A couple of days passed in the loft's familiar rhythm, the November chill seeping deeper through the windows, frosting the Hudson's distant shimmer into a hazy veil. Jordan still didn't know the best way of approaching the OnlyFans idea with Ben, how to frame it without it landing like a grenade, the words curdling on his tongue every time he rehearsed them.
Ben was actually even doing better, Jordan thought: the way he'd linger over breakfast now, flipping pancakes with a half-smile instead of bolting for the laptop's glare, or how he'd pull Jordan onto the sectional during Precint 12 reruns, massive arm draping heavy and warm across his shoulders. They hadn't returned to the gym, the old excuses bubbling up again like stubborn weeds: a "headache" for Tuesday's proposed leg day, a "need to tweak the resume" swallowing Thursday's invite, Ben's hazel eyes flicking away behind his glasses with that practiced deflection. And he still wasn't having any luck on the job-hunting front, the rejections piling in his inbox like unread drafts, each one a quiet gut punch that Jordan pretended not to see in the slump of Ben's beard-shadowed jaw.
But there was something different about him, a subtle shift like light refracting through frost, turning the ordinary sharp. He seemed... lighter, the weight of Harlan's ghost lifting just a fraction from his shoulders, his laughter rumbling freer over dumb memes Jordan forwarded from the office. He was drinking less, Jordan noticed, the six-pack in the fridge untouched through midweek, evenings capped with herbal tea instead of whiskey neat. And he was sleeping better too, the night after their workout the first in many, many weeks where Jordan didn't wake up in the middle of the night to find he was alone in bed, sheets cold where Ben's heat should have been, the loft's shadows empty save for the pacing creak of floorboards. That dawn, instead, Ben had been there, sprawled deep in slumber, glasses askew on the nightstand, one arm flung possessive over Jordan's waist, breath steady and deep against his neck.
Maybe he should drop the idea, anyway. It was stupid. He'd always known that, deep down. To think a couple of strangers praising his cock would be enough to fix whatever was broken inside Ben? Absurd, the kind of fairy-tale fix that belonged in the pixelated glow of tv shows, not their real life. He was watching too much porn, Jordan thought to himself, a wry huff escaping as he laughed silently on the walk home. Nah, if Ben needed help, he wouldn't find it online from people who only wanted him for his horse cock. He’d find it in an actual professional, someone specialized in mental health, the kind of steady hand that unraveled knots without judgment or gimmicks, sessions in a quiet office where Ben could unpack the runaway scars without a camera's glare. That's what Jordan needed to pitch him, gently framing it as the next apprenticeship, another wire to rethread their circuit.
The loft's evening hush wrapped around them like a held breath, the Hudson's lights twinkling distant through the windows as Jordan perched on the sectional's edge. Ben was sunk deep into the cushions again, remote loose in his massive paw. Jordan's resolve had simmered all week, the OnlyFans whim discarded like a rough sketch, replaced by this: therapy, the real fix.
"Hey, Benny. Can we talk?" Jordan's voice cut gentle but firm.
Ben's eyes flicked sideways without fully leaving the screen,"Sure, what's up?" he rumbled.
Jordan rolled his eyes, a fond exasperation bubbling up as he lunged forward, snatching the remote from Ben's paw with a playful swipe. He jabbed the power button, the screen winking black, plunging the room into a softer lamplight intimacy.
"Okay, let's talk," Ben conceded with a resigned huff, straightening just enough to drape one beefy arm over the couch back, his gaze settling fully now. "What's on your mind?"
Jordan exhaled, knees bumping Ben's as he leaned in, hands clasping to steady the spill. "I think... look, I think you should talk to someone.”
Ben's brow furrowed under the beard, a beat of silence stretching as he adjusted his glasses, "About what?"
"About the stuff you've been through lately, you know?" Jordan pressed on, voice threading careful around the thorns. "That asshole Harlan and his creepy bullshit. Losing the job, the way it gutted you." He hesitated then, the words hanging heavy, his thumb tracing an idle circle on Ben's knee through the sweats, testing the waters before the deeper dive. "And... the weight you've packed on. How it's messing with your head.”
Ben's jaw tightened, hazel eyes dropping to the remote still clutched in Jordan's fist, the room's quiet amplifying the distant hum of traffic below. A long exhale rumbled from his chest, not quite a sigh, but close.
"What do you mean?" Ben pressed, voice dropping lower, edged with that old defensiveness. "I talked about all that shit. With you, with Derek. You know he went through his own layofs. We shot the breeze over beers, hashed it out."
"I know you did," Jordan replied softly. "I'm talking, you know... a professional."
