh, he paid a lawyer to… to get my DUI conviction expunged from my record, so that I could get into college or whatever he said his reason was, but it felt like it was mostly, so he could pretend it never happened and so he could not think about it, not think about me. But he didn’t understand that I can’t do that. I don’t get to just not think about it. I think about that night, almost every day of my life, because that’s what anxiety does. I think about the day he found pictures of naked men on my laptop, and I lied to him and said it was because I lent my laptop to Lucy, and he was so relieved… He was so relieved that his son wasn’t gay, because ‘there’s not anything wrong with being gay but, but I never thought my son’. It hurt, and I still don’t think he realizes that.”

“Benji, I’m so sorry,” Victor says. Benji half-smiles at him. “I don’t know what I can do or if I can do anything, but if I can… please… I want to help you...”

Benji half-smiles again. “The fact that you can sit here and listen to all of this and not… and not walk away… and not say it’s too much… and not… not make me feel like I’m some horrible person… that’s enough. That’s what I’ve missed, and what I wish my parents could do. I’ve missed you. I… when we were… when we were together before, and your mom would say things and do things… and you know… well, when that would happen and when you’d tell me about it, I just wanted to protect you. I wanted to save you from her, because what she did… and said, was so much like what my parents said, or what my dad said, and my mom silently allowed him to say. I didn’t want you to end up where I ended up, Victor. I wanted to save you, and I couldn’t ,and the fact that I couldn’t save you, that I couldn’t make that better for you, yeah, that was why I drank sometimes, and I know it’s the anxiety, and the savior complex, but it was worth it for me. It was worth giving myself that anxiety, because I loved you, because I still love you…”

“I love you, too,” Victor says before Benji can continue. “And… my mom’s literally the one that set me up with Nick. If anything, she’s been… trying too hard, so… that shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”

Benji smiles. “Sounds like, she’s doing better than my parents, or at least my dad on that front.”

“I was gonna say, your mom always liked me.”

Benji laughs a little and half smiles. “Yeah, she did, until my dad put the idea in her head that you’re the reason I started drinking again, which I don’t even know how that makes sense, because I was already drinking again before you even moved to Creekwood. I… I guess I didn’t give them a good enough timeline the first time, um, the night we were together after the wedding; but I, uh, made sure they knew this time. The… the first time I drank again, was… the day I got home from the hospital, because I heard them talking in the hallway. My dad was complaining that I wasn’t the son he wanted. I wasn’t a good enough student and now I had this drinking problem. That night, my anxiety got the best of me, and I stole a bottle from his cabinet after they went to bed. I don’t know if he never noticed or if he just convinced himself that it wasn’t happening because he didn’t wanna think about it.” Benji pauses and bites his lip, but Victor just listens. “I drank the night after the strip club incident. I drank every night of finals week. They claim they didn’t know, but I think they were just trying to ignore it, convincing themselves it wasn’t happening, but I spent a year lying to them, to Hank, to everyone at AA meetings. Hank, uh, when he found out, he decided he couldn’t be my sponsor anymore, because I’d lied to him for so long, so I have to find a new one. Still working on that.”

“Why does you dad still have a liquor cabinet? Like, they knew when you had the accident, why… why would he still keep it in the house?”

“Cause he doesn’t have a drinking problem, so why can’t he have wine and liquor? That’s his logic anyway. He cares more about his own good time than anything about me. Always has. It’s just… It’s how my dad is.”

“That’s not right,” Victor says immediately. “He’s your dad.”

“My mom at least tries… to… be a parent, but my dad never has, he just gets disappointed every time I make a mistake, and about me being gay, and all I can do is disappoint him, and my mom just lets it happen. I hate it. I turn eighteen in November. I’m gonna move out as soon as I can, but I’m stuck until then. That’s… that’s part of why I was considering boarding school at all. I wouldn’t have to be at home most of the year, but…” he shakes his head and then looks at Victor. “I also wouldn’t have you.”

Victor blinks and smiles at him. “If you… if you think it would still be good… for… for those reason… to… to get away from your parents… I… you could still go… you’d have your phone…”

Benji shakes his head. “No. I mean, my aunt’s there and she’d just relay everything back to them and my dad would call me with his disappointment instead. I’d… I’d rather be here… with you…”

Victor smiles again. “Okay.” He leans forward and kisses Benji again, a kiss full of meaning. Not like on the Ferris wheel when it was a kiss of the emotions of having missed each other for so long or of surprise and lust and desire, no. This kiss is full of something else. It’s full of a new beginning, of starting over, of being the best versions of themselves they’ve ever been, and of trying to still be better. It’s full of passion and devotion and willingness to put the work in to make sure it’s better this time around. It’s full of all of those things, but mostly it’s full of love; of unconditional love.

They only pull apart when there’s confused laughter nearby. Victor turns his head to find both of his parents standing in front of them. “Oh, uh, hey, guys,” he says, clearly still out of breath from all the kissing.

“Hola, mijo,” his mom says, clearly trying not to laugh. “I thought…” She glances at Benji.

“It’s a long story,” Victor offers. “Um, he didn’t leave, he, um, he talked to his parents, and um…” He bites his lip and glances at Benji.

Benji is smiling at Victor. His face still red with embarrassment at being caught by Victor’s parents. “Um, yeah. I’m staying. I, uh, I’d interpreted some things wrong and… it turns out…” He takes a deep breath. “Breaking up with my boyfriend because that’s what everyone else told me was the right thing to do, wasn’t the right thing to do… at all.” He looks at Victor’s mom. “I should’ve listened to you instead.”

She smiles at him. “Well, I’m… happy, for… both of you… provided you’ve done some talking and not just kissing tonight.”

They both laugh. “Yeah, we have,” Victor says, biting his lower lip.

“Good, don’t forget about that part,” she says, looking at her son. “Uh, we were gonna head home as soon as Adrian’s out of the bathroom, are you coming with us, or?”

Victor looks at Benji and he smiles. “Um, I’ll walk. I’m good.” Benji smiles at him, too.

“Okay. It’s Friday, so home by midnight, please.”

Victor looks at his watch. “Yeah, I’ll be home by midnight.”

His mom smiles at him and starts to walk away, but his dad pauses. “Be safe, be smart,” he says and then he follows his wife.

Victor almost laughs and looks back to Benji. “Um, sorry about them.”

Benji just smiles and shakes his head a little. “I’m not. It’s okay. Your parents act like parents at least.”

Victor nods a little. “That’s fair, um, did you… wanna do anything else at the carnival, or?”

Benji smiles at Victor for a second and then looks around. “I think maybe, my basketball star boyfriend is supposed to win me something at one of the games.”

Victor never realized a single word could make him as happy as that one just did. He smiles at Benji, unable to help himself and then nods. “Yeah, I think can be arranged.”

#Love Victor #Love Victor Fanfic #Love Victor Fanfiction #Venji #Venji fanfic #venji fanfiction

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