Heartstrings
"You know how to play guitar."
It's not a question when the words leave her mouth and fill the air. Ben lies on his back, looking at the ceiling, but when his eyes divert to her, he can tell that she's staring at the guitar that Ms. Fisher gave him before orientation, standing up against the wall clear across the room. The skin underneath the bandage on the side of his face itches, and he raises a wrapped hand against it, and presses down against the covered cheek for a bit of relief.
None really comes.
"Yeah," Ben says. "Not all that well, but yeah. I can play."
"…Can you play right now?" Amy turns to him, rubs her thumb against the back of his hand. "Please?" She asks, more quietly. Despite the ache in his shoulder, he sits up from his spot on the bed with effort. Amy winces, "I'll get it." Bounding over to the wall and retrieving the instrument, she hops back up on the bed after fluffing up Ben's pillow. "Is that better?"
"Yeah, thanks," Ben says. He adjusts the body of the guitar in front of him, positioning one hand in the front, and the other bandaged hand on the side, turning a few of the knobs. Grabbing the pick from the bedside table, he strums a few of the strings experimentally and looks up at her. She sits herself more comfortably on the bed, aptly paying attention to his movements. She smiles, and that's all the encouragement he needs to continue.
He starts by playing the simplest tune he remembers, which is Oh, Susana. Her eyes stay transfixed through every riff and run he completes, subtlety moving on to another tune. With every chord he plays, it pulls more and more on her heartstrings, as if he were plucking at those with his guitar pick. He finishes after a few more nicks, and when he looks up again, he realizes that Amy is closer. "Can you teach me?"
It takes some time, but he ends up leaning more firmly against the headboard with her back to his torso, and the guitar situated in front of her. He gives her the pick with a hand he hopes she doesn't notice is trembling, and moves her hands to the correct position. He teaches her to place her right hand over the sound hole and her left fingers over the strings of the neck. He teaches her how to adjust the tuning keys and what chords each one of the position markers with produce if pressed. She learns the basic four chords that Ben assures her can play just about any song in the history of ever – and since history is something that Wayward Pines Academy doesn't support – do not discuss the past – that statement doesn't hold much water, but Amy still has the courtesy to look fascinated when he says that.
She looks at him over her shoulder after strumming the final note of the C minor chord with a self-satisfied smile – and a familiar sparkle in her eye. Ben's throat goes dry when he recognizes it – pressed up against the wall of a truck trailer, Amy's hands running down his face to his chest – and he doesn't immediately lean in.
It's been about a week since that happened.
Amy recognizes the hesitation. "I really like you, Ben," she says with brown doe eyes.
Ben's slower to react but he nods all the same. "I like you, too, it's just-" and he presses his hand against the bandage on his face again after he feels the sting intensify.
"Do you want me to redress it for you?"
"You don't have to." He says quickly, not really wanting to worry her.
She reaches over to the bedside counter, grabbing the ointment with the gauze and medical tape. "It's okay. I want to." She removes the older bandage carefully so that the skin underneath isn't further irritated. It's slightly pink and the welts are still thick, but the swelling has significantly gone down, and the cuts on the right side of his face are topical and well stitched up thanks to Nurse Pam. She dabs some ointment on the pad of her finger and gently dabs it on the affected areas on his temple and cheek. "You know, these kind of make you look badass."
Ben chuckles, "Me?"
"Yeah, you," Amy bites her lower lip as she finishes applying the translucent gel. She closes the tube, and begins to unwrap a portion of gauze. "And we can always tell people that we saw sparks fly on our first date."
"That's one way of putting it," Ben says lightly. He guesses that's better than saying that they almost got blown up by a girly music box. "I guess we could also say that kissing you blew me away."
Amy giggles, "Yeah, and that your lips rendered me completely speechless."
They make a few more puns about their ill-fated makeout session as Amy finishes bandaging his cheek and temple. Ben admits that it does feel a lot better to Amy's satisfaction as she puts the equipment back on his counter. When she heads back up on the bed, he takes his left hand and cups the underside of her chin, leaning forward slightly as her lips meet his. It's chaste and gentle and they keep the pressure light because of the burns they're still recovering from, though Ben took most of the damage. Amy leans away first, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright. "What was that for?"
"I wanted to," Ben says honestly.
After a few more days of recuperating, Amy and Ben get their bandages taken off and head back to school – much to the dissatisfaction of Theresa Burke.
"You can always stay home, or you could even come with me to work," Theresa suggests.
"Mom," Ben says finally. "I'll be fine. I'll avoid music boxes, too."
