day0walkersdrafts - Tumblr blog

day0walkersdrafts · 5 months

Text

“Benji?”

“Mm.”

“Benji.”

“Mhm.”

Xavier tries to hold in his laugh, crawling further onto the sun warmed bed. The blankets are messy, thrown everywhere, and his pillow had been on the floor when he’d come into the bedroom. For someone who slept predominantly curled up into a tight ball (unless, of course, Xavier was there to hold him in a different position), Benji was able to wreck the bed, almost nightly. Xavier is slow as he tucks hair back from Benji’s face. It makes the drummer’s thick, black brows pull together. A small line creases his forehead. His mouth twists and he turns on his side even further, knees tucked up.

There’s a tiny burn inside Xavier’s chest to watch it all, his grin barely contained as he chews his lower lip. Sunlight filters in through his curtains, which are too sheer to offer much protection. It makes Benji’s dark brown skin even more beautiful to look at, if that’s really possible. Ever since Benji had landed a few weeks ago, he was on a mission to find him looking more beautiful as many times as he could.

Xavier’s palm spreads over a bare shoulder. Squeezes.

“Wassit?” Benji barely manages to mumble.

“You overslept,” Xavier explains in a whispery tone as he kneels beside Benji’s blanketed form. Black curls stick up in hilarious messy tufts. His facial hair is mussed and Xavier has started to notice that the eyelashes on Benji’s left eye are always sort of crinkled. It’s because he sleeps on his side so often and they’re so long.

“Overslept for what?” Benji groans. He clears his throat, blinks his gorgeous dark eyes open. They soften on Xavier for just a moment. Then his body snaps still—then it animates immediately, Benji shooting up to a sitting position, eyes comically large.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he groans out and then, just as quickly, falls onto his back. One of his arms drapes over his eyes dramatically. The blankets been shoved down a bit more, which reveals his bare upper torso…and the little dark marks Xavier had put across his hairy chest with his teeth.

“I called Lark.”

“Mad?”

“Oh, like, so mad,” Xavier teases, his pale hand spreading greedily over Benji’s stomach. He watches the muscles shiver. The burn in his chest turns from innocent adoration to something nastily hungry. He scoots himself closer. “He said you probably needed it.”

“How’d he say it?”

“Tired asshole is probably getting his first eight hours of sleep in his entire life.”

It is such a poor imitation of Lark’s cool, husky voice that it makes Benji burst into an immediate laugh. It shakes him slightly, which makes Xavier’s hand continue it’s spoiled path up and between Benji’s pectorals. The coarse chest hair is a nice texture under his fingertips. Tempts him—like it’s asking for more of those little hickies. So Xavier starts arranging himself. Lays down on his side, with his hand petting more fondly. Circular motions. His eyes go narrowed and devious.

“Benji,” he says for the third time. At the sound and pitch of his name, murmured out like that, Benji tilts his head so they’re facing other another. His pupils begin a slow bloom, which does something to Xavier’s ego. To be looked at like that. To be found so appetizing it’s making Benji’s body react on it’s own. He inches closer just as his hand moves from chest, to torso, to the soft spot below Benji’s belly button.

“Can I make you more late?” Xavier asks, brushing their noses together. Benji is quiet for a moment. Only a moment. Then he groans and uses both hands to yank Xavier in for a kiss.

When it’s over—this early morning hand job Xavier had admittedly been thinking of nearly since the time he’d woken up hours earlier—Benji is laying on his back, panting, one hand curled deep into his own hair and the other snug and tight around Xavier’s wrist. The red head kneels on dark thighs, his closed fist still tugging gently (he secretly likes the feeling, Benji going soft, secretly likes being present for every single moment, even that). Thick white release still sticky over his knuckles, a little drip of it on Benji’s stomach.

“God, I love making you cum,” Xavier groans, hunching over and stealing a kiss.

“What the fuck did I do to deserve you?” Benji mumbles out, their lips only inches apart. For some reason, it sort of shocks Xavier. Makes him blink rapidly, press another quick—and shy—kiss to Benji’s cheek. His nose brushes into thick, black hair. His hand finally leaves and presses against a warm stomach. It makes Benji huff and then touch Xavier’s waist softly and they lay like that for some time.

—

“Holy shit.”

Tess had been quiet across the couch for so long it startles Xavier to hear her speak. She sits with her knees curled up, feet tucked between the cushions, a thumbnail in her mouth. She stares down at the cracked phone in her other hand. It’s got a clear case on and the polaroid picture stuck between it and the phone is of Ratspit’s infamous, news worthy drummer. Caught in candid, head turning to the side, mouth wide in a smile.

Xavier, across from her, kicks his legs up onto the poor mans excuse for a coffee table he has (a DVD is shoved underneath one leg and that’s the only thing keeping it moderately balanced even so plastic ducks don’t go spilling off it everywhere). When he tries to hand over the joint they’re sharing, she doesn’t even notice at first.

“Xavier,” she says instead. Her thumb pops out her mouth and she looks up at him. The worry in her eyes makes his stomach sink to an all new low. It’s lessened only because she also quickly leans in to grab the joint and tuck it between her lips. He deflates a bit, head falling back to look up at the boring, popcorn colored ceiling. He already knows. She doesn’t have to say it out loud, but she does.

“This shit is scary,” Tess says.

And it was. It is.

Xavier had given over his phone when she’d requested, one joint already down between the both of them. Now, sufficiently high, he was prepared to talk about what she was there to talk about.

Tess, who listened exactly to the kind of music Ratspit made, had seen something online about—well. About him. Her little brother and Benji and that had been enough for her to book an impromptu vacation from Seattle, Washington to Boston-Fucking-Massachusetts. Because Tess knew Xavier—that if his name, his face, was in headlines, was online, was out there—he was going to have a fucking panic attack.

Which he’d already had. More than once since everything had sort of broken. Apt term. Felt like some dam had finally collapsed and now here it all was. He’d had one, not too long after Benji had left for whatever fancy music producers meeting he and Lark had to attend. At the airport, waiting for Tess to finally land. So many people, in every direction and he couldn’t tell who was looking at him and who just happened to be looking in his direction.

But in the safety of his apartment (which he wasn’t sure if he could still call safe now that his fucking address was posted on Reddit), he had been able to convince himself maybe it wasn’t all that bad.

Tess had gone down the same sort of path he had on the internet. She’d seen the good first.

And there was good—there was so much good. There were comments like;

o m g stop i am in love ! look at them !! 😍 #ratspitromance

shut up…the hot security guard ?! someone ship name them NEOW #ratspit #benjipalanivel #doweknowhisname?

🖤🖤🖤 idc idc idc look at his eyes!!! happy for u benji! #realrats #sadaboutthetourtho #benji

And more of course, that talked about his hair or his biceps or his freckles. Comments that—he was ashamed to admit—made his heart flutter. Made him blush, kept him reading, because it was addicting in a way. Attention he was unused to, a flood of comments calling him beautiful, hot, sexy, calling him things he didn’t even know he could be called. Pictures torn off other peoples Instagrams, candids he wasn’t even aware fans had gotten, plastered over social media.

Then came comments that he secretly loved, things he looked at to make himself think someone gets it and this is worth it, right? Comments like:

ive never seen benji smile like that in a candid : ( he looks so sweet !

wow u can FEEL the love that redheads giving off #happyforbenji

when i was at a meet n greet on last tour benji seemed happier !!! you can tell !!

Tess has been smiling reading those. Flickering between different socials and articles that used Xavier’s (now fully revealed) name as a hashtag, or the band’s name, or Benji’s. And then, slowly but so fucking surely, her smile had disappeared. Her eyes had gone watery and big, brows pulled in and turned upward. Her mouth had set itself in a thin, suppressing line that paled her even further. Then she began biting at her thumbnail and her knee wouldn’t stop shaking.

Because there were also comments like;

benji’s in his make america great again era I guess #fuckingposer #acab #itsfuckthepolice not #fuckingthepolice

the only good gay rep I get and hes bending over for a guy so bland you could find him at any frat party in america—hashtag cover your drinks 🤮

he shoulda died at that show he ruined when he smashed his head in lmao #ratspit #xavierwolffe #disappointedbutnotsurprised

uhmmmm no one is pointing out the obvious? benji is his EMPLOYER that power balance is so disgusting i hope benji is ashamed wtf #ratspit #benjipalanivel #bringbackewanlmao

benji PLEASE break up with mr. straight passing when there are SO many fucking better options…….#iloveyoubenji

All of which was awful, of course. The unrelenting dissection of Xavier’s time in the military, his graduation photo from boot camp somehow found and spread around (and then photoshopped and demeaned along with other harmless selfies taken from friends unprivated accounts) (No one calling him beautiful in those posts). The autopsy done on his sexuality and the validity of it. The speculation of their sex lives, like they weren’t even people.

The slow descent into online madness had stung at first, but Xavier had really thought himself too strong for it all. There was a solid ache in his ribs that never truly went away—he’d been hurt before.

But people wanted Xavier dead. It was a surreal, unearthly feeling to be hated so intensely by complete strangers that he didn’t know if it hurt.

But it did scare him.

Xavier leans over then and gently takes his phone away from Tess. He locks the screen and turns it over so he can look at the picture of Benji he keeps tucked in the case. It was from the previous tour, taken under low lighting in some club they’d all gone to after a show. Benji’s blurry and the picture was awful, but his smile is so undeniably happy. Xavier wishes he was smart enough for bigger words, to find synonyms that make it sound as grand as it was. As big as it meant, for Benji to be smiling so much, so openly, like that.

To let Xavier take pictures of him.

And yet, he was stupid.

“Have you guys talked about this?” Tess finally asks, leaning over to offer the joint. Xavier takes it and is glad to find his hand still. He reclines and puffs appreciatively on it.

“Sure.”

“Oh my God, you haven’t?”

“No!” Xavier looks over at her. He takes another greedy hit, passes the joint back. “We have. I mean—we just—there isn’t that much to talk about. The internet is shit, okay? We all know it’s shit.”

“Xavier, someone took a picture of your apartment building on Google Maps. And they posted it! Like it’s not a big fucking deal!”

“And you can’t get into my building without a code,” Xavier points out. It’s a ridiculous argument to make, because it’s a terrible building and people slip in all the time. People buzz random apartments just to see who will accidentally let them in.

He’d even reached out to the building management in an email to explain the situation and the woman had simply replied asking if he needed to reach out to a mental health service. She’d thought he was going through some sort of paranoid break instead of believing, I’m dating a mild celebrity and his fans hate me for it. Not that Tess needed to know any of that and not that he was going to tell her either.

“In case TSA is listening, I mean this purely in a self defense way. But—Do you have guns here?” Tess asks, her nose curled. In any other situation it might have been funny—her asking him. Because she hates guns, violence of any kind.

“Two,” he breathes out thick, cotton white smoke, coughs a little. He gestures toward the bedroom with a tired hand. “I keep the ammo locked in a separate safe and they’re both registered.”

“God, I can feel Dad’s pride.”

At the mention of him, both Wolffe siblings go absolutely quiet. The city is loud right outside his window even though he’s on a higher floor. It feels stale in the air. Xavier begins picking at his cuticle. He leaves his phone sat on his thigh, so Benji’s still upright, facing him. It makes him feel marginally better.

“Does he know?” Xavier then asks quietly.

“No. I called Jessie—who is freaking the fuck out, by the way. But, she said dad has no idea.” A certain kind of guilt nestles between his ribs that hurts worse than the death threats and the animosity and the stress. The feeling of lying, to his little sister, when it wasn’t necessarily lying to just not tell her something. To not be the one calling her, either. He continues picking his cuticle, finding his chest tightening in a way that made breathing harder. Maybe he shouldn’t have had the second joint.

“He’s going to find out,” Tess says slowly. Her foot extends and kicks his knee enough so that he’ll look at her. They both have the exact same colored eyes and at that moment, both have matching red as well. “You don’t want—Xavier. You do not want that to be the way you come out to him.”

“I don’t want to come out to him at all,” he mumbles. The cuticle splits and a dot of blood wells up, in a neat little drop. The siblings fall back into silence at that—the shared grim shadow of their father looms over them. He presses a finger to the blood and smears it backward.

“Wanna know something fucked up?” Xavier finally asks when enough time for both of them to go through the mental list of why they can’t stand their father and why they also love him too much to fully hate him. Tess snorts and settles herself further into the couch. In a horrible display of irony, she’d picked out a Ratspit hoodie to wear; one of the really old designs that had two rats dancing on the front that were supposed to be Lark and Benji. You could really only tell because either rats had their most signature tattoos.

“Nothing you’re doing right now is more fucked up than what the internet is doing.”

“So the tour is canceled, right?” Xavier lifts both hands as he’s talking—grinning now. Because this is better conversation, this is what he’d rather be talking about than whatever shit storm was brewing on the little device sitting on his lap. “And—well. I asked Benji if he wanted to stay with me while they were figuring everything out.” He goes bashful at that, lets himself feel the high he’d been working up. He slopes in the couch, spine curved. His watery eyes blink out at nothing.

“It’s just easier, right? Because Lark lives in the US—if Benji had to—all these like meetings they’re having to figure out what to do about that fucking loser—anyway. He’d have to attend over Zoom.” Both Tess and Xavier laugh at that. They have the same cadence of laugh, too big and loud. He’s snickering and trying to fight tears when they’re done. “Can you fucking imagine Benji on Zoom?”

“Oi, is this turned on?” Tess mocks, in a much better imitation of his accent than Xavier ever manages. It pathetically makes his heart squeeze, because he wishes Benji was there. Right there, in the living room, with his sister.

“Anyway,” Xavier continues, his voice going softer at the edges. “Last night, I took him to the Dive In Show.” Tess’ face lights up, her smile stretching so wide it looks painful. Her red and green eyes sparkle at the mention of the worst drive in movie theater that might possibly exist in all of the US. Dive In, get it? Drive in, he’d said, making Benji laugh so recklessly that he’d felt like a king. Xavier smiles too, figures they look like little mirrored images of each other, him and Tess. He lolls his head back and forth groaning.

“It’s just as fucking bad as you remember, Tess. Swear. But—it was like, desolate too. There were two other cars and they didn’t even give a fuck about us. So we got to get out and lay in the bed of the truck to watch the movie.” Xavier doesn’t feel like he needs to explain any further than that. He sits in the memory of being—normal. A couple that goes to a terrible drive in movie, that lay in the truck bed. Movie mostly ignored as they laid on their sides together and talked about every topic that popped up. Some serious, most not.

Xavier doesn’t have to explain, so he doesn’t. He stares at his phone case, at Benji’s smiling face. There’s a click and wheeze sound of Tess and her terrible electronic cigarette that she inevitably passes to Xavier.

It had felt so private and intimate and so theirs. Xavier didn’t need to worry someone was going to look over and see them, because no one there fucking cared. They didn’t have to worry about walking to the God awful concession stand and someone coming up to ask Benji for a picture. No one wanted his autograph and no one gave a shit who he was—the man at the counter that slid their corn dogs over barely spared them a glance.

The guilt of enjoying that was eating him alive, but…

“Okay, so what’s fucked up?”

“He’ll be here for his birthday.”

“Happy Birthday, Benji.”

It makes him laugh, though that laugh is suddenly wet at the edges. Xavier sniffs and rubs the heel of his hand across his eyes. He looks over at Tess, whose face has gone gentle and caring. He kind of hates her for it, but he also loves her. Wouldn’t want anyone else to be there, in that moment with him, admitting how pitiful he is.

“I am so fucked up for being so excited that this tour got canceled, Tess.”

“No, you’re not—”

“Yes, I am,” Xavier cuts her off with a finality, voice rough and mean. “It’s so fucking selfish to be this excited that—he’s all mine? Like, just mine? Not even Lark or Matilda or—like, Benji is solely, for that day, for that special of a day—going to be just mine. I’m not sharing him with anyone—fuck. This is so fucked up. I am so fucking high.” He rubs his hands across his face further, trying to pretend it isn’t because a few tears have escaped.

They lapse into silence once more. And then,

“You and Benji have to talk about this, you know that, right?”

“Tess, Jesus Christ, I said we have.”

“No,” she raises a finger, her lips going flat once more, eyes severe. “I believe you when you say you’ve talked about all the absolute vile shit on the internet. And I’m sure you’ve told him how guilty you feel about that. You can’t keep a secret to save your fucking life.”

“Jeez.”

“I’m saying,” she continues, struggling on the couch to get closer to him. She sits and then leans her head against his. Xavier is still for a moment, before softly tucking his cheek to the top of her head. The short, fuzzy buzz cut feels nice. He has a dizzying, hilarious moment where he thinks of Maran—who would get along with Tess, who would like her. Xavier blinks more tears out.

“You are like, dating someone in the public eye, okay? And you need to either be okay with that or—It doesn’t go away, right? They’re going to go on tour again at some point.” But Benji hates touring, is the one horrific, traitorous thought that pulses through him in that moment. Benji hates touring. Xavier stays quiet, afraid that if he says it out loud, he’ll make Tess angry somehow. Like he’s trying to make excuses for something.

“It’s not his career, it’s his passion, right? Drumming? You said it’s like the thing Benji loves the most.” She’s directly referencing him, from spare phone calls on the road he could manage when there was slim amounts of downtime. Xavier’s stomach roils and his heart makes a pathetic stutter. His chest tightens once more, but worse. He’s glad they’re not looking at each other, so Tess can’t know how much the truth of her words wound him. She’s not wrong, and that’s the worst part.

“You can’t make him choose between normal birthdays with his boyfriend and his life’s passion.”

Because his whole body trembles with his next breath in, Tess can tell he’s crying. She turns to wrap her arms around his shoulders, a hand tucked behind his neck. She hugs him closer and Xavier lets her. His phone slides off his thigh and hits the ground with an awkward plap sound. He tries not to make it an ugly, messy cry, but it’s the first time he’s let himself actually cry about the entire situation. He’d spent a good portion of it fighting with humor, or worrying about Benji or even the whole band.

He let himself get sidetracked with checking on Mouse, who told him to fuck off every single time, but secretly seemed pleased to have his attention. Or he let himself get involved with late night conversations with Lark, who was more worried than he let on about the whole band and where it was headed and what happened now. Xavier even let himself meet up with Matilda, to sit down and share nicotine and bitch. Complain and whine and say awful fucking things about Ewan.

When Xavier and Tess pull apart, she is using the hooked edges of her Ratspit hoodie sleeves to wipe his face. It makes him laugh and push away her hands.

“I got too high,” he admits.

“Your tolerance used to be like fuckin’ wicked. I’m kind of impressed, actually. You must really cut back when you’re around Benji.”

Xavier shrugs, picks up his phone. He doesn’t admit that being sober around Benji feels just as good as being high. It feels corny—but he also worries that Tess might not take it the right way. She was hyper aware and hyper alert and hyper prepared to be worried about him, all the time. That felt as much daunting as it did comforting. He clears his throat and brushes hands back through his hair and lets himself breathe a few times.

“Do you wanna hear why I’m awful?” Tess offers, placing hands to her chest and batting her eye lashes at him.

“Jesus, please. I’d kill for someone else to be the bad guy.” She looks like she might leap to his defense but Xavier raises a hand and then gestures for her to continue on.

“You’re going to be like, so fucking mad at me though.”

“What did you do?”

“Well,” Tess tugs at the strings of her hoodie, leaning back on the couch. She tries for an innocent expression. It looks absolutely terrible on her. “I’m picking up Jessie. And.”

“And.”

“And we’re going to go see Matilda.”

“Oh my fucking God, Tess.” Xavier presses a hand to his forehead, eyes screwed shut. Matilda’s face pops up behind his eyelids, the way she schools her expression to something neutral when she’s mad. The way he could see a tremor of pure fury in her jaw, when she talked about the exit of their guitarist. “She’s on vacation. She’s already so fucking stressed—you cannot do that to her. She’s going to be putting her Matilda The Keyboardist face on the whole time. Why would you make her perform like that, when she’s—what the fuck, Tess?”

“Xavier, relax.” Tess raises both hands in her defense. “God, wow, you like love her, huh? Not just Benji—you really care.” He’s stunned for a moment, looking at the little tattoos on her palms. Xavier’s eyes slip away to the window and then down and around back to her. He shrugs a shoulder, suddenly oddly shy about what she’s implying. He’d never thought about it like that.

Tess begins unwinding from the couch, patting herself down for her phone. She sidesteps the coffee table to locate her big, chunky boots.

“I texted Matilda and she was into the idea. Jessie is cool, you know she is. I mean, she’s a fan, but she’s also cool. And,” she pauses for a moment, one foot slid into her boot. She looks apologetic and awkward. “I think Jessie is kind of going through something right now. So it would mean a lot to hang out with her idol for even a day.”

“I didn’t know,” Xavier replies softly. He looks down at his hands. The weird little red smear from his cuticle. He didn’t know—he still doesn’t. Because going through something, isn’t really an explanation. Xavier folds his hands together and puts them behind his neck. “Is she okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tess laughs, waves a hand. She slides her foot into the other boot and hops a few times. “It’s—look. You talk to Jessie yourself soon, okay? She misses you.”

Xavier thinks of going home, tries to imagine himself back inside the confines of the big blue townhouse that he’d grown up in. And it’s true that Jessie is there, but it’s also true that everything else is there. Everything else he’s been avoiding is there. He looks down at his phone again—Benji smiles.

Tess crosses the room and plants a wet kiss to his forehead.

—

Benji’s arms are full of plastic bags when he returns. He has his phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder (which sort of squishes his cheek in a way that is so cute it hurts) but his face lights into an undeniable smile when he sees Xavier on the couch. And Xavier—to be corny, for sure—like the tides in response to the moon, suddenly shoots off the couch. He all but stumbles into the kitchen after Benji, who is saying goodbye to Saha—

“Thanks—yeah—well, Lark will call you. Or Til, one of them. They’re the ones with the passwords to the account—alright.”

He hovers long enough for that to finish, and then he hovers no longer.

“Xavier,” Benji gets only that one word out before he’s engulfed in a hug. Before Xavier is taking the plastic bags and setting them aside. He’d gotten Benji’s text. A sweet little “on my way home, picking up food, I’ll cook tonight” that had made him cry again. The high was gone, but that didn’t make him feel less prickly and vulnerable and reading the word home in relation to his shitty Boston apartment and everything—everything, all of it—was making Xavier feel skinned and raw.

And hugging Benji like this, with his face buried deep into black curls, was making it all better. He inhales and rubs his face further, which elicits a loud laugh. Benji’s hands slide across his sides, onto his back. Down to tuck past the fabric of his sweatpants. Instead of being sexual, it feels oddly cute, to be held intimately like that. Xavier pulls away smiling. But Benji—because it’s Benji, the smartest fucking man on Earth to Xavier—notices there’s something else underneath the smile.

“Alright?” he asks, tugging them closer, head tilted as he looks up.

“Will you come with me to see my parents this weekend?”

There is a sudden still silence in the kitchen. Xavier had actually rehearsed how he’d ask and this wasn’t exactly it. But, looking at Benji, into soft, beautiful brown eyes that only went softer for him, he could not hold a single thought back. He lifts a hand, cups Benji’s warm cheek. His thumb moves softly over his facial hair. Slowly, Benji smiles. So wide, little wrinkles appear at the edges of his eyes.

Instead of answering, he leans up and Xavier closes the gap and they kiss. They kiss for so long, everything feels perfect and right and exactly as it should be.

#xavier #benji #tess #xavier x tess #xavier x benji #band au

5 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 5 months

Text

She catches him in the kitchen, where he’d purposefully gone to escape her. Benny fishes through the fridge, shoving aside day old take out and expired condiments to find the good beer he keeps in the very back. The sort he doesn’t want to bring out for a party but still have access to in a pinch; like this. When he’s annoyed and in need of distraction, or just needs to be more drunk to navigate the situation. He snags the bottle by the neck and when he unwinds from his crouch, Daisy is there.

She smiles at him, which makes him so angry for a moment, he almost throws the beer bottle against the wall. But then he remembers its stupid local brew that he’d paid too much for. So instead, he hooks his teeth under the cap and pops it off. He slices up his gum a bit, but it doesn’t bother him too much because it makes her flinch. He spits the cap into the sink. It’s pink with the blood and spit.

Then Benny takes a long pull from the beer.

“Hi,” she says.

One of the worst things about Daisy is that no one is able to get mad at her. No one can bring themselves to tell her she’s not invited, or flat out un-fucking-wanted. So she slips into these sorts of things. Tags along after some girl who knows Mouse, or a guy whose friends with Xavier, or one of Lark’s running buddies. She knows everyone, fits herself in wherever she can. She makes friends. And then Benny has to deal with her, because none of those friends are able to give her the reality check she so desperately needs.

“What?” He asks in a clipped tone, limiting himself to one word. Someone comes stumbling into the kitchen, haphazardly grabs a bowl of snacks left on the counter and immediately leaves. Music plays from Lark’s terrible playlist in the background over the sound of peoples voices and Benny thinks about the safety of his room. People don’t go in Ben’s room during these parties. Off fucking limits.

Because Ben is the opposite of Daisy. People do tell him he’s not invited. People do tell him he’s unwanted; weird, strange, unnerving, creepy. People don’t get along with Benny—he doesn’t make friends. People don’t temper their words for his feelings the way they do for this pathetic fucking woman. They avoid him. Which makes this worse, because Daisy had noticed him when he’d noticed her and now here she was. Pointedly not ignoring him. Purposeful in finding him.

Daisy doesn’t like Benny, no matter how hard she’s smiling that big pretend smile of hers. It’s so artfully plastered on that it might have worked if he wasn’t Ben, who people disliked. Who learned early that sometimes people smiled at you, because they were actually just making fun of you all along.

“I mean, like, long time no see,” Daisy says shyly, tucking a strand of her glossy hair behind her ear. Benny takes another swig of beer, leaning back against the counter and staring at her with narrowed eyes. She’s short, just barely comes up to his chin. She curves into herself like she’s bashful, both hands around her solo cup filled with cheap beer off the keg. Her cardigan hangs big around her, emphasizes her petite frame. Benny remembers when she’d been dating Xavier, she’d not gone anywhere without being firmly around his arm.

Because Benny knows it makes her uncomfortable, he doesn’t say anything back. His sunglasses sit low on his nose, enough that when he tilts his chin down to stare at her, his eyes peek over the dark navy rims. She wears her discomfort bodily, tapping fingers on the cup, glancing at the floor, scuffing a ballet flat. She steps closer, though, because she knows she can get away with it. Daisy doesn’t respect personal space. It doesn’t apply to her.

“I just wanted you to know,” she begins by setting her cup down on the sink counter. “I’m like, really happy for Maran.” Benny stares at the cup, because he can’t stomach looking at her. Those big, docile eyes on him, water lined in pity. I’m so happy for Maran, it’s so sweet of him to perform charity.

He stops himself from telling her to eat shit and die by nursing the beer once more. It stings the cut on his gum.

“You know, I just—like—” She laughs in that girlish way, putting a hand over her mouth. It seems genuine, but it also feels like a trap. The hair on Ben’s arms raise, his eyes darting over her to look for an exit. Xavier to wander by and notice, or Lark to come in and start asking if he can order a pizza or anyone, to rescue him from this fucking girl. Instead she fishes into her giant cardigan, patting herself down.

“Like—I didn’t know Maran was bisexual, is all.” She finds it, tugging it smoothly out of an oversized pocket she hadn’t really needed to hunt for. There’s a little charm that dangles off of it, a duck. Screams of Xavier, like a gift from him he wants to snatch off. His hand is cold around the beer, slick with condensation. The blood mingles poorly with the beer. “He never told me.”

“Not your business,” Ben snaps out from a tightly wound jaw. Daisy puts her hand to her lips, upturned brows saying ‘oh no, am I being offensive again?’ without a real apology. There’s a painful knot underneath his sternum that keeps getting bigger and bigger, with everything he could say to this woman. Instead he rolls his eyes and shoves himself off from the counter he leans against. To let her get to him is to let her win, he knows that. But—Benny is competitive. He always has been. So when she lays the trap, it’s easy to get caught in it.

“Oh, wait, I wanted to,” she’s hopping around to keep him cornered, one of her delicate, slim hands help up as she smiles. “I have some pictures of him on my phone that I could send you? I mean, the safe for work ones.” Her teasing tone is meant to come off playful. Everything about Daisy is meant to be innocent or playful or sweet or demure or polite. And Benny feels gaslit by the whole fucking world that he’s the only one who sees it—the truth. Slippery offensive fucking snake.

Bitch.

Daisy lifts her phone, with it’s little duck charm and Benny is thinking safe for work ones when his hand shoots forward.

