Work Text:
Devi Vishwakumar has been a thorn in Ben Gross’ side since the first grade. He’ll admit it, it still smarts a little bit when he thinks about the hours of preparation he put in for the first grade spelling bee, standing in front of his bathroom mirror and reciting words to himself over and over again, only for her to swoop in and steal first place from him. Sure, his parents made a big deal over his pitiful second place, but that first place ribbon was meant to be his.
He makes sure that he comes first in the history fair a year later, his diorama on Rosa Parks far more tasteful than Devi’s one on Pocahontas.
And on it continues – his presentation on liver disease takes out first place in the fifth grade science fair, so Devi makes it her mission to take out first place in the sixth grade science fair, her active volcano clearly homemade but still somehow earning that coveted blue ribbon. As soon as her demonstration is over, Devi rushes over to her parents, her dad grinning down at her in pride. For a moment, Ben is jealous. His dad is far too busy to come to these things, and his mom firmly believes that by letting Ben attend school events alone she is nurturing his independence. He blinks away the tears pooling in his eyes and packs his work up quickly, dodging Devi and her family as he rushes out of the room.
In sixth grade they start to divide up their extracurriculars – Devi gets Chinese, so Ben takes Model UN. Anyone with half a brain cell knows Mandarin is going to be one of the most important languages of the 21st century, so whenever he’s left at home alone, his parents jetting off to some event or another, Ben takes it upon himself to learn Mandarin. Partly to spite Devi, partly because he knows that it will help him in the future. If he wants to be a diplomat, he’ll need to be fluent in all languages.
Freshman year, Ben throws himself into his schoolwork. His two best friends from middle school are at a different high school, and no matter how hard Ben tries to make friends with the other boys in his class, nothing works. If he invites them over to use his pool, no one shows up. If he brags about how his dad works for some of the most famous celebrities in L.A., everyone rolls their eyes at him. Devi calls him a “self absorbed, obnoxious bragger” and blocks him on Instagram when he posts a picture of his PSATs score. He doesn’t understand her reaction - he was just trying to inspire others… and brag a little bit.
Only Shira, a girl who spends more time scrolling through her phone than she does looking at her schoolwork, pays any notice to him. Ben knows that a girl like Shira, with her thousands of Instagram followers and perfectly sculpted brows, is only interested in him because his dad is rich. By associating with him Shira might be able to meet celebrities and take photos with them for her Instagram. Ben knows this, but he hopes that if she spends time with him, she’ll start to like him for who he is, not what he can offer her.
Plus, he’s lonely, scrolling through Reddit night after night in search of any kind of social interaction, and even if all she talks about is Kylie Jenner and the latest diet trends, Shira provides him with the company he so desperately craves.
When Shira is too busy to take photos of herself lounging by his pool, Ben dedicates his time to his schoolwork. He works hard at Model UN, becomes fluent in Mandarin, becomes the male lead of the school acapella group. He and Devi are neck and neck for first place in all of their shared classes. Even when Devi’s dad passes away, her eyes red-rimmed and her legs unable to move, she still beats him in their English test – by half a mark. He spends the entire weekend studying for their upcoming Science test and beats her by one mark. Her reaction is to throw a glass beaker on the ground in anger, and while it’s slightly amusing to see her lose her cool, for a moment Ben is worried about her. His dad might not be around that often, but he’s still alive and if Ben really needed him, he would be there. He can’t even begin to imagine what Devi is going through.
He thinks about talking to her, thinks about sending her a message to see if she’s okay, but he never works up the courage. She wouldn’t reply anyway. They’re not friends. She’s just the girl he rants to Patti about far more often than he’d like to admit.
---
Devi Vishwakumar is a thorn in his side. A prickly, annoying thorn that he can’t get out of his skin.
Ever since she walked into class in a skirt so short he doesn’t know how she managed to leave her house without her mother seeing her and dragging her back inside to change, Ben can’t stop thinking about her. He generally thinks about Devi most of the time, but not like this. When he usually thinks about her, he pictures her with devil horns.
He hates her. He has to hate her. Their mutual hatred of each other is destined to become a legend of Sherman Oaks High, a legacy that will live on long after they die.
