#but loop can still glow and spark so y'know close enough

[aeb-art]

made some sprite edits with loop in @ghostlightfic

there's also another one under the cut that i made yesterday but i did it on my phone and it saved all blurry lmao

i like the ones i made today a lot more, but this one might as well be included

[dingletragedy]

kiss on the neck/back kiss? for the prompt list? i love ur writing so much!!!

here have a kiss on the back and the neck and a whole bunch if friends to lovers feelings!!! thank you sm ni, i really hope you enjoy x

say it first - ao3 link

“So, how's Walford treating you? Are you coping without the obviously better Highway brother?”

“Well,” Ben starts, smirk already plastered on his face, avoiding the seriousness of Callum’s eye no wonder. “My Dad is still Phil Mitchell, my brother is still Ian Beale and, oh, the obviously worst Highway brother is still my neighbour. So yeah, coping just fine.”

“And I’m still your best friend in the world, right?” Callum asks tentatively, ignoring Ben’s dramatics. He meets Callum’s eyes again, so open and trusting, lashes all spindly and soft in the fading light.

“You’re more than that Cal,” Ben whispers soft as he shifts, rolling onto his side, back facing Callum now. “You’re the spice to my girls.”

For a moment, Callum thinks that’s it, another day gone, another wave of secrets and feelings swallowed. But then Ben’s hand brushes his stomach, fingers in search of Callum’s wrist laid there. His fingers wrap around the spot in which the watch Ben brought him for his eighteenth birthday usually occupies, and he pulls Callum’s arm to loop around his stomach.

Calum shifts himself too then, he’s laying firmly on his side, knees bumping the back of Ben’s shins for an awkward moment before they figure it out, Ben’s foot falls to brush between Callum’s legs. Callum curls the fingers of his free hand gently into the sheets and tries to breathe. They’re so much closer, now, touching here-and-here-and-here.

“Ben,” Callum hums, a soft puff of laughter leaving his mouth, one of almost wonder. “That is simultaneously the cheesiest, weirdest and most you thing you’ve ever said.”

“Shut up,” Ben laughs, shoving an elbow behind and into Callum’s stomach. Callum just rolls closer now, wriggling in the sheets until they finally settle again. Ben’s fingers are resting in the cup of Callum’s palm, and each time he shifts the soft drag of his thumb, it makes Callum’s chest clench up. “I don’t care, anyway. You’re my very best friend and I don’t want to go home.”

“Stay, then,” Callum says, however superfluous a thing to say it may be. “Stay another week at least.”

“I can’t,” Ben sighs, sighs right against Callum’s hand that he's brought up to his own, parted mouth. “I have to go home.”

Home can be here. Right here with me, that spot in my chest. Callum can’t say it, he won’t. He isn’t cruel enough to.

But it’s been so long, and he thought he was doing a good job of convincing himself during their time apart that this is the way everyone feels when they go months without seeing their best friends, or that he was too attached, and once he settled where he is, he’d be fine with the distance and their strictly friendship.

Only here, the two of them alone in Callum’s tiny halls room, with the rest of the world on pause, he knows he’s lying to himself for ever thinking he’d get over somebody like Ben just like that.

“I’ve had the best time with you being here, y'know?” Callum says, softer now. He’s taken too long to say anything. He’s just watching Ben idly from behind, their hands knocking and fingers brushing where they're laid over Ben's heart. “Thank you for coming. I know you had to save a lot of money for your train ticket and all that.”

“Don’t be daft, there’s nothing I’d rather spend my money on,” Ben says. “Not even a new car.”

In the dark, all Callum can make out is the slope of Ben’s shoulders, and the slow rise and fall of his chest. He shifts himself down the pillow, hiding his own face and stretching smile that’s found its way there. Ben makes him feel so vulnerable sometimes, even if he doesn't mean to.

He lets his eyes close, edges of weariness starting to creep in now. It’s still raining outside, sparse taps on the window. He can hear Ben breathing, and he almost considers holding his own breath just to listen to it a little better, to memorise the pattern so he can match it when he has to be on his own again.

It’s been three months since he moved, three crazy, stressful, terrifyingly wonderful months, and God, Callum thinks, maybe he made the wrong choice applying for a university nearly two hundred miles away, after all.

Some days he wakes up and he goes for a walk because staying in bed thinking about a boy hundreds of miles away won’t ever do him any good.

But now that boy is here, lying just across the sheets. And he’s leaving tomorrow night. Gone again, just like that. He just wants to know, somehow, someway, that they’ll always see each other again. Always be each other’s everything.

(He can’t waste another chance.)

“Ben,” Callum whispers, but Ben's suspiciously quiet now, finger relaxed between Callum’s,pulse slow. It’s so late, he knows, and Ben’s tired enough as it is from the journey up here, but the thought of missing a moment awake together is terrifying for so many reasons.

(He won’t waste another chance.)

“Mm,” Ben hums, breathing shifting.

The rain is picking up again. Outside, a lone car sweeps down the street, a brief flash of yellow light that jumps in through the window like a spike in a pulse, sudden and bright.

“I really missed you,” Callum admits, the vulnerability of nighttime and tiredness cracking him open, turned inside out like a raw nerve. “Like, so bloody much.”

