hauntedjpegcollection

[hauntedjpegcollection]

the end of the world

wc: 2658 au: pacrim au ch: xavier, benji

Everything was quiet after they postponed the end of the world. Maybe it should have been louder—and maybe elsewhere it was. Maybe there were parties, celebrations that went until morning and people came together and loved and cried and rejoiced, because they had more time. Inevitably, more time they’d have to fight for, weeks or months, or God hoping, years from then.

But it was quiet, here. The hanger that housed all those giant, death defying, apocalypse preventing machine monsters. Quiet, yes, except for Xavier’s headphones, which were anything but. It was still lonely somehow, even with the music that was loud enough to peek out, a buzzing sound like flies. The music he preferred was not really music at all to some, just a jarring combination of beats and electronics.

Sometimes, when a song ended, or faded into something softer to allow another song to rise up, he heard the quiet. Or experienced it, since you couldn’t hear quiet. There was just the clanging of his boots on metal grating, the hose in his hand. The Jaeger in front of him. Drenched as it was, head to metal clawed feet. They power washed these beasts, when they came in after a fight. Blue blooded viscera, sometimes neon with gore pooled at the bottom, where workers even more unfortunate than Xavier toiled.

But the joints were finicky. Sensitive. Ironic, considering what they were made for.

So Xavier was there, after the world didn’t end, headphones on and music loud enough it would make the party goers envious. A hose in his hands, his jumpsuit tied off around his hips. Washing down the great metal beast that sometimes housed the most important fucking person in the world, right in it’s chest, where it’s heart would be. That felt fitting.

Xavier’s thumb presses the hose, makes the water fan. He hums alongside the music as he washes.

He feels