Chapter Text
When they travel to Italy, Andy is nervous and Ben has to calm him down on the airplane. He almost starts to hyperventilate as they’re moving up from the landing track, until Ben tells him he might as well compare it to a rollercoaster ride. Then it’s fine.
Within fifteen minutes from then, Ben falls asleep. He doesn’t notice that Deb is sick into a bag Kylie holds up for her, or that Beau and Wade are sampling the airplane’s food and tell everyone else about its shortcomings, or that his head drops to Andy’s shoulder and drools onto Andy’s shirt.
In fact, Ben doesn’t notice much of the flights at all. In Singapore they don’t leave the airport and although it’s impressive, Ben has seen it before. Andy isn’t sitting next to him when they go to London, and when they are there it’s a dreary grey day which means he’d rather go back onto a plane and to sleep. Once back in the air, it isn’t until bright sunlight is shining into his eyes and someone is poking his side rather tickle- and painfully that he wakes up properly.
“Look at that, mate,” Andy says, barely able to keep the excitement out of his voice. When Ben looks out of the tiny airplane window, he sees a sea--the Mediterranean sea he supposes--and a mass of land that looks distinctly un-Australian.
“That Italy?” he says, and he knows that he’s probably stating the obvious but he wants to know for sure.
“Yeah,” Andy beams, and Ben’s heart makes a little jump in his chest. “Europe.”
-
Italy, no matter how gorgeous it sounds, isn’t a holiday. The first days they’re slaving away and it isn’t until the third day there that they get some breathing space. They spend the evening together, cooking easy food the judges would probably frown upon and trying to guess what the Italians on the telly are saying.
Ben is one of the first to go to bed. He’s knackered and they‘ll have to be up early again tomorrow. After his shower, he doesn’t bother to put on his PJs, Italy is too warm for that. The first two nights he’s had to get up in the middle of the night to get out of them.
He dozes on and off for a while, then wakes up when Andy enters the room. From the sound of it he’s had a few glasses of wine, probably along with some tapas, but he thankfully isn’t noisy enough to be hungover tomorrow. Ben stays still in bed and doesn’t open his eyes when he hears Andy brush his teeth, or undress, or get under the light linen sheets as well.
For a while it’s quiet in the room. Right when he’s about to drop off to sleep again, a sound catches his attention. He tries to breathe quietly and listens if it will repeat itself. There it is again. The rustle of sheets, Andy’s breathing going a little off every now and then--Ben’s heart skips a beat when he realises that he recognises the sounds.
He swallows, then wonders if it’s his imagination when it stays quiet for another while, but then there it is again. The sheets are rustling, and when Ben doesn’t move, Andy seems to be picking up on speed and moans a little as he does so.
God. Andy must think he’s asleep. Ben can feel heat soaring through his body, his heart hammering in his chest. His cheeks are turning red, he knows it and is grateful that he’s facing the wall and not Andy.
It’s all good and fine, he supposes. They are both grown men, and though neither of them are teenagers, they have their urges. It’s just that this is Andy, and Andy is already doing weird things to Ben’s guts and this sets him off completely. He has to bite his lower lip to keep himself from making any sound as he shifts to lay on his stomach. His erection is pressing into the mattress, and he’d give just about anything to be able to gyrate against it. Maybe he doesn’t even need to. Maybe he can get off by just listening to Andy, whose hand keeps moving against the sheet constantly now. Small groans keep erupting from his side of the bed and Ben wonders how close he is, how he looks, how he must be biting on his tongue or on his lip as well to stay quiet.
Then Andy moans out loud once and stills immediately after. So does Ben.
“Ben?” Andy says from the dark. His voice is hoarse, thick with arousal, and all blood Ben had left in his brain races down to his cock.
“It’s okay,” he says, shifting a little and God that does feel good. “Just. We’re two grown men, yeah. We have urges.” He closes his eyes, horrified at how awkward that just came out.
Andy could go to the bathroom to finish and he probably knows that. Ben isn’t saying it though. He doesn’t want him to. He wants to keep listening, he wants to urge Andy on, he wants to hear him come. Ben knows he’s an egoistical and probably creepy bastard for wanting all that, but he does. His heart is still beating crazily fast, even when Andy seems to just want to fall asleep the next five minutes, and his erection is by no means going down.
He does it almost on reflex, moving his own hand down to his cock. The first few strokes are experimental, quick, but he gets into it very quickly and soon he’s moving so fast he knows that Andy can hear it and will know what Ben is doing. Ben doesn't care--if anything, it turns him on. At the same time he keeps listening to what Andy is doing, carefully, because this isn’t just about himself getting off. This is him telling Andy that it’s okay, that they’re at this level of comfort, that apparently it is okay for two mates to get off in the same room and at the same time.
It isn’t long before he can hear Andy jerk off again as well. Though Ben isn’t entirely surprised, he still lets out a sigh of relief. Andy sighs as well, then moans, in which return Ben speeds up his hand and groans too. It becomes a rhythm, almost. One of them will make a sound, or a move, and the other will push it a little further, and that way they are quickly steering each other to the brink of orgasm.
Ben thinks of Andy’s hands must be moving on Andy’s dick, and of how those hands would feel on his own dick, and he listens to the moans and slick sounds of skin lubricated with precome. His underwear has formed a wet patch at the front, which makes it stick to his skin. Normally he doesn’t like that but today he doesn’t care. Instead he curses, then his balls tighten and he doesn’t want to come yet but it happens. His semen spurts into his pants, soaking them with sticky goo, while he groans and thrusts his hips forwards uncontrollably.
Behind him, he can hear Andy lose it as well in a long stretched groan, a shudder, after which he goes quiet--both in sound and movement.
He doesn’t say anything when he tries to wipe off most of the semen with his underwear, nor when he pulls off his pants and cleans himself up a little more before turning to face Andy. Andy is looking at him already, wide-eyed and flushed.
They stay quiet after that, too. Ben isn’t sure what he can say without ruining tonight, and he does not want to push Andy into anything he doesn’t want--because Ben wants so much. Yet, Andy falls asleep with Ben still watching him and doesn’t seem particularly fussed about that.
And Ben, Ben thinks that maybe he should be allowed to let his hopes up after all.
-
On the planes back to Australia, Andy lets Ben drool on his shoulder again and this time, when he complains about it to the other contestants, Kylie tells him that it’s Ben’s profession of love for Andy.
He doesn’t tell Ben that, of course, because that would be ridiculous--that’s also his answer to Kylie.
Yet. If only.