Amy snickers at that when Ben tells her his ordeal from earlier in the hallway. "I'm really sorry about that," she murmurs. "But really, who makes a music box into a bomb?"
"Well, there's only one toy place in town," Ben says thoughtfully. "Maybe we should go check it out."
Amy nods, and Ben notices that mischievous gleam in her eyes return. "That's a great idea!"
"You like looking for trouble, don't you?"
She nudges him then. "We could all use some excitement here. And besides, if the Ballingers have any clue as to what happened; shouldn't we have the right to know? We could've ended up way worse than just a few cuts and bruises."
As she says this he remembers his thoughts on being here today and gone tomorrow, everything being over in an instant. He looks down and sees Amy's hand, and out of impulse, reaches out and holds it, interlacing her fingers with his. Amy looks up and beams at him with a bright smile, still very pretty despite the smattering of small cuts and burns along the left half side of her face.
"I know we're not supposed to…talk about what happened before, but you should know that my dad was involved with Kate Hewson-Ballinger. Kate Ballinger."
"Involved how?" Amy whispers on their way over.
"Like in a relationship with her," Ben confirms.
Amy mulls this over for a moment, "Was it before he met your mom, or…"
"During."
Amy nods, hesitantly. "Okay. But he told you that he locked her up, right?"
"Yeah, right before it happened, actually." He doesn't explain what it is because they both know. Instead, he tells her that Harold was on a house arrest instead and that he was only allowed to go home, go to the store, and back home. "My dad's going to let something else happen again because he's being indecisive. It's not right. How many other people have to get hurt because of him being afraid to do anything about it?"
"I don't think he meant for anything to happen to us, Ben."
"It still happened, Amy, and he could've prevented it," Ben says as they cross Main Street. "You still have headaches because of what happened. 2nd degree burns. Next time it could be someone else, something worse."
"But it wasn't worse."
"It could be," Ben stresses.
They stand in front of the store, and Amy lightly tugs at his arm before they head in. "Ben, what happened, happened. And I've seen the way your parents are with you; they wouldn't have wanted you to get hurt, the same way my parents wouldn't want me to get hurt."
Ben takes a breath and exhales, nodding. She straightens the cuff of his collar, and they head in, listening to the bell chiming from overhead.
Harold Ballinger stands behind the counter, wide-eyed as he handles a paperweight in the shape of a handcrafted horse. Ben and Amy approach him, arm-in-arm, at the front as Harold regards them warily. "Ho-how can I help you?"
"We had a question about one of your music boxes," Amy begins.
"And we want answers," Ben finishes.
Harold seems to be at a momentary loss, but recovers quickly. "Alright," he says, taking one of the music boxes from the shelf behind him and sitting it on the counter.
Amy diverts her eyes from it for a moment in remembrance, and Ben doesn't realize he wasn't breathing until he takes a gasping breath of air. Amy clutches on to him a little tighter, and he snaps out of it, "Don't open that."
"What?" Harold says, genuinely looking confused. "Then how can we talk about it, without-"
"I-it's okay, I'll talk to my dad about it later. You won't get in trouble for talking to me, but only if you give me your word that you'll be honest."
Harold looks at him anxiously again, and then deliberately looks up to the left hand corner of the room. Ben and Amy follow his train of sight, and then Ben looks back at Amy, rubbing his thumb again the back of her hand reassuringly. Amy nods, and Ben turns back to him, "Fine. Open it."
Harold nods, winds it up three times, and opens the box. Amy and Ben simultaneously frown at the beautifully haunting melody. "We haven't got a lot of time," Harold reminds them.
"Why did you make the bomb?" Ben asks.
"I was going to plant it at the fence and use it to damage the integrity," Harold reveals.
"Were you planning on doing it again? Making more bombs?"
"No, no," Harold answers quickly.
"And what about Mrs. Ballinger?" Amy asks. "Why is she in jail, and not you?"
Harold falters. "She-ah…We both wanted to see what was beyond the fence. Don't you two want to know?"
Ben and Amy look at each other; she takes a breath and he fights the feeling of a shiver. "No," Ben answers. "We just want to be safe. And because of you and your wife, my girlfriend and I are covered in burns – which is only the least of it. Your actions are hurting people and could even kill them one day. So I really don't care about what's outside of the fence. Maybe you should care more about what's on the inside."
"I do care-"
"You've got a weird way of showing it," Ben cuts in.
"And you could tell your father that, too." Harold finishes.
"Tell him yourself. Did anyone else try to break through the fence?"
"I-I don't know."
Ben's eyes grow wide, "What do you mean, 'you don't know'?"
