Warmth

"For the record, I blame you for this." Ben grumbled, huddling deeper into the blankets around him, shivering on the other side of the table.

Gwen didn't object, only diving deeper into her own pile. It didn't help with the cold feeling at all.

"I could've picked you out of the water as Ghostfreak easily, but nooo, you had to go and pop the Omnitrix, landing us both in there."

"I don't really care who ended who up where," grandpa Max interrupted, turning around from where he'd been minding the stove. "but I hope you both learned your lesson about jumping into a freezing lake in mid-October. Bellwood might be an oddity of geography, but the surrounding area is getting pretty cold."

Gwen curled up deeper on herself in the booth, chastised and miserable at the rebuke (she missed the venomous glare Ben shot their grandfather for it). She should've known better. She was supposed to be the smart one. She should've gotten Ben to take her out of the water immediately. Instead, she dumped them both in there and was stupid enough to linger and splash water like a bunch of five year olds before they k- Not finishing that thought.

She did glance at Ben at the memory though, and, finding him looking back, quickly averted her eyes, feeling heat creep up her neck. She was glad she could pass the redness off as having the shivers. Fortunately, she was spared from having to contemplate further when grandpa Max placed a bowl of chicken soup before her. It smelled amazing, but she eyed it suspiciously regardless. She met Ben's gaze across the table again, embarrassment momentarily forgotten in favor of healthy survival instinct, before they turned as one to their grandfather. He chuckled.

"No, there's nothing 'special' about this, aside from that its some darn good chicken soup."

Gwen met Ben's eyes again and a long moment of silence passing between the three, everyone waiting who would take the first bite. Eventually, Gwen sighed, took a spoonful and raised it, as if in toast, to her cousin. He mimicked the gesture with his own spoon, a grimace on his face.

"Those who are about to die," She intoned, inclining her head.

"we salute you." the boy finished, before they simultaneously downed their spoonful. It tasted divine.

Grandpa laughed as Gwen eagerly went for more spoons while Ben all but inhaled the bowl along with the soup. "Good to see that your tumble in the water hasn't affected your appetite." Both Gwen and Ben stilled at the remark, focusing intently on their soup and not on each other. Ben gulped down the rest of his soup quickly and held up the bowl to grandpa with his most adorable pleading expression. It seemed to serve in distracting the old man, as gramps just laughed and stood up to give Ben a refill, knees popping.

"By the way, I meant to ask you two something. I was planning to move the RV into the foothills tomorrow, before moving it to the grasslands for the last day. But I'm not sure if you can handle the chill up there now..." He left the question hanging as he returned with Ben's bowl before going to lean against the kitchen counter. Ben's response was immediate.

"No worries gramps!" He exclaimed, voice only slightly raspy, taking a spoonful of soup. "If it doesn't clear up fast enough, I'll just go Heatblast."

Gwen snorted. "Last time you did that while sick, you froze half the RV."

Ben opened his mouth to protest, but shut it after a second with a blush. Grandpa snickered.

"Anyway," Gwen said. "I think the doofus... isn't wrong," Grandpa gasped, slapping a hand over his mouth and striking a cross. She continued with a laugh in her voice as Ben groaned. "we should be fine. We're hardly blubbering from something contagious, other then Ben's chronic cooties-"

"Picking on me, the lot of you." Ben grumbled, turning back to rapidly slurping his soup, being loud just to be annoying.

"-we're just cold." She finished decisively, ignoring him. "Cold, and tired. Warmth and sleep should set us right by morning. We can go for the foothills." She honestly wasn't sure about that. Yes, they weren't exactly sneezing and coughing their lungs up, but there was a definite chill in her chest.

But she didn't want her screw up to mean that they had to change plans this trip, or worse, cut it short. Their time with grandpa was precious enough as it was. Every moment in their home away from home was.