Benny hears her shriek but his ears are ringing. Blood stream heavy with alcohol that he should have stopped drinking an hour ago—head full of safe for work ones, the implication or it, the reality that those exist and—he can’t stop thinking of a story Maran had told him once. Couldn’t even consider it a story, couldn’t really consider it more than a passing comment that he’d barely said with his whole chest, had barely been able to sit with for too long; about his arm around her shoulder and her shrugging it off, because when they were alone, the affection seemed less important. He’s thinking safe for work ones and less important and then he’s throwing the phone at the wall as hard as he possibly can.

Which is very hard.

Music is still playing so the party doesn’t come to a complete dead silence, but it’s the closest thing. Except for Daisy’s immediate whimpering crying that Benny finds easy to ignore, no one’s talking anymore. And it’s not just Daisy that he’s ignoring now, but everyone. Shoves his way around the corner of the kitchen past someone asking him ‘what the fuck’ in that tone. There’s an awkward laugh that tries to fill the tension, and suddenly a warm hand around his elbow.

“Ben—” An easy, flat palm to Xavier’s chest gets him to let go before it causes a fight. But it’s also enough to make his attention shift. Back to where all the attention has shifted (just like she likes it, he thinks, just like she fucking likes it). Ben has a dizzying sensation of his heart being scooped out when he notices the silly bright pink shirt that Maran is wearing among the others that had crowded around Daisy. It’s a shirt he’d bought him, a bright white print across the chest that says I KISSED SASQUATCH IN WHITEHALL, NY. Had been so entirely unfunny that he’d had to buy it for him.

Couple sizes too big. That’s how Maran wears his shirts. Most of his clothes. This adorable too big style that hangs off him. Sometimes, he catches Benny, pulls his shirt over top of him, gets them tight together as a playful joke. Sometimes, Benny wears those shirts to bed because they’re comfortable. They smell like Maran; they smell soft and safe. Benny feels buzzing in his skull, watching Daisy put her slim hand in Maran’s, so he can help her up from the floor, where she’d picked up the little cracked phone. He hopes all her fucking safe for work photos are lost. That the little duck charm has snapped off.

“Easy, Benny,” Xavier is saying next to him, like he’s a wild caught dog they picked up out a back alley. Or a ball python that had slithered out it’s enclosure, gone rogue among all the party goers. A scorpion accidentally sleeping inside a jacket pocket. People stare at him, his skin itchy and hot, stretched tight over his bones. Daisy has wrapped her slim, pretty fingers around Maran’s palm. This is his fucking apartment, and people are still staring at him. Surprised. They shouldn’t be. He’s never done anything that should indicate he’s anything other than the kind of guy to smash someones phone at a party.

Benny doesn’t trust himself to say anything, but he shoves himself past Xavier’s concerned outstretched hands. If they touch him, he’ll scream. Cannot withstand that pitying patting to his back, so he goes for the door instead. He yanks it open and realizes the beer bottle is still in his hand, half full. He drains it in an easy swig and then throws that back into the party as well, to astonished yelling.

He’s going for the elevator when he hears Maran’s voice at the end of the hall. The party spills out from the apartment door, too loud. Business back to usual, monster out the way. Benny feels hypersensitive to that noise, bunching his shoulders up to his ears as he continues his hard stomp. His hands are flexing at his thighs, opening, closing, numb. Nothing could actually ever be loud enough to drown out the sound of Maran calling out to him. He wouldn’t want it to, but his boyfriends voice echoes that long beige hallway. Makes his shoulders jump.

Benny is prepped to hit the elevator button until the doors open. He dodges around the woman coming out, who gives him a wide berth and giant eyes, his stride unbroken.

“Ben! Wait—Ben—”

He regrets it immediately, but Benny’s fist punches the close door button. He glances up, just in time to watch Maran’s face fall, his outstretched hand retract, the doors closing him off from view. There’s a hissing sound as the shitty apartment elevator starts descending.

“Fuck!” Benny slaps his hand forward against the button for his floor. He slams at it, leaning against the panel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He chants out, eyes screwed shut. Useless, because he knows it’s going to go all the way down to the lobby before it makes its slow crawl up. And by then, Maran will be back in the party—Benny doesn’t feel brave enough to go back to that fucking party. He sags against the button panel, forehead pressed tight against the wall. He keeps his eyes closed, as if it could help him erase the memory of Maran’s hand falling to his side as the doors closed.

Sad. Like, actually sad. Like heart broken sad, not pouting playfully for attention or sighing petulantly about something. Sad. Benny grinds his head to the wall. Hates himself. Hates himself so much.

He pushes off from it and then stands in the middle of the elevator. Hands go into his pockets, fiddling with the stack of cards that he keeps there. He’ll go for a walk. Cool off, slink back like the fucking loser he is, hide in his bedroom. Hope there’s less eyes up there by the time he gets back. Hope Xavier navigates Daisy out of the party. Hates him too, because he should be crueler to her. Like she was to him, in those little moments that picked apart his self esteem. Instead, like Maran, he’s probably talking her down. Telling her it’s okay if she stays for a bit. Monster gone. No more scorpion.

The doors hiss open and Benny takes a step out and nearly collides with Maran.

“Shit!” He yelps out, dancing to the side to get out of the closing elevator doors. Maran takes him by the hips, unconscious gesture as he pants, while they both stumble into the lobby of the apartment complex. He’s sweating, little beads running from his temples as he huffs, chest fluttering with the labored breathing. Benny blinks and suddenly feels the weight of how drunk he is. The world can’t stay still on it’s axis, tilts this way and that. A little ring in his ear as he looks at Maran.

“Why did—you—do that?” Maran heaves, his hands still firmly around Benny’s hips. Despite it all, they’re nice. Warm. He likes being held that way because it’s rare. People don’t hold Benny.

“Did you run down here?”

“Answer me,” Maran demands. A bead of sweat drips off his chin. A light in the lobby has blown, the other one continuing to flick off and on. It’s a shit building, should be torn down and put back together. A misshapen beast of two and three bedroom apartments crammed together into one long, tall building that probably never actually passed code. Benny rents it from a guy named Brock that lives in Miami, Florida. The rent gets paid on the first of every month through a money app on his phone.

Benny’s breathing is fast, like he’s the one who had been running.

“No,” he says swiftly and turns. Maran’s hands attempt to stay there (and even though he’s moving, he’s heading toward the exit, he wants them, he wants to be someone that gets held by other people) but eventually they drop because Benny is walking too fast. He shoves himself through the door, hip to the crash bar and stumbles down the concrete steps onto the sidewalk.

The neighborhood is just as alive as it is dead. He can hear an ambulance in the background, a group of cats yowling a street down. A car drives by slowly like it might want to pay attention to the scene, if there’s going to be one. Then speeds off when the driver glances enough at Benny. Scorpion. The night is cold and silent otherwise.

“Stop it, Ben!” Maran continues, his voice more authoritative than Benny has ever heard it before. And it actually works to make him lock in place, one hand in his pocket, the other frozen in his tangled blond hair. “What did she do?”

“She didn’t ha-have to do anything,” Benny sneers coldly. “I’m just an asshole.”

“No you aren’t.”

“You’re n-not paying attention if you think that.”

One of his favorite things about Maran (of which there are so many) is that he never holds in an expression; his eyebrows crease together, his soft lips purse and his chin tucks down. He looks half wounded and half angry. He looks out of place in his silly pink shirt, on the sidewalk, with Benny. And really, isn’t that the issue? Isn’t that the issue? That Maran shouldn’t fit in all the ways that he does fit—and it makes Benny so nervous all the fucking time that one day Maran is going to wake up and realize that. And Jesus, Benny is drunk. Head spinning, concrete feeling wobbly drunk. His mouth still hurts from where he’d cut it on that bottle cap.

“You’re better than that,” Maran seethes out furiously. He crosses arms over his chest, bumps himself closer until they’re standing directly in front of one another. The invasion of personal space should have the same reaction that it always does for Benny; he should shove himself away and lash out. Instead he freezes like a street animal come in to shelter, being offered a kind hand. Benny glares, mean and nasty with it.

“No I’m fucking not,” he replies hotly. “D-Do-Don’t do that.”

“Do—”

“That!” Benny yells, throwing hands up. “Don’t act li-like I’m n-not a fu-fu-fucking asshole, cause I am! You’re da-dating me, so get used to that.”

“We’re dating each other,” Maran hisses, gesturing between the two of them. His cheeks are dark red, the color inky over his nose. The furious blush extends all the way down his pretty throat. Benny has seen Maran angry before—it’s really not typical. At all. And they’ve had fights before, but this is cresting on top five, if not the top of all of them. Because the fights usually last only a minute and then it’s easy to find where the hurt started and go from there.

Fighting with Maran is easy because it never got to the fighting part really. The communication came easier. Maran, talking, sometimes more than he needed and Benny, silent, and listening to every single word.

But they’re drunk. Both of them—and Benny is hearing Daisy over and over and over in his head and he’s imagining her touching Maran’s arm, the swell of his bicep, imagining her mouth touching his, their tongues together. Imagining Maran’s dark hands spreading over her. Imagining her angling her phone to get a picture; sees her demure smile in his head, like a rotting burn mark. It makes his mouth taste sour, his stomach roll over.

“Why are y-you nice to her?” Benny accuses, taking his own step forward and into Maran’s space. The sidewalk feels small suddenly, closing in on them. The flickering street light makes shadows appear and disappear on Maran’s beautiful face. “She’s a fucking cunt, Maran.” And she hurt you. She hurt you, I get to hate her for that, she hurt you, he thinks.

“Stop acting like this—”

“And act m-mo-more like yo-your ex girlfriend?” Benny laughs but the sound is haunting in the silent night, on the city street, with the light flickering. “Maybe if I l-looked like Daisy and acted li-like Daisy, people wo-wouldn’t be so fucking confused when th-they see us together!”

And he yells it so loud it echoes. So loud the ambulance might hear him over it’s own loud screaming, so loud it startles the fighting cats into silence, so loud, he’s almost positive it reaches all the way to the upper floor where the apartment is. So loud Daisy hears it, so loud all their friends hear and know and see how embarrassing Benny is being, how absolutely ashamed he is of himself in that moment—but he doesn’t act ashamed. Instead, his shoulders are heaving because he yells it, because he’s so loud. And his pale face is flushed a dark red color that make his eyes look scary (because they are scary, he’s been told that since he was a kid) and Maran is staring at him, surprised.

Which makes it worse. Which makes it worse, because Maran is surprised that Benny can be so awful, which means that deep down, Maran thinks Benny is, as he said ‘better than that’. And Benny really wishes he hadn’t had that last beer.

“I kn-no—I kn-nn—” he folds both hands over his mouth, because he can’t get the word out. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back and looks at the sky, which is dark with no stars. No smoggy gray clouds, either. It is crystalline in it’s perfect black. I know, Benny is thinking,

I know people think you’re dating me for fun, to try something new, before you just find some other Daisy, but the next Daisy you find might treat you right, better than me. Then what? I’d have no excuse to be this awful. I don’t even have a good one to begin with.

“You can’t do that,” Maran replies finally, his hands balled up into fists. He fits them against Benny’s sides and when he does, they slowly unclench and turn to open palms that are suddenly cupping his rib cage. Maran’s eyes are dark and furious and the absolute lack of pity makes Benny dizzy. Maran is still angry, a wrinkle over his nose as his mouth grimaces, as his brows turn in. His cheeks red and splotchy with the emotion.

“Alright?”

“Do what?” Benny prompts softly. His own hands are still by his thighs. Maran’s hands move on every heavy breath, still holding.

“Well—don’t break people’s phones for one,” Maran says hotly, using his surprising, hidden strength to shake Benny slightly. Strands of his floppy, blond hair fall forward into his face and Benny thinks he’ll completely lose it if Maran touches him there—he can see dark brown eyes look at that movement, at those stringy strands. “Don’t—and don’t just—don’t hold all that in there, Ben—the hell, right? Please, talk to me about that. Right? Talk to me about that.”

And then Maran does exactly what Benny is thinking no don’t do that—he lifts a hand and brushes back Benny’s hair and Benny moves into that touch and then falls forward. His forehead lands on Maran’s shoulder—who makes a huffing sound, this cute little ‘oof’. His arms lift and slip around the other man’s waist and he crushes them together uncomfortably. It’s not sexual or even romantic, it is really just a hard, brutal squeeze of them together.

“She was talking about you,” Benny mumbles, face pressed into the curve of Maran’s neck and shoulder. He smells comforting, this mix of masculine body spray and laundry detergent and something sugary sweet—the drinks he’d probably been having all night. In that brief moment, Benny is reminded of how his blankets smell every single time Maran spends the night, which is so often he should live there (which is something Benny’s thought and not vocalized, because as is evident, Benny simply does not vocalize anything).

“Guess she can’t get over me, yeah?” Maran laughs, his warm palm spreading up the back of Benny’s neck, fingers tangling into his blond hair. It’s enough to nearly make Ben tremble. “What was she saying then—will it change my mind? I’ll go back, break her phone too? Make myself a hypocrite, Ben.”

You’re too good, Benny thinks in reply. His eyes are wet, which makes him too afraid to withdraw and look at Maran. Instead he wipes his face into Maran’s shirt, makes him laugh. Benny’s arms don’t relinquish and he wonders if he’s hurting the other man at all, but there’s no complaints.

“M’not pressin’ you, Ben—I just—sometimes you do things—sometimes you’re mean for no reason, right? And I don’t like that side of you all the time, but,” Benny’s glad they’re not looking at each other, because he cannot school his face into an expression that is anything other than deeply vulnerable and scared. “But, I really fuckin’ meant it when I said you’re better than that. Alright? That’s what makes me mad sometimes. Not you doing it, just knowing you’re better—you are. You’re so good, Ben, promise I’m not just saying that.”

The bruising force of Benny’s arms becomes hard enough than that Maran wheezes. Then he loosens all over, like he’s deflated of energy, his hands slipping to the backs of Maran’s shoulders, just to hold then. And to be held, which is nice. Because people don’t hold Benny, not like Maran is in that moment, holding him.

The reality of the moment is surreal, when he realizes they’re having a couples argument on the sidewalk, outside his apartment building. A real couples argument; that’s enough to make Benny sort of laugh, that high anxious laugh. He untucks himself from Maran just enough to look at him. Thankful to see a bit of tears in Maran’s eyes too.

“Baby,” Benny teases, wiping thumbs over Maran’s cheeks. “Baby, baby, baby.” He repeats, kissing each word to a part of Maran’s face.

“I’m still mad at you,” Maran manages, in a soft voice. There’s no heat to it at all.

“Sh,” Benny whispers, kissing him finally on the lips as well.

And then they really kiss. Really kiss, with their lips parted and Benny holding Maran’s cheeks and tilting him back as he bends forward to kiss him harder. Messy, with tongue, with hunger and apology and intensity and excitement. Maran’s hands still cupped around Benny’s ribs, tightening and gripping as he’s kissed like that. Really kissed. And when they pull apart to both suck in the cold night air, Benny is fumbling through his jacket pockets. Maran watches with big, gorgeous eyes until the keys to the mustang are located and then he’s smiling. Really smiling, really kissing, really, really, really in love.

—

It’s in the thin, yellow light of morning that they end up going back up to the apartment. The time where the world is still mostly asleep, day break just finally cresting through ugly, gray clouds. Maran looks good in the morning light, his skin tan and pretty. The light follows him, all through the apartment lobby into the elevator. Not for the first time does Benny have to pinch the skin of his inner wrist and remind himself this is all real and not a strange simulation he’s fallen into. Not the first time they’d stayed awake all night together, either.

It’s been a thing, even before Benny had kissed Maran—no. Maran had kissed Benny, in the pool, water rising up to their chins. Sometimes, he forgot that key detail that feels loud and important as they stand side by side in the elevator. He forgets Maran had kissed him first, had pulled him in. His brave fucking boy.

The elevator dings on his floor and he turns his palm outward to accept a hand that was already moving there. Maran laces fingers with him. Gives an adorable squeeze. Benny is unsurprised to find the door unlocked when they get there—if anyone tried to rob the apartment, they’d just run into two very angry, very capable twenty year olds waiting for an excuse.

Not that Xavier and Lark look threatening at all, on the couch together. Xavier sleeps on his back, arm thrown over his face, chest rising and falling. Lark sits, the long redheads legs thrown over his lap. Bundled deep in an oversized sweatshirt, his face barely visible, just enough for him to be looking at his own phone. His eyes are swollen and sleepy when they sway toward Maran and Benny. He raises a hint of fingers in greeting, then looks back to his phone. Xavier makes a sound like a car dying and then coughs and continues sleeping.

“I should ring Benji,” Maran says as they get into Benny’s room. “S’weird he’s not still here with Xavier, yeah?”

Benny cannot contain his laugh, a wheezing snort. He shuts the door harder than he needs to and turns to Maran. Plucks the phone from his hand and puts it down onto his messy desk. His flat palm pushes Maran down onto his messy bed, where the smell of him will linger all day long and Benny will find himself ignoring his essay, will put himself face down in the bed and maybe even fucking palm one out to the mere thought of Maran in this messy fucking bed.

Only now his thoughts are purely on sleep, as he jerks jeans from Maran and throws them to the side. As he pulls off his own and crawls over Maran. He plants kisses from elbow to shower, makes his sleepy boy laugh.

“The only th-thing you’re doing, for a solid six—at min, baby, six—is sleeping in th-this fucking bed with me.”

“Let me put the sound on, in case he needs me,” Maran says, hand fumbling for the phone. He manages to snag it, fiddle with his volume and then place it back. Benny, while he does all that, is already laying his tired, heavy body down, a hand tucking around Maran’s thigh and pulling a leg around his hip, because he likes to sleep just like that.

“I need you,” Benny thinks—and realizes in panic that he didn’t think it, but said it out loud.

Maran’s hand cups behind his neck, pulls him in closer. And they fall asleep, Maran holding him just like that.

#benny #maran #benny x maran #uni au #: )

8 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 5 months

Text

“Can I buy you a drink?”

The red head slides onto the stool next to him without invitation. His long body suddenly occupies the space—he smells warm and masculine, like laundry soap, pine and something else. Gunpowder. Salt. A little dirty, but not in a bad way. Alluring. Reno’s sharp nose picking him out amongst all that bar smell. He looks over his shoulder, eyes flicking once up and then once down and then a slow crawl back up. Pale cheeks darken red underneath shit bar lighting, but the strangers smile doesn’t dim. It’s wide and toothy and…well.

Whoever he is, he’s beautiful. Slender featured, with a long nose, and a smattering of freckles that go everywhere. Disappear into red hair and underneath a collar.

“Does that work for you?”

“What?” he looks taken aback, expression shifting quickly. He recovers it just as fast, lips pursing together into a cocky smile. He laughs and slides just a little closer. This human tall glass of water lowers his voice to a just for him whisper. “What should I lead with? I can leave and come back and do it over again.”

Reno hates that it amuses him, because it shouldn’t. But it does. He snorts, rolls his eyes, flags down the bartender with a simple raised hand. Orders himself another old fashion, points at Xavier, who orders something off draft with an eager look. The bartender, poor girl, seems momentarily swept up by that level of excitement. By this freckled mans happy smile, even though once the drinks are down, that smile is just for Reno again.

“You don’t really look the type to come to bars like this,” he opens the conversation again. He twists his body. One of his long legs slips around Reno’s stool. His arm settles onto the bar. It closes everyone else off from them, effectively creating a body language of privacy. Reno thinks this guy has been here, done this plenty of times before.

“Why? ‘Cause I’m black?”

The man sputters on his beer, which is unfortunately attractive. He coughs and clears his throat and brushes his hair back and yanks at his collar in an ‘oh fuck sorry’ gesture and tries smiling. His nose is pink with his blush. It goes to his ears too and down. Reno watches that crimson travel. He can hear the mans heartbeat, soft amongst the music of the bar. Amongst everyone else’s—sad drunk in the corner, couple fighting by the darts, bartender who had tried for one more look at Reno’s new meal.

“Jesus,” he manages after wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I meant—you’re dressed nicer than everyone else in here.”

“Aw, shucks,” Reno purrs. He extends one of his own legs, places it right between the red heads. He supposes he is, but truthfully, Reno doesn’t really pay attention any longer. He’s in the velvet turtleneck because he likes the way it feels. He’s in tight jeans because he’d stolen them from someone skinnier. He’s in the same pair of cowboy boots he’s had his whole New Life. But maybe he does look nicer—or maybe, he’s a vampire. And humans are as stupid as prey animals can get when a vampire is around.

It was only a matter of time before someone came up to him. Reno doesn’t mind that it’s this one.

He extends his hand, the other cupping his chin as he leans on the bar. Lazy and pleased.

“Reno.”

“Like the city?” The palm that closes around his own is warm. Rough, like he uses his hands everyday, like they get dirty. Reno watches as the man turns his hand over, looks at it, holds it in his own. He splays their palms together. It makes a lick of heat unfurl inside Reno’s stomach, looking at their hands like that. Heat that doesn’t touch his throat, doesn’t have anything to do with that sort of thirst.

“You like geography?”

“Special interest.”

“Special interest is an interestin’ name.”

“Oh, fuck,” he laughs then, squeezes Reno’s hand and pulls it closer. Into his lap. Reno lets him. His body heat is almost scalding, even through denim. Reno imagines his mouth on that thigh, at that thick and perfect artery, where blood tastes best.

“Sorry. I’m Xavier Wolffe.”

“Are we on full name basis like that, Xavier?”

“I’d like to be,” Xavier Wolffe says with a shy sort of smile. He closes his hand around Reno’s again, glancing down at it. “Wow, my hands a lot bigger than yours, huh?”

—

The original plan was to take Xavier into the alley and drain him. Press him to the brick wall and bite into the meat of his throat and take every drop—because Reno knows he’s going to taste good. He can smell it on him. He knows it’ll be sweet, that Xavier will make the sort of dying noises that are unforgettable. Looks like the type to whimper at the very last heartbeat, leave nothing unsaid. Reno’s mouth waters when he thinks of it.

And instead, he takes the man all the way to the studio apartment he’s watching for another vampire; rich fuck European traveling kind. Fun to pretend it’s his, though; introduce Xavier to the stainless steel kitchen with wide open, proud arms. The sweeping living room with a too big TV and stereo—leave him waiting for when they’ll be in the bedroom. He stands instead, in the hallway, shoulder leaned against the wall and Xavier looks out the floor to ceiling window out into the city.

There’s something eerie about a human that looks this pretty. Like it’s a waste. Reno contemplates that, tilts his head and imagines Xavier red eyed, forever—how old had he said? Twenty something. Early. Young. Whole life ahead of him, of course. Unless Reno decided to cut it short.

“This place is sick,” Xavier says, hands in his back pockets. He stands with his shoulders sort of softly rounded. When he’d stood at the bar, Reno was made to tilt his head up to look at him—stunned dizzy by the height difference suddenly placed upon them. Wasn’t expecting Xavier to just keep going. But he doesn’t force that height. Barely seems comfortable in it, keeps trying to make himself a bit shorter.

“Xavier,” Reno says and gets the mans attention quickly, like a dog left out in the rain eager to come inside. He seems so—simple. Reno doesn’t think it like an insult, even though, how could it not be? Yet he does. He seems…maybe even a little bland. He was almost too beautiful to be real, but he was also so starkly fucking human. It made Reno want to—it made him want—submission. Instantaneous. He wanted power over Xavier, because he thinks it might stop the churning constant thoughts of who Xavier is, what he’s like, what makes him so magnetic for a food source.

“Come here,” Reno says, a hand lifted. He hasn’t figured it out yet. The trick he’s seen other vampires use; the enrapturing gaze, the voice. But he toys with his tone and cadence sometimes when he’s talking to them. He tries again, now. Pours the will and want of obedience into Xavier, bores his eyes into pretty, green ones.

Only, Xavier tilts his head a little. Smiles bashfully. Tucks a hand up behind his neck. He comes forward to Reno, not out of hypnotized obligation, but because he thinks an attractive man is asking for him. Reno instantly feels oily guilt, eel like in its writhing, in his lower stomach. It hits him so suddenly that his tongue dries to the roof of his mouth and he has to clear his throat and look down.

He promises not to do that again, in that moment. Not to this one…

“You okay?” Xavier touches his outstretched hand.

And then they kiss. Reno tugs him into it. Wraps a hand behind Xavier’s neck and crushes their bodies together. It’s open mouth immediately, and messy. Full of tongue, spit and hunger—not just Reno’s. Xavier isn’t a good kisser and that almost amuses Reno. For all his looks and bravado, he was actually sort of bad at it; but that made it endearing. Made it sweet. Reno kicks at the door behind him, maybe too hard. But Xavier seems too swept up to notice any hint of strength like that. He follows Reno, hunched over with big, callused hands holding him as they kiss.

And then they fuck. Rough and hard on the bed that isn’t Reno’s. Xavier is loudly appreciative (just like Reno knew he would be) and his pretty, pale back is spread out across dark charcoal colored sheets. His hands are trembling and grasping into them. His spine curves and Reno’s greedy hands clutch at him in ways that will leave a bruise or two. He’s not usually this mindful with a human partner to begin with—he hasn’t learned how to be. Xavier, by the sounds he makes, doesn’t seem to mind at all.

And then, Reno cums, bent over him, mouth open. He looks at the thrumming pulse on Xavier’s neck, pounding wildly. He wants it, he wants to close his teeth down and drink until he’s fat with it. He wants to feel as full as Xavier must feel, pressed down onto the bed with vampiric hands holding his waist. But Reno doesn’t bite. He breathes out heavily against the humans pale shoulder.

“Xavier,” he pants out. One of Reno’s hands touch messy red hair. “Can I see you again?”

“Holy shit,” Xavier replies breathlessly. “No ones ever asked me that while they’re still inside me.”

And then, they both fucking laugh.

***

Reno breaks that promise a few years later when he slips into Xavier’s apartment through an open window not meant for him.

He has to be quick about it too, because Xavier isn’t the same man he’d met in a Massachusetts bar; sweet and boyish and flirty. Whole life ahead of him sort of young. Are we on a first name basis like that, Xavier? I’d like to be. No, this Xavier—who is maybe a stranger once again—has his hand in his kitchen drawer. And when Reno secures his own hand around a pale throat and jerks them close, he almost gets the gun out.

“Is that loaded with silver, Xavier?”

“Yes,” the hunter replies immediately, eyes going glassy and big. That’s how Reno know’s it’s worked. He’d figured this out, not long after he had almost killed Xavier. In that same messy, stolen bed. In that studio apartment that wasn’t ever his to begin with. Xavier’s jaw slackens, his breathing going dull and slow. His eyes swim for a moment and then snap back to Reno, like they can’t look away for too long.

“Take it out,” Reno says. Xavier does, with an efficient quickness that makes goosebumps rise over Reno’s cold, dead skin. “Eject the clip.”

“It’s not a clip, it’s a mag.”

“You would stay stubborn, even under a fuckin’ spell.”

But Xavier does as he’s told regardless. It makes a clicking sound as he ejects the mag. He’s frighteningly routine about it, checking the slide and then holding out the gun and the ammo. The hand gun is toy like, small in Xavier’s giant hand. Reno curls a lip at it and points with a disgusted finger to the kitchen counter. Xavier is just as quick about dropping them onto the fake vinyl. It peels at the edges. Has a coffee stain on it. I thought you didn’t like coffee, Reno thinks, a finger touching the little caramel colored ring.

“You don’t seem happy to see me, Xavier,” Reno says, as he approaches.

“That’s not true,” Xavier replies. His voice is a dreamy sort of soft. Whispery. It makes Reno pause. He tilts his head and for a moment, lets himself really look at Xavier.

Stupid bastard is still pretty. Hair’s longer, looks messier, like he cuts it himself and does a poor job of it. He has bruising colors underneath his forest green eyes and he’s paler somehow. But he looks—sturdier. Maybe more muscle gained over the years, but he’s still slender. Slutty waisted sort of type, tapered in a way that makes people stare. Reno takes another step forward. Xavier doesn’t move much—he can’t. Not really.

Reno didn’t just learn how to enthrall humans, he learned how to do it well.

“You just tried to kill me,” Reno accuses. His voice comes out more pouty than he means. He doesn’t mean to act the scorned lover, but fuck, the boot fits, doesn’t it?

“No,” Xavier corrects. He sways a bit, his hip connecting with the counter. His hands lift and hover at Reno’s shoulders, like he might touch him. All his movements are lethargic. “I was going to shoot you in the leg. Scare you—so you’d mist away.”

“Scare me?” Reno darts closer in that vampire blur of a way. He lifts a hand and presses it against Xavier’s chest. His warmth floods in and Reno feels similar to ice cubes pressed to metal. The humans heart beat thuds against his palm, begging for a clawed hand to reach in and snatch it out. Beautifully warm and alive hands finally curl around Reno’s shoulders.

Xavier, of all fucking things, smiles. His chin tilted down to look at the vampire. His eyes are still blurry and distant. Not altogether there. But the grin is so—big and toothy and so Xavier.