Before Harold can answer, the soft melody of the music box slows to a stop and the ballerina halts. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Yeah. Answer the question."
"I'm afraid that's all I know about music boxes, kids. Would you like for me to wrap it for your girlfriend?" Harold asks lightly, looking between both of them.
Ben shakes his head with a frown curling his lips. "No thanks. It just might give her nightmares. Let's go, Amy."
Amy follows Ben's lead out of the shop and they maintain a comfortable silence as they walk home, holding hands. It isn't until they turn left on Birch that Amy looks at Ben and says, "You called me your girlfriend at the Toy Shoppe."
Ben doesn't comment at first, but looks over and his lips tilt up into a small smirk. "Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry about that."
"Don't be," Amy insists with a shake of her head. She smiles, turning her face away.
Ben grins at that, "Then I'm not."
She stops walking and faces Ben fully. "…What are we going to do? If someone else did try to break through the fence, and they actually did-"
"I'll talk to my dad. We tell Mrs. Fisher, and get the word out at school for everyone to be safe. Sneaking out just isn't safe right now, not even for us," Ben says practically. Amy bites her lower lip fretfully, but nods her agreeance all the same.
That evening, Ben confronts his father, and both agree to sit Theresa down at dinner and tell her what was outside the fence.
"Is that what that woman is telling you at the Academy? That there are monsters-"
"Abbies, Theresa. They're called Abbies," Ethan vouches.
"And that Ballinger guy said that he wasn't sure if anyone else was able to break through the fence, but if anyone was able to break through the fence, they could come in and kill people-"
"That's not going to happen," Ethan reassures.
"But you don't know that, Dad! There could be someone out there, right now, making a bomb, or trying to break out, and you-" He says to his mom, "refuse to believe that this is happening, even though Dad and I are telling you it is, and you-" He says to his dad, "aren't doing everything you can to keep us all safe. They shouldn't have made you Sheriff." Ben stands and heads up the stairs.
"Ben!"
Ben hears his father tell his mom to let him be. He heads to his room and slams the door, locking it. He cards his hand through his dark hair, pacing around the room. He knows that he's supposed to take it easy and not overexert himself, but he's upset, so much that he sits down on his bed, cradling his forehead with his hand when he feels his temple begin to throb.
He hears a tapping against his window, and heads over to the glass.
5 minutes, and a ladder from the shed –he honestly didn't know they had a shed- later, and Ben was lying face up on the bed, Amy curled in by his side. "Your heartbeat's slowing down," Amy observes.
"Finally," Ben sighs. "Thought I was gonna have a heart attack."
Amy looks up at him. "Chest pains?"
"No, not anymore."
"What about any discomfort?" She says, rubbing his arm. "If an embolus gets stuck in your blood vessel, that could cause a heart attack."
Ben looks at her, giving her a small smile. "I think I'm embolus-free, right now."
Amy's hand moves up, over his shoulder blade and onto the side of his face, thumb stroking his cheek. "Shortness of breath? You could experience that during one, o-or even light-headedness."
Ben notices Amy's stutter and her hooded eyes, and gets closer. "Are you sure we're still talking about me?"
"…It could be me," Amy shrugs casually, but Ben holds two fingers together over the pulse point on her neck.
"Your heart's beating pretty fast, Amy."
"Really? I didn't notice."
Ben looks at her, the bold girl that insisted that he walk her home on his first day, and sneak out to meet her; the girl who kissed him in the black of night despite his shyness. She's pretty and fun and brave and smart and she hasn't been anything else since he met her. She could've listened to him, and stayed at home, clouded with thoughts of fear, but instead she came to see him when he needed to see her the most. She's here, and she's real, and just like him, she too could be gone in an instant. Her eyes flutter shut when his lips close around hers and she can hear the fast pounding of blood rushing in her ears. Her tongue shyly pushes past his lips, deepening the kiss as her hand buries itself within his hair, and Ben brushes her hair out of her face with one hand, wrapping his arm around her waist with the other.
He thinks maybe his heart is beating pretty fast by now, too.
Ben changes the angle, and he loses himself in the sensation, in her. He moves away from her lips for air, kissing her forehead, kissing the battlescars on her cheeks, down to her pulsating neck. She leans her head back, and he thinks he hears her say his name, but he can't be sure.
Suddenly and without warning, a scream rips its way through the black of night of Wayward Pines.
The first of many to follow.
First, this has no association with the books –never read them. However, this show is my summer obsession right now. And yes, they're 14 in this story, as in the canon of the show, so it's pretty mild. I find this pairing to be very cute, so I took a crack at it. Hopefully, I kept them in character.
Drop a review or fav, if you would like.
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