Grandpa Max nodded, seeming to understand what she didn't want to say. He wasn't nearly at adept at reading her as Ben was, but she treasured it anyway. "Alright. To be sure though," he jabbed a thumb in the direction of the back of the Rustbucket. "I've put a little heater in the back, as well as a large mattress. You can sleep there instead of in the bunks, without my snoring keeping you up. And I can start on breakfast and driving without accidentally waking you." Gwen grinned. It was official: Grandpa rocked. She also found it funny how he hadn't even bothered to ask if she and Ben were okay with sharing a mattress. She guessed it was kind of a known quantity at this point that any discomfort they had with each other was for show.

Downing the last of her soup as Ben had, Gwen stood on shaky legs and moved to hug the man. Ben joined her a second later. "Thanks grandpa Max!" They intoned, beaming up at him to the best of their ability. It was clearly enough, as for a brief moment the man looked like he was going to cry. He quickly recovered though, reaching to muss up their hair.

"Anything for you two cheeky little brats. Now, off to bed with those tired butts." He grinned at them, a warm affection in his voice that always made her feel cared for. Grandpa had clearly missed their time together just as much as she had.

"You heard him dweeb, off to bed with your butt." Ben snickered, poking his tongue out at her. She rolled her eyes.

"He said both our butts, deaf doofus."

"You've got enough butt for the two of us." Ben scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. Gwen groaned. How Ben could go from being maturely cool to this, in the space of a day would forever be beyond her. Not to mention, go back to being bratty and gross after being so kissable- stop it, Gwen!

"You too little man." Her grandfather spoke up, eyeing Ben with slight rebuke. Ben held up his hands in surrender.

"Fine, fine. Let's hit the hay, mega dweeb." Walking past her, he grabbed her hand on the way, giving it a squeeze. "No hard feelings?" Gwen felt that the question was entirely about his lame insult.

She squeezed back and let herself by dragged along, ignoring the way the simple touch had her stomach doing flip-flops. "For now." Her answer wasn't really about the insult either. Not entirely.

Watching Ben guide Gwen away with a gentleness that belied everything the boy usually was, Max was surprised to conclude that he wasn't sure if he could read his grandchildren anymore.

When the summer had started, it hadn't been that hard. They were two brats, lovable brats, that could barely stand being around each other and whose default setting towards each other was pricklier than a wet Vulpimancer. Ben just wanted to have fun and goof around, Gwen just wanted to have a more orderly form of fun. Nothing wrong with either, but with their headstrong personalities, they weren't easily reconcilable. That, and annoying the other seemed to give them life.

Then they started fighting aliens together, and while the prickliness never went away, trust had taken a significant place in their dynamic. No matter how mad they could get and for all their petty spats, they always, always came through.

And throughout the summer, that had turned into affection, all the more so after they had returned from space. But from there, it had become much more difficult for Max to keep up. Not only was he no longer the only one keeping secrets in his mobile home, the affection had outright skyrocketed from where it had been before, to a point that it left even him flabbergasted.

But so had their need for it, so while Max had often quirked a surprised (but happy) brow at them unconsciously huddling up with a book and a game, and outright had to stifle laughter when he caught them in the same bunk on several occasions, he knew why they were like that. He heard them cry out at night. He saw the fear in their eyes in the morning. He'd seen it in the mirror often enough.

Then he'd picked them up this morning, after weeks of not really seeing them, and the dynamic had changed again: they had been all over each other. And not just, he was surprised to note, when they were scared or just absently moving about the RV, but to talk, to quip, to cuddle. It made him want to immediately call up their parents and scream 'I told you so!' into the receiver. 'I told you they'd grow on each other!' He smiled to himself.

Probably the cutest moment had been when, while driving a quiet stretch of road, he'd checked the rear-view mirror to see that Gwen had grown slightly uncomfortable with the fading of civilization into a more wooded scenery. His granddaughter had thrown herself down on her cot with a book, trying to take her mind off it. Ben had noticed and immediately walked over and, taking a seat on that same cot, grasped the hair at the base of her head, wordlessly massaging the scalp beneath it, probably assuming Max was focused on the empty road.