Ben's brow arched, glasses slipping a fraction as he leaned back, crossing his arms over the plush swell of his chest. "Like a shrink?" he asked, the word landing half-joke, half-jab, and Jordan nodded, chin dipping firm in affirmation. "I don't need a shrink," Ben shot. "I'm not crazy. I'm just going through a rough patch. It'll pass."
"Of course you're not crazy," Jordan countered, voice threading warm insistence, leaning closer until their knees knocked insistent. "Not-crazy people go to therapy all the time. It's like... maintenance, Benny."
Ben's jaw worked silent for a beat, then he waved it off with a massive paw, the motion loose but final. "Nah, I'm fine."
"You're not fine, Benny," Jordan answered, his voice gentle, careful not to shatter the fragile space between them. "No one would be fine after going through what you did. Sexual harassment... it's not something you just get over with some beers with your buddy."
Jordan let the words sink in, the heavy ones especially: sexual harassment, spoken plain for the first time.He watched Ben's face, searching for the flicker: a tightening of the jaw under that unkempt beard, a shift in the hazel eyes behind the glasses, anything to signal the hit had landed. But Ben gave no sign he was even listening, his massive frame statue-still against the cushions, gaze fixed on some invisible point across the room, arms crossed tighter now, the gut rising and falling in shallow, measured breaths that betrayed nothing.
Jordan knew he needed to be careful, the kind of delicate tread he'd use around a client's fragile provenance. Probe too hard, and the whole thing cracks. They never talked about Ben's problems like that, framing them as a matter of his mental health, some clinical knot to untangle with strangers in neutral chairs. Hell, he didn't even think they'd ever said out loud that what Harlan did to Ben was sexual harassment, not in those exact terms, just vague mutters of "that sleazy fucker" over takeout, too raw to name, too close to the trailer-park ghosts Ben carried like unhealed scars.
"Look, Benny," Jordan pressed on, his eyes locked on Ben's averted gaze as if he could will the words through the walls Ben built so high. "You are a macho guy. You've got your pride, I get that. But this isn't 2004; you're not in that trailer park anymore, and I'm not your asshole dad. You don't have to handle this without help. In fact, a real man knows when he's over his head and asks for it.
Ben laughed at that, a short, bark of sound that scraped close to dismissive, his massive chest rumbling under the crossed arms, hazel eyes finally snapping back to Jordan's with a glint that bordered on challenge, as if he were silently asking what the hell Jordan, with his fancy job curating canvases for the elite and his rich-kid childhood buffered by brunches and blind support, knew about "real men" anyway. The laugh faded quick, leaving the air tauter, Ben's beard twitching as he uncrossed his.
"Is that what you've been wanting to talk to me about these last few days?" Ben asked.
"What do you mean?" Jordan asked, his brow furrowing slightly, caught off-guard by the reversal.
Ben's smirk deepened, a glint of that old playfulness sparking in his hazel eyes behind the glasses, his beefy hand gesturing vaguely at Jordan's fidgeting form. "I noticed you've been talking yourself into talking to me lately, like you're psyching up for something."
"Oh no, that was..." Jordan started, then trailed off, a laugh bubbling up unbidden, light and self-deprecating as heat crept up his neck. He shook his head, conceding the point with a grin. "No, you're right, but that was a totally different thing."
"Yeah? What was it then?" Ben leaned forward now, elbows on his thighs.
"Oh... it's a stupid thing I thought about," Jordan murmured, the words evasive, his fingers drumming the remote's edge as the OnlyFans flicker ghosted uninvited through his mind.
Ben's chuckle rumbled low, teasing as he arched a brow. "More stupid than me shelling out four hundred bucks to some fancy doctor just to talk about my feelings?"
Jordan laughed despite himself, the sound spilling genuine and warm, cutting through the tension like sunlight on frost, Ben's jab landing just off-center enough to disarm. He knew what Ben was trying to do: change the subject, steer them back to the shallows, make him forget the serious mental health talk still simmering unfinished beneath the surface. And Jordan decided he'd let him do that, for now, easing off the gas before the wheels spun out. It would do no good to force anything on him; Ben's walls were high for a reason, and love meant respecting the climb.
"Hey!" Jordan exclaimed, his laugh turning into a playful punch to Ben's beefy shoulder Ben's frame barely budged, but the impact drew a deeper chuckle from him, hazel eyes crinkling behind his glasses as he rubbed the spot theatrically. “It's just something I heard at the gym the other day when we were together," Jordan added.
Ben arched a brow, the tease lingering in his smirk. "Spill it, Jord."
"You know when we were showering and a couple guys came in?" Jordan continued. "When I was pissing, I heard them talking about you."
Ben's grip loosened, but his expression shifted, a flicker of wariness chasing the amusement. "They were trying to figure out what the fat fuck was doing at the gym?"