“You’re scared of fights. You don’t like them. You never stick around for any.”

Reno is used to being the scariest thing in the room. He’s used to being stronger than others; he’s used to having secretive powers that other vampires aren’t aware of. He’s never met another one that could turn to mist like him. Other things sure. Benji’s trivial little healing, Xavier’s dark knife of a friend’s shadow sort of walking. But Reno was unique; and he was scary and he was strong and Xavier was right, he didn’t stick around for fights because why would he?

Top of the food chain didn’t fight.

But for a moment, Xavier sort of scares him. He’s weak, eyes cow like in their submissiveness. His hands are gentle on Reno’s arms. He’d not even fight back—that’s what Reno had been thinking. It’s what had brought him here (and in the back of his mind, there is a traitorous thought of Ina, of what she might think of him, when he doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks of him, but she’s there anyway, like a heavy stone).

Now Reno’s lost the plot because, that’s not true. Then was the opposite?

“Do you hate me?” Reno asks, sliding his hand from chest up to Xavier’s gorgeous throat. There is a dark mark on the side. Healed punctures that’ll fade to mostly nothing—for a moment, the ocean is inside Reno’s ears, loud and all encompassing and painfully crushing. The spark of jealousy is so unwanted and disgusting, he feels as much self hatred as he does pure fury. If Xavier’s healing so neat and tidy, it’s because Benji’s giving part of himself.

“No,” Xavier replies. His voice is so soft it’s almost a whisper. He frowns, expression pure and sweet. He shakes his head. Long red strands of his hair fall into his face. “No, I don’t—I’m just sorry.”

Reno knows instantly he should not follow this trail. Humans, when under spell like this, will talk for hours. He’s seen them talk so long they lose their voice. Go scratchy and weak and still keep trying, because it must feel good. Must feel nice to be able to let go of a filter, tell something more powerful than them, more dominant, every single thought. Reno should cut to the fucking chase, should bend Xavier over the counter and bite him. Rend. Tear. Make it messy and mean, so Benji doesn’t ever get the chance to make it sweet and intimate.

“Sorry for what?” Reno asks anyway.

Xavier tilts his head, looks down at the floor. He looks sad, like the exact description of it. Cutely pressed up brows, mouth set in a curving line. His hands curl harder around Reno’s shoulders. Just a suggestion. In the back of the vampire’s mind, he wrangles closer the tight hold he has on Xavier’s thoughts and willpower. They’re so close, even a human could be dangerous to a vampire like this, if he knew how. And Xavier does know how, doesn’t he? Kills vampires for a living. All because of Reno.

“You made me hate vampires so much,” Xavier says, voice watery and barely there. “But if you hadn’t—I would never have met Benji—and it couldn’t have ever been you. Sorry. It was always going to be Benji—like, I know that. Like fate? That’s what I think it was. But I feel so bad, thinking of you like that, Reno. Because you’re so—Like a stepping stone in fate—like you were there just so I could meet—”

Reno’s hand closes around Xavier’s lower face and he slams that pretty head straight to the counter.

“Shut up,” he spits. He seethes, hand curling so hard he thinks he might break bone. He’s got a barely there restraint, a thin hold on himself, something innate to remind him how simple human calcium is under the weight of his palm. Xavier’s green eyes blink, placid and a little afraid. Reno feels his shoulders shaking, is shocked that warm hands are still holding them.

“You disgust me,” Reno lies. He shakes Xavier’s face a little, unnecessary and cruel. Maybe he’s half talking to himself now. “You think Benji cares about you, Xavier?”

It strikes a hard chord inside the human, his face flickering to terrified uncertainty. Reno peels his hand away and looks at the circular red indents of his fingertips. Any harder and he might have left real lasting bruises. Xavier’s chest flutters, anxiety making him breathe harder. He opens his mouth to say something and Reno presses forward; his mind opens yawning and mean, closing in around Xavier harder. Wrangling back iron will that keeps pushing so fucking hard back at him.

“You’re a food source,” Reno continues with a hiss.

“No,” Xavier whispers, somehow in such small control of himself. His eyes fall down, look at the counter. Little coffee ring. “No. He likes me. I make him laugh.”

It makes Reno recoil, like he’s been physically slapped. It is so simplistically pure that it makes him ill. When he thinks about Benji and Xavier together, he’d not thought of—he hadn’t imagined anything so boring. He’d imagined blood and sex and—he’d not actually imagined much else besides that, because what else was there? And again, horrifically, Ina presses somewhere inside his skull, like a hand opening and extending fingers, touching the inside plates that had fused back together fifteen years ago when he’d been made vampire.

It’s not the same and it couldn’t be. Xavier isn’t Benji’s equal. And maybe he isn’t Ina’s—that’s what scares him sometimes. That he could never live up to all her moon size, all her big. But fuck, she makes him laugh doesn’t she? She makes him lay in dirt, howling at something stupid or ridiculous or amusing and she sits on him, hands around his wrists, stronger, pinning him and blinking liquid dark eyes at him.

Silly, she’d called him once, with so much unbelievable affection, he’d thought she’d meant it for the dirt. Or grass. Something but not him.

Reno shivers when he takes Xavier’s face, thumbs brushing the cruel marks left by his fingers.

“You want to be a vampire, Xavier?” Reno asks, pulling their faces close. The humans warm breath fans his face, pleasant. He melts into the touch, into the softness. That’s the Xavier I remember, Reno thinks. A dog, desperate for a kind pet.

“Yes,” he admits. “I want to stay with Benji.”

“Benji isn’t going to turn you,” Reno snarls and then immediately schools his face to a relaxing, maybe kind expression. Xavier looks pathetic, his own twisted into something terrible and hurt. “He isn’t. He likes you human. You know that, right? You know he’s with you because you taste good. Because you’re easy.”

Maybe it was a cruel word to use because it makes wetness spring to Xavier’s eyes. They turn red around the edges. They’re a unique shade of green. Like a dark emerald. Reno makes a soft and apologetic sound, petting back Xavier’s hair.

“But I could.”

“Reno,” Xavier says and lifts a hand. He points. “Your nose.”

There’s a strange cold sensation underneath it. Reno touches two fingers there and when he pulls them away, there’s a dark black shine. His own blood. His eye twitches to look at it. Xavier pushes up against the boundary inside his head, like a mean ferocious fucking animal, biting, gnashing teeth. It makes Reno’s eyes flutter. He pulls them closer again.

“Xavier, ask me to. I’ll do it, baby. I’ll change you—I’ll make you a vampire. You could even stay with Benji, like that. You’d just be mine too.”

“No,” Xavier says, shaking his head. His long, pale fingers slip up into his own hair. Thick red strands stand out in adorable tufts. And he closes his eyes, tilts his head. “Reno, what the fuck?”

It hurts, actually. It never has before—it’s never been this hard, but he’s also never had a human under his control for this long either. And Xavier is unlike any human he’s ever fucking met. His breathing goes rapid again and Reno presses in once more, holds them close together. He wraps both hands around Xavier’s throat, holding them still. And once more, Xavier relents and relaxes, goes glossy eyed and meek.

Would he stay like that? Reno feels a revulsion at the thought.

He steps back, lets Xavier sag against the fridge. There’s little ephemera there; a note from someone named Ben, a picture of a man with short buzzed hair, a take out menu for a Chinese food place. Reno feels dizzy; his stomach rolls because he’s hungry. He’d not eaten because he’d planned, he had fucking planned—

On what? Ruining someone, being angry, making Benji hate him—would that make Ina hate him? And why? For a human he’d grown obsessed with, enough to nearly kill him once, try and follow through twice? Reno presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, making a low hissing sort of sound. His fangs hurt inside his mouth, inside his skull. Is this what it’s like? Caring so fucking much? He pulls his hands away and looks at Xavier with renewed anger and pity and sadness.

Xavier has a hand pressed to his own sternum, his eyes swimming and disconnected. They stare at the ground.

“Xavier,” Reno says, using two fingers as a come here gesture. It takes what looks like a herculean effort, but he does. His giant body shifts forward, unsteady. “Fuck, you know you look awful right?” It makes Xavier smile, of all things. A tilted, embarrassed sort of smile.

“You’re dressed too nice.” The human sways a bit. His hand catches the counter to hold himself up. “Your nose is bleeding.”

Reno swallows down a feeling that makes his ears ring.

“When’s the last time you slept?”

“Huh?”

“The last time you fucking slept?”

Xavier looks confused and shakes his head. Looks up at the ceiling, down at his hand on his chest. Then back to Reno. He’s smiling like he’s been caught, shy at the edges, like hes a bad little human.

“Few hours yesterday.” His big palm cards through his own hair. “I was waiting for—” Even if he wasn’t hypnotized, Reno gets the feeling he wouldn’t finish the sentence. His eyes pop a bit, wide and innocent. Waiting for a different vampire. Reno gets a thrill, a sick little terrified feeling that at any moment Benji could come in and find them like this. And for some reason, Reno thinks, if he’d actually hurt Xavier, he wouldn’t survive Benji. It feels factual and clinical; and also oddly tantalizing.

Reno takes Xavier by the chin and pulls them close once more. And this time, this time, he promises that he won’t ever do it again.

“Xavier,” he says. The human responds with a little nod like yes, that’s me. “Why don’t you go to your bedroom, alright? Lay down. Get a full human eight hours of sleep. Isn’t that nice?”

“That does sound nice,” Xavier whispers back. His eyes close for a moment, like he might just right there. Fall to his knees and sleep on the ground. But then they blink back open. They are so pretty it makes Reno hateful again. “Don’t close the window when you leave.”

“You’re a fucking shit, you know that?” Reno tosses Xavier’s chin away but there’s no strength to it, almost playful. Even underneath that horrific, autonomy suppressing spell, he manages a laugh. It’s nothing like—if Reno can remember—his real laugh. He stumbles a bit around the vampire, makes for a door to the left. His hand slides across it, takes the handle and turns.

And then Xavier is disappearing into a bedroom that reeks of Benji. Even just with the door open, his scent just permeates from it.

Reno wipes his hand underneath his nose, looks down at the dark blood. He decides, at the very least, to leave just a little smear of it on the counter. The smallest little hint that he was there—

He might not have killed Xavier, or turned him, or really hurt him (outside of mentally, of course) but he could take small comfort in thinking maybe he’d cause some stupid fucking fight between the vampire and human. And that makes him a little giddy as he slips out the window and lands onto the pavement below. Because, Reno at the end of the day is still Reno.

#xavier #reno #xavier x reno #vampire au

3 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

Benny can tell it’s bad when Lark isn’t saying anything.

The truck rocks back and forth as it speeds down an abandoned back road, jostling them together—Lark, crouched behind Benny, arms underneath his, holding him upright. His mouth is close to Ben’s ear, heavy breathing tickling his skin. It’s not unpleasant. Sort of distracts him from the agony in his leg. There is no descriptor for that sort of pain; his teeth chatter and his whole body twitches and his hands feel numb and distant. It is so blinding that he keeps snapping in and out of consciousness. Awake and then dark, awake and then dark. Sweat pours down Benny’s face, gets into his sensitive eyes, drips off his nose and chin.

The smell of blood is nauseatingly strong. The copper of it is inside his mouth, on his tongue. When his tunnel vision focuses, it’s on all the wet spread of it across his pant leg. He can see white. He can see bone.

“This fu-fucking blows,” he manages in a desperate sort of a whisper.

“You’re alright—it’s gonna be alright, Ben—you’re alright—”

Which is what they say when you are most certainly not going to be alright.

—

He survives surgery. He does not survive his girlfriend.

“Stupid,” Nomi seethes, bent over him. Tears drip off her chin. Her shaking, pale hands are clasped into the scratchy white cotton blanket so hard that tendons stand out in her wrists. She’d painted her nails recently—a pretty teal color. She’d sent him a photo and everything. Now there’s big chunks missing, like she’d picked at them nervously while Nick had rearranged his shin into something resembling human shape.

“It should have been your neck.” She catches herself on a sob, falling closer to him on the hospital bed. Her dark blue hair is wild and messy—she has no make up on. Looks more disheveled than he’d ever seen her. Benny lifts a hand and cups her cheek, which is rosy in color and soft, just like the petal.

“Next time,” he manages in a husky whisper, and he’s happy to at least hear one laugh before the painkillers yank him right back under.

***

He dreams, shockingly, of Benji.

It should be Maran. Or Lark. Or Matilda—Nomi. Even Xavier, who sometimes flits between that softened house husband version of himself and the terrifying Shadow who had stalked through warzones with a sledgehammer. Who had smiled with blood between his teeth. It could have been anyone; random mercenary, the Doctor who had sewn his leg back together.

But instead, it’s Benji.

“Couldn’t ‘ave dodged that shotgun blast?” Benji’s asking, Benny’s leg hefted across his lap. He has a medics bag open, a sewing needle and hospital grade thread pinched between gloved fingers.

They’re inside his childhood bedroom. A corner room in a shit apartment, size of a closet. Mattress on the floor, too poor for a dresser so he folded his clothes and put them on the floor. Little line up of dinosaur toys on the windowsill. Benny’s breathing so fast and hard it’s making him dizzy. The lights aren’t on, but he can see Benji in the dark perfectly.

He slides the needle through Benny’s blood-wet skin. It doesn’t feel like anything except pressure and a tug.

“Cold,” Benny whispers. “That’s cold, Corporal.” It makes Benji snort, black eyes flickering up from his work. He’s watercolor thin in the dream, hazy at the edges. Not altogether there, because Benny had been afraid to really look at him back when they’d all visited. Benny had felt ashamed and curious and awkward and more than anything, he’d felt seething jealousy.

The door to his bedroom creaks open, the sound painful inside his skull. Light from the hallway spills in around the silhouette of his father, who is just a tall, dark Shadow with two white dots for eyes. Benny’s chest starts moving faster, his hand reaching for Benji. He can see the belt in his hand, unfurl, like a snake.

“Benji, go faster,” Benny whispers, his voice thick and wet. “Please. Please.” The heavy sound of his fathers foot steps are similar to mortars going off in the background.

“If Xavier had, back then? Where do you think Maran would be?”

I don’t want to think about that, I don’t want to imagine that, what do you want, for me to say sorry? Look at you, you got the happy ending, it’s fine, it’s fucking fine, stop judging me, I was just scared, I am always just scared, and it hurts! It hurts!

“Oi, this fuck,” Benji laughs. “Loser never could pick on someone his own size?” He tilts his head over his shoulder, chin petulantly tucked. He raises a hand, pantomimes a gun, thumb cocked back. The Shadow of his father raises that belt and Benji clicks his tongue.

They’re in the hospital suddenly, Benji in his SAS uniform, legs kicked up and resting on the bed. His hands folded over his stomach now. Benji smiles—Benny, shamefully, remembers just that detail about him the most because Benji had been really fucking pretty when he’d smiled at Xavier.

“Thank you,” is what Benny thinks he manges to say, but consciousness sort of blows through him just like the shotgun blast to the leg.

***

“I have to leave soon,” Nomi says, sitting on the edge of the bed. She’s fluffed and arranged his pillows over seven times now, but he lets her because it seems more nervous habit than anything else. Something to do with her hands. Benny blinks tired eyes, his hand settling softly onto her tapered waist. He squeezes, just to feel his own strength. She playfully swats the hand, but she’s smiling, so he knows he’s fine.

“Why?”

“Flight leaves in five hours and I haven’t got shite packed, swear. Always leave it for last minute—but you know me. Can’t help it.”

Benny follows, but he’s still dizzy, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He gives her another gentle squeeze and Nomi slides forward a bit. All things considered, Ben’s upper body was fine—bruises and cuts and nothing more. It was just that stupid right fucking leg that’s suspended in air by a sling. He hates looking at it, but there isn’t much to look at if Nomi isn’t in the room.

Matilda had drawn something obscene on the cast just to get him to smile.

“Where are you going?”

“Liverpool.”

“Jealous,” Benny laughs, eyes shutting. It’s not the first time since landing in the base hospital that he’s imagining Maran. Actually, every single night he slips to sleep he tries imagining Maran. Since that first dream of Benji, he’s either not dreamed at all, or things have been blurry, nothing to remember. He wants one dream of Maran, of his smile, or his hands, or the way he dresses, the smell of him.

“Right, well, don’t need to be. Bringing him here.”

“You’re fucking what?”

Ben sits up straighter then, bracing a hand on the bed to give himself leverage. Hospital equipment beeps in the background. The room is dull gray but private—this isn’t a main base of operations. It’s sort of like a giant storage shed, like a safe house that people bunker down in. He’s only ever been to this one a few times.

Nomi’s light brown eyes blink, her hands pushing against Benny’s shoulders to force him back down flat. He’s shocked that she manages—couldn’t fight her way out of a wet paper bag, but he’s so fucking weak that he crumbles at her touch.

“Nomi, y-you can’t bring Maran here.” Panic makes his voice reedy and high pitched.

“He’s worried about you.”

“You c-can’t bring him here.” He gestures with a desperate hand to the door. Outside, he knows there are men with guns. Women strapped with knives. Little specialists and snipers and—and military things. Violent things. Benny’s chest tightens, constricts on his lungs like a vice. He closes his eyes to the feeling, pressing a hand to his forehead. “He’ll—this isn’t—you know why he—”

“Give Maran credit,” Nomi snaps, her dark, prefect brows knotted together. She’s frowning at him, so pretty still. Rolls her eyes and flaps a hand toward the door he’s indicating. “And this isn’t even like, one of the active bases. Listen, he’s worried.”

“You sh-shouldn’t have told him anything.”

Nomi stands then, her cheeks darkening to a crimson color. Her eyes narrow, all the pretty light brown disappearing. He’d not even noticed she was in jeans. A t-shirt. She wouldn’t look like herself, if she wasn’t so herself all the time. Benny blinks up at her, feeling a cold dread inside his stomach.

“You’re wretched for that, Ben. Proper fuckin’ wretched—and should be ashamed. You think he doesn’t have a right to know? Or see you? What is he then? Just a lad you screw once in a while for fun?”

“No—”

“Because if you’re thinkin’ of him like that, then stop thinkin’ of him at all.”

“Jesus, Nomi, I’m not—”

She’s crying again, little ones that weep down her cheeks prettily. Benny feels the weight of his shame and guilt like a car’s rolled over on him. Compressed to the littlest thing. He holds out a hand—and for a moment, he’s horrified she might not take it. Horrified, but also, that he’d deserve her walking out the door. She isn’t wrong—it was a disgusting thing to say.

But she does take it. Her hand is small and soft as it slides across his palm. She steps a bit closer. The clicking sound of her heeled boots is so comforting.

“Promise not t-to repeat this,” he says quietly. “’Cause y-you’re right, I’m a f-fucking bastard. But, I want t-to say it to him. Not that he hears it f-from you. I know you two fucking t-text all the time.”

“He’s funny,” she mutters defensively. “He sends me cute animal pictures.”

“I love Maran,” Benny continues. He watches her blink rapidly, tears like little gems dropping off her round, soft jaw. He feels one land on his hand. It’s not too dissimilar from the expression she’d made when he’d confessed the very same thing to her; in a hotel they were sharing, directly after the Shadows had combusted. He’d said it, and she’d stared at him, with those giant, pretty eyes.

“I w-want to see him, but I love him—and I don’t w-want him—I just don’t want him to—I want him to b-be okay. And—this is all pretty fuckin’ weird.”

There was dating a mercenary and then there was seeing into that mercenary’s life. A year ago, when they’d first come together, getting Maran to leave his apartment for a food truck down the street had been difficult. There was so much substantial progress; he would fucking kill himself if he was the reason it all got ruined. Him and his broken leg and this mercenary hospital-safe house-not base.

Benny swallows hard and lays his head back against that seven time fluffed pillow. He closes his eyes and feels an odd prickling behind the lids. His cheeks are hot and feverish, even though the rest of him feels so, so cold.

Nomi’s cool hand touches his forehead.

“It’ll be alright, Ben.”

He believes her more than he’d believed Lark.

—

Benny turns out to not…really be that wrong, however.

Maran throws up before even getting on the train. Nomi pretends not to know he’s thrown up, because she wants to afford him that dignity, but it’s also obvious—and his hands are shaking when he hands over his ticket to the surly red capped man on the train. She thinks, not for the first time, that maybe Benny was right. That pushing something like this was actually horrific of her, that she was in the wrong. That she was being awful.

But when the train starts moving, he settles a bit. Leans with his forehead against the glass, shoulders rising and falling sort of heavily, but evenly. Nomi sips her tea from the little paper cup. Extra creamy the way she likes it.

“Maran,” she says, getting his attention. It goes to her so quickly that it kind of makes her dizzy. Like he was just waiting for her to want him; and she feels guilty about that too. Don’t you know, I want you too? I want you to want my attention. I want you, have I not made that obvious? God, I want you. She licks tea from her lips and sets the cup aside.

She goes to sit beside him, which sort of shoves them together some. It’s not unpleasant—for her anyway. He has a boyish scent to him, like the soap he uses is the same from his school years. She wants to draw her hand over his short hair. Christ, she wants to kiss him or something, really. But he’s blinking at her.

“Can you tell me about something?” she requests, pulling his hand into her lap. It’s clenched until she wiggles her fingers between them. All at once, he softens entirely. Like he was a clenched muscle that’s only just relaxing. Nomi holds his hand up to her lips, eyebrows raised, smiling.

“Oh,” he says, laughing. “Nomi, I’d—I would tell you anything.”

“Can you talk to me about Benji, then?”

“Benji?” Maran laughs around the name; he has such a familiarity in saying it. Like it was a reoccurring word his whole life. Benji, Benji, Benji. Nomi grins, presses a swift kiss to the tops of his knuckles. Her dark maroon lipstick smudges a bit there, leaves a cute little tattoo of her. His cheeks flood with color, the same color, she thinks. It makes her—God, it makes her love him for a moment.

“He’s like—well. Benji’s where it all started, yeah? Xavier met him and then everything changed.” She shifts a bit, gets comfortable. Tucks a leg underneath her. Pretends not to notice that Maran’s eyes fall right to her thighs and then back up with innocence. She continues holding his hand.

“I’ve never met ‘im. Been sort of afraid to.”

“You?” he says it and then seems to immediately regret it.

“I get scared!” Nomi laughs. The sound seems to ease him even more, which makes her ego feel full and buoyant. “He scares me. Not like him. But—it all began with Benji. If you trace it all back, the whole thing, roots go to Benji. Xavier and him. So—could you talk to me about him?”

There’s a long pause where Maran looks at her. He’s taller, so she has to tilt her head up to look at him. She thinks about kissing him again. The feel of his lips on hers. So different from Benny’s. So similar, in that it has this right sort of feeling. He wets his lips with his tongue and then looks down, smiling.

“Benji,” he starts.

And doesn’t stop for the whole train ride.

—

“I don’t care how fucking cute he is,” Matilda says, standing outside Ben’s room. They both look through the windowed door. They watch, together, as Maran folds down on top of Benny. His shoulders shake. Nomi feels like they should turn around and give them privacy, but Matilda is planted firmly, eyes narrowed. “You are better than me.”

“You do not think that,” Nomi replies with a sarcastic snort.

“If Lark had a boyfriend, I would string him up.”

“Lark doesn’t,” Nomi says, fully turning her back on the scene. She leans against the door. Shuffles until she’s covering the window—Matilda stares at her with flat eyes. “You know it’s not the same.”

“So what is it?” Matilda asks. Her posture relaxes, arms unfolding. She puts her hands on her hips, face taking on a more concerned expression. It doesn’t really suit her—but that’s why Nomi loves her so much for it. Because it doesn’t suit her, but that she feels it for Nomi anyway. Concern. Worry. Care.

“Complicated, I guess,” Nomi says, looking down at her hands. She’d completely peeled all her nail polish away. “But,” she lifts them then and laces all her fingers together. “I think we’re figuring it out, yeah?”

“No,” Matilda replies. But then hooks her arm around Nomi’s and begins leading her elsewhere. “But if it works for you.”

If it works for all three, Nomi thinks. All three.

—

“I can’t believe yo-you were on a train,” Ben says, grinning. Maran’s eyes are slightly puffy, his cheeks and nose red from crying. He’d burst into it almost immediately at seeing Benny in the hospital bed; which had done things to Benny’s heart he didn’t want to think about. Now he sits, almost in the exact same place Nomi had been the day prior. Both of his hands hold one of Benny’s. They’re sort of too big to get away with that, but he’s warm and comforting and making it work.

“Only thought I was going to die maybe once,” Maran admits in a soft, humored tone. He sniffs here and there, remnants of tears still clinging to his gorgeous eye lashes. Benny’s free hand sneaks over and squeezes his thigh.

“Thanks,” he finally says. There’s a catch in his voice. He clears his throat. Benny’s eyes bounce around the room, stray to and from Maran and then he finally closes his eyes. “Maran, thank you for coming—”

“Can we kiss?”

He laughs out, the painkillers making his head foggy and dull. Benny’s hand squeezes Maran’s thigh again, eyes painfully peeling open. His head sags to the side on the pillow. For a second, he’s accidentally bewildered at the sight of the other man—here, in the room with him. Outside his apartment. In his silly SEGA shirt, his eyes rimmed and red. Hair freshly bleached. Benny’s heart speeds up, the monitor on the side traitorously beeping and making Maran glance at it.

“Am I doing that?” he asks, in a shockingly smug voice. Benny lifts his hand from Maran’s thigh and hooks a finger into the collar of his shirt.

“C’mere, you fuckin’ brat,” he whispers and pulls them together to kiss.

—

All three of them are on the outskirts of the base, looking at the thick line of trees. It’s middle of nowhere vibes, but pretty instead of spooky. Reminds Ben, for a moment, of Xavier and Benji’s dumb little house in the woods. He drags on his cigarette, tilts his head back to blow smoke up into the air.

“Bleh,” Nomi huffs, swatting it away with a gloved hand. It’s not even that cold out, but she acts anemic and pathetic. Sniffs here and there. Nomi and nature don’t get along too well.

Maran, in opposite, treks from the edge of the woods, holding up a leaf the size of his head.

“I’m keeping this,” he says confidently.

“No one can stop you,” Benny replies. He shifts a bit on the wheelchair. Maran comes to stand in front of him, twirling the leaf by the stem and smiling. He has that smile on—the one that Benny usually only sees in confidence. In his bedroom, late at night when he’s talking about something he’s fond of. When they’re together, watching a show, when they’ve just got done fucking and Maran is looking blissed out of his mind and—well, Benny sort of hopes, it’s love. That he’s got love in that smile.

“Doctor says I h-have to uh,” Benny leans down to stub the cigarette on the ground and then awkwardly tuck it into the top of one combat boot. The cast on his other leg makes wearing two impossible. “Maybe—might need help getting around and all that. For a bit.”

“He’s trying to ask if he can stay with you for a while,” Nomi says. Benny glares over his shoulder at her, and she responds by sticking out her tongue. When he swings his head back to look at Maran, he’s bludgeoned by the look on his face. It drops quickly, like he might be embarrassed by it; but for a moment, Maran had a look of pure excitement. He schools his expression to something neutral. Which, for Maran, is actually still a bit of a smile.

“Yeah, basically,” Benny says unceremoniously, tossing his hands up into the air.

“I think he’s just trying to get you in a maid dress,” Nomi sighs. “Don’t let him boss you around too much, babe.”

“You can.” Maran steps forward, that silly leaf still in his hand. “If—I mean, if you’re serious. You can—my place. For however long.”

The wind sort of whips around them just then. It makes Nomi’s hair fan around her. She couches, as if hiding behind the wheelchair to get away from it. Hands curled over the edge, looking at Benny with big, glossy eyes. Maran steps forward too, tucks an arm around his face to save it from the biting cold. Benny doesn’t do anything. He just sits there, in wonder. Awe. Looks down at his casted leg—there’s still that filthy weird drawing Matilda had put there.

“Yeah, I’d like to.”

“Say no to the maid dress,” Nomi quips.

“And you can visit,” Maran says, his smile bashful. “Right?”

Nomi, stunned into silence, only manages to nod. Benny slings an arm around her shoulder, yanking her in close to kiss the top of her head and make her howl with annoyance. She wiggles free, dances toward Maran, tucks herself behind him. Holds onto his biceps and glares around his shoulder.

“He’ll be awful and annoying the whole time, Mar.”

Benny loves watching Maran’s face when she uses the nickname. He loves—oh fuck, does he fucking love them.

#benny #maran #nomi #good taste #benny x maran #nomi x maran

8 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

“I would ki-kill that guy with my bare hands,” Benny comments casually. He has the beer bottle against his teeth, dark red sunglasses perched lower on his nose than usual so he can stare across the bar. Sunglasses inside usually make a man look stupid but Benny has that trashy white guy energy that sort of pulls it off. Lark would never try, always feels a little out place when they bar crawl like this to some hole in the wall in the first place.