Max hadn't known Gwen could purr until that moment, and the was she'd curled into Ben's touch reminded him a lot of a pleased cat. This, he had to admit, went a bit beyond affectionate, into intimate.

It made him understand what Frank had nervously confided in him; that he feared the kids were too close, that he wasn't sure if it would remain innocent for long, given a few years. Max could understand where he was coming from; Frank and Natalie had met when they were thirteen and had never looked back. Gwen was mature for her age, so the leap in logic wasn't that far-fetched. As to Ben…

"You should hear him, dad. Anytime he talks about her, the way he looks at her, it's like Carl all over again after he'd just met Sandra. For all their bickering, he absolutely adores her." His son had rubbed the back of his head with a tired smile. "Honestly, if he wasn't her cousin, I'd be overjoyed that she found a little guy who cares that much about her."

As much as Max respected his concerns, Natalie's opinion on the matter had been compelling as well. They were kids. It was a phase. It was just some cuddling, and mostly for some pretty clear reasons. They'd grow out of it.

...part of him wanted to believe her. Most of him knew that his grandchildren would never let anything be that simple.

Gwen breathed in a deep breath of foggy air, and immediately regretted it as she had to stifle a hacking cough. Even through her cheery yellow winter coat, she felt cold. She hissed in frustration and channeled mana into her chest, trying to warm up. It helped a little, even if her illness in general still made her magic do random stuff. Like turn a stone into a mouse, or throw out a gust of wind out of nowhere-

"What the- ow!"

Gwen sighed, massaging her temples. "Go away, doofus." She groaned.

Ben eyed her warily and silently picked himself up from the ground, walking up to stand beside her, cautiously, as if approaching a caged animal, just on the edge of her personal space. Silence stretched between them as she ignored him, keeping her gaze fixed on the misty foothills. In the distance, she could make out the shape of a mountain, but it was blurred. She suspected that in high summer this place would be beautiful, the soggy moorland vibrant with flowers and the mountains tickling the endless blue sky.

Now, the sky was gray and the fields a dark, drowned green, shrouded in mist. At least it wasn't raining. For all that, Gwen would be lying if she said it didn't have a sort of haunting beauty.

She felt his fingers gently brush hers, pulling her from her musings. An invitation. She considered turning it down, but instinct won out and she grasped his hand back, the warmth soothing her cold digits. At least Ben wasn't still frozen over from their dive-

She grit her teeth. She wanted to shove the thought to the back of her head but-

"You should come inside." Ben said, thumb brushing a slow circle on the back of her hand. "You look like a squirrel could take you in a fight."

She snorted. "Way to make a girl feel special, idiot." She spat, with far more venom than she felt. It should've sent him off in a huff. Instead, he squeezed her hand tighter. Nice try.

She wrenched the appendage free and snapped at him. "Will you stop doing that?!" She glared down at his smaller form, getting up in his face. "Can you please stop being understanding and cool and start being a gross freakazoid again?! Would make this whole mess a lot easier!"

The little twerp had the gall to grin at her, sheepishly blushing, and Gwen's brain caught up with her mouth. She smacked a hand to her forehead, the motion sending a mild ache through her skull. "Can we please pretend I never said that?"

Ben snickered. "Not a chance. But sure, I'll stop if you stop being sweet and awesome and go back to being an insufferable cootie queen." Silence met his response, and Gwen felt the heat rush to her face before she yelled in frustration and plopped down on the grass, cradling her head. She didn't need to look to know he mimicked the motion seconds later, sitting down across from her.

Stupid Ben and his stupid sincere cuteness that got them into this mess in the first place- she exhaled loudly, venting all the vexation and confusion she felt into that breath.