Jordan really wasn't gonna talk about that. But hearing Ben put himself down like that, the casual venom of "fat fuck" slicing self-inflicted from his own lips, was too much for him.
"No, you idiot," Jordan shot back, the words tumbling fierce and fond. "The exact opposite, actually. They were almost drooling over your cock."
Ben raised his eyebrows at that, clearly surprised, the hazel depths widening behind his glasses as a flush crept up his beard-framed neck. He looked down at his lap, where his bulge rested heavy like always, thick outline pressing insistent against the loose cotton. "My cock? What about my cock?" he asked, voice rough with bafflement, his hand drifting absently to adjust his bulge, the motion unconscious but magnetic.
"Oh, apparently," Jordan leaned in closer, voice dropping husky, laced with the echo of those bros' crude awe, "a guy with a cock like that could have any bottom he wanted."
"Fuck off, Jord," Ben snorted, the laugh rolling out rough and low, but it didn't quite land easy, self-conscious, his eyes skittering off to the side behind those glasses.
"Oh yeah," Jordan pushed, not letting it slide. "One of those bros straight-up said you could make in a fortune on OnlyFans just flashing that thing. That's what I've been t hinking aboutall week.
Ben snatched the remote from Jordan's lap in one swift grab, jabbing the power button to light up the the TV's, once more. “What?" Jordan asked, blinking in surprise, the sudden silence amplifying the thud of his pulse.
" Nobody's dropping cash to see my ass naked. Get real, Jord," Ben shot back, actually batting a hand at Jordan in dismissal, the gesture loose but loaded. It was a testament to how much Jordan knew his boyfriend, the words landing like an echo of the exact shutdown he'd imagined in his head on the walk back from the gym that day.
"Oh, you fuck off Benjamin," Jordan fired back "Look, I get it, you're not feeling your body these days. But I wasn't bullshitting when I said the extra weight looks fucking hot on you. You know there’s tons of guys that goes crazy for bears. And don't play dumb, you know that cock's a fucking masterpiece."
Ben shook his head, gaze still glued to the coffee table's chipped edge like the whole thing was some bad joke he couldn't wrap his head around. "So, what, your big plan is I turn porn star? Hang up the tool belt and cover rent with dick pics?" The words came out gravelly, half-laugh, half-scoff, his big hand waving loose toward his crotch.
"No, of course, no," Jordan cut in quick, his voice dipping soft. "It's not about the money, you know that. I just... figured if you could see how other guys are still going crazy over you, even with the extra padding right now, it might kickstart that confidence you've got buried. Like, really see it, not just hear it from me."
Ben finally looked at Jordan then, hazel eyes lifting slow behind the slip of his glasses, so full of love and devotion that Jordan almost melted right there on the sectional: raw, unguarded, the kind of gaze that had hooked him from that elevator stall. Ben scooted over, the cushions dipping under his weight, closing the gap until his frame loomed warm and close, one hand cupping Jordan's jaw with surprising tenderness. He leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips, soft and lingering, probably the first time he'd taken that initiative since the firing.
"You're too damn sweet for even thinking about that," Ben breathed right against his mouth, foreheads bumping solid. "But nah, I don't need randos on Twitter thirsting over my junk. Just you. That's plenty."
Jordan thought that was the end of his OnlyFans ambitions for Ben, that kiss sealing it shut like a door clicked softly home. He let it go as they tangled into the couch, Jordan's head on that plush chest, the rise and fall of Ben's breathing lulling him toward an afternoon nap with the steady rhythm of waves on shore. But he was wrong.
Later that night, Jordan was sprawled on their bed, propped on pillows with some Art History tome cracked open, a dense volume on Caravaggio's tenebrism, shadows and light playing eternal in the plates of dramatic saints and sinners. He didn't realize Ben had slipped from bed, drawn like a moth to the full-body mirror propped against the far wall, its frame a sleek black iron Jordan had salvaged from a gallery estate sale. Ben stood there, checking himself as if really seeing his new, bearish body for the first time, unhurried, unflinching, hazel eyes tracing the reflection behind his glasses. The muscles in his arms and pecs loomed huge beneath a layer of fat that wasn't there before, beefy biceps curling thick when he flexed experimentally; his chest a broad shelf, meaty slabs heaving with each breath, furred dark, nipples dark peaks. His belly dominated the center, big, round, a plush dome spilling over the waistband he no longer wore, inviting.
And his cock. That legendary cock, big, thick, heavy, monumental even in softness, hanging low and proud between tree-trunk thighs, a good seven inches flaccid, girth like a wrist at rest with a foreskin hood half-drawn over the head, balls pendulous and full below, swaying gentle with the shift of his stance. Ben's hand drifted down, cupping it absently, thumb tracing a prominent ridge as if mapping a familiar stranger, the mirror holding his gaze steady, no flinch, no curse, just a quiet bloom of something like reckoning in the set of his jaw.