He’s leaned against the pool table, also looking across at the man flirting with his girlfriend. Matilda, in contrast to Lark, fits in everywhere. She has that energy, so even though she’s in clothes too nice for the place, she doesn’t look awkward. She doesn’t blend either—Matilda stands out against the bland backdrop of some dive bar (that they only went to for the pool tables to begin with) and it explains why some moth has gotten stuck in her glow.

Lark wants to find it funny that it’s always so stereotypical, especially in bars like these. Tucked both hidden away and close to the local university. A good haunt for frat brothers—and it’s those types that approach her so frequently. They have names like Harry or Brad and they can come in a variety of looks but they all poli-sci major and wear khaki shorts and boat shoes. They gel their hair and smile with Crest White Strip teeth. He wants to find it funny, but sometimes it makes him so angry he sees little dots in his vision.

Matilda sits there, little thin black cocktail straw between her teeth as she gives Harry-Brad a demure smile. Lark marvels at how good she is at that and equally marvels at how stupid the men are that wander close and offer to buy her a drink. He can’t actually remember the last time Matilda paid for herself.

“No you wouldn’t,” Lark comments, watching Xavier scratch. He seethes childishly, holding the pool stick in his hands like he might snap it over his knee. The beer has flushed his pretty face red underneath the low yellow lighting of the bar. “You’d start a fight and then immediately run and find Xavier and expect him to finish it.”

“So?” Benny stands from the stool he’d claimed and then lines up his shot. “Not m-my fault Xavier has a PhD in fuck around and find out.”

The red head puffs himself up, flexing stereotypically, mouth set in a grimace. He’s wearing a stolen shirt straight from Benji’s closet, which is obvious by the tattering at the bottom and the edgy design on the chest. It’s also just a smidge too short, but he’s tied a plaid long sleeve (also Benji’s) around his hips.

“Professor Left and Right.”

“Doctor,” Benny corrects, and strikes the cue ball with precision perfect form. It bounces around the pool table, sinking one after the other. He straightens and looks at Lark with a nasty, smug smile. Lark only half pays attention, turning his head to watch over his shoulder as Matilda accepts the drink held out for her. Once shes taken a dainty sip, she then turns swiftly on the bar stool. Her darkly dyed hair fans out glossy behind her as she does, effectively cutting the man off in one snobby gesture.

Mouse is leaning between Naima’s parted knees as her girlfriend sits at the bar; and she laughs so loud that almost everyone turns to stare. Harry-Brad retreats back to his friends with a humiliated, stormy expression.

“God, I fucking love her,” Lark says absently. His head tilts as he watches Matilda continue to sip from the colorful little cocktail.

“Tell her that yet?”

“What the fuck?” Lark’s panicked eyes dart back to Xavier, who has taken to leaning over the pool table in an attempt to thwart Benny from winning his fourth game in a row. He feels a strange panic building up inside his chest at the mere suggestion, as if Matilda might hear over the noisy bar all the way to the corner where the tables are stashed.

“Dude.”

“Game,” Benny says easily as he sinks the eight ball. “Want t-to set it back up?”

“You’ve been dating Matilda longer than Benji and I have been together.” Xavier slides his way around the pool table, using his hand to swipe the rest of the balls he’d not been able to sink into pockets for fun. They crack together loudly.

“Together as in acknowle-le-ledging, or together like you guys fi-finally suck each other off?”

“Fuck you,” Xavier snaps, his teeth clicking together. “What about you, dickhead? I know you haven’t said anything to Maran.”

“I have an excuse,” Benny says as he sits down on his stool. He picks up the pint he’s been nursing (the third, or fourth) and takes a sip. “I’m em-emotionally unavailable.” Lark rolls his eyes and looks at Xavier, who is thankfully suppressing a grin. There’s always a good chance that Benny and Xavier will slip from good natured ribbing to full blown argument, to get the fuck out this bar before I call the cops.

And the bartender sort of looked like the type to brandish a baseball bat before the cop calling part.

“One time, I watched Maran leave and then walk back inside to say I love you.” It makes Benny’s pale cheeks tint a soft rose color. He looks a little funny blushing, because it doesn’t suit the persona he’s constantly pushing. With the tattoos and the backward baseball cap and the stupid sunglasses. Benny uses his middle finger to push them back up his sharp nose.

“That’s b-because he said it makes him nervous if he doesn’t say it before he goes somewhere. Needs to be li-like the last thing he says every time. Leave Maran the fuck alone, alright?” Benny gestures with his beer toward Lark. “This was about that fuckin’ loser.”

“I think it’s about both of you,” Xavier sighs. “You were both in relationships before me.”

“Oh, look at Xavier—high and mighty because he says I love you to Benji every time he gets breakfast.” Lark flaps his hands, mocking and mean. He makes his eyes big intentionally, pathetic and soft. “Benji, I love you so much—extra blueberries in those pancakes, please?”

Benny is kicking on the stool, howling with laughter while Xavier’s flat gaze pins Lark.

“You’re both hopeless. I hope Maran breaks up with you—and Matilda breaks up with you for the fourteenth time.”

“Dunno, fifteenth could be the charm,” Lark jokes dryly.

“Are you fucking assholes done with this table yet?”

All three men turn to look at the group in waiting. It would have been dramatic irony if Harry-Brad with the nice teeth who had been hitting on his girlfriend was among them; but it’s not a sitcom situation like that. It’s just another group of men, drunk and impatient, university age boys with too much alcohol in them already.

“We p-paid for anoth—ther game,” Benny says, lip curled in a sneer.

“We p-p-p-paid—” Before the man can actually finish the mocking insult, Xavier has already thrown the punch. It connects with savage precision, straight to a vulnerable, open jaw. The sound is not too unlike the pool balls smacking together. Lark watches the man crumple like a marionette with cut strings. Then he sighs and pulls his jacket off.

—

“Ow,” Lark complains weakly as Matilda pushes a paper towel wrapped ice cube to his eyebrow. A swelling knot is forming, dark purple and ominous looking. “Ow,” he continues in a sharper tone when Matilda presses just a bit harder.

“Oops,” she replies, with a pretty flutter of her eye lashes. She has glitter on her cheekbones. It’s sort of haphazard and unintentional looking, which makes it downright beautiful on her. Matilda is the first girl he’s ever dated that isn’t precise with her make up. Doesn’t spend hours in front of one of those cute desk mirrors or worry about it in pictures. He likes it, but he can’t really piece together why.

They’re in her bed, because Lark had decided to go home with Matilda instead of back to his shared apartment with Xavier and Benny. Mouse and Naima still linger in Matilda’s kitchen—the sound of their conversation only somewhat carries. The cadence is nice; they have wildly different tones that somehow fit together prettily. Lark hates to admit that he’s liked Mouse even more since she found someone who stopped her from going crazy at random intervals.

He’s moody, however, laid out on her girlish bedspread. One of her stuffed animals is wedged under his arm as he broods and she tends to the little knot on his busted eyebrow. The ice makes it numb, but she’s not exactly a nurse about it—and is maybe a little tipsy still.

“That last cocktail got to you, huh?” Lark asks with more bite than he means.

Matilda arches a perfect eyebrow. When he’d first told Xavier about her—because he told Xavier everything and told him before anyone else—Lark had talked far too long about Matilda’s face. The long, elegance of her nose. Her lips pursed and pouty and her cheekbones cutting. Xavier had gestured at his chest with raised eyebrows, suggestive cupped hands—this is a memory he’s never told Matilda because it’s Xavier’s worst behavior.

“Someone’s pissy because he lost a fight,” Matilda sighs condescendingly, tossing the ice cube into the little trash can by her bed.

“I didn’t lose,” Lark replies with narrowed, annoyed eyes. “We got kicked out.”

“Do you think you would have won if the bartender hadn’t threatened to kill you guys?” She looks skeptically amused, and also like she’s winning the pseudo-argument (that could turn into a real argument, very quick). He pauses for a moment, looking down at the squished stuffed animal wedged between his bicep and chest.

“Do you see how mean she is to me?” he whispers directly to the little alligator plush. One of it’s little beaded eyes is missing, giving it a comical permanent wink. “She thinks I can’t take a lacrosse player in a fight.”

“Shut up, Elias.” She snatches the stuffed animal from him and tosses it to the other side of the bed. It lands belly up, upside down staring at him with that one little eye, smiling like it has a secret. His attention is swiftly brought back to Matilda as she slowly slides her way on top of him. Her knees squeeze on either side of his hips and Lark’s hands instantly find their way to her thighs.

She’d—blessedly—stripped for the night. Matilda wears one of those cute bralettes that he barely understands (“They don’t work like a real bra, so why wear them?” “El, shut up.”) and a stolen pair of his briefs. He loves the way they look on her, because her height makes them ride up shorter than they’re meant to be, cut into the meat of her thigh. The little peek of flesh drives him insane, even though he’s seen her, completely naked, hundreds of times.

“You don’t have to flirt with guys to get drinks.” Sometimes, he’s not sure why he starts with her, in the same way he has no idea why she starts with him. Lark had never been the type to argue with partners before; actually, he’d been a bit of a pushover with the last girl he’d dated before Matilda. But something about her pulls that tiny hot, mean part of him to the surface—and further, he has no idea why he likes that so much.

Sometimes, when he thinks about anything before Matilda, it had all sort of felt muted. Arguing, sex, whatever. It was like pastel colors went neon chrome when she was around.

“I wasn’t flirting with anyone—he bought the drink.”

“I can buy you drinks.”

“And go: thirteen dollars for a Moscow Mule? Oh my God, Matilda.” She makes her voice deep and gruff to imitate him, which makes the insult softer. He rolls his eyes, hands sliding from thighs, around to cup her ass and jerk her closer. She falls forward with her palms braced on the bed. Her hair, pin straight and glossy, falls over her shoulders and touches him, tickles his skin. Lark does a supremely good job of not looking down at that lacy, useless, purple bralette.

“I don’t wanna argue.”

“I’m not arguing. You’re starting an argument because you’re projecting—”

“I wanna fuck, like—really bad, Matilda.”

His blunt honesty disarms her immediately and makes her pale cheeks go a lovely, unique shade of pink. His hands flatten and travel up her sides and he loves watching that little shiver of anticipation run through her. Matilda’s eyes narrow, her chin tipping down. More strands of her hair slide from behind her ears and dangle beside her cheeks.

Lark gets it then; that stupid conversation that he can barely remember in the bar, because he was sort of drunk and the fight had come just directly after. He gets Xavier’s point—he’d like to say it. He’d love to put a hand around Matilda’s throat and jerk her close and say it right to her. Except, before he can get a chance (he’s lying to himself, he’s too cowardly really, in that moment, and will be for some time), Matilda straightens and all but yanks that flimsy purple fabric off.

—

When he can’t fall asleep right away—which has nothing to do with the fact that Matilda sprawls her long limbs just about everywhere with no courtesy to her bed partner—Lark wanders into the kitchen. It’s dark, but he has her place memorized. Not because he’s there so frequently. No reason.

“Holy fuck,” he hisses, jumping when he nearly collides with Naima.

“The best kind of fuck, I guess,” she replies easily. Lark is stunned into a moment of silence before he bursts into a shocked laugh. She smiles, a pretty upturn of her lips, head equally tilted. He recognizes the big hoodie she has on, because it was stolen out of Xavier’s closet who had stolen it from Benji anyway. Lark had last seen Mouse wearing it, absolutely dwarfed in the damn thing.

There is a lingering moment of silence between the two of them that Lark finds shockingly comfortable.

“Did you know Mouse talks in her sleep?” Naima randomly offers up as she crosses the kitchen to the fridge. Lark slowly steps around her to lean against the counter. He points at the organic juice he’d bought and purposefully left at Matilda’s. “This stuff is poison, by the way. No different from the kind that actually has flavor.”

Lark uncaps and takes a swig from it.

“It’s not about flavor, it’s about calories. What is Mouse sleep talking about?”

He suspects she’s passed out on the long, artful couch that Matilda has in her living room. Suddenly makes sense to lark why Naima is awake—that thing couldn’t fit two people on it if it was bribed with more stuffing and new upholstery.

“Voltaire.”

“You’re fucking joking, right?”

Naima laughs as she snags leftovers out of the fridge. They’re grease stained in a little cardboard box. She tosses it onto the counter and goes about finding silverware. For some reason, seeing her at ease in the kitchen—knowing where things go, where utensils are located, where the glasses in the cupboard are—is nice for Lark. It makes him warm. Thinking of Naima, Mouse, Nomi, anyone, in this big artsy apartment with Matilda…makes him happy.

“I dunno. Little beast is reading him lately. She’s got a paperback full of sticky notes covered in coke stains. Mumbling about him in her sleep. Love her for it.”

And it’s not I love you, nor is it necessarily in the spirit of the phrase, or even remotely what Xavier was talking about. But it makes Lark pause with the half gallon juice to his lips. Naima doesn’t notice—or she doesn’t feel the need to notice—and continues poking through the grease stained leftovers with a fork. Lark puts the juice away.

“Want some of this?” The box is in her hand, held out. He can’t even remember where they’d stopped for food along the way home, mostly because he’d turned it down anyway. Lark stares at it, smells the cooked chicken at the very least. He feels for a moment, insanely vulnerable in his t-shirt and briefs. There’s an awkward pressure in his chest. But when he looks at Naima, she’s diverted her attention to the living room. Not that she can see the couch from where she’s standing.

And maybe it wasn’t about looking at Mouse, but not looking at Lark for a moment. He’d feel patronized by anyone else. Or embarrassed. But it’s so dark out that Matilda’s big windows look entirely black. It’s the liminal watery time before anyone wakes up, hungover after a night out. He looks at the ground before shrugging.

“Why not?” He laughs and jerks open a drawer to find a fork.

—

When Lark climbs back into bed, Matilda snips at him. He accidentally lands on her hair a bit, which causes her to squawk and turn on her side to slap his bicep. He mumbles a soft apology and her ire dies immediately; she turns further, arms folded and fists tucked up underneath her chin. Matilda burrows with a wiggling motion until Lark catches the hint and wraps arms around her shoulders. He brings her in closer, where her soft breath tickles his collarbone.

She falls back to sleep so quickly, he doubts she was even really awake to begin with. And Lark is tired too; the alcohol has gone and died in his system, so he’d not even been able to sleep before the hangover hit. His eyebrow burns, the knot bigger than it was hours ago. There’s the creeping suspicious dread that this will get back to his coach and he’ll be talked to about professional conduct.

But there’s also Matilda, her soft sleep sounds. Her knee wedging between his thighs to rest there. The smell of her hair and the fancy products she uses. Lark rests his cheek to the top of her head, drowsy and exhausted, but insanely wired at the same time.

“Hm,” he tests his voice in the quiet of her bedroom. There is mostly just the sound of the aircon and the ever present ambiance of the city outside the window. No noise comes from the rest of the apartment. He feels solidly alone and not alone; the sort of comfortable loneliness of being the only one awake. Lark presses his lips into Matilda’s hair. She doesn’t shift. So, he lets himself practice. Says, I love you, at least three or four times in the empty quiet of her bedroom.

That way when he eventually says it out loud, he’ll do it perfectly.

#lark #matilda #lark x matilda #uni au #:)

8 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

Benny’s head is tilted back on the pillow, one hand tucked behind his head while the other cups softly around Maran’s shoulder. His own fingers curl into his pale blond hair like its a lifeline. The slackness of his jaw, the tightness of his brows and the occasional twist and jump of his hips is all evidence that it feels good.

But Benny still says it—soft praise here and there, mumbled encouragement with a slippery moan between clenching teeth. Good boy, just like that, keep going. The warmth of Maran’s mouth is driving him closer and closer. The gentle bob of his head up and down, in a satisfyingly lethargic pace has Benny’s calves tightening nearly painfully.

It’s early morning, sun just peeking through curtains and making everything hazy yellow toned—and Maran always wakes up first. And wakes up eager. Enthusiastic—had already been shimmying his way down the bed before Benny was blinking his sleepy eyes open. It’d be stupid to refuse Maran—not that Benny did much refusing when it came to his boy in the first place. But of fucking course he wasn’t going to turn down this kind of gift. Not when Maran was asking, with fingers already hitched into the band of Benny’s briefs, eyes pretty and bright when the light hit them in that way it sometimes did.

And Maran is still new to doing this, but it doesn’t diminish the enjoyment. If anything, Benny refuses to admit it aloud—barely even admits it to himself—but a part of him enjoys knowing it’s new. Likes watching Maran explore; not just because it feels good. And of course it fucking does, Maran’s wet lips brush over the tip of him and down along a vein and one of his hands rests comfortably on Benny’s stomach—it feels good. But, it also makes a warm burst of, maybe happiness expand inside his chest. Something like that.

That Maran chose him, wants him, likes him.

“Ohfuck,” Benny manages, shifting in his messy bed. Maran glances up at that exact moment, mouth open and tongue flat, appreciatively pressed against him. Benny has to struggle through his next sentence, “Having fun?”

Maran grins so hard his cheeks dimple. Benny has to briefly close his eyes and lean his head further back because of that grin. Maran hums a half hearted vocal reply, then his mouth is wrapping around him again. He’s not—well, Benny doesn’t think Maran means to be edging him close like that, but he isn’t complaining. It does make his breathing a little erratic. Stars pop and fizzle behind his eyes like bad television static.

“Ben?”

“Uh-huh.”

His whole body twitches at the feeling of Maran’s tongue brushing. The hand on his stomach presses a bit against the little tattoo of a spider below his belly button. Both of Benny’s hands grasp at freckled, toned shoulders. His fingers dig unintentionally because now he’s really close. Maran’s warm breath fans across his heated skin.

“Mm, can we see a movie tonight?”

“What?”

Maran’s spit slick hand tugs him in a mild pace and Benny’s chin dips forward to touch his own chest. He’s trying to pay attention to the sensation of a warm palm wrapped around his cock, but the messy shine on Maran’s lips is making him dizzy. A little string of spit still connects his mouth to—fuck. Benny’s hands curl harder—bruising strength that he doesn’t necessarily intend. He’s just—he’s very close.

“There’s that new one—” Maran has the audacity to pause and push himself closer, wedged as he is between pale, tattooed thighs. Benny makes a strangled, groaning sound when his flushed cock is pressed against the other man’s throat for a moment. It looks indecent there, which makes it hard for him to focus. A tingling sensation crawls up and down his spine, heat coils inside his lower abdomen.

“And it’s right next to the burger place. The one with the good fries. You remember?”

“Maran,” Benny pants. “Baby?”

Then he’s wiggling himself back into place, his mouth open in a wide smile. Maran looks filthy—and cute, so fucking adorable, like he always does—pressing his cheek to the side of Benny’s cock. His slippery hand continues, thumb brushing in a teasing, cruel way. He wonders how much of this is just for fun and how much of it is well thought out. If he’d gone and Google’d something and liked what he read.

Benny sits up slightly, an arm braced on the bed while his hand cradles the back of Maran’s fuzzy skull.

“You’re a fucking brat,” he spits out nastily. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh,” Maran replies, mouth opening, tongue out. There’s too much suggestion in his pretty brown eyes for Benny to do anything else. He shoves Maran down—hard—forcing the length of him back into his mouth. The sudden, messy sound of it makes Benny fall back flat to the bed. His hand stays locked on the back of Maran’s neck, fingers gripping hard as he cums with mean thrusts of his hips up. Maran’s hands grasp at his hips, his eyes wet and blinking as he pulls himself back.

“Maran,” Benny manages, the sound more grunt and groan than anything else. The cum drips off his chin, lips swollen and wet. The sound becomes worse when Maran slowly rests his cheek on Benny’s hip and blinks, smiling up at him. That image—Maran, mouth fucked, wet and messy, eyes glossy and pleased—sticks inside him forever, probably. Benny could conjure it in the shower and jerk off in seconds fucking flat if he wanted to.

Instead, he’s breathing through his mouth in hard little gusts, an appreciative and softer hand brushing over Maran’s buzzed hair. There’s the lingering emptied, fuzzy feeling of an orgasm that makes his thighs and knees weak while Maran’s long, dark lashes practically flutter in satisfaction.

“Christ,” Benny mumbles, smoothing a thumb over Maran’s lip. “You want to go th-that bad?”

“They have combo milkshake flavors,” Maran says, opening his mouth wider to allow the press of a thumb against his tongue. He mumbles oreo and reeses around that thumb, eyelids dropping pleasantly submissive. Benny almost—almost could get hard again.

#benny #maran #benny x maran #uni au #just maran being maran truly

6 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

It’s actually a few years of the good life before Xavier get’s hurt. Like, the good life. Years of it. How many? Couldn’t tell you. They blur together, like Xavier’s put his hand over them and smeared. They all blend, never ending. Something like a dream and not always pleasant of course. The hardest years of his life behind him, these still sometimes held little pockets of pain here and there. Arguments between the two men that felt pointed and heavy and brimming, sometimes, with violence. Never actual violence, but the insane dual realization that both of them are deeply capable of it.

But mostly good. The best, actually. If Xavier were to talk about it to anyone, those few years after finding Benji’s home in the woods—bloody ankle and all—were the best. The feeling of immortality crashing and mingling with reality and also aging. What a thing that was. Aging. Benji’s sprout of gray hair at the temples, salt and pepper beard. Xavier’s little wrinkles by his eyes, the weight he puts on around his hips so he can’t fit in old jeans anymore. That’s where time has suddenly crept up like a spring trap and gone oh! It’s been years! Xavier, it’s been so many years.

He calls it bad luck to Benji because he’d had to make it a joke, or risk losing his ability to speak through chattering teeth, adrenaline spike making his chest burst. Laying on the frozen ground, arm cradled awkwardly to his side (that side, that one with the fucked up ribs, the old and never healing injury that will always remind him of the before years, before the old house, duck pond, etc).

“Oh, bad luck,” is what he’d wheezed out between clenched teeth while Benji knelt beside him. Later, at the hospital, Xavier had found himself depressed, because Benji had gone into that crouch too quickly. One knee up, hands touching Xavier’s side. It was such a familiar gesture. It was muscle memory that would never be forgotten, because Benji’s body would never forget kneeling next to downed soldiers in need of medical aid.

It hurt. More than the broken arm. Sometimes, he wanted to take a wet rag to their pasts and tidy it up. Clean up all the parts covered in blood. But he never could. He liked living in the good years now, though the memories were sometimes still just there. For them to have to deal with.

“Clean break!” The doctor says, stabbing the X-Ray up onto the light box. He is young. Like baby young, no facial hair, big bright brown eyes. Handsome in that youthful, life ahead of you sort of way. Xavier feels old sitting there in the hospital bed, with his arm casted and slung close to his chest. The pain killers wear off in a buzzing sort of way, crawling underneath his skin, making his mouth dry.

“You’re lucky the fall didn’t break your elbow, yeah?” The doctor continues, sliding closer on a stool. He’s smiling widely at Benji, who stands like a dark cloud beside Xavier’s shoulder. He’s arm crossed, brows knotted mad. Xavier will later, nose behind Benji’s ear, lips kissing that sensitive spot he’s all too aware of, ask if Benji just didn’t like seeing someone else medic him.

“Must have braced your arm when you fell—which rough for the arm, but the elbow’s worse to heal? Good instincts!”

Xavier and Benji share a brief look. Not instincts. Training. Then the doctor goes about giving Benji a sheet of paper with instructions on what to do with Xavier’s casted arm, when to come back in to get it off, physical therapy office locations in case he needs it.

Once in the car, Benji takes that little sheet of paper and crumples it into a ball. He tosses it into the back and then turns to look at Xavier. His mouth is set in a flat line. Those gray hairs stare at Xavier. He feels the phantom sensation of lifting a hand and tucking a few strands behind Benji’s ear—but his arm stays locked in place at his chest. He’ll apologize for cleaning the gutters on the house directly after a storm, with a slippery ladder. But right now, he is still thinking of his instincts, the medicine wearing off, the pain.

“Least it wasn’t my good arm, huh?” He uses a tight fist near his hip to gesture what he means. Benji turns the car on with a quick, angry twist of his hand.

—

Benji isn’t actually angry.

Well, he might be. About the gutter cleaning after a storm, for sure because he’s warned Xavier before how nasty they can get. But, he isn’t that sort of angry. Xavier thinks of Benji’s face when he’d come skidding out the house, tripping over himself. Guilt festers because Xavier had screamed. Had been so shocked at the sudden twisting, snap of his arm and the meteor shock of pain, that he’d actually screamed. High pitched and terrified—he’d never have screamed before. In the old years, he’d have clamped a hand in his mouth and bit it till it bled to stop himself from screaming.

Before, he would have fashioned a sling himself and walked to an extraction point. Blinking sweat out his eyes. Lifeless eyes. Devoid. Before, it might not even have hurt. Xavier’s relationship with pain was like that, back then. Nothing really ever hurt, it just bled a lot. It just bruised. Cut. But it didn’t hurt.

Benji wasn’t angry, he’d been scared.

“Don’t let this happen again,” he says, a dark brown hand sliding over the cast. Xavier watches it’s path go from the ugly baby blue color to the tips of his fingers poking free. It tickles when he touches them. Benji’s hand continues onto his chest and pushes slightly so Xavier will go to his back on the bed. The exhaustion takes him over then, really pushes all other thoughts out of his head. Don’t let this happen again, you’re not supposed to get hurt anymore. That’s all in the before, that’s all gone now.

“Yes, sir,” Xavier jokes sleepily. A hand cups his cheek and he feels lips against his own before he sleeps.

—

At some point, when both of them don’t seem as frayed at the edges about the surprise injury, it becomes a little fun. Xavier doesn’t mind being taken care of, or spoiled—which Saha calls him, over the phone as Benji ties up his laces before they leave to meet her in the city. He gets paid time off work, which he thought would make him listless, but lazy days on the couch, waiting for Benji to come home aren’t as bad as they would have been. His mind, previously, had needed to be occupied at all times for Xavier to feel level.

He lays there, casted arm carefully lifted, cartoons on their TV as Anika sleeps soundly on the floor beside the couch.

It stops being something that hangs over them (because what if Xavier had broken his neck? What if he’d hurt himself worse? What would Benji do then, in a world that he’d built to have Xavier in it, suddenly Xavier-less? What then?) and starts being something they live around. They even make it work in bed.

With Xavier, flat on his back, legs hitched high around Benji’s shoulders to accommodate the casts need to rest on his chest and Benji holding in a stifled laugh. Xavier panting to a finish and smiling like he’s done something spectacular (Benji had put in entirely all the work and later complains about a sore thigh).

“You can cum under any circumstances, can’t you, Xavier?” Benji purrs with hands lovingly spread over pale, freckled thighs. Just that sensation alone has his cock twitching, like there will be seconds. There will always be seconds for them.

“Hah,” Xavier breathes out. “Circumstances.”

—

Weeks later it’s mostly an annoyance.

Xavier swears loudly and drops the razor into the sink, slapping a messy hand across his jawline. There’s the cold and then warm sting of a cut opening across his chin as well as the sting of shaving cream smearing inside that cut. He blinks at himself in the mirror and then turns to the side, where he knows—

Benji leans against the door frame, one hand on his hip. He’s in his work clothes, because Xavier had been trying to get this done before Benji had gotten home. He looks good in them too, this slightly ruffled white button down. He’s pushed sleeves to his elbows, unbuckled his belt. Not that he means to be standing there, looking stupidly sexy, he probably was about to get changed into home comfort clothes, but Xavier feels that immediate coal warm sensation stirring his insides.

He smiles and it pulls the cut open on his chin more. Blood trickles between his fingers.

“At least I didn’t break anything, this time.”

“I’ll break you myself,” Benji mumbles, stepping into the bathroom.

Xavier has to sit on the edge of the tub in order to be short enough. It threatens to make his ass go numb, but being below Benji like this makes his whole body go sort of numb. There’s a newly pressed bandaid to the shallow, but dramatic, cut on his chin. Benji’s deft hands make easy work of both washing the cream off his face and then reapplying it. Xavier sneezes when it tickles his nose and Benji laughs so hard the entire moment almost comes undone.

But it goes on, with Xavier tilting his head back to let Benji look at him. He can imagine Benji being good at this because he’d probably had to have started shaving so much sooner than Xavier, who had made it entirely through high school with a baby face. Xavier lets his eyes close and imagines the pictures of Benji that exist in a photobook Kay has shown him over and over. Xavier covets those pictures, in his oddly perfect memory. He can imagine Benji waking up one day with little black hairs and begrudgingly figuring it out himself. Imagines him cutting himself up nasty until he finds his father.

Xavier breathes out softly, blinks his eyes open when the razor starts sliding down his cheek.