Lifting her head slowly, she took a moment to really look at her cousin. Her doofus. There was worry in the lines of his forehead, warm affection in his eyes, a quip dancing in the slight curl of his lips and hopeful tension set into the line of his shoulders. But he wasn't freaking out; not yet at least. And neither was she, not about- that. No, she was freaking out because she should be freaking out about that but, for some inane reason, wasn't.

She was freaking out because she wanted more. Because it had felt right.

Taking a fortifying breath, she decided to take a page out of Ben's playbook and just grab the bull by the horns. "We kissed." She stated, barely believing it even as she said it. Maybe it was just her imagination, or maybe it had been the lack of oxygen-

He grimaced. "Yeah, we did." Well, so much for denial. Silence reigned before both of them yelled, throwing up their hands.

"This is so messed up!" She cried, hands tangling in her hair.

"I know!" Ben groaned back, pressing his palms into his forehead.

"You're the doofus! You have no business being this cute!"

"Right back at you, dweeb!"

"How the heck did this happen?!"

"Why are you asking me?! You're the brains of this operation!"

With another yell they dropped their faces into their respective hands. After a long second, she cautiously peeked through her fingers and saw Ben do the same. If her face was half as red as his, it'd match her hair perfectly. The boy was the first to drop his hands and take a fortifying breath. Inwardly, she smiled. Leave it to Ben to find courage, even in moments like these. She was still floundering.

He scooted forward the last bit that separated them, both of them sitting cross-legged, knees brushing. He reached up to take the hands that were hiding her face in his own and pull them away slowly. Her gaze followed their hands instead of meeting his eyes, looking at them for what felt like hours before she found her voice.

"This was supposed to be for comfort." She muttered, her confusion manifesting in a feeling of utter misery, as it always did when something just didn't quite make sense, when things became too much. Normally, Ben would see her through it, but he was kind of part of the problem. She felt tears well in her eyes as a result and made no effort to stop them from coming. "The couple thing was supposed to be a joke. It wasn't supposed to- it wasn't supposed to-" She broke off, biting back a sob that threatened to tear from her throat. Instead, she got another coughing fit for her trouble, making her feel all the more wrecked.

Ben leaned forward to wrap his arms around her, running soothing circles on her back as she rode out the fit and caught her breath. When she had, he pulled back, and she saw all the confusion she felt flash in his green orbs. He was as out of his depth as she was-

The confusion gave way to determination and he leaned in again, bumping his forehead against hers, tips of their noses brushing, placing steadying hands on her shoulders. She cllowed herself to suck in the familiar gesture of comfort, of safety, tangling her own hands in his green jacket, eyes drifting shut. This still felt normal.

He sucked in a breath, and she felt him opening his eyes, so she did the same, meeting his gaze. "I know it's weird," he started, haltingly. "trust me, I do. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, trying to find out what changed, and when. But-" he licked his lips before soldiering on, looking flushed. "-what I do know is that between aliens, magic, being aliens and magic, this-" He gestured between the two of them. "-this is normal in comparison. It's completely nuts, but we'll figure it out. It's only a problem if we make it one, and I'm not going to." He smiled encouragingly, if shakily, and his warmth was infectious.

She wanted to snort with laughter. Of course Ben would manage to make this sound like it was no big deal- "Wait… does that mean that you're okay with this?" She asked, words finally sinking in. Ben's face flushed crimson slowly, but he nodded, not quite meeting her eyes.

That was… wow.

"And you want to… continue this?" She clarified, tentatively, throat dry and her heart beating quickly. Because that's what it sounded like, and while a large part of her was screaming that this was wrong on so many levels-

He blew out a breath, eyes darting to the sky in thought, before he nodded to himself, smiling an unbearably adorable shy smile at her, radiating warmth. "Yes and yes. In that order."