"How would that even work?" Ben asked, out of nowhere, his voice a low rumble slicing through the bedroom's quiet, the words hanging in the air like they'd been brewing since earlier.
"Hm?" Jordan murmured, distracted, his eyes still skimming a dense passage on Caravaggio's chiaroscuro.
"The porn gig," Ben clarified, turning from the mirror at last, his naked frame casting a long shadow across the hardwood as he padded back toward the bed. "How would that even work? Like, practically."
Jordan was surprised to realize Ben was talking about his idea. His book slipped shut with a soft thud as he blinked up. It took him a few seconds to know what to answer, mind scrambling past the shock to cobble something coherent, his gaze flicking down Ben's body before snapping back to his hazel eyes, earnest behind the glasses.
"I don't know," he admitted finally, setting the book aside, shifting to sit up straighter against the headboard. "I never thought that far. Maybe you just... shoot the stuff, post it online, slap some hashtags on it, you know? #Bear #Hung #BigBen or whatever." He threw in the last one with a teasing grin, testing the waters.
Ben barked a laugh at the nickname, genuine. "#BigBen? That’s either gold or a disaster. And would people find out?" Ben added, the amusement fading into something sharper, more real. "It's not like I wanna be explaining OnlyFans potential to your dad over Thanksgiving turkey, you know?"
"I mean, would they?" Jordan echoed. "There's a shitload of guys doing it these days, it's a sea of dicks out there. I guess you'd just be another one in the fray, unless you blew up or something."
"What, you don't think I could blow up?" Ben asked, the words tumbling out with a forced lightness, like he was aiming for casual tease, but Jordan caught the undercurrent, the raw edge in his tone, the way his eyes held steady behind the glasses, searching, completely honest in their vulnerability, as if Ben was bracing for the verdict on his own worth.
The realization dawned on Jordan then, sharp and electric: Ben wasn't shutting it down, not fully. This wasn't deflection or dismissal anymore, but a door cracking open, curiosity bleeding through the cracks. His heart stuttered, book forgotten on the bed. "Wait," Jordan breathed, shifting to face him fully. "You're thinking about it?"
"No, of course not," Ben answered immediately, the words snapping out like a reflex. But then he added, quieter, almost reluctant, "I mean... not if people are gonna find out."
Jordan felt the grin spreading over his face, slow and unstoppable, heat blooming in his chest, holy shit, Ben was thinking about it, really turning it over. He had to bit the inside of his cheek to keep it from splitting too wide.
"You could use some disguise. Like, some glasses?" he suggested, having to actually force himself not to laugh, the absurdity bubbling up like champagne. It was too soon, too fragile; if Ben thought he was making fun of him, it'd be over before it started.
Ben barked a laugh, short and surprised. "Glasses? What, I'm Superman now?"
That was good, Jordan thought to himself, relief loosening his shoulders. If Ben was joking about it, ribbing back instead of shutting down, it was good, the ice thinning under their feet. "Maybe some sunglasses?" he pressed, grin tugging freer now. "Could be your trademark, you know, like a signature thing."
Ben thought about that for a while, his massive paw absently cupping his gut, fingers splaying over the round swell as if weighing it anew in the mirror's afterimage, hazel eyes distant for a beat, the silence stretching companionable rather than strained.
"You barely left the apartment over the last few weeks," Jordan added softly, filling the quiet with fact. "I don't see most of our friends even knowing you gained some weight. I doubt they'd spot a bear jerking off online and go, 'Holy shit, that's Ben Morgan.'"
Ben slid into bed beside him then, the mattress dipping deep under his weight as he slipped under the duvet, his massive arms wrapping around Jordan like a harbor, warm, enveloping, beard tickling his shoulder in a nuzzle that felt like home. For a moment, it was just that: bodies slotted familiar, breaths syncing slow. But then Ben pulled back, propping on one elbow to look at Jordan's eyes, hazel gaze searching in the lamp's low glow. "You're serious about that, aren't you?" he murmured.
Jordan shrugged, his hand finding Ben's on his hip. "It could be fun, I guess. And I think you could use some fun, Benny.”
Ben huffed another of those disbelieving snorts shaking his head slow as the sound died out, leaving silence in its wake. He didn't answer, didn't push back or pull away, just let the moment hang, heavy with the unsaid. Instead, he leaned down, pressing a kiss to Jordan's forehead, lips lingering warm and firm. His free hand reached for the closed Caravaggio book tumbled at mattres, plucking it up and tucking it back into Jordan's chest like an offering.
Talk's over, Jordan realized as Ben settled again, arm draping possessive over his waist, breath evening out against his neck. For now, at least.