His most cynical thought—of which, Xavier blessedly doesn’t have many—was that eventually he would maybe stop feeling this way. At some point, he was sure that it might fade to something smaller; that all the feelings he had about Benji would have to lessen because it was sometimes so overwhelming it pushed at him. At his insides. Rearranged them and sometimes hurt. This beautiful, hot hurt. He’d never admitted that out loud to anyone, much less the man in question. But it felt like it was an eventuality. Bridge to cross when he came to it.

Never happened, though. Sitting on the edge of the tub, with his one good hand tucked loosely around Benji’s thigh, he stares up, overwhelmingly in love. Benji’s brows knit and he bites his tongue as he moves the razor with more care than he ever has for himself. Xavier’s watched him clean up his throat before (anyone can imagine why he was watching of course, Benji’s throat was a sight, truly) and he was always messy and in a rush. Ready to be onto the next task.

He takes care with Xavier, tilting his face to get to the angle he needs. There isn’t much facial hair, because even in his thirties, his face continues to cling to youthfulness. His eyes hood, like he’s tired and maybe he is. Before (before, before, keep up with all the before’s) being with Benji was like a pure shot of adrenaline. The kind a soldier would take if they needed to limp through the end of a mission, bloody and disgusting. It kept him going. Truly. Some days, it was the only thing that did.

But occasionally, there were rare moments—rare, rare, very fucking rare moments—that Benji was like a warm pool of water, lulling him right to sleep. Xavier hates remembering any of that, but he does remember once, knelt over, head to Benji’s thigh, nodding off as his hair is tickled. Waking up with a silly little braid he’d not taken out until it threatened to tangle, or another operator would see and well, Shadows didn’t like those small little bits of weakness.

“Do anythin’ today?” Benji asks, the question so shockingly mundane that it makes Xavier blink. His hand gently touches underneath Xavier’s chin to reveal the long, pale column of his throat and the little red angry hairs there. Xavier swallows, his hand pressing on Benji further to tug him closer.

“No,” he admits, quietly. “Oh,” he continues, lips pulling into a smile. “I tried cleaning the gutter aga—”

“I have a blade to your throat, Xavier.”

He lets his head fall back further, his arm sliding around Benji’s hips. He relishes the warm feel of him. Wishes the shaving cream didn’t have such a chemical smell about it—would rather it be all Benji.

“I trust you,” he jokes, but the joke doesn’t necessarily land as one. He feels Benji’s thumb, gentle across his jawline. He shivers a bit, keeps his eyes closed, because he’s genuinely afraid if he looks at him all that love will rush right to his head and make him faint. Like standing up too quick after laying down for so long.

“S’not a funny joke.”

“What? I’m not joking, I trust you—”

The razor clatters in the sink behind them. Xavier lowers his head then. Benji’s hand runs into his hair, pushes it back. It’s gotten long—like, actually long. Not sort of long for a mercenary type long where he could sometimes get away with it too much on the top and back. Xavier has properly long hair now, even though he has to keep it short on the sides, because it tickles his ears, drives him crazy. He has nice hair—it gets complimented often. Xavier blinks at Benji, who stares down at him with such vulnerably soft eyes.

“Oh,” he says and then slowly puts his cheek to Benji’s stomach. The rest of the shaving cream gets on the nice white button up shirt. “Okay, promise. No more jokes about the gutter. I won’t even try and clean it again.” Benji’s laugh is wet and he tugs Xavier’s hair sharply.

“Want me to clean you off?”

“If you say it like that, it’s like—we’re not going to get clean, if you know what I mean?”

“You’ve another week in the cast,” Benji notes, tapping it with a finger. “No shower sex till after that.” Xavier groans, downright rubbing his face into Benji’s stomach then. His hand crawls, until it’s gripping Benji’s ass, giving it a firm, loving squeeze. Listens to his former medic’s laugh, can picture that smile in his minds eye perfectly.

#xavier #benji #xavier x benji #i need to go thru and tag all their cod timeline but im so lazy

7 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

BASICS

FULL NAME → Jonathan Lee Benson Jr.

NICKNAME → Benny, Ben -- does not go by his first name at all

AGE RANGE → 20's-30's

BIRTHDAY → April 2nd

SPECIES → Human

NATIONALITY → American

GENDER → Cis Male

ORIENTATION → Bisexual

OCCUPATION(S) → Shadow PMC, demolitions expert (CoD AU), Security Guard (band AU), leans science occupations in other AU's, going for NASA engineer in slice of life AU's, chem major

THREAT LEVEL → Medium

SPOKEN LANGUAGES → English (fluent), ASL (fluent)

APPEARANCE

FACECLAIM → Boyd Holbrook

EYE COLOR(S) → Blue

HAIR COLOR(S) → Blond

DOMINANT HAND → Right

ACCENT → New York, East Coast American

HEIGHT → 6'

WEIGHT → 210/220lbs

BODY BUILD → Fit-fat, broad with a heavier upper body, thicker in his arms. Definitely not as in shape as his friends, but with a very core definite strength look

TATTOO(S) → Black scorpion tattoo on his neck, 13 rabbits in various places, knuckle tattoos that say BOOM !!!!, daggers on his chest, a spider underneath the belly button, barb wire on his biceps, panther and lion on each knee (a lot, he just has a lot, all over the place)

PIERCING(S) → Both ears

GLASSES → No

SCARS → Plenty, but none notable.

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN → Upper Manhattan, New York, USA

FINANCIAL STATUS → Lower Class (criminal, unreported)

EDUCATION LEVEL → Varies from associates to multiple degrees

RAP SHEET → Assault with a deadly weapon

PRISON TIME → Military prison for 6 months awaiting trial for assaulting a superior officer (dishonorable discharge in lieu of more prison time)

RELATIONSHIPS

BIRTH ORDER → First born

PARENTS → Jonathan Benson (father, estranged), Eileen Benson (mother, estranged)

SIBLINGS → None

FAMILY → None

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S) → Maran Giarizzo-Cohn (significant other to husband), Nomi Walker (long term partner)

CHILDREN → Lee Giarizzo-Cohn (CoD AU)

ENEMIES → Probably

PETS → None

VICES

SMOKES → Yes with high addiction

DRINKS → Yes, with a borderline addiction

DRUGS → No

VIOLENCE → Yes

SELF DESTRUCTIVE → Very

PSYCHOLOGY

MENTAL → Anxiety, depression, C-PTSD

PHYSICAL → Speaks with a very noticeable stutter, will be very hard of hearing in his 40's+

ANGER EXPRESSION → Hot, condescending, self conscious, threatening. Tends to lash out and hurt others.

ALIGNMENT → True Neutral

PERSONALITY TRAITS → Enthusiastic, studious, protective, cowardly, vulgar, cruel

MISC

SIN → Lust

ZODIAC → Aries

ELEMENT → Fire

SEX PREFERENCE → Dominant leaning switch (heavy into kink and D/S specifically)

ANIMAL → Crocodile

MUTATION → Kinetic energy manipulation

POST APOC. → Yes

#stats #benny

5 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

Benny retreats to the kitchen after the moderately embarrassing display. He’s not exactly sure which of them should be the humiliated one—him or the girl—but he certainly knows he’s the only one tracking mess. And it might be his apartment, but he can already feel Xavier’s huffy day-after mood storming up the place as he cleans through a hangover. Which no one ever asks him to do, but he martyrs himself into every single time anyway.

He palms cocktail juice off his face, flicking his hand at the sink, where little grapefruit colored droplets land in murky water. Someone had dumped ice into the sink and shoved beers there, just another cold storage for the party. But it’s melted now, cans bobbing. It’s loud outside the relatively quiet bubble of the kitchen. After the momentary silence to watch Benny stand there, face dripping wet with a drink, it’s noisy again. Party continues, full of lie. He leans against the counter, rubbing at his unfortunate, sensitive eyes.

“Wow—what was her fucking problem?”

He blinks through his splayed fingers and Maran—of fucking course, of all fucking people, Maran—stands there. His face is twisted into righteous indignation, which looks good on him. Though, Benny isn’t sure if there is an expression under the sun that Maran wouldn’t pull off. Even with the sting of whatever mixer the girl had used making his eyes water, Benny takes a good long moment to stare at Maran. Who he stares at a lot.

But he’d shown up at the party late, had slid in through a group of people with that intoxicating and big smile. Breathing heavy like he’d run all the way and maybe he had because Benji had shown up earlier. He and Xavier had already fucked off, as they tended to do. This was his first time seeing Maran, actually seeing him since the party had started.

Benny licks alcohol off his lips and drops his hands.

“She ke-keeps trying to get me to fuck her. And I’m not interested.”

Maran’s lip curls in disgust, arms crossing over his chest as he steps closer into the kitchen. It’s moderately sized. The three bedroom he’d managed to snag for downright cheap compared to most city pricing accommodates the men living there nicely. It fits a round breakfast table that’s currently stacked with snacks and empty (and not empty) solo cups. There is plenty of room for the two of them to be standing there comfortably, and yet Maran seems to take unconscious steps toward Benny.

“You’re joking? Why’d she throw a drink in your face?”

“I called her ugly.”

The pink haired boy laughs, like a bubble popping. From his chest. His eyes widen and then his smile takes over his face and he looks away. Swings his head to the left as he slowly lets his hip connect with the kitchen counter. Benny stands there, sticky from the alcohol, trying not to keep staring at him. But there’s so much of Maran that warrants staring. Like the bob of his throat, or the high points of his cheek bones, or how many freckles he has. They’re bigger and darker than Xavier’s. Prettier, Benny thinks, shamelessly.

“Well, alright. That’s rude, but not throw a drink in your face rude.”

“I m-might have said it meaner than that,” Benny admits, shrugging with his own grin. Sometimes he wishes he could smile like Maran or like Xavier, even like Lark. But Benny sort of smiles like a criminal whose not yet committed a crime. In the act, someone had once told him, about his curling, sneer of a smile. But when Maran looks at him, his face going a bit red (and not from the beer, Benny suspects) he can’t help but like his smile then. It’s effective. Works on Maran.

When he turns to the sink, they’re basically side by side now. The thrum of people and music in the next room feels distant even though its only a few steps away. Benny tugs the faucet attachment and turns the water on. He leans over the sink and begins hosing himself down, scratching a messy hand through his pale hair.

Benny is licking the water from his lips when he straightens. His hand shakes his hair out more. The water soaks his shirt collar, pours down his front. Benny blinks the water out his eyes, gives himself a little shake all over like he can dog-dry his way out of this.

Maran’s arms are still tight over his chest but his head is tilted back; focused on the ceiling as if there’s something interesting up there. Benny’s eyes flick up, just to double check there isn’t. Like mold or a leak from the upstairs. But it’s still just the cream colored popcorn ceiling it’s always been. He reaches out and puts a hand on the counter, right next to Maran’s hip. He shifts his weight there, leaning forward. They’re the same height, actually. He’d noticed that. He’d liked that.

Standing as he is puts him just slightly below Maran, looking up at him.

“My ceiling interesting?” he asks in a conspiratorial whisper. “X-Ray vision? Tr-trying to spy?”

“No!” Maran dips his chin down, which lets them stare at each other. The color on his cheeks has gone downright flushed and beautiful. It looks lively on him, where Benny always felt pink in his cheeks highlighted how pale he was. Made him look like a fucking Victorian. Maran looks so painfully handsome—blinking his dark lashes, brows risen up on his forehead. He’s smiling again.

Benny’s other hand lands on the counter on the opposite side of Maran, effectively caging him there.

“Having fun?”

“What?”

“The party,” Benny indicates with a tilt of his head. He likes this position. He doesn’t feel underneath Maran, even though he’s leaning as he is, and looking up at him. He feels infinitesimally in control. It’s nice. Makes his hands flex on the counter, which Maran seems to notice, his dark brown eyes lingering on one of them for a moment.

“Oh,” Maran replies. “Well—I was, but—that was like really fuckin’ rude, Ben, you know?”

For some reason it makes Benny feel weirdly vulnerable for a moment. That Maran is stuck on it. His sense of right and wrong are so strong sometimes, he’s watched Maran stop someone from stepping on a bug on the sidewalk. He’s seen Maran tear up at missing cat posters—he’s seen him save one before so he could look out for them. To be on the receiving end of that bottomless well of care makes Benny’s stomach flip.

He straights somewhat, which he does not mean to have the effect on Maran it does, but he can’t help but notice the little shift. Benny laughs and steps away.

“I’m used to it.”

“It’s your apartment—want me to kick her out, yeah? I bet I could find her.”

Benny’s and curls into Maran’s shirt just as he’s about to walk away, a determined set to his pretty jawline. He stops quickly, nearly comically, sneakers squeaking on the kitchen floor. Benny breathes out slowly, his fingers uncurling. He pats Maran’s chest softly.

“Yo-You could do me a different favor.”

“Oh,” Maran blinks in surprise. “Sure, Ben. What’s, uh, what’s up?” He’s treated to Maran’s eyes widening again as Benny puts a hand to the back of his own, now definitely soaked shirt. He grabs from the back of his neck and slowly pulls the shirt off himself. He tosses it into the corner of the kitchen with little regard and Maran is once again looking up at the ceiling.

“You’re we-wearing two shirts,” Benny points out. And Maran is. He’s sort of authentic about his fashion in that way. Doesn’t buy the shirts meant to look layered—actually has a bright yellow shirt on over top a baby blue long sleeve. The colors should clash, but they don’t, because it looks soft and nice on him. Goes well with his darker complexion—and Maran is all colors all the time anyway. He looks so good in them.

“Yeah,” Maran breathes out, shuffling on his feet. “Right! Yeah.” He laughs and then begins the almost awkward process of pulling the short sleeve off. Benny suddenly feels evil and maybe a little guilty, because both shirts rise up to show his stomach. It’s soft, with such a gentle definition to it. Hints to core strength—and Benny now has to live with the knowledge that Maran also dyes his happy trail, because it’s pastel pink underneath his belly button.

Benny feels a warm tightening in his chest, looking at Maran pull off a layer of clothing. His cheeks are still flushed, dark and adorable. There’s a definite shyness to his expression, this gently tucked away smile. His bashfulness opens up Benny’s chest painfully—he wants to reach out, take his face, kiss that little hidden smile. He wants to slide his tongue there, he wants to take Maran and spin him around and shove the snacks off the table. Benny wants Maran; wants him so bad.

Instead, he takes the shirt. He doesn’t put it on right away.

“You c-can ask.”

“You have like—I mean, more than Benji,” Maran laughs. “Which is like a feat, ‘cause I always thought—I mean, I really thought you couldn’t do more than him.”

Benny points to the barb wire wrapping his bicep.

“We match.”

“Who?”

It gets him to laugh then, this really loud laugh that shocks him because it’s right from his chest. Full and actually happy. Maran. Fucking Maran.

“Benji has barb w-wire tattoos, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Wow.” Maran laughs out softly. “Are they everywhere?” He seems to immediately regret the question, because he steps back and hits the kitchen counter and stabilizes himself with a hand there. He swallows, audibly and very visually. Benny works his arms into the shirt and slowly pulls it on over himself.

Maran wears his shirts big, but it fits on his broad shoulders well. He’s a little heftier than the other man.

“Yeah,” Benny replies, reaching for the fridge and opening it. “Hey, do you w-want to—” Benny pulls out two sodas from the fridge. He’d really meant for beer, or thought he had anyway. Or one of those alcoholic seltzers, just anything that was more…party. Instead, it’s root beer and Maran’s eyes sort of light up.

“Do you w-want to hang out in my room?” Benny asks, holding one out. Maran takes it quickly, stepping forward with an exuberance that can’t be a lie. He pops the tab, the soda fizzling. Benny watches him take a quick sip—and thinks how insane it is that he’d just been shirtless, had just been heavily flirting and shirtless, but watching Maran do that feels almost more sinful.

“Can we watch more of that show from before?”

“Man, y-you’re my favorite,” Benny says, slinging an arm around Maran’s shoulders and leading him away.

#benny #maran #benny x maran #uni au

5 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

BASICS

FULL NAME → Xavier James Wolffe

NICKNAME → Baby (Callsign, CoD AU)

AGE RANGE → 20-30's

BIRTHDAY → May 20th

SPECIES → Human

NATIONALITY → American

GENDER → Cis Male

ORIENTATION → Bisexual

OCCUPATION(S) → Shadow PMC, Corporal, Extraction Unit (CoD AU), Security guard (Band AU), Mechanic (Slice of Life AU's) - can generally be in any au as something military adjacent

THREAT LEVEL → Very High

SPOKEN LANGUAGES → English (fluent)

APPEARANCE

FACECLAIM → Matthew Bell (kinda)

EYE COLOR(S) → Green

HAIR COLOR(S) → Dark red

DOMINANT HAND → Right (fairly ambidextrous)

ACCENT → Boston, Mass New England American

HEIGHT → 6'4''

WEIGHT → 185/195

BODY BUILD → Lean but muscular. Broad shouldered, tapered waist. Very in shape, little body fat. Extremely freckled.

TATTOO(S) → Left arm is covered in American traditional black/white tattoos. Has "Sweet Boy" tattooed across his stomach in serif font. A smiley face on his hand that was done in stick and poke.

PIERCING(S) → Xavier has no piercings other than his ears in military au's/military adjacent au's because he doesn't want to risk taking a punch to the face with piercings. In slice of life au's, he gets to branch out and likes to get his bridge pierced, sometimes a tongue piercing.

GLASSES → No, blessed with 20/20 vision, lucky guy

SCARS → Many. Has a great deal of scar build up on his knuckles from fist fighting, Has a faded scar on his nose from having it broken (more than once), a scar along his jaw from a knife. In CoD AU or any other universe where he's a soldier, Xavier has a lot of the usual scars.

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN → Boston, Massachusetts, USA

FINANCIAL STATUS → Lower/Middle class

EDUCATION LEVEL → High School

RAP SHEET → Record expunged when turning 18; petty assault charges for fist fighting

PRISON TIME → None

RELATIONSHIPS

BIRTH ORDER → Second

PARENTS → James Wolffe (father) Lorelai Wolffe (mother)

SIBLINGS → Theresa Wolffe (sister, first born), Emily Wolffe (sister, third born), Jessica Wolffe (sister, fourth born)

FAMILY → Carrie Danvers (cousin)

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S) → Benji Palanivel (long term partner in most au's, or husband in the sweeter ones)

CHILDREN → None

ENEMIES → Probably a lot

PETS → Anika, service dog (belongs to Benji but that's his daughter, your honor)

VICES

SMOKES → Yes

DRINKS → Yes

DRUGS → Recreationally to mildly addicted depending; cocaine, LSD, club drugs mostly

VIOLENCE → Yes

SELF DESTRUCTIVE → Heavily

PSYCHOLOGY

MENTAL → PTSD, ASD, OCD

PHYSICAL → Has a rib injury in most au's that will be problematic and bothersome

ANGER EXPRESSION → Hot; quick to outbursts or violence

ALIGNMENT → Chaotic Good

PERSONALITY TRAITS → Romantic, kind, loyal, dedicated, hard working, possessive, hot tempered, easily manipulated, oblivious, petty

MISC

SIN → Envy

ZODIAC → Taurus

ELEMENT → Fire

SEX PREFERENCE → Submissive switch, call him lettuce cause he's a sub topping

ANIMAL → Doberman

MUTATION → Instant healing

POST APOC. → Survivor

#stats #xavier #i need to do a good update on all my ocs #they have evolved a lot since february LOL

8 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Note

Mhhh sorry, just wow the wedding bit with the sister/sibling dynamic and sorry I just need a moment... Thank you for keeping telling us their stories, that was beautiful and with such a cheeky ending hehe

frontier and i both swore to never write The Wedding, but i also could not help but write a LITTLE bit of the wedding, aka the part where benji and xavier's sisters finally meet and are totally into each other LMAOKGADSJDG

but i also want to write more tess/xavier, because their sibling dynamic is so important....they were so close growing up and xavier inevitably always goes places tess can't go and that breaks her heart

#ask #anon #i dont do angst often but familial angst is so #unfortunately up my realm LMAO

3 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

Xavier wakes up because of a nightmare—the same one he’s been having for the last couple of months on a never ending repeat. Tess blames it on the sleepover, where pre-teen boys with too much sugar in their system had stayed up past bed time and watched John Carptenter’s THE THING. She’d picked her little brother up at his friends house (even though it was past curfew and she’d had to steal the minivans keys), shaking and crying and post at least two throw ups.

And ever since, when some random Saturday crept up to haunt Xavier, he would wander from his room, right to hers. Equipped with giant, wet eyes the same color as hers and ask if he could sleep in her bed.

“You’re like way too old for this sort of behavior,” she chastises, even though he really isn’t. At eleven, Xavier is thin as a ruler. He has their mother’s long, gangly limbs but their fathers broadness. He looks like someone put a stack of books on top of him and left them there for far too long, like a flower pressed between pages, like a strong gust of wind could simply pick him up and take him away.

Xavier makes Theresa’s heart squeeze.

He sniffs, red nosed and pathetic, hands interlocked in nervousness in front of his chest.

“Oh my God,” she groans and throws back her covers. Xavier darts toward her bed swiftly and wastes no time crawling underneath them. Tess sighs and folds an arm down around him, his bird like rib cage fluttering in the still remembered fear of his nightmare.

Her seventeenth birthday looms a month from this exact Saturday, so she feels awkward and embarrassed, like she’d fucking die if any of her friends knew about this (particularly, Rebecca Holstead, who was so close to sleeping over this very night, the idea of which made Tess dizzy and warm and scared, herself)—privately, she also feels comforted.

Tess thinks the day Xavier stops coming to her first (not their mother or father) will be the worst day of her life, probably.

***

She expects it to rain, because it’s the UK, but she does not expect it to rain on the day of her brothers wedding. No one thinks its unlucky. In fact, Benji’s tiny mother (who quickly becomes such fast friends with her own mother, she starts to wonder if they secretly knew each other before this) laughs about it. She shakes her hands at the windows, elbows her husband and Benji’s quiet, but kind eyed father.

“It was raining the day Benji was born,” she tells Tess with a finger against her nose, one eye closed. She slips into her native language between words here and there, her voice melodic and fun. “Rain’s good.”

Rain is good, Tess thinks. But it postpones the ceremony, which is being held outside, in the sprawling backyard to Benji (and Xavier’s?) home. She doesn’t mind, because it gives her more time with her brother—who sometimes looks so different from the brother inside her head that looking at him gives her whiplash. Not always the good kind.

“You’re sure the suit is fine? I look out of place with the grooms family, get what I mean?” Tess adjusts the suit collar again, shifts on her feet. It’s tapered to her waist, stylishly slim fit but still masculine, flattening her natural curves and making her look…boyish. The way she usually likes. She tucks shoulder length red strands behind her ears—she’d grown it out, in prep for the wedding photos that were still to come.

Tess never wanted to make Xavier’s life difficult—and it was a miracle their father had flown across the ocean to make it to the event. One of the most important fucking events he could make it too, she thinks hotly, prepared to get angry about it all over again. She’d deal with her hair long (or longer than it has been in years), just so he wouldn’t make comments about the usual buzz cut she liked. Anything to stop a fight from happening between Xavier and the senior Wolffe.

“Stop fussin’,” Xavier laughs, patting her shoulders. He says it like fussen. Like with an accent and it makes Tess soften. Her shoulders round, her fist resting on Xavier’s chest. He has that sometimes—a little bit of an accent. A curl of Liverpool around his words, because he’s been with Benji…how long now? She sniffs back tears that threaten again as Xavier groans.

“Don’t cry either,” he warns. In contrast to Tess’ suit, their mothers gown and their fathers humble button up, Xavier is in a traditional fit. His gold toned sherwani should wash him out, considering he’s so pale, but it doesn’t. Instead, it makes the dark auburn color of his hair contrast even prettier. It brings out the color of his eyes—it is handsomely complimented by Benji’s dark, sage colored matching garb. Not that she’s gotten a glimpse of the two of them together, side by side yet.

They weren’t really supposed to see each other until the ceremony. Tess had a hard time believing they went ten minutes without seeing each other.

“I need you to like, absolutely fuck off,” Tess says, swiping thumbs under her eyes. “If you’re around me for any longer than ten minutes, I’ll start bawling like a fucking little kid. Do you think Benji’s mom hates how much I curse, by the way?”

“Benji’s mom is cursing, just not in English.”

“God, I fucking love her, you know? She’s like—she’s so good. And mom likes her so much. I think they’ve talked about every single childhood moment you or Benji have ever had, in the span of an hour.” Tess continues wiping, because she wasn’t necessarily lying when she said she was going to cry, just looking at him.

He’s found her in the kitchen, which she tries not to think is ironic, but it probably is. Tess wasn’t necessarily looking to crack into Benji’s (because they are most certainly Benji’s and not Xavier’s) cooking supplies, just because she was antsy. But the temptation was there nevertheless. Even if the catering was on it’s way, surely. Instead, she and Xavier lean against the counter, where the windows overlook the duck pond. They swim in happy circles, enjoying the rain that will bring worms up to the grass for them to peck at.

Tess steals secret glances at her brother. He has a noticeable scar across his jawline that she wonders about. Sometimes, she thinks of taking his hands and telling him she knows. She knows—that something was not adding up and that something was the military service he kept promising was real. Tess could spot a Xavier lie a mile away, but it was more than that. More than a lie. The scar on his jawline is so terrifying. So thin and white, that the blade must have been razor like. Would have split the skin cleanly, like a butcher.

She swallows hard, looks down at her high heels. They suck and they hurt.

“I’m so nervous,” Xavier admits. She looks back up in surprise and he’s smiling at her. “Like, I’m absolutely going to throw up.”

“You haven’t out grown that?”

“Was I supposed to?”

“Guess not,” she laughs. It makes him laugh too as he sags against the kitchen counter more. He looks so dressed up, and yet the kitchen is so…ordinary. There are sticky notes on the fridge. Something that looks like a work schedule is pinned with a magnet for a terrible punk band she also loves. There’s a stain on the counter and also a chip in the cutting board (a crime, but her wedding present will remedy that). Tess can imagine Xavier living in this kitchen and it overwhelms her. His entire life that she has been absent from for so long, overwhelms her.

“Dude, I’m getting married,” Xavier says, as if conjuring her thoughts from thin air. “Like, married.”

“And he’s like, really out of your league.”

“Trust me, I know,” he jokes as he starts toward the exit of the kitchen, where raucous laughter is coming from a room over. Tess recognizes Jes’ high, wheedling laugh. For a moment, she is staring at her own reflection, because Jes was to Xavier, what he’d been to Tess. Her’s to care about, while their parents were too busy earning money to simply keep them alive.

When he passes out of the room, she decides to stay there, alone, for just a bit longer.

—

The alone part only lasts a few more minutes before someone crashes into the kitchen.

“Oh, absolutely—of course, trip over yourself, why don’t you? Rip somethin’ while you’re at it—not like this isn’t hand made.” There is nothing to do but stare at the woman as she plucks at the ankle length skirt she wears. Judging from the way she picks at the fabric (which is so red it makes the entire kitchen look instantly pale in comparison), it might be longer than the ankle, which seems to be the problem.

Tess, for what its worth, tries very hard not to look at the slight reveal of dark brown skin across her middle, eyes swinging toward the duck pond. The rain’s gone down to a drizzle, sun opening up around clouds to wash everything golden like her brothers wedding outfit.

“Need help?” she finally musters.

The woman looks up, in absolute shock that another person is in the kitchen. She flattens a hand to her chest. That level of surprise is so cute it makes Tess’ hands twitch. She folds them behind her back, which pushes out her broad shoulders.

“In more ways than one.” Everyone has an accent here, but Tess feels a familiarity there. A tone, or note. Something…

“Oh wow,” she finally laughs, scratching at her longer-than-usual hair. “Yours is much cuter than Benji’s. No offense to him or anything.”

“My what is much cuter than Benji’s?” Saha, the older sister that she’s heard about on many phone calls to Xavier, has an animated face. Her expressions are all big and blown out yet uniquely genuine. Like she isn’t putting on a show, but the world is a bit of a stage anyway. Tess bites her lip, tries to hide the all encompassing smile that completely threatens her. She steps forward instead, extending her hand.

“Your accent,” she says. “You’re Benji’s older sister, right? You look alike.”

“Oh,” Benji’s older sister deadpans with her mouth in the perfect shape of the letter itself. Then, “Oh!” louder as she darts forward to slip a soft hand into Tess’. “You must be Theresa then, yeah?” A bit of the Liverpool comes out there, in a way that is still similar to Benji’s somewhat off-putting brogue (sorry, Xavier). Saha has the dwindling accent of someone who likely spends a lot of time away from her hometown.

“Oh my God, no.”

“What?”