-a much larger part just wanted to bask in his warmth and call it hers. He held up a hand. "I-If you want to, of course! We can just pretend it never happened if you prefer. I mean, yeah it's hardly the weirdest thing in our life, but still pretty weird, and then there's our folks-"

She placed a hand over his mouth, indulgent smile tugging at her lip, and looked at him for a long moment. Instinctively, she wanted to take the out he was offering, while simultaneously wanting to punch him for even suggesting it. He was her gross doofus of a cousin after all. And kissing was supposed to be a thing you did with someone you loved, but… she sighed to herself.

He was on her mind all day. He was easily the most important person in her life. He made her laugh, made her feel safe and she wanted him around. Always. In person, on the phone, she'd take any and all.

And every touch they shared put her on cloud nine, and it was a touch she'd come to crave. If all that wasn't love, it didn't flipping exist.

Gwen couldn't help the grin that spread across her face, feeling slightly giddy. "Fine, I'll settle for your dumb butt." It was the first time she truly felt like herself all day. Her expression shifted into a mock glare and she pushed a threatening finger in his face. "But if you break my heart, Tennyson, I will destroy you and everything you love." He giggled at her threat, of all things, before playfully nipping the extended digit. It sent a spike of heat up her arm.

"That would include you, freak, so not the best plan."

Gwen felt her heart stop as her breath caught in her throat, eyes going wide as saucers. Did he just…?

She waited for him to start stammering. To back-paddle. To realize he'd misspoken. He didn't. Instead he bashfully stared off into the middle distance, the mother of all blushes on his face, rubbing the back of his head. At her stunned silence, his face fell a little and he stood, smiling ruefully. "Anyway," he started, too quickly. "best get back inside. It's cold out here. You coming?" He didn't wait for her reply, turning away to start walking back to the distant Rustbucket, a vague speck in the fog.

She shot up to wrap her arms around him from behind, burying her face in his hair. He stilled. She could feel his heart race a mile a minute and he shivered slightly as she exhaled on his neck; a shiver that she knew had nothing to do with fear. Her lips worked soundlessly for a moment before she found her voice. "I love you too, lame brain."

Ben turned his head to look over his shoulder, meeting her steady gaze. "You don't have to say it just because I did, dweeb. It's fine-"

She cut him off with a sound of irritation and spun the boy around, meeting his startled gaze with her peeved one. She grabbed his head and pulled him towards her, kissing him firmly. He made a surprised noise but quickly melted into the kiss, his own hands coming up to rest around her waist.

Their first kiss had been impulsive and sloppy. This one started the same, but quickly developed into something altogether more enjoyable. If Gwen had had any doubts about whether or not she wanted this, they were dispelled in that moment. Ben was right, again: they could figure this out. It didn't change anything; they'd still cuddle, they'd still hang out, they'd still take care of each other and they'd still be the best team in the universe. That was just 'hanging with the Tennyson's 101', it was a fact of life. They didn't need this to define them.

But this took all that and made it better.

Pulling apart, she felt slightly lightheaded, and Ben gave a new meaning to the whole 'legs turning to jelly' thing when his gave out from under him and he fell on his butt, looking dazed. Shaking her own head the get it out of the clouds, she looked down at her doofus, snickering at the way he tentatively pressed his fingers to his lips with a dreamy expression. Not that she was much better off.

She cleared her throat and crossed her arms, giving him a stern look. "Well then. Are we clear now?" Ouch, that had sounded way more commanding in her head than the nervous little whisper that came out of her mouth. Ben seemed not to notice though, merely nodding, still looking thoroughly befuddled.

"Crystal." He whispered.

"Good." She walked past him, feeling very giddy and better than she had all day. And definitely not as cold anymore. Still... "I'm going back to the Rustbucket and make a blanket fort." She tossed over her shoulder before grinning to herself. "Probably room for two." She sang.

She heard Ben scramble to his feet behind her and smirked, a smirk that turned into a delighted squeal when he tackled her from behind, taking them both to the ground. Seems they weren't going inside just yet.