Only, he can’t stop thinking about how long her legs are.
Ben groans, dropping his head onto his desk. The resounding thump barely distracts him from his thoughts.
Have her legs always been that long?
---
Devi Vishwakumar isn’t just a thorn in his side, she’s the worst person he’s ever met.
He thought that they had reached a mutual understanding last night, and yet here she is, absolutely destroying him in front of the rest of the Model UN. This is his territory, his club, his extracurricular and he’s worked hard to cement his position as the diplomat for the United States of America – one of the most coveted positions of Model UN. And now Devi, for some reason, is ruining everything he has worked so hard to create.
He thought she was going to support him, and now she’s threatening to nuke him.
Oh god, what did he do last night? Did he try to make a move on her? His mind races at the thought, his heart thumping in his chest. He forces himself to inhale. He can’t have made a move on Devi. They were in a room with at least a dozen other people. If he’d made a move on her, it would be all over the Model UN Facebook group. They love nothing more than a scandalous bit of gossip.
So then, why is she doing this to him? He wouldn’t go so far as to call them friends, but he thought they had made the first move towards diffusing their hatred of each other last night. But right now Devi looks like she wants nothing more to follow through on her threat and punch him in the Adam’s apple.
He can’t bring himself to speak to her on the bus back home. He watches her as she stares out the window, and holds his breath as she watches an ambulance speed past. He wants to go and speak to her, try and figure out what he did to make her look at him as if he is nothing more than a speck of dirt on her shoes, but he can’t get out of his seat. He wants to make sure she’s okay.
But then their teacher claims the seat beside him, the smell of egg salad wafting from his bag, and the thought goes away as quickly as it came.
---
Devi Vishwakumar is a good person. Quick tempered, stubborn and sometimes just downright mean, but a good person nonetheless.
When her mom invites him to their house for dinner, he’s worried that Devi’s reaction will be to throw something at him – a knife, probably. But she doesn’t. She’s annoyed, but after he doesn’t spill the beans about the Model UN excursion, she offers him a small smile. The food is burning his mouth, Devi’s cousin’s interpretation of ‘mild’ obviously vastly different to his understanding of the word, but he smiles back.
After dinner, he offers to help Devi clean up – even though they’re hardly at home, his parents have instilled in him the value of manners. As they dry the dishes she confides in him and tells him the truth about her and Paxton. When he tells her about how he was catfished, she doesn’t make fun of him. She laughs, but she’s not laughing at him, she’s laughing with him. It’s a nice feeling, and when his phone pings the next day with a money transfer from her he can’t help but smile. Shira is too busy taking photos of herself with his mechanical pencil to notice his grin, or question why he’s smiling.
Even after he tries to kiss Devi at his birthday party (twice! What was he thinking?) and makes it incredibly weird between, she still speaks to him. About the punch, but still. When she falls in the pool, he thinks for a moment about helping her, but Paxton is already there. Paxton is always there. He tries not to think about why that irritates him, and welcomes Shira’s tug on his arm. He redirects her away from his parents’ bedroom and towards his room because there is nothing he’d like to do less than make out with his girlfriend in his parents’ bedroom.
He tries to stop thinking about Devi, but he can’t. Is she okay? Did she get home safe? Eventually Shira realises that he isn’t responding to the kisses she’s trailing down his neck. She pulls away from him, and removes herself from his lap, smoothing down her dress. She raises an eyebrow at him but says nothing, merely stands up and leaves his bedroom. He falls back onto his bed, sighing.
His girlfriend was just on top of him, dress ruched up around her thighs, and he couldn’t stop thinking about another girl. He’s just blown possibly the only chance he’ll have to sleep with Shira… and no part of him regrets it.
Not rushing to help Devi out of the pool? That he does regret.
He tries to play it cool at school, blaming the alcohol in a feeble attempt to excuse his actions. He fully expects Devi to call him out so when she asks if she can move in, he’s somewhat taken aback. He tells her that he’ll ask his parents after school, but he’ll doubt they’ll say no. They’ll probably be pleased that he’ll have company whenever they go away.