“No, I mean—” Tess laughs, giving Saha’s hand a good firm shake. She watches the other woman’s arm flap a bit at the strength she’d put behind it accidentally. Tess is all too used to shaking hands with other professionals in her line of business—and most of those professionals were men who were ready to underestimate her. Not just because of youth (thirty-three is not old, unless she’s browsing twitter) but because of her gender. Tess could shave her head and dress in a mens cut chef’s frock; they still saw her as feminine.

“Call me Tess. People only call me Theresa when they’re mad at me.”

“Promise I’m not yet,” she says, quick and clever. Their hands are still together. Saha looks down at them and then quickly pulls hers away. It makes an anxious, probably not entirely conscious pluck at the skirt again. The red makes her skin tone even prettier, even richer. Tess probably looks like a penguin.

Whatever conversation they might have had next, and it’s branches of possibilities (hating each other instantly, or getting along straight off, or everything being awkward and uncomfortable and one of them immediately retreating to find a brother)—it’s entirely stifled by the loud growling that comes from Saha’s stomach. She puts hands there, her eyes so wide the pupils look like little coins. Tess tries not to smile, but it fights onto her face anyway, tugging up at the corners. It puts dimples in her cheeks. Her eyebrows raise.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Saha exhales in an embarrassed laugh. “That—I swear—it only ever happens to me, y’know? Get caught dancing in the grocery aisle, or someone takes a candid of me tripping on the street. It’s just my luck. Really, I mean it. You’re laughing at me!”

“No!” Tess does laugh. Keeps an arm around her stomach, a hand flattened over her mouth, shoulders shaking. Her hair spills out from behind her ears, tickling her jawline. “No—I swear. Ask Xavier. I got this weird laughing disease when I was a kid. Stuck permanently grinning.” She puts index fingers to the tips of her smile, wiggling her brows.

“You Wolffe’s,” Saha sighs, but Tess can tell her God awful sense of humor is…working. Should it be working? It’s only in that moment that she realizes she’s flirting. Tess drops her hands, tucking them behind her back again. She shouldn’t be flirting. “Okay, I came in here to find some leftovers ‘til the catering gets here. I know Benji has some—cooks Xavier a feast practically every Sunday.”

“Explains where my skinny little brother went.”

“But he looks good with it, right?” Saha is crossing to the fridge then. A hand on her hip. She taps a finger on her chin as she contemplates. For a moment, Tess doesn’t know what to say because, yeah. He does. Xavier looks…so much better. He looks healthy now, with a padded layer to him. His hair’s longer than she’s ever seen it. His cheeks are full of color all the time.

“I’ll make you something,” Tess offers, completely on a whim—or completely out of love. She doesn’t know Saha, they’ve never met before. It happens, she guesses, when one family lives on an entirely different continent. That Benji’s family and Xavier’s family are being introduced on their wedding day. She chalks that up to privacy too; she liked the kindred spirit Xavier had found in Benji with that.

But she wholeheartedly loves Saha for that comment alone. But he looks good with it, right? Such a simple statement that said so much.

“Oh no, you don’t have to. I know Benji has roti around here. Xavier inhales the stuff by the handful—”

“What do you do for a living?” Tess asks as she crosses the kitchen. She opens a few cabinets on whim, tries to figure out where bread might be kept. When it’s located, she then moves on to the fridge.

“I’m…an entrepreneur.”

“You sell make up?” Tess asks, as she crouches to pick through condiments and find cheese.

“That’s actually insanely offensive, you know that? You assume because I’m a self employed woman that I sell make up?”

“Well,” Tess rises slowly, grinning all the while, and Saha’s eyes follow her up. They’re dark dark. That sort of brown that looks to be all pupil, until sunlight hits it. Tess knows those kind of eyes get beautiful then. She can picture them in early morning, blinking open as she lays her pretty face on a white pristine pillow. In her imagination, Saha is just perfect enough to have an imperfection, like a few crazy strands of hair or something.

“Actually, I assumed it, because yours looked so good.”

“No compliments get you out of that one!” Saha has retreated to the kitchen island, sliding onto a stool. Her pursuit of food given up. Tess is still trying to contain her smiling.

“I guess I’ll have to make it up to you, then.”

—

It doesn’t take long to find the other items she needs. Frying pan and butter. A plate to slide the sandwiches onto when they’re done. She doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but Tess is surprised no one came running to the smell of grilled cheese sandwiches; or even came looking for two very important guests. Older sisters to the grooms didn’t often get stolen time like this.

Instead, they have their private moment together. It feels surreal. A little carved out scene from a movie that she would have replayed on repeat as a child, wondering how two women get to be together like that. If that’s a real thing that happens. At thirty-three she is more than aware that two women, do, in fact get to sit in a kitchen and eat sandwiches and talk together.

It’s just very Halmark and a bit of her gay teen heart sort of throbs at that.

“You weren’t lying,” Saha says in a gasp after a mouthful of sandwich.

“Why would I lie about that?” Tess replies, chin in her hand, elbow on the kitchen island. She watches Saha take another bite, a delicious little pull of cheese between sandwich and her lips. She groans as she chews, turning fully on the stool so they can face one another.

“This is better than any grilled cheese I’ve ever made. This is ludicrous.”

“That’s a wild word for a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“Is this what Gordon Ramsay was teaching you?” Tess bursts into a laugh, picking her own sandwich up. She eats like a bird, unfortunately, tugging pieces off and popping them into her mouth. She had learned it in culinary school, where things had to be eaten this way. Small portions, flavor testing. She remembered eating a whole meal in just small bites through out the day, because she was testing every single plate she was cooking.

“He taught me how to make the best omelet you’ll ever have, if you want a rain check on that.” She puts another torn off piece of sandwich into her mouth, eyes to the side to catch Saha. She’s blushing; the color is dark, dark red on her high cheekbones. God, she’s fucking beautiful. The sort of pretty that made someone stop and blink. Not single, Tess thinks instantly. No fucking chance.

“You said you live in Seattle? I’ve been. I’m—well, I’m an influencer, alright? So I travel. I’ve been.” Saha chews, has to tuck cheese into her mouth when she pulls the sandwich away from her again. There’s a second on the plate, because Tess was a firm believer in two sandwiches make a meal.

“What are you influencing?” She asks.

“People.”

“So you do sell make up?”

“You’re awful!” Saha bumps their shoulders together. Warmth blooms in the middle of Tess’ chest and she tried to ignore it. “I’d boost sales at your restaurant if I posted a review.”

“Are you saying my sales are bad?” Tess accuses in a wounded voice. Saha shrugs, pinches her face into an apologetic expression, slowly takes the final bite of her second sandwich. She scoots herself closer then. Tess had abandoned the high heels (they fucking hurt) when she’d started cooking. And so she hooks a long leg around the stool, the bare metal cold as she continues that scoot closer. “How about, if you come to Seattle, I will make you that omelet and you’ll write me a review?”

Saha taps a finger on her chin again. It seems out of habit. It’s frankly, so fucking cute it makes the closeness of them feel tense and warm.

“Bribery,” Saha intones softly. “So American.”

Tess holds out her hand. Saha takes it and gives it what must be her most firm shake (it is puny in comparison, which is somehow, just as adorable).

***

The wedding photos come in about a month later. That feels stupidly long, but what did she know about wedding photography? Her wealth of knowledge laid in herbs, spices and hockey. She was in her Bruins jersey at that exact moment, no less, sliding a letter opener underneath the flat photo packaging.

Tess will never admit to crying as she looks at them. She spreads them across her kitchen table, picking through them slowly. Reliving the day and every single other one before it; the anxiety and fear that Xavier was never coming home, the dual emotions of happiness and worry whenever she did see him in brief snatches of time. That thin, white scar on his jaw is present in many of the photos, but he also smiles in every single one of them. He looks unbelievably handsome and even mature.

She selects one of just Xavier and Benji for her fridge. Tess doesn’t do wall art or photos. It would be depressingly bare if not for the amount of things she’s otherwise shoved into her apartment. Cluttered with hobbies picked up and tossed aside, gifts from her friends, nick nacks on bookshelves stuffed so tight that a robber might be confused on what was actually valuable.

The fridge got the pictures. Emily’s college graduation, an old polaroid of Jes’ and their first baby tooth, blood in their hand. James and Lorelai Wolffe and Tess in between them, a toddler with a giant smile that dimpled her cheeks, before all the other Wolffe children came to be.

And now Xavier and Benji, in gold and green. They were looking at each other in it, but the photographer had caught them in a moment when others were stealing their attention. It was one of those candids where the edges were blurry, where the lighting at the ceremony was all little pops of amber and orange hues in the background. It was Xavier, arm slung around one of his guests (a man named Lark, pretty guy, with an even prettier girlfriend) and Benji, shoulder to shoulder with his father, who was bent in to tell him something.

But Benji and Xavier still, despite all that, looked at each other.

One that’s done and makes her heart bleed and her eyes hurt from the pressure of crying, Tess selects one more photo that she will instead keep on her desk at home, next to her laptop. She puts it there, just then—a photo of her and Saha, standing together, laughing. Her hand rests on Saha’s shoulder, her (now, thankfully buzzed off) hair wild from all the humidity. And Saha is looking at her, with those brown eyes she knows are gorgeous under the sunlight.

Next to the laptop it goes, where an email stays open. An email of a plane ticket receipt, and a cheeky ‘does your restaurant need a review?’ in the caption.

#tess #saha #tess x saha #i cant believe i wrote this #the girls stay winning your honor

5 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

“Ben’s got a package.”

Xavier tosses it up onto the kitchen counter, leaning hip cocked against it and rifling mail. He does this, sort of habitually. End of the week, goes through the big stack they accumulate and plucks out credit card ads, junk mail, the works. Lark and Benny don’t mind, because they’re both awful at keeping up with the mail, but also don’t seem nearly as annoyed by the fishing attempts as Xavier. He’s diligent about it, licks a finger to flick through three peoples worth of incoming post.

Lark slides the package toward himself, sharpie in hand, cap between his teeth. He snorts and draws Xavier’s attention from the letter that’s made to look like a distant relative. Lark caps the marker.

“I was gonna cover up his name, but he beat me to it.” He pushes the little brown parcel to the other end of the counter. It has no logo on it, but that’s really of no surprise. Xavier has a feeling that Ben doesn’t always shop at the most reputable places online; and doesn’t always get shipped the most Above Board things. It could be full of spiders or Uranium. He peers at the shipping label Lark indicates with the sharpie marker.

“Wow,” he laughs, tossing the rest of the mail into it’s designated little tray (that somehow always gets things other than mail in it, despite how much he whines). “Their names do sort of go together like that, huh?”

“It’s cute,” Lark agrees.

The package is addressed to BENNY MARAN, with no return label.

—

When Maran gets into the room, he goes for the bed immediately. Throws himself back onto it, just to roll over and decide he wants to be on his knees. He does a wiggle to get himself comfortable, patting the area in front of him with buzzing excitement. He’s got freshly dyed hair, which is sometimes such an odd turn on for Benny. Something about the slight chemical smell lingering and all the cute blue stains on the pads of his fingers, because he’d gone for a bright teal color to compliment the oncoming winter months.

Benny stays leaned against his bedroom door for a moment until Maran’s cheeks go puffy from his pout. He rolls eyes up to the ceiling, claps hands together and then dramatically drops his chin.

“Please?” He draws the word out, in what could probably be an annoying voice to anyone who wasn’t Ben—madly fucking in love, Ben. To him, it’s not just cute. It tugs out a little spool of heat from his abdomen, that sweet little please. Maran bats his thick dark lashes, fingers drumming on the bed, making the heat worse. “I wanna know what it is!”

“I’m not sp-spoiling.” Benny meanders toward the bed. It truly is a wander, because he’s slow about it. Rolls himself off the door, hips first, package tucked under his arm. Maran’s eyes do that inevitable flick down and then up—like he can’t help but watch the way Benny’s body moves so gracefully. He’s not exactly agile—not like Xavier, slender and pretty. He’s not like Lark either, with an athletes apex predator movement.

But Benny has perfected that sleazy little walk that makes Maran’s eyes go glassy and fixated.

He plops the cardboard box onto the bed and then turns toward his desk.

“I’m using the knife,” he declares.

“Don’t trust me with sharp objects?”

“Mm,” Ben replies noncommittally as he locates the hunting knife on his desk that he most certainly does not use for hunting purposes. But Xavier had given it to him, almost randomly—because Xavier was the random act of affection kind of person—and he was now sort of attached to it and it’s silly wolf print handle. He flicks it open and catches the way Maran looks a it; his little hints of intrigue are everywhere sometimes, now that he’s started figuring out everything can be something to make things fun.

Of course, he’s still pouting, hands around the box like it’s already his.

Truthfully, Benny doesn’t mean to treat Maran like he’s incompetent, because he’s not.

He’d just spend the entire time watching Maran slide a knife under packing tape thinking, oh fuck he’s going to cut himself and that worry would mar the gift inside. And Benny liked finding neat little ways to keep Maran safe from even the illusion of harms way. Secretly, he lets himself admit sometimes, that he likes taking care of Maran. He likes being the one, taking care.

“What is it?”

“No spoiling, I just said.”

“Aw.”

He slides the knife along the dark brown edges of tape, grinning at Maran all the while. His pretty brown eyes follow, his excitement clear and palpable. Benny knows whats inside, because he’d been…diligently tracking it. Diligently. He’d been checking nearly every other day and reopening the link to his purchase just to stare at it. Imagine it’s uses for when it arrived. He doesn’t unfold the cardboard flaps. Instead, he closes the knife on his thigh and tosses it onto the desk.

When Maran does finally get the box open, he immediately closes it and swings his head back, eyes on the ceiling. Benny is treated to the most beautiful vision of his throat like that, and also, the dark pink spreading over his face. It clashes with the new teal of his hair in such a way that he looks like an animated character; something unreal. Benny thinks that a lot about Maran, and a lot of the time that feeling makes him tender and soft—unfortunately, it does the opposite at that exact moment.

Benny steps around the side of the bed to be closer to Maran. Along with the chemical smell of freshly dyed hair, there is lingering sugar—there is the sweet smell of the apple pie he’d ordered at the dinner they were just at. Benny wants to devour him in ways that don’t entirely feel wholesome. His fingers do a slide from the boys chest to his throat, to hold onto his jaw and slowly lower his face so they can look at each other.

“You said you liked that one,” Benny purrs out the sentence, his voice darker than he even truly means it to be. Not necessarily like he can help it, because Maran gets him there so quickly. The easy switch from date night boyfriend to—whatever he is now; domineering, aggressive, possessive. Makes that mean reflex in his hands tighten. His thumb brushes lovingly over a slightly stubbled jawline, up to touch his lower lip. Benny feels him shiver.

“Okay, right, I didn’t know it was going to—I thought we ordered that like last week?” His voice gets sweetly higher pitched at the end. Maran always sort of talks like there’s a question in his sentences; it was a cadence that usually annoyed Benny. But not with Maran. There was nothing Maran ever did that annoyed him (there was, of course, but not in that moment and he certainly didn’t think for the next hour or so he’d remember any).

“Sue me,” Benny continues in that rough tone. “I paid for exp-pe-pedited shipping.”

“It’s bigger than I thought it’d be,” Maran whispers in a breathy tone that Benny swears he could feel right against his skin. It makes something vicious inside him throb with painful desire. Maran’s brows are upturned with that edged tint of embarrassment. Not the bad kind; it’s this dark hint of humiliation that he knows Maran sort of enjoys. It’s like when he’s teased the right way, or mocked in a tone that he likes.

“Worried it wont fit?”

“Fuck you,” Maran laughs but it has a high pitched nervous energy to it. He sinks a bit on his haunches, hands moving away packing innards. The paper gets tossed to the side, lost amongst Benny’s already messy room. Maran’s olive toned hand finally dips inside and removes the toy; he isn’t embellishing. The toy lingers between a medium and a large, because Benny had filtered out the XL’s from the search. Knew Maran would have eyes too big too quick.

He’d also picked his favorite colors, this impossibly velvet dark navy and a strangely garish orange. They marbled well. Maran holds the dildo in both hands, staring with big eyes.

“Right, well. Lube?”

“We’re n-not using that tonight,” Benny sputters out a laugh, reeling back slightly. He loses a bit of that dominant composure but he likes when that happens. Sometimes, Maran pops bubbles without meaning too and it’s never in a bad way. Says or does something that makes the tension bubbling up roll over and instead of climaxing, just sort of exploding hilariously. Benny hasn’t had many partners—truthfully, it might be no partner—that can make him laugh so easily in the moment.

Maran’s back to pouting. His hand does a single tug on the toy, as if sizing it up. That quickly makes Benny’s half hard cock give a twitch, watching his hand curl around it like that.

“Why not?” And he can tell Maran is thinking that Benny is back to early months; where Maran had to struggle for more than a kiss, to get a hand down Benny’s jeans, to quicken the languid pace Benny had set. They’re past that, of course. They’re buying sex toys together. But Maran seems primed to be worried that Benny at one moment will put a flat hand on his chest and push him back on the bed and tell him slow down. Which, he wants to point out, he’d done out of…well, love.

Benny crosses to his wall. It’s plastered in movie posters and also sticky notes for his classwork. He lifts a fist and pounds twice on it.

There’s only a brief pause before he gets two in return.

“I m-might like fucking with Lark, but I like keeping y-your noises to myself.”

“I can be quiet,” Maran draws the word out, quiiiiiiiet, as he leans on the bed. He’s put aside the toy, hands outstretched. His deft fingers snag Benny’s jean pockets and tug him closer. He doesn’t resist. He lets himself be pulled closer and closer. Maran is looking up at him with such big, brown eyes that he finds it instantly hard to say no to him. He’s smiling too, his freckled face mischievous.

Benny leans down and cups Maran’s cheeks. He kisses him. Makes it a long one, deep and full of tongue. He tastes the cherry pie. He pulls away, presses their noses together.

“When you fuck yourself with that thing, even you won’t be able to be quiet, baby.”

He can almost feel the heat on his palms from Maran’s face. His breath hitches a bit, his hands moving from pockets around to cup Benny’s thighs and squeeze. He feels that arousal like a shot to the fucking head. Benny smiles, pulls Maran’s chin down, watches his tongue roll out without even needing to be told.

“I can find other ways to keep you quiet,” Benny murmurs, before putting his own tongue there. And even Maran can moan a little at that.

—

That night Benny fucks Maran’s mouth, lovingly. He goes from kneeling on the bed, to kneeling on the floor, his face held in Benny’s tattooed hands. He makes it languid and slow, instead of rough and fast, even though his hips beg to make it snappy. Make it a little mean. But sometimes the slow is so good, even he can’t deny it. Even someone who would swear, with a hand on the bible, that mean rough fast hard brutal was his favorite way to go.

That night, thinking about Maran’s mischievous face, his palms lovingly spread around the back of Benny’s thighs, he watches his cock sink in and out of his boys mouth. Plush lips getting wet, tongue out to make it messy. He watches Maran’s pretty eyes flicker open and close at random intervals. They gather tears at the edges when Benny slides as deep as he can go, cups Maran’s cheeks. He makes a gulping sound, hands holding harder.

That’s my boy, Benny says in a smug voice. Look at you—how much you love it. And Maran’s mouth too full to reply, so he only makes the softest groaning sound. It is quiet. But the quiet makes it sort of intimate, just like the slow.

Not that he keeps it pure; he does pull out in time to cum across Maran’s face. A splash of his cum on his cheek, his chin, across his lips. Maran purses them, rubs against his tip in a way that makes Benny see stars. Makes the whole fucking galaxy explode behind his eyes. His hand jerks around Maran’s throat and squeezes harshly and then he’s the one who has to struggle to be quiet. The sensation of Maran’s wet mouth, just pursed, kissing him like that, almost pulls more from him.

It continues the whole night, this quiet but intimate and also filthy vibe. He makes Maran straddle him, jerk off and cum across his stomach. He rolls them together, rubbing their hips frantically together until they’re disgusting, tacky, cumming together. Benny kisses Maran so much that his lips hurt; and Maran kisses him even more. Gets greedy with his mouth and tongue. The evolve to fingers and hands and mouths in other places—

And all in all, it’s one of the nights he stays with and remembers, because they’re fucking debauched all the time, sure. A lot of the time. But, it still somehow does not compare to the night where they’re finally alone. Truly alone.

Enough for Maran to try out the toy.

—

Benny is a bit cruel about the foreplay. He has to be; the prep is important, he argues. Maran whines, face down on the bed, hands fisted into the sheets. He’s sweet about holding in his noises, bites down on the pillow while Benny’s mouth is occupied elsewhere. He’s greedy about it, lavishes with his tongue—won’t settle until he gets one from Maran. At least with his mouth, his fingers, just one from just him and nothing else.

“Ben,” Maran manages in a pathetic whimper, face pressed to the pillow, teeth around the fabric. He pants and writhes and arches and slaps a hand against the wall. He bucks backward into fingers—one, then two and then three. He makes gasping sounds as Benny bites up his back and to his ear.

“C’mon,” Benny murmurs playfully. “You in a rush?”

“I thought,” Maran gasps, tosses his head to the side, digs into the pillow more. His hips are shivering. He’s so close it makes Benny feel kinship with sharks—he wants to tear him apart, the pleasure to rip seams.“I was going to fuck—”

The groan rips out between Benny’s teeth as he shoves his face into the crux of Maran’s shoulder and neck. His whole body shudders with the effort, his hand quickening.

“Don’t say shit like that,” he growls.

“Ah—that’s—what I’ll be doing?”

Benny’s free hand slides under Maran’s throat and jerks his head back. He’s nasty about it, watches that flicker of ‘oh that hurt in the good way hurt’ across Maran’s pleasure addled face. His glossy eyes swim and search for Benny, who leans closer so they can find each other. He feels his own oh that hurts as he watches Maran’s beautiful face open in a welcoming, loving smile. Trusting. Vulnerably excited.

“I want—”

His face gets shoved into the pillow again, Benny’s fingers losing any sense of mercy. Maran’s voice rises, though its muffled. His body twists and jerks and bucks. He thrusts for sensation against the bed, his voice becoming a little cry as he cums. Benny watches the flex of his back muscles, the beautiful arch of his spine. He wants to lick down it, he wants to pepper kisses and bruises. Instead his fingers do a soft, few thrusts to carry him all the way through and then Benny straddles Maran’s back.

He leans down, nestles his mouth close.

“You’re going to get what you want,” Benny whispers. “And I’m gonna watch.”

—

Benny liked a lot of things about opening Maran’s eyes to kink. He liked browsing that website a week or so back and watching Maran realize that things like this existed. Not that he previously had no idea what a dildo was; more than he had no idea that they could come in varieties. Shapes, colors, for more than just the college freshmen girl to explore after escaping suburbia. They existed for men, for men like Maran who wanted to know what it was like to be stretched, filled, for it to hurt in that good burning way.

He also liked showing Maran how much fun things could be if you played sex almost like a game. Not the manipulative, comphet game was tricked into playing for so long—but like setting the scene. Like this—

Maran kneels, completely nude, with his hands spread across Benny’s knees. The sneering blond sits at the edge of the bed, still mostly clothed. In jeans and combat boots and his buttoned shirt fully undone. He leans back, hands braced on his bed, smiling. He knows this all goes together; it makes Maran feel vulnerable, exposed, maybe a little humiliated—a little corrupted.

He taps fingers under Maran’s chin, makes him look up as he continues the slow rhythm he’s started. It had taken Maran more than a minute to situate. To fully lean down with weight onto the toy. He’d made a noise unlike anything he’d ever made before that would live inside Benny for days to come—months. Maybe years. He’d slipped a hand over his mouth and another down between his legs and looked at Benny with such sweet, glassy eyes that it had been hard not to tear him back up onto the bed.

“Go on.”

“Ben.”

“Good boy, Maran.”

The encouragement makes a visible shiver run through Maran, who leans forward with his hands braced around Benny’s shins. He fucks himself harder, a semi-desperate pace. He bounces, his voice getting unmistakably louder with every churn of his hips. His cock drips, mostly ignored, because Maran’s hands have a painful tight grip around Benny’s calves. Maran’s forehead touches his knee. Benny looks at the gorgeous slope of the nape of his neck, down his back.

His head snaps up when he hears the sound of Benny’s zipper. His eyes are all pupil, sweat sliding from temple to chin. His cheeks are gorgeously flushed, his freckles popping in contrast.

“Did I say stop?” Benny asks, as he pulls himself from his briefs. Hands move up his legs, start a shaky paw across his thighs. Benny’s lip curls in a rude smile and he lifts a booted foot. Plants it right to Maran’s chest and pushes him back. He gets a delicious sounding, thin moan as Maran’s weight shifts, pushes him down on the toy. His desperate breathing goes heavier and heavier as he leans back, one hand loosely wrapped around Benny’s ankle.

His pace gets even more frantic then. He bounces harder, the hand not touching Benny scrambling behind him and using the wall to keep himself upright. Benny strokes himself, lazily, watches the way Maran’s whole body moves now with fervent, unbridled desire. His boot against Maran’s sternum goes just slightly harder—and then Maran, his sweet, fucking Maran, who rarely ever lets a moan escape, who tries so hard to keep himself quiet, who bites pillows and bed sheets and even his own fucking hand—gets loud.

Maran gets loud, he gets messy with his volume. Incoherent with his words, except the desperate way he says Ben’s name. It makes Benny lose composure, makes him stand. The boot slides off Maran’s chest, nestles between his freckled, tan thighs instead. Maran’s face goes redder and the intoxication of embarrassment and pleasure makes his brown eyes roll back. Benny cups his cheek, stares down at the vision of his boyfriend riding a toy, looking up at him.

“Maran—fuck—are you—” He means to ask if he’s close (he’s not even sure why, maybe just to help him finish through it, maybe because he’s also lost it, maybe because he’s just in love and watching Maran experience something this big is making him insane), but Maran’s desperate arm wraps around Benny’s thighs, jerks their bodies close and his whole body shakes with the orgasm.

The tears slide across Maran’s cheek, that gets pressed into Benny’s hip, right against the handgun tattoo. He strokes himself to a near painful finish, his other hand doing gentle pets across Maran’s soft, fuzzy hair.

—

Benny’s also careful with this; the comedown ritual that Maran’s never had any need to experience before. An argument could be made that aftercare was special, even in the most vanilla of situations—but it wasn’t just special, but necessary. And sometimes Maran was a bit of a brat about it. Was tired or the adrenaline dump was so messy it made him shivery in a way that wasn’t always pleasant.

This is a good one. Where he’s supple and pliant and lets Benny take his time and be good to him. Barely keeps himself upright in the shower as he’s washed up, but his arms stay hooked around Ben’s shoulders, one of his hands doing a sleepy pet through pale hair. He’s grinning too, that elated, nearly drunk smile. Eyes tired, relaxed, fuzzy around the edges. Benny peppers him with kisses, with praise, with little thanks.

I liked watching. You did so good. You looked so good. Did you enjoy it? And Maran’s humming replies, his soft here and there laughs until they’re finally in the bed again.

Maran does doze off for a little and when he wakes up, seems ridiculously interested in the snacks that Benny keeps hidden underneath his bed. Rifles through the basket, half across his boyfriend, searching for those chocolates that Benny keeps buying. All the while, his pale hand makes an appreciative, soft pat to Maran’s ass as.

“Are we going to Til’s tomorrow?”

“Do you kn-know how fucking amazing you are?” Benny interrupts, tugging Maran by the face so they can look at each other. “Do you know yo-you’re the craziest, best thing that’s ever happened to me? You little shit.” The blush on Maran is a soft pink in comparison for how sweaty and flushed his cheeks had been hours before. He smiles softer, a little bashful, a shy note that makes Benny insane.

“We can go anywhere you f-fucking want.”

“I mean—” he licks a bit of chocolate off his top lip, narrowing eyes. “Always wanted to try Canada, but Matilda’s got a sick apartment.”

“Matilda’s it fucking is.”

And then he pulls Maran in to kiss him. Really kiss him. One of those kisses that isn’t going to lead to sex, isn’t filthy or intense. Just all sweet.

#benny #maran #benny x maran #uni au

4 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

They share everything, because of course they do. Nomi never realized that was what best friends did until she met Matilda. Until they linked pinkies together walking down the street, or put two straws in one fountain soda, or used the same lip balm on a night out. Nomi didn’t realize it could be like that; to find a person that felt so similar and dissimilar at the same time. To find someone who all at once had felt like they were missing from her life all along.

And it explains why they kiss.

It’s not long after they become friends; Matilda had complimented her Bristol accent and Nomi had disparaged her Philly one and they had nearly fought about that until Matilda realized Nomi wasn’t being a cunt, she was being honest. And Matilda was the kind of girl constantly on the hunt for anyone to actually be honest in this world. It’s not long after they spend a whole week sleeping in the same bed because they stay up too late watching awful youtube conspiracy and drama videos.