For months he’s been pinning up pictures on the walls and scrolling aimlessly through his phone and wondering if this is really it, if he’s been destined to just love Ben forever, from anywhere, any distance. Destined to hope they might one day feel that way, too.

“Don’t make me cry,” Ben says teasing, voice muffled against the pillow. Callum can almost see the smirk pulling at his lips, shy and beautiful. But there’s something else laced in Ben’s voice, something tight and gruff, Callum recognises it instantly, it’s that voice he always puts on when he doesn’t want Callum to see him upset. “I never knew I could miss a person like I miss you.”

It’s so much, and Callum just has to be a little closer, and closer still. He has to let himself tip forward so his forehead rests between Ben’s shoulder, the expanse of his back warm and familiar.

There's a stillness then, Callum’s eyes falling closed, lashes falling soft over secret freckles. They’re touching here-and-here-and-here and Callum’s Spotify plays I think I'm lost without you, I just feel crushed without you. And then, then there’s a moment, a breathy noise of anticipation, a soft brush of a foot and a wave of coconut shampoo, before finally, and gently there’s a press of cracked lips to the soft of a boys skin.  

It’s barely a whisper of a touch, but Callum hears Ben inhale, feels him tense as his lips softly brush his back.

Callum pulls back in a second, this terrible feeling flushing down his entire body like a rush of ice water.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he babbles, too loud in their little bubble. Ben, I–I didn’t mean to–”

“Cal,” Ben says, hoarse, and he turns in an instance. Body flushing impossibly closer to Callum’s as Callum’s arm falls from Ben’s stomach. His hand finds Callum’s cheek, hot to the touch, then slips back into his hair. “Come here, yeah?”

“Ben—”

“Sh,” Ben whispers, and Callum feels the warmth against his bottom lip, this barely-there buzz. “Just—just come here.”

Ben’s eyes flick down to his lips, backlit by a blue and silver glow. Callum’s stomach is flurried and warm with want, little embers flaking down his chest to his toes. He feels fuzzy, like he’s wading through a dream.

This time, when Callum leans towards, his lips meet something different, something new entirely. Their mouths touch molten and soft, yet cautious, Callum’s bottom lip caught wetly between Ben’s. His fingers gradually start to twist in Callum’s hair, pulling him closer and closer.

“Ben,” Callum breathes between kisses, trying to ground himself. He finds Ben’s hip, feels brave enough to slip his thumb under his joggers and touch his skin, and that alone is enough of a spark to catch the bed up in a gulf of flames. At that, Ben’s fingers curl at the back of Callum’s head, and Callum back into the pillows, urging Ben to follow.

“How long?” Ben says as they part to breathe, just to breathe, their faces still pressed up close.

“So long,” Callum says thickly, body shifting up when Ben kisses him firmly, thumb against Callum’s jaw to part his mouth. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben breathes past his lips, muffled by another kiss. “‘For all my talents and knowledge, I’m so fucking clueless.”

“Shut up,” Callum whisper-hushes him, tries to pull him closer again, but Ben shakes his head lightly and just stares down at Callum in the dark, fingers in his hair. “Ben, it’s fine.”

“Why’d it take you leaving Walford to make me realise I don’t wanna be without you,” Ben says tightly, shaking his head at himself. “We could have–”

“No. Don’t do that, okay? It doesn’t matter because we’re together now, yeah?” Callum says, because he’s spent enough time worrying about it for the both of them. Back in the now, their mouths are both shiny, bodies slotted so warm and close, and all Callum wants to think about is this. Them. Together. Comfortable and close in each other’s company after so long apart.

“Okay,” Ben whispers, the words lost against Callum’s jaw, wet kisses to his neck, back up to his waiting mouth. “Now stop talking and kiss me some more.”

He blinks up at Ben, notices that syrupy grin slowly pulling up at his cheeks, and it’s enough to dissipate the small knot of sadness that’s trying to grow in Callum’s chest, that knowing feeling that it’s going to hurt even more saying goodbye to Ben this time than it did the last.

“Sure,” he says, drawing a lazy circle against the side of Ben’s hip with light fingers. “I mean, if you really want me to.”

“Think I do,” Ben hums, smug, their noses bumping, and it’s such a soft gesture that has Callum melting back a little more into the pillows. “Think you’ve got some lost time to make up for.”

“You think so?”

“Just maybe,” Ben says, and he laughs when Ben nips gently at his neck, fingers tucking into his sides.

They stare at each other for a moment, and Callum just lets it rush over him, lets himself go. He tells himself to stop thinking, to stop worrying, to put himself in the here and now; not tomorrow, not when they have to say goodbye, when he knows he’ll cry at the train station, when he’ll miss Ben so much it’ll make his heart ache.

Right now he’s got to let himself be happy. Ben's mouth twitches, eyes resting gently and Callum knows that he’s happy, too.

When he slowly opens his eyes, flickering madly over Callum's own, his voice is barely there. “Is it too soon to say that I love you?”

Every single nerve ending in Callum’s body lights up, blood pulsing through him in a mad rush, a mad scramble, to process the sudden bang in front of his vision, like fireworks. He shakes his head vigorously and kisses Ben hard.

“No,” he breathes, and he feels like he’s about to cry again.

“I think I do,” Ben says. “No. I know, I know I love you.”

“I love you too,” Callum chokes out. “Ben, I love you so much."