The first night Devi sleeps in the spare bedroom, Ben doesn’t fall asleep until 3am. He can’t stop thinking about the fact that she is just right down the hallway.
He and Devi settle into something that Ben thinks is close to a friendship. Only weeks ago they were at each other throats, snarking at each other in class. Now, they have breakfast together, where he happily corrects her on her knowledge of Indian cuisine. Even though he enjoys Devi’s company more than he’d like to admit, he still tries to push her towards contacting her mom.
When Devi asks his dad about emancipating herself from her mom, and tells him that her mom asked her to come spread her dad’s ashes at the beach but she won’t go, he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. Spreading her dad’s ashes is not a trap. Devi loved her dad, and if her stubbornness prevents her saying goodbye to him Ben knows that she will regret it for the rest of her life. So he ropes in Eleanor and Fabiola to help him convince her to go.
And then he offers to drive Devi to her house. He’s only ever driven around the block in his mom’s car, so when he unlocks his dad’s Porsche and thinks about driving it to Devi’s house, he nearly vomits. But for Devi, he doesn’t just drive 10 minutes to her house, on suburban streets. No, he ends up driving to Malibu, hands firmly gripping the steering wheel as he tries to navigate the highway without crashing his dad’s car.
But it’s worth it. They make it to the beach in one piece and Devi sprints away from the car in search of her mom and cousin. He parks the car, undoes his seatbelt and settles into the seat to wait for her. He isn’t going to leave her in Malibu, not until he knows she’s okay. Besides, he’d rather not have to drive on the highway by himself.
He must have fallen asleep, because when Devi shuts the car door he startles awake. She nods when he asks if she made it down to the beach in time, and he can’t help but sigh in relief.
And then she kisses him.
Her hands are warm on his neck and her lips are soft under his. The kiss only lasts for a second, and as Devi pulls back from him he stares at her in wonder, mouth agape. Did that just really happen? Did Devi Vishwakumar just kiss him?
Her hands hover in the space between them and there’s a brief moment, a breath, before he surges forward to kiss her, hands tangling in her hair. Her thumb caresses his jaw and there’s the slightest taste of salt on her lips – from the ocean or from her tears, Ben can’t tell.
He drives her home, the silence between them born out ease instead of awkwardness. She looks at him when he parks his dad’s car in front of her house, and offers him a small smile.
“I’ll text you,” she murmurs.
He nods. “I’ll reply,” he says. “You know, if I’m not too busy writing an amazing essay for History class.”
Devi laughs, shaking her head at him as she leaves the car. “Mine’ll be better,” she retorts, hands curling around the car door. She grins at him, and eases the door shut. “Bye Ben.”
He waits until she’s inside her house before he slips his phone out of his pocket. In the space of 20 seconds he silently taps out a text to Shira and sends it without a second thought, exhaling.
I think we need to break up.
---
i never said thank you for driving me to malibu. so, thank you
my history essay is going to beat yours tho
wow, is that what devi vishwakhumar considers a thank you?? your mother would be appalled
hey, don’t bring my mom into this
although… if you wanna talk about my mom, she asked me this afternoon if you’d been crying again. apparently she was spying you after i left the car and you looked very emotional
…i’m never going to live that down, am i?
also I wasn’t emotional, just tired. someone made me drive on the highway, which is VERY STRESSFUL
you big baby
thank you tho
like seriously
you’re actually an okay person
who would’ve thought??
jesus, david you compliment people just as badly as you say thank you
but it’s okay
anything for you
just don’t make me drive on the highway any time soon
oh no, never again
…it’d be faster for me to walk there
now that’s just mean
i don’t drive that slow
plus i got you there in time, didn’t i??? points to ben gross
idk??? you kind of drive like someone who is half-blind and only has one leg
but no, you did get me there in time
so you get points for that
but those points have now been removed because you referred to yourself in the third person
shut up
you’ll make me cry again
like i said, anything for you
i think i’m gonna turn in
some of us are able to write amazing essays right away
i know people like you need to draft theirs tho
can’t relate
speak to you at school tomorrow?
i finished my essay 2 hours ago
but nice try
look forward to it
goodnight devi
night ben