Not long after they practically kiss one night anyway, when they’re at a party and Matilda playfully, drunkenly asks if Nomi wants gum and offers her the already half chewed stick in her mouth. Nomi opening her mouth just as jokingly and Matilda leaning in, like she’d complete the kiss.

It’s just not long after that but frankly, the time sort of blurs because it’s some of the best Nomi has ever had.

It makes it easier, when they both pull away from each other and realize that was not what either of them wanted. Not to say it wasn’t a good kiss—Nomi later ruminates on it and realizes she had liked the kiss, just not who. They had been in her bed, with all four of it’s blankets and too many stuffed animals and Matilda’s long leg had slid between her own (and that had been, admittedly, very nice) and her soft hand had trailed up over her rib (very nice) and touched her cheek (so nice) and when they had both leaned in, the lightest brush of tongue had been sensual.

“Oh.”

“Hm.”

And either girl had erupted into laughter at that, thankfully. A jostling of their bodies together that no longer felt heated or sexual; back to playfully platonically intimate. Nomi’s mood lighting in the background made Matilda look neon and so beautiful. It was nice to still find her electrically alluring, even after the kiss had made her realize this was only friendship.

“Okay, at least we tried it,” Matilda snickers, tucking freshly dyed red hair back from Nomi’s face. Just two strands—dark navy mixes with Matilda’s technicolor cherry hair as well.

“I don’t think you’re my type, love,” Nomi sighs, smiling. Matilda’s chapstick is vanilla flavored. It’s nice. They get comfortable in the bed again, cell phones out, ready to fall into the comfortable silence of two firmly decided best friends. Only Matilda pauses, eyes flickering up as she grins softly.

“Nomi, what is your type?”

She finds herself so stunned that she cannot reply. Nomi doesn’t know. She doesn’t think she’ll ever know.

—

They don’t share Lark.

Which makes sense.

Nomi can’t recall ever seeing Matilda fall for someone so hard so quickly—but she never actually says that out loud, because Matilda still follows routine with this one. Lark had popped up so suddenly that sometimes Nomi thinks Matilda had wished him into existence. That she had pulled out a secret diary and journaled about him and someone magic (maybe Matilda’s terrifying, awe inspiring, beautiful mother) had simply created a boy that was so wholly…her type.

Lark was gorgeous, with facial features that were a mingle of masculine and artistically pretty. His monolid eyes were dark and the intensity of his stare when he looked at Matilda was nothing short of enviable. And yet…not her type, maybe.

Nomi could sit down and write everything good about Lark and see where Matilda fit in. She could see, even when Matilda was picking fights or testing Lark’s patience or trying to make things difficult—because that was Matilda sometimes, always on the hunt for someone to give up before she ever got too attached to really let them closer—she could see what it was about him that drove Matilda fucking insane for him.

Nomi’s lists didn’t help her.

“Xavier is pretty,” she decides to say randomly, to see what Matilda will say back. They sit at the bar, waiting for drinks to get paid for them, because they inevitably will be. Matilda adjusts her earrings using her phones camera as it stays propped against the beer tap.

“Too tall,” she jokes, with a clever eye roll. Lark’s height was not something that Nomi had even noticed. Or thought might be on that left con column for some people; and yet Matilda was hyper aware of the way people treated her boyfriend.

“Do you think he’d like me?”

“He’d be a fucking moron not to,” Matilda replies as she swipes her phone and stuffs it into her top. She’d borrowed one of Nomi’s and it sits gracefully oversized on her more slender frame—instead of looking sloppy, she looks artfully designed for comfort and the erotic suggestion of what could be underneath that baggier top. Nomi thinks Lark will start bar fights over that suggestion, but she admits to herself that she does want a free drink.

“But,” Nomi points out with a raised finger. “That’s not what I asked.”

“I love you,” Matilda starts out, with a sideways glance. It’s her I love you but expression, where she is about to say something honest. Nomi likes that expression. Likes even more their commitment to that honesty. “And Xavier’s type is absolutely goth-alt-punk to rival his good boy, definitely went to a Catholic school vibe—but I think his tastes are skewing a little more masculine these days. Do you read me?”

Nomi pouts over her shoulder, scanning the crowd for the friend group she isn’t entirely sure she fits into. They share that too, she supposes; this new found gaggle of humans that had come along with her pretty little Lark. Xavier is hip close with Benji, because it seems impossible to find one without the other when they’re all roving as a pack like this.

They look like friends. They stand close, but no closer than friends always do in a crowded bar. Xavier touches occasionally, a hand lifting to cup Benji’s elbow, or a brush of their shoulders on what must be a funny joke because both of them grin conspiratorially together. Nomi watches Benji’s upturned face go soft, Xavier lost in conversation—she blinks over at Matilda, whose vape hangs from her clenched together teeth, eyes narrowed in elated triumph.

“Eugh,” Nomi concedes. “I hate when you know somethin’ before me. You’ll give me the details on that later, yeah?”

She has to admit that she did find Xavier pretty. He was so classically handsome; freckled and warm, with a wide smile that invited people to talk to him. He was generous with his affection, which she’d rarely experienced before. But he was no Lark, Nomi guessed. She had not written him down in a diary.

Maybe Benji had.

—

“Don’t let me fall,” Nomi pleads, with big, wet, terrified eyes. “OhmyGod, Maran—please, don’t let me fall.”

“I’m not!” He’s laughing, but it isn’t mocking or condescending or cruel. It’s soft and genuine but—he’s soothing her, Nomi thinks. Innately, with that sweet voice of his. Second nature. This gentle, from the chest lullaby. His arms wrap around her waist—respectful like. He doesn’t try and cram their bodies together, or touch her where she might not want to be touched (where would that be? From him? She isn’t sure, suddenly).

They’re a four legged strange beast on the roller skating rink. Her legs keep threatening to shoot out from underneath her and Maran’s broad shoulders are the only thing keeping her upright. He is broad, too. Nomi isn’t small (she’s supposed to be, she thinks, like Sunshine; she’s meant to be petite and dainty and tiny and thin) but Maran sort of makes her feel a bit small. His hand catches hers and even that feels rough and large, unlike holding Matilda’s. Their fingers interlock.

“I got you, I promise—look at me, Noms, I really do.” Underneath the insane colors of the skate rinks overhead lights, he looks so fucking beautiful. They flash across his freckled face, make his eyes liquid. She stares up at him—her lungs suddenly seem uncooperative and not because she’s terrified of falling on her ass and making an absolute fool of herself.

They manage—how, she isn’t sure—to scoot their way to the booth at the edge of the rink. It’s empty, because the rest of their friends are either occupied on the skate rink, or to the attached arcade. Nomi had felt panicked the second she’d stepped into the place, but had also felt such a vicious determination to have fun and do something new. And it had only bit her in the fucking ass. The clunky roller skates were giving her a blister, and the adrenaline fear of falling and her skirt ripping and showing herself in the middle of—

“Did you have fun?” Maran sits close to her in the booth. One of his arms is thrown around the back. He’s smiling at her, Nomi realizes. It feels…intimate. Private. Warm. Her chest constricts and her stomach hurts. Painfully. Looking at him feels painful. Oh fuck, he’s so good looking sometimes when she closes her eyes, he pops up accidentally.

“No,” she blurts out. His smile falters a bit and she quickly raises her hands, shaking them. “No! I mean—no, I—I don’t think skating is for me, right? I was fuckin’ dismal at it.” Her bubbling laugh catches her off guard, but it ignites Maran’s smile back to full force. He has freckles on his lips, even. She wonders about those freckles. Where else they might be.

“You made it fun, though.”

“Benji’s older sister taught me how to roller skate,” Maran says, tucking himself just slightly closer. She notices how good he is about not touching her. Sometimes, she wants him too, but the fact that he doesn’t go about it just assuming it’s okay—he makes her fucking dizzy. “She’s so cool—you’d get along with Saha. One of my favorite people on the planet, really. Wish she was here in the US sometimes.”

To be briefly compared to someone he thought highly of made Nomi’s heart feel oddly sized underneath her sternum. She presses a hand there briefly, smiling at the array of half devoured food on their booths table.

Nomi wants to ask if he’ll go to the arcade side with her, but she’s interrupted when Benny slides in front of the booth.

He’s good at skating. He had been effortlessly gliding around the rink with Matilda, the two of them showing off by going backward, or pulling some funny footwork. She’d watched him for a long time and maybe that was why Maran had offered to pull her onto the rink and help her learn. Maybe he’d noticed her watching Benny—because truthfully, she watches Benny a lot.

His light blond hair is only slight sweat darkened. He pushes stringy strands of it back from his forehead, his other hand lingering in his pocket. He looks almost too tall in the skates, his posture so easy and relaxed. He smiles at the both of them in that way he smiles; like he knows a secret. Like he knows all their secrets and no one knows any of his. That smile makes her warm all over. Makes her stomach hurt, just like before.

“Nomi,” he greets. Hearing her name said like that makes a tingle jolt down her thighs. She crosses her legs and when his eyes fall to them, she almost regrets it. Almost. Because, him looking there feels—she doesn’t want to think about how it fucking feels. “Can I ha-have my boy back?”

She can feel Maran shifting beside her in reaction. My boy. Nomi taps her long, acrylic nails on the booth table. What is it like, then? To be Benny’s boy. To belong to him. Nomi tries picturing the two of them together; she’s done this plenty of times with all her friends. Stared at the couples she inevitably gets surrounded by and wonders what the inner, secret workings of their relationship are like.

But when she imagines Lark and Matilda, or Mouse and Naima or Kacie and Cole, she usually imagines what their dates are like or if they share toothbrushes or something disgusting but fondly romantic.

When Nomi thinks of Benny and Maran (my boy) she instantly pictures them kissing. Their tongues touching, Benny’s large, tattooed hands cupping Maran’s pretty freckled face. Maran’s broad shoulders and Benny’s ice colored eyes, hooded, looking down at Maran as he sinks lower and those kisses descend and—

“I wasn’t holding him hostage, babe,” Nomi says, to quickly cover the sudden spiraling happening inside her. She suddenly understands why some people have nicotine addictions. She craves something to stop the other cravings.

“Oh no,” Maran jokes, hands held up, his wrists together in mock surrender. “Hold me hostage.”

“Little bastard,” Benny growls out the words like a purr, leaning in to wrap arms around his waist and yank him from the booth. They stumble together. They nearly slip and fall to the ground. As they skate away, Nomi entertains the briefest thought of what it would be like to be in the middle of the two of them.

—

“I think you need to masturbate about it,” Matilda says with grave finality.

“Don’t be nasty!” Nomi slaps her best friend’s shin in retaliation. Matilda’s foot wiggles between her thighs, like she might kick, but then settles. Instead she grins wickedly, stylus to her tablet as she sketches her next project. The music in the room is set on low and mingles with the television, which also has a repeat of a terrible show they’d been watching together about an insufferable mother and daughter pair.

Nomi dips the nail polish brush back into the bottle and returns to her work, despite Matilda’s wriggling.

“I’m not even joking,” she continues. She has that careful look of concentration on her face as she stares at her iPad. Nomi watches her tap fingers on the screen to edit something. The neon artwork that’ll come to life in months from this newest idea that had sprung half formed into Matilda’s head at two in the morning needed near constant attention. And so Matilda also needed constant distraction.

Nomi offered that in the form of both painting her toe nails and talking non stop about her current problem.

“It’s wrong,” she mutters, capping the nail polish and sagging back in the bed. “They’re together, aren’t they?” Matilda is silent for a moment. Not ignoring Nomi, but thinking of what to say next. It makes her nervous, because Matilda is not usually careful with her words. She says what she means; they share this. Their honesty ties them together. Nomi needs it.

“Yes,” Matilda replies slowly, dragging the word out. “I think they are like, firmly dating now.” Nomi makes a sound of utmost suffering, throwing her head back against the pillow behind her. “Okay—but you’re allowed to have crushes? Like, that’s not a sin! Maran is cute. Benny is—unique.”

“Oh shut up,” Nomi snips, flapping her hands with annoyance. “I know you think Benny is hot.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. He’s so up your alley it’s not even funny.”

“He just has tattoos, Nomi. Tattoos make everyone hot.”

Nomi bursts into laughter then, covering her face with her hands. She shakes her head until the laughs die out into pitiful sounds that are not her crying. She sniffs a few times, as if to cement that she is not crying and then admits—

“I didn’t even notice his stupid tattoos. I know they’re all over him—like, he’s proper fucking covered? Even his neck—ridiculous scorpion—but I swear, it just didn’t even click. One day he was handing me a beer and I looked at his hand and went oh God, he’s got knuckle tattoos?”

“Bad ones,” Matilda points out, but her hand has found Nomi’s and is gently squeezing it.

“Awful ones,” Nomi agrees. She imagines those pale, tattooed hands spreading across her thighs, touching underneath her knees, hiking them up. She groans, lowly. “Poor Maran. I can’t believe—he’s my friend—and I’m here thinkin’ that about his boyfriend?”

“Well you aren’t thinking anything innocent about Maran either.”

“Mati!” Nomi sits up, but the crying becomes a laugh at that.

“What? How long have we been friends? I’ve never heard you talk about anyone as much as you talk about Maran.” She wants to deny it immediately—but she can’t. Nomi had noticed herself doing exactly that and had even tried to mediate herself. She’d start a conversation, Maran at the center (because he felt so completely core in her life now) and then have to reel herself in. She’d started taking mental notes at how frequently she said his name. She started trying to lessen it—and it hadn’t worked.

“It can’t be both of them,” Nomi argues quietly. “That’s so fucked of me. Both of them? And they’re dating each other. That’s even worse. Not like they’re single. Matilda, I’m so fuckin’ wretched.” The crying starts up again, and this time, she knows it wont stop. Because she hasn’t stopped. She’s been thinking of nothing but this, for weeks. On end. Cycling herself through the misery of knowing, with complete certainty she’d found two fucking Lark’s.

Matilda launches across the bed to hug her.

“I just painted your toes, you’re messing them up.”

“Oh my God, Nomi, shut up.”

And she does, and let’s herself cry about it on Matilda’s shoulder.

—

That becomes a hilariously soft memory for them and only them. Nomi never talks about that night to anyone else; but Matilda will remind her of how bad her mascara had run and how awful she’d looked the day after, with puffy sad eyes. It’s not malicious—this gentle teasing is wholly Matilda. And the reminder is funny, because of how everything had worked out. That Matilda had been there, for the very beginning to the very now.

Well. Not right now, because no one will ever be in this right now except the three of them.

Right now is—

***

Nomi buries her face to Maran’s neck, her panting cries louder with every push of her body forward into him. Powerful hands stay closed around her hips, yanking her back just as she’s driven forward by the man inside her. Nomi’s eyes roll and close and her nails drag down Maran’s back, because she holds onto him as best as she can.

All three lay on their sides—Benny behind her and Maran in front of her, pillows cast off the bed, blankets nothing but forgotten messes. They move in a flowing rhythm of push and pull, limbs arranged to make the position possible. At some point, she had stopped paying attention to whose hands were whose and whose lips were whose and who was moving her, or touching her, because it didn’t matter. It was them, it was Benny and Maran and both of them at the same time.

It had started with that request from her. And some would think it a statement like I want you both, because that’s what it is, really. Her, in the middle of them, Benny fucking from behind as Maran fucks from the front, as they both fill her in a way that makes her dizzying head go soft and beautifully warm and safe and so good, so so good.

But it was more I want us. Three. I want it to be all three of us. That’s what it is, more than the two of them fucking her at the same time, that’s what it is, when the position shifts so Benny and Maran can kiss while inside her. That’s what it’s about, when she is asking for harder, and Maran’s gentle thumbs are brushing tears from under her eyes. His soft, plush lips across her jawline, to her ear, to say things to her that make her almost closer than the throb of them inside her.

The positions change so she can lay against Maran’s chest, so he can welcome her tongue with his own, outstretched, erotically obscene and yet adorable and him. Benny’s hand holds her shoulder and his brutal thrusts keep them snapping together. She whimpers into Maran’s welcoming mouth, her sharp pointed hands digging into his skin. He makes noises at the pain of it, at the feel of being inside her as Benny sets pace.

There is a sudden hand from behind, cupping her throat, tilting her head. Maran pushes them upward, his hand braced on the bed—all three of their faces get so close then. Their heavy breathing, their panting, their moans mingling. She can barely see through her pleasure fogged eyes, head falling forward to rest on Maran’s shoulder.

Nomi means to say, I love you both so much and I love that you love each other and love me.

Instead, she is crying out, “Don’t fucking stop, I’m so close, please—” and both men take that as a challenge to make it the best one she ever fucking has.

—

She sleeps almost immediately after. So tired, it’s difficult for her to even stumble back from the bathroom and into their welcoming arms. She thinks she sleeps anyway, laid on one of them, hands soothing her sides up and down. One pets her hair gently and the murmur of their voices intertwines with blue watery dreams. Every time she shifts, one of them does as well. A hand never stops touching her.

“Are you talking about X-Files?” Nomi barely registers her own hoarse voice but it silences the two men for a moment.

“Yes,” Maran admits in his sheepish, sweet voice.

“The series only, n-not the movie. It was bad.”

Nomi’s hands have no sense of grace as they pat their way to faces. She cups either of their cheeks, eyes not opening, cheek still firmly planted on one of their sternums.

“I love you both,” she says and then really does fall completely unconscious.

***

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Matilda leans with her elbows on the bar, a toothpick from a martini tapping against her lips. She keeps them glossy so men will look at them, and that is exactly what the stranger is doing. He’s tall and white and handsome with short blond hair and the exact kind of look that says he knows hes tall and white and handsome (and with short blond hair? Maybe, he doesn’t look that level of self aware).

“Hm,” Matilda plays the hum out, continuing that tap to draw attention to her pretty mouth.

“You can fuck off and die,” Lark says as he approaches, a hand sliding across Matilda’s lower back and sneaking onto her thigh from behind. She’s toweringly tall sitting on the bar stool but Lark—somehow Lark never looks short. And he is, compared to Tall White Handsome, who stares down at him with an incredulous expression.

“Fuck you, man—”

“I’ll kill you,” Lark says, so easily and efficiently, it doesn’t need to sound like a threat. It sounds a lot more like guaranteed fact. Lark tilts his chin up slightly, staring with those dark, intense eyes. The Short Haired Blond steps back with raised hands, defeated and embarrassed. Lark turns his flat gaze on Matilda.

“You’ve been playing darts with Xavier for like two hours.”

“We got here thirty minutes ago.”

“And?”

Nomi slips away as they ‘argue’. She’s seen this ritual enough times to know its an excuse for them to take that argument home. She wont be surprised by the text message apology that Matilda is abandoning her, when she’s really not. Especially because Nomi feels anything but abandoned as she crosses the bar to the darts area. Matilda is only half wrong—it was not two hours, but Lark and Xavier had done nothing but when they’d seen the dart board.

Benji watches, but seems like he’s almost trying to pretend like he isn’t. Nomi has noticed—and not mentioned—that Benji often seems to be pretending like he isn’t watching Xavier recently.

“Did you get a Halloween costume yet?” She asks him, now both of them watching Xavier land perfect bulls eye after perfect bulls eye. His shirt stretches across his muscular back. It is…not an unpleasant sight.

“Mm,” Benji replies.

“Is that a yes?”

“What?”

“Where did my two go?” Nomi asks, instead of bothering him further.

Benji looks briefly apologetic, a dark palm rubbing the back of his neck. He offers her the sort of smile he only really ever gives his friends. She’s stunned sometimes to be counted among that small circle. Sometimes, Nomi thinks her and Benji are alike, but she doesn’t know how. And sometimes, she wants to tell him that, put her forehead to his and try and get him to crack open a bit, but she can’t pry. She won’t—she should, maybe. But instead, she lets him pretend not to watch Xavier out his peripheral.

“Outside, ‘round the back.”

“It’s fucking freezin’ out. Maran’s going to get a cold,” she huffs with annoyance. Benji softens more at the edges. He shrugs out his leather jacket, a thing well loved with patches and pins and hands it over to her. Underneath, he’s not dressed for the oncoming winter months either, sleeves cut off, arm holes drastically low on the sides to reveal the tattoos underneath his pectorals. She wonders about them a lot.

“You’re such a doll, you know he’s always forgetting his jacket.”

“Did you see that?” Xavier hoots, turning on his heel. “Bulls—” His voice catches in his throat and he clears it with a fist to his mouth. “Bullseye,” he offers, eyes flickering back and forth between them—and Nomi realizes that the pretending goes both ways.

“Lark and Til are going to leave,” Nomi predicts as she starts for the exit door. “You two occupy yourselves for a bit. I bet Benny’s found toads outside or somethin’.”

Nomi leaves the two of them then, a small hidden glance to watch them step closer in the low, amber lighting of the bar.

—

When Nomi approaches the two men, Maran’s hand outstretches as if automatic. She lifts her hand and his closes around her wrist and then slides up her arm. Benji's jacket is unfortunately ignored (but she has a feeling he isn't missing it, or Xavier is not unhappy about it's absence either). He pulls her closer and Nomi realizes it isn’t toads. It isn’t any animal, but a picture on Benny’s phone.

“Saturn is out tonight,” he says, in a sort of awe inspired voice. “I tr-tried to get a picture.” It’s blurry and the the bar lights make it impossible, but Benny is still staring at the little dot in the black sky like it’s everything. Nomi wraps an arm around his middle, leans her head against his shoulder.

“Saturn’s moon, Titan, is th-the only moon in our solar system to h-have an atmosphere,” Benny starts, and then doesn’t stop for a minute or two. He gets quieter, but that only makes the sense of privacy intimate. Maran’s hand moves in gentle circles on Nomi’s lower back until it firmly cups her waist and all three of them dig in just a bit closer to listen to Ben talk.

#nomi #maran #benny #matilda #nomi x maran #nomi x benny #good taste #nomi x matilda #uni au #my fucking god

6 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

The water is choppy as his old dinghy carries them over the inlet. The spray wets their jackets and faces, but they’re Innsmouthers. They gear up for the sea, instead of expecting it to mind them—and the salt doesn’t even cut their cheeks any longer. The wind picks up as well, as the wind does in Innsmouth. Batters at them, turns their skin pink. Xavier tucks his chin deeper into the too-short scarf he wears as he navigates the boat.

“Bad omen,” Lark comments, at ease in the dinghy in a way that Benji had not been. He leans back with his arms across his chest, moving in tandem with the waves. He rolls along with the movement of the water, the same way Xavier does. It’s in their blood; it’s generational muscle memory. It had been endearing, though, watching Benji struggle…

“Winds against us,” his friend continues. Remembering the handsome investigators tight grip on either side of the boat, as he’d navigated this exact path, makes Xavier grin to himself. Mainlander, he’d joked with an affection that he’d never used with that term before. An affection he did not usually have with strangers. Were they still strangers?

“We’ve had worse omens,” Xavier replies, with a big wolfish smile. The wind whips his scarf back and forth. Lark sighs and pulls his beanie down over his face, instead of continuing the conversation over the sound of the boat’s engine, or the water churning beneath them.

—

“All this for a scarf?”

Lark holds arms around himself, with quick glances back and forth around the little shack Xavier had spent the night in. He holds Benji’s scarf in his hands, staring at it, trying not to remember the warm press of their bodies together. His thumb indents the material—his arms had fit so nicely. Snug. The haze of morning had been hard to wake up to. Xavier clears his throat and shoves it awkwardly into the pocket of his big rain jacket. Lark pretends not to notice, his eyes constantly swaying to the window.

“I bet Hannah’s wouldn’t sell him another,” Xavier jokes, to try and lessen the tension in his friends shoulders. They’re not that far from where the girl had been killed—not that from from nightfall either. They’re good fishermen. Good Innsmouthers. Wouldn’t be caught dead on water at night, not even if Xavier was determined to have this scarf by the time he makes it back to his parents Bed and Breakfast.

But Lark always has worse things to worry about.

“Your mom would knit him a custom one. Put a little ‘B’ on it.” Lark indicates the one around his own throat, dark black stark against his pale skin. His mother had to restitch a different initial on it, years ago—but Lark had been so humbled and grateful, he wore it anyway. Even with the old letter.

“Probably,” Xavier sighs.

“I heard he knows Ben,” Lark says absentmindedly. He’s shifting, foot to foot. Xavier feels a tiny needle of cold underneath his sternum. The injection spreads the cold, across his chest, down his arms.

“What?”

“Yeah—he was at the morgue. I mean, duh, investigating—Jesus, just what I’ve heard, man.” Lark laughs, must be the look on Xavier’s face. He works his jaw to make it unstick, eyes rolling, a hand rubbing his mouth.

The sound of a boat engine makes both men freeze. Lark’s face, already a ghostly visage, pales even further, to something almost sheet white. Worse than. His black eyes go wide, hands raising almost unconsciously, as if in surrender. Xavier scrambles to the window, to look out across the inlet—and his stomach drops.

“Tell me that’s not—”

“How did you know he was following us?” Xavier’s voice sounds distant even to himself, like someone else is asking the question. Lark yanks the hat from his head, fingers digging into his messy blond hair. He blinks, panicked, a tremor of terror on his jaw. The shack feels colder than it did during the storm. It feels desolate. That girl had been killed so close to here. Xavier had heard her insides had been pulled out.

The police cruiser coasts closer.

“I didn’t—it was just—a feeling—Xavier, I can’t,” Lark presses toward him, kneading the hat in his tattooed hands. “I can’t get picked up by the police again.”

Xavier knows the cruiser. It has a constantly busted right fog light. He’d fixed it once, spent a Saturday working on it. He closes his eyes to that memory, hands touching Lark’s shoulders.

“He’s going to pull up on a dock with the cruiser. I tied the dinghy off out back. Take it and go to Ben’s dock.” Lark reels for a moment, bewildered. But the sound of the boat is suddenly cut off, and that horror comes back swiftly with a vengeance. Glosses Lark’s eyes over and he’s suddenly making an anxious dash for the door.

There is a moment where he glances back that Xavier almost asks him to stay, selfishly. Instead, the door closes behind him and Xavier faces the window.

—

“Detective,” Xavier greets, as he opens the side door to the shack. He steps out, in a playful, long legged gait. A silly stumble. His hands are stuffed into his pockets, one fist wrapped around the purloined scarf. For some reason, it gives him an odd note of comfort. Like he is on a mission—reunite the scarf with the man who lost it.

“I shoulda known.” Detective Ainsworth adopts that pose. That cop pose. One hand on his belt, the other on his hip, leg cocked. Not for the first time, since running into Harrison Ainsworth, does Xavier try and see what he’d first ever saw in him. It’s completely absent now, anyway, when Harrison stares at him with that poisonous, annoyed look.

“You got me,” Xavier laughs, hands raised. He takes a few more steps toward the police detective. Harrison is a good few years older than him, but shorter. Which isn’t hard. Most people find themselves shorter than Xavier. Yet, his height doesn’t make him feel big in front of his former ‘lover’. It makes him feel awkward. Stretched out and worn thin. He clears his throat. “I’m not doing anything, alright? Just came out—”

“This might shock you, Xavier,” Harrison drawls. “But I do not give a fuck what you are doing.”

An awkward silence yawns out between the two of them. Xavier slowly lowers his hands. He tucks them back into his coat pockets. The scarf brushes his fingers.

“Anyone with you?” the detective finally asks in a tired voice. He clips his words out, like he’s practicing for his big city job one day. Innsmouthers run their words together; accidentally formed their own bad accent. Mix of all the worst parts of New England. But Harrison enunciates, slowly. Like Xavier needs to be talked to like a child.

“No.”

“I find that very hard to believe.”

“I thought you said you don’t give a fuck?�� Xavier counters, his lip curling. The sudden anger takes hold of his heart and makes him feel hot underneath his layers. He uses his height then, straightens his shoulders, tucks his chin down to stare at the older man. Harrison isn’t impressed—but he has that slight betraying change of expression, no matter how subtle. Xavier recognizes it on everyone he’s ever intimidated. Primal sort of fear, faced with something angry and big.

“Doesn’t mean I’m stupid. You’re either out here trying to find a crime scene—or you found some sad loser to fuck you.”

The anger drains quick like it’s been lanced with a scalpel across his throat. The cold returns, and it’s worse, burrowing into his bones. Turns his insides out—just like the girl; this is his ritual torture. He swallows and glances at the ground, brows furrowed. He tries to find a comeback, something witty but his tongue sits fat behind his teeth. There is none anyway. There is no way to say I’m not like that or remind Harrison that he’d been the one to tell Xavier this isn’t anything serious.

“That your boat? Looks like the sad loser’s abandoning you too.”

He glances up and watches Lark cut expertly through waves. His beanie is back on to hide his stark blond hair. Xavier tries to let that make him feel better; that Harrison clearly doesn’t recognize the little criminal. But there is a void inside him that feels unable to be filled by anything; that void was pulled open by mean, ugly hands just a second ago, leaving tattered edges that burn. He coughs into his hand and shrugs a shoulder.

