#BUT YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT LIE TO ME AND CLAIM THAT BENJAMIN 'BLANK STARE OF PANIC' JONES

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

It is deeply essential to me that there are alternating POVs in my fic because I absolutely REFUSE to let this show or anyone else LIE TO ME that this grumpy little koala would be confident and suave about getting feelings for this other character.

This man

was taken aside by his boss and told he was "too desperate" and that's why he failed at flirting,

has managed to completely not notice at least ten (10) women trying to date him,

spent an entire case bluescreening because he couldn't fake a relationship for SHIT,

once got offered a threesome and panicked so hard that his co-conspirator thought he'd had an aneurysm,

was asked to stay the night at someone's place "to help them feel safe" and he panicked, said he'd order them a security detail, and literally fled out the front door,

friendzoned a coworker so hard (by accident) that she transferred to another city.

This man, and I cannot stress this enough, gets everyone to fall in love with him by being genuinely kind and caring and a sarcastic little shit and then proceeds to either miss catching the ball completely or drop the ball so hard there's a crater where it made impact.

Anyway to quote @captainofthefallen who is bravely sacrificing herself for you all by getting the brunt of my madness, this is a case of "oh god I'm a disaster he thinks I'm a younger version of him this is unbearable" and then MOMENTS LATER in the koala's POV we get "oh my god he thinks I'm old and boring I'm gonna die."

NOBODY IS CHILL HERE. NOBODY. NEITHER OF YOU IS FREE FROM THE SIN OF ROMANTIC FAILURE.