“Well, get in,” Harrison snaps, pointing to his own boat. Xavier does.

—

“You missed dinner,” his mother says in that naturally accusatory voice as he steps through the mudroom. Xavier has to blink a few times to register he’s been spoken too, and as he does, she softens. Her expression goes from cautiously annoyed to genuinely worried, in the quick fashion mothers are able to change moods. “Are you alright, hon?”

“Uh,” Xavier shrugs off the rain coat. He puts it where he always puts it. Right next to his fathers. His hand lingers on it for a second, then slowly dips into the pocket. He pulls the scarf, trying to keep it close to his chest, so his mother wont ask questions about it.

“Uh is not a complete sentence.”

“I’m actually—I’m going to go to bed,” Xavier says, sidestepping around her.

“It’s only six—”

“I know.”

The Bed and Breakfast is a little explosion of color. His father had tried to keep the theme nautical navy and white, but his mother hadn’t let that stick for very long. The living room opens up wide, all in yellows and oranges. A pirates cutlass hangs above a fireplace that gets used in the harsh, island winters. Pictures line the walls, some of them as recent as a year ago. Some as old as his grandfathers grandfather—and paintings too. All kinds of paintings, none of which go together.

Usually, being in his childhood home turned business was enough to make him feel better. It’s why, despite the constant teasing of his older sister, he’d never tried to move out. That, and real estate in Innsmouth being sparse, to say the least. But The Cove had always been a little place Xavier could feel—could feel good being in. He licks his lips and looks down at the scarf in his hands.

“Xavier,” his mother calls, as he quick steps up the stairs. Her voice is soft and worried, enough to make him hurry the pace.

—

When he wakes up, it’s firmly night. The light from his desk is the only thing on, making eerie shadows dance in the room. His open window lets in a foggy chill, but Xavier has always run hot. He’d torn his shirt off the second he’d gotten into his room, constricted painfully by the fabric. His chest had hurt, had felt knotted and strange, stomach roiling. He’d slept in his jeans, which had twisted uncomfortably around him. Sweat makes his hair itchy and sit messily. And embarrassingly, he finds, he’d also slept with Benji’s scarf wrapped around a tight fist.

For a long while, he stays laying in the bed, staring at his ceiling. There is a water spot in the corner that’s been there as long as he’s been alive. There’s a secret drawing of a sea monster his younger sister had put there, standing on her toes in his bed. There’s a poster on the wall, that hides an envelope full of money that he’s labeled ESCAPE FUNDS, even though he knows he’ll live and die in Innsmouth.

Live and die the disgusting island—

He presses palms to his eyes, feeling a prickling behind them. Xavier tries to breathe, but the feeling gets stuck, like there’s a hand inside his chest holding all the air. His heart squeezes, irregular rhythms. He hiccups, stutters, grinds his teeth together. The scratchy material of the scarf almost hurts his eye—Xavier has good pain tolerance. He’s not bothered by—

He sits up in the bed in a swift motion, staring down at the scarf. The wind whispers underneath the open windowsill. But he always runs hot. Xavier’s thumb brushes the fabric of the scarf, touching it softly. He shivers, bringing it up underneath his nose. For a moment, he feels himself on the dinghy. The rocking of the waves. Benji’s gloved hands holding on for dear life. Laying on the floor together. The morning sun touching their cheeks to wake them up.

Xavier stands up.

—

When Benji opens the door, Xavier can only stare. His eyes are buzzing in his skull, tunnel vision focused anyway—he’d moved from the third floor to the second and to the guest hallway without thinking much. Almost like sleepwalking. There had been static between his ears the entire time, bare feet making no noise because he knew every step that creaked. Xavier’s holding the scarf still, shirt still forgotten back in his room. The button on his jeans is undone, hips barely holding them up.

Xavier realizes he must look like a fucking mess compared to the investigator. Who looks—well. Jesus. Looks as he does; white button up rolled to his forearms, collar undone to expose throat and the subtle peek of chest hair. Suspenders on, and hair messy in a way that looked perfect. Effortless. He looks surprised for a moment and the expression is nice on Benji; lifts his eyebrows, parts his lips. Then he closes that shock quickly, a bit of his snide grin returning as he folds thick arms over his chest.

“Help you, Xavier?” The familiarity of his name makes Xavier shiver. More of that, please.

Something automatic happens to him then. It feels oily and sick, but not something he’s entirely in control of either. He’d known, since he stepped out of his room, that he was coming downstairs for this. Xavier’s shoulder connects with the door frame, his long body leaning. His chin tilted down, smile playfully coy. Look at me, he invites, with careful body language.

“Look what I found.” Even his voice changes. Xavier feels like some strange lizard, scales changing colors to something appealing and pretty. He holds up the scarf in his fist. He’ll miss it, when Benji takes it back. He doesn’t, just yet, though. Benji stands there, one hand still on the open door.

I know you like me. I’m pretty. I know I am. And I know you’d let me in, if I asked, right? And Xavier imagines stepping inside. Or you found some sad loser to fuck you. He imagines making himself forget that miserable fucking scene at the inlets. Running hands up Benji’s chest, tucking fingers under suspenders, pushing them off his broad shoulders. The only way he really knows how to tuck bad memories to the side; bending his head lower, their mouths pressing together. He can almost feel warm palms across his sides, down to his hips and lower.

It wasn’t his fault. Xavier didn’t mean for people to look at him the way they did; and when he’d found out what those looks meant, he didn’t know what else to do with them. He remembers laying on the floor. Chest to his back. Warm sun. He feels like that image is slowly being eaten at the edges, and he can’t stop himself, because the overwhelming urge to not feel sad anymore is pushing him closer. Xavier’s other palm coasts over the door, pushing it wider.

“Xavier,” Benji says.

He blinks. His eyelashes stick somewhat, oddly wet. A dark brown palm is extended in front of him. The sudden sear of rejection presses into his skin like a hot brand, makes his shoulders jump. Whatever layers he’d put on to look appealing drop suddenly. Xavier deflates slightly, looks down at his fist and the scarf wrapped around it. He laughs and slowly extends it.

“Christ, I should leave you alone, huh?” Xavier swallows around the words, posture going vulnerably awkward. He laughs again, trying to ease the tension. He quickly drops his hand from the door, arms folding around his chest. “I don’t even know what time it is—you’re working, probably. I mean, of course you’re fucking working. You’re here. Working. I’ve been—like actually annoying you—”

“Didn’t say that.” Benji is looking down at the scarf, instead of Xavier. His thick, dark brows are knotted together. A curl has fallen across his forehead. It looks oddly boyish. Mars the serious investigator look.

Instead of trying to desperately fill the silence, Xavier sits in it. Watches Benji toss the scarf to the side, onto the bed. Its rumpled, he notices. Actually, the entire room is a bit of a mess. Clothes from the past few days strewn, the hard oak desk covered in papers. A laptop sits on the end of the bed. Guilt and shame make Xavier dizzy for a moment, his eyes blinking up to the ceiling to catch traitorous tears that stick there. He’d be even more humiliated if he cried, even though he feels a lot like crying. Harrison’s words rattle inside his skull, until he hears the door shut.

Xavier jumps back slightly, missing inches between the two of them suddenly making them close. Benji brushes a hand back through his curls, but it hardly does anything to tame the wild black mane.

“M’goin’ outside for some air.” The invitation lingers. It isn’t suggestive, Xavier finds. No look and no suggestion. He tucks knuckles against his jaw, a hand folded under his elbow.

“Well,” Xavier says, smiling. Feeling some of that smile, like he’s back in charge of what he’s doing. Not a ghost inside his own body. “I’d kind of be the shittiest host if I didn’t follow you.”

“You’ve been alright so far,” Benji tosses back easily, his own grin no longer a sneer.

—

Xavier grabs them both hoodies to brave the cold outside. It’s not so bad, because The Cove doesn’t sit as close to the water as other places. Instead beach stretches out from the back porch, slopes downhill. It’s not the prettiest view on Innsmouth—but the chairs are plush and comfortable. Oversized because every Wolffe got too big for normal chairs. Benji sinks into one with a groaning sigh, hands tucked behind his head briefly.

Instead of sitting right away, Xavier leans against the back porch railing, peering out into the pitch black. The only illumination is a half there moon above the ocean. It looks bigger than it is. He’d heard stories that in the city, the moon was smaller, or had the illusion of being small. No stars either.

The spark of a lighter makes him look over his shoulder. Benji holds a cigarette outstretched.

“Oh my God, you’re a fucking saint,” Xavier says, reaching for it as he turns his body and falls into the chair opposite. He tucks a knee up, hand cupping his shin, posture poor as he slumps. He takes a long drag off the cigarette as he watches Benji lighting his own. There is something strangely alluring about the entire scene. He’d taken the chair facing away from the beach, his back to the moon. The clash of black against the flicker of his lighter makes Benji look like a painting.

A bit of the shame returns, but it’s dull. Benji had not mentioned Xavier’s attempt, had accepted the giant hoodie and company.

They fall into comfortable silence together. It lasts until about mid way through their cigarettes, until conversation starts. And then conversation doesn’t stop.

—

“It’s just a rite of passage,” Xavier explains, grinning ear to ear. He sits lower in the chair, long legs thrown out in front of him. One of Benji’s sort of has to be tucked between them because the chairs are close—but it doesn’t feel awkward. It doesn’t feel suggestive, either. The closeness is comforting. It’s warm. Nice.

“How many lose their fingers to hypothermia?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Xavier laughs, plucking at the strings on the hoodie. He pauses for a long, dramatic moment. “Maybe one or two.” Benji snorts at the theatrics, head tilted back. He’s also put himself into an odd position, one leg drawn up, spine bent. He looks younger—maybe its the hoodie. It’s a dark forest green, swallows him. There’s a hole in the collar that sort of opens up, reveals the white of his shirt underneath.

He’d been entertained, hearing about Xavier’s youth on the island. Stupid childrens game of putting hands into the water just as winter started. Whoever lasted the longest was a true Innsmouther. Xavier remembered the biting, numbing feeling—could use that pain as a comparison for the rest of his life. He looks down at his hands, the callouses on his palms from rope work, scars from hauling catch. He can’t ever remember them being small, but they must have been. At least when he was a child.

Benji taps a cigarette from his pack, holding it up.

“Oh,” Xavier purrs, eyes narrowing with a grin. “Last one before we go to bed?”

“Don’t usually chain smoke like this,” Benji says, laughing. He has a nice laugh too, when it’s not just that little snort of air. Well, those are cute, Xavier thinks. Really cute, actually. But his laugh is a little beautiful. Has a rich, deep note to it. “Share?”

Xavier chews on his thumb nail, staring at Benji. The moonlight sort of illuminates him and his dark adjusted eyes can see features. He seems impossibly handsome in that moment, holding up his cigarette between them. Not for the first time does guilt push up through his chest again, that Xavier had tried to—he smiles and leans forward. He takes hold of the bottom of Benji’s chair and uses that as leverage to pull his own closer.

“I’ve already mooched off you all night. What’s one more?”

“I know how you can repay me,” Benji says, as he puts the cigarette into his mouth and lights it. The fire dances, pretty and sharp. Xavier tries not to pay attention to the way his hand closes around that fire to protect it. He has good hands.

“I’m an awful cook,” Xavier says, taking the cigarette when it gets passed to him. He takes a long drag. Tries not to think about how their mouths will be touching the filter, in tandem. “So don’t ask that.”

“Got a library card?”

He sputters out a laugh. His voice is hoarse he realizes. Throat almost sore, from the cigarettes and also the talking. The never ending volley back and forth between them. Xavier lifts his hand for the cigarette again. Their fingers brush.

“M’serious,” Benji says, smiling that new soft smile. Not new, probably. But, new for Xavier. He can picture him smiling like that with his partner, maybe with the captain of the boat he’d come in on. For friends, he smiles like that privately. For his friends. “Need to get a bit of readin’ done up on the place.”

“You’re sitting with an Innsmouth expert.”

“Does the Innsmouth expert have a library card, yeah?”

Xavier laughs, leaning forward to offer the last of the cigarette for Benji. They’re oddly close then, bending toward each other like they’re sharing a secret. Xavier taps a finger on his lips, smiling. His eyes hurt too. They’d been out there so long, sleepiness has started creeping up on him.

“I’ll do you one better.”

“Yeah?”

“My younger sister literally works there.”

They both laugh, even though it isn’t funny. There’s no joke. But there’s something anyway, something draped between them, in the privacy of the night, on the porch, in the waning dark. Xavier thinks and puts a name to it and finds he likes it so much it makes his smile hurt his cheeks. He likes being friends with Benji.

#xavier #benji #xavier x benji #innsmouth au

4 notes · View notes

day0walkersdrafts · 6 months

Text

It’s silly. And childish. Which is okay, because they’re all a little drunk. And Xavier is more than a little high; and Matilda is too, which makes it even more okay. He convinces himself that often, anyway. That if it isn’t just him, then it’s fine. Xavier can’t remember when Lark started bringing her home, but she feels fixated in his heart now—and their friend group. Expanded because of her too because she knew someone who knew someone who now was all sitting in the trio’s living room.

Benny’s apartment, which was Lark and Xavier’s apartment as well—technically, even without their names on a lease, because there was no lease, because Benny rented the apartment from some guy who didn’t even live in the same state—is the apartment to gather at usually. Moderately larger than the other ones, usually well stocked with beer and snacks. Xavier sits between Matilda’s long legs, on the ground. She pets through his hair, her nails occasionally scratching and making him sigh out. Head to her knee.

Which is also so nice. The platonic, soothing touch of a girl.

Xavier knew Lark as the man that he was; jealous and intensely possessive. Yet, he’d never been bothered by that seemingly ease of affection between the two of them. Maybe it was because, secretly, Lark knew Xavier needed it. Needed some woman to look at him and not think—well. He blinks red, bleary, tired eyes at his group of friends.

Tries not to let them wander to the side, where Benji sits on the shitty Goodwill arm chair Benny had stolen. He’s one leg drawn up, tucked under his chin. Spine awkwardly bent. Xavier liked watching Benji get arranged when he sits down. Never seemed to do it normal. Liked putting himself into positions that looked uncomfortable. Are you uncomfortable? He sips from his beer, idly. Tries to blink a bit of sobriety back into himself.

“We could play truth or dare?”

Everyone groans loudly, so Sunshine tucks her chin down, big eyes glossy, lips pouting. She sits on the ground, a little too out of sorts. High and drunk, her little cottage core dress riding up. Matilda’s fingers curl into Xavier’s hair—the silent body language of laughter that is not out loud. He grins a bit, draining his beer with a final swig.

“Don’t be mean to Sunshine,” he says. “It could be fun—no one dare Benny to jump off the roof again.”

“Didn’t even br-break anything,” he pipes up from the other end of the couch.

So they do—and to Sunshine’s credit, it is fun. Because it’s silly and childish and they’re drunk. High. It’s late in the night and no one has class the next day and Xavier’s already called out of work and Benny promised to put off working on his thesis (or whatever never ending school work he has) and Lark puts on everyone’s favorite playlist. A mixture of a thousand different songs from everyones different tastes, and he even lets someone else control the skip function.

Matilda’s truth is that she can’t do a handstand—Lark does one to impress her. His dare is to lick the bottom of Xavier’s shoe and he does while everyone screams and laughs and Lark looks proudly brave after. Xavier’s truth is that he believed in Santa until he was a teenager—defended because his mother put so much effort into the entire affair it was hard not to believe in magic.

“Dare,” Benji says, grinning. He taps a half empty beer bottle against a tooth, looking wildly courageous and terrifyingly pretty in that moment. Something about the way the string lights around the edges of the room makes his skin pop. The music in the background seems duller, quieter. Xavier’s heart stutters. Like it’s flicking in and out of working and he has to catch his breath for some reason. He rubs at one of his eyes with the heel of his palm, feels the buzz of a high static shock. He hums, tapping his fingers together.

“I dare you,” Xavier begins gravely, pointing a finger. Then he extends his big hand forward, palm up. “To give me the rest of your beer.”

“Lame!”

“Good one, Xavier—scummy behavior, just go get your own beer.”

“Lazy dog.”

He smiles, though, tilted and affectionate. Benji stares at him. It’s really only his third. Maybe fourth? And Xavier knows—he knows. Switch to water, he thinks. You don’t even like being drunk. His eyes stray to the wide open neck of Benji’s shirt as he leans forward, beer bottle out stretched. His eyes linger there, at the peek of his chest, dark black hair. He feels like something crashes into his sternum when the cold bottle touches fingers. He quickly pulls it toward himself, leaning back happily against Matilda’s leg.

For a moment Benji and Xavier linger in eye contact. Something passes between them. He can’t decipher it. Which feels odd, because Xavier’s good at deciphering Benji usually. There’s some sort of inherent knowing (switch to water, you don’t even like being drunk) that comes along with being friends with Benji. Something that sort of sprung up organically, like learning a language because you’re around it all the time. But it passes—and Benji dares Maran to swap shirts with Benny.

A few more rounds go by—Benny looking hilarious in the bright baby blue Sonic the Hedgehog shirt. Maran looking, frankly, content in the plain white t-shirt. Xavier, who gets it, catches him with his nose to the collar more than once. Says nothing—he gets it.

“Do you consent to a kiss,” Ina says, suddenly leaning toward Xavier. Her big, beautiful eyes feel like yawning abysses—but in a good way. She feels like someone you could fall into, and Xavier unfortunately, tried more than once. She was always good at pulling him up by the collar and telling him to stop trying to get lost. She says it seriously, despite the way everyone else laughs. Xavier’s head tilts a little, his smile affectionate. Warm. Reassuring. He likes that she asks. Cares.

They’d stopped having sex a while ago, but Ina had not stopped being a person in his life, somehow constant even with pauses. Sometimes she’d disappear randomly for months, just to text him and ask if he knew a good burger place. A swingset to sit at while they ate.

“Ina, if you want a kiss, you don’t need to ask,” he replies, with a playful roll of his tongue. She blinks rapidly and then stands. Sunshine has to scoot back. Maran lifts hands like she might accidentally stumble on the high platform boots that she has no doubt stolen from someones closet. She doesn’t so much as trip as she plucks Xavier by the wrist. She forces him to stand with strength that has always surprised him.

“I saw this in a movie,” she says.

“Probably a bad one,” Xavier comments. And then his stomach drops out when Ina’s other hand pulls Benji up by his sleeve. Momentum starts and doesn’t stop as she pulls the two of them toward Xavier’s door. There’s a badly drawn picture of a dog on it, stapled there by Benny. BEWARE OF BITING. He feels awkwardly embarrassed by it as Benji leans a shoulder there. For once, neither of them are stealing little glances, making eye contact here and there in private moments.

“So, I dare you to kiss. What is it called?”

“Seven minutes in heaven,” Matilda says innocently, batting her pretty dark lashes. Xavier could kill her, his eyes boring severely into hers. Lark has swiftly taken his place between her knees, is paying far too much attention to his phone and the music choices than potentially saving Xavier from utter humiliation. Benji can’t—wouldn’t want—

“You bad at dares, Xavier?”

He looks down at Benji. All the alcohol and drugs seem to coalesce for a moment, make him dizzy, staring at those big, sleepy eyes. His heart feels a size too big, suddenly a size too small, suddenly not there and then suddenly too there. He blinks a few times, trying to register if he’d even heard that correctly. If Benji was goading him on, in that menacing little voice he had sometimes.

Xavier laughs suddenly, hand closing around the door knob.

“Asshole,” he says.

“Dickhead,” Benji chirps in reply as he swings himself into Xavier’s room.

The sounds of the party swiftly cut off as Ina shuts the door behind them.

—

This isn’t actually the first time Benji has been in Xavier’s room. Not even the fourth, or fifth and if Xavier tried, he probably couldn’t actually count because it has to be in the dozens by now. They’d been here not even a week ago, laying in his bed, trying to debate something inane and silly while waiting for take out. If they’d fight a horse sized duck or a dozen duck sized horses; something that had spiraled out of control until Xavier was sighing, pouting, whining. I like ducks. And Benji had been unable not to laugh until tears.

Benji goes for the window and cracks it. The night air is cool in the stuffiness of his room. By the desk, there is a laptop they’ve watched movies on when he couldn’t get it hooked up to his TV without Maran’s help. It felt more fun sometimes, to watch it on the little screen together, shoulder to shoulder, sharing popcorn. Once, they’d muted it and made up dialogue themselves, snickering at the awful new plot line they’d created.

Xavier goes for his bed and slowly sits on it.

Obviously, they’re not going to kiss. Obviously it was a joke. And Xavier figures maybe Ina knew something he didn’t; maybe she’d recognized first that Benji wanted to be away from people. He feels almost guilty then, that he didn’t. Xavier would have pulled them outside. He would have made an excuse. He puts his hands together, lacing fingers awkwardly.

But if they did kiss…

His cheeks go so hot he immediately touches them without thinking. If they did kiss…

“Got a new one?” Benji’s voice breaks him out of his stupor. Xavier raises his head, blinking at the little action figure, amongst the line up of others. He doesn’t know whether or not he should be ashamed of that collection; if it’s silly or stupid. He bites his lip, grinning, shyly, shoulders rising and falling.

“I stole it from the grocery store.”

“Bad,” Benji teases, but the word makes an oddly distinct warmth open up Xavier’s veins. He should have at least turned the lights on in the room, but he’d not been thinking. He’d walked in, out of his mind, sat down without a thought. So they’re in the dark now, with Xavier on the bed and Benji slowly walking toward him. In front of him. Looking like he might say something. The sounds are muffled through the door, of the party they’re cut off from now. Blessedly alone.

Whatever Benji was primed to say, Xavier accidentally cuts it off.

“Jesus,” he laughs. “I just realized—sitting on my bed, I’m like, still almost as tall as you.” And it’s true. He reaches Benji’s chest. If he sat straighter, he’d be able to touch his lips to a collarbone. The thought bludgeons him, makes him lean back on his palms instead, like he’s trying for distance—yet the pose is suddenly very suggestive. Xavier clears his throat, tucks his chin down to his chest. Benji’s eyes are shiny in the dark, staring at him, above as he is. Xavier’s skin burns with that look. If they did kiss…

“Want to watch youtube fail compilations?”

“You tryin’ to get our your dare?”

“Shut up,” Xavier laughs the words out. His foot connects with Benji’s knee a bit to jostle him. But he’s firmly planted there. His hands linger inside his leather jacket. His stance looks so strong and Xavier suddenly feels so—he laughs again. “Fuck you.”

“Well, a’right but I gotta tell the group you’re a sore loser—bad at truth or dare.”

“I am not a sore fucking loser,” Xavier says, slowly standing. It’s an inching crawl until he’s at full height. Benji comes up to his chin, but with his head tilted back like that—eyes narrowed playfully—Xavier doesn’t necessarily feel like he’s on top. “Ina dared us both. So—you’re the loser.” He punctuates it with a finger to Benji’s chest. Brown eyes drop there and then flick up.

“Okay—I’ll go—”

Xavier’s hand curls around Benji’s bicep. The leather is cool to the touch.

“You’re so annoying.” His words come out more a whisper than anything else. Benji doesn’t move. “I’m an awful kisser.”

“S’just a dare.”

“Right. Just a dare—little quick peck?”

“You’re bad at those?”

Xavier leans in suddenly. He has to push himself down, but finds Benji rising up to meet him. A hand touches his side—a palm enveloping over his hip. Another on his forearm. Callused palms, rough but nice. Xavier breathes out once, a soft little exhale before suddenly their lips are touching.

If Xavier were to stand in front of everyone and say I’ve never thought of kissing Benji, not even once, he’d be a liar. A terrible one too—because sometimes, that’s all he’s ever thinking. When they’re watching the movies, having the silly debates, when they’re standing side by side at the bar, watching Maran make friends with everyone, effortlessly. When he was teaching Benji to ice skate at the local center. When they sit in a pizza parlor, and Xavier tosses garlic knots into his mouth like its a trick. Xavier’s thought of kissing Benji almost every day since he fell out of a window—since he was pushed out of a window, really.

And in all those wild, never ending fantasies, it’s not like this. He imagines them pressing mouths together, the slow part of lips, of tongues touching with a slow burning sensation in his chest. He imagines Benji would taste good, would make a breathy little moan into one. He imagines closing hands over Benji’s cheeks, tilting him this way and that to get more of him. Their bodies touching, everywhere they can touch.

But this kiss is not like that and instead, feels like the rush of every single one of those thoughts multiplied by a thousand.

Xavier’s mouth opens instantly, his body swaying forward. The hand on Benji’s bicep lifts to grab the back of his head instead, fingers digging into his black curly hair. He pushes them together, tongues suddenly meeting and rolling and messy. They stumble, together, crashing against the desk. There’s that breathy sound. That little groan. Xavier kisses hard and fast, with a hungry devour—and Benji rises up to meet it, with such equal strength that it makes him light headed. Already dizzy and already out of his mind, he feels every sensation like a punch to his heart. And he doesn’t stop.

Xavier doesn’t stop kissing, keeps pressing in for more, tilts his head in a different way, a gasp for air from them both and the connection of their lips again. It’s only when he’s drawn a tongue over Benji’s lower lip and pulled away to look—because he wants to see what Benji’s mouth looks like, shiny from his own—that he stops.

Both their hands are tangled into different parts of each other. Xavier will now know, and never forget, the feel of Benji’s hair clenched in his fist. He pants, licks his lips, stares down at Benji, who has just as firm of a grasp into Xavier’s shirt right at his lower back. They stare at each other, thoughts mingling somewhere above their heads. Still lingering in that kiss maybe, in a shared moment of pleasure, until their brains crash straight back into their skulls.

“Oh,” Xavier says, stupidly. He swallows (and thinks, he can still taste Benji on his lips, on his tongue). They part, with him stumbling backward. His hand has to remember how to open, his fingers still curled into pretty, black waves of hair. Benji hasn’t said anything yet, is staring at Xavier’s face, with an expression he cannot, again, decipher. No, I don’t like not knowing, Xavier thinks. I like knowing what you’re thinking. Oh fuck. Oh no.

“That was probably—that was seven minutes,” he says, airily. Not quite inside himself. Then Benji is stepping around him, finding the door, and leaving the room.

—

The next day hangover pulses behind his eyes with a vengeance. But he tries for Lark. There’s few things he wouldn’t do for Lark. Now he’s pouring sweat, his tank top clinging to him, his lungs burning. Xavier usually likes cardio—but Lark likes cardio the way masochists like being slapped, or something. Pushes himself to the point where Xavier starts to think Lark is doing this more for punishment than fun.

They crest the hill and Xavier stumbles. He bends, hands on his knees and nausea wells up, threatens to empty the meager McDonald’s breakfast he’d snagged (to Lark’s scoffing upturned nose). Lark’s blessedly cool hand flattens over the back of Xavier’s neck and he shivers. When he glances up, his best friend is barely breathing hard. A thin sheen of sweat makes him look luminescent and pretty—Xavier probably looks like a reanimated fucking corpse.

“Didn’t you say you liked running?”

“For fun.”

“I’m having fun,” Lark sneerds. He does a few stretches, arms above his head, groaning theatrically. A pair of women walking together giggle to themselves and Lark smiles his star athlete grin. Xavier unfolds to standing, hands on his hips.

“Matilda will skin you,” he says, making all the pink drain from Lark’s cheeks. He huffs and folds arms across his chest. “You guys are like official now, aren’t you?” Last night, when Xavier couldn’t sleep—because of course he couldn’t fucking sleep, after that—he’d spent the rest of the night sitting with her in the kitchen. Matilda had scooted closer to show pictures of her brother. Cute guy, looked like a mousier version of Matilda, had a soft and sweet smile.

And she’d talked about Lark too. Not like she usually did, with her little barriers up. The personality dropped slightly, because Xavier had that good dog vibe that made people unwind. A hand between perked up puppy ears, self soothing, mindless chatter. Xavier had been at the kitchen table a hundred times with Lark, having the same conversation, about her.

“How was your kiss with Benji?” Lark’s deflection startles him out of the kitchen, right back to the park. Early morning sun bearing down on the two men. Xavier wipes his face with his hand, laughs awkwardly.

“Dude,” Lark snorts, shoves Xavier’s shoulder. “I’m fucking joking. I know you and Benji didn’t actually kiss. That’d be weird; you’re like best friends. Well. I’m your best friend—but Benji is like, your British best friend.”

“Right,” he answers quickly. He looks out across the park, arms slowly folding around his chest. “Right. It would be weird.”

He’d fallen asleep thinking the exact opposite. He’d fallen asleep, finally, exhausted, voice sore from talking with Matilda. Lips still tingling. Fully sober. Thinking, it wouldn’t be weird.

#xavier #benji #xavier x benji #uni au #: )

5 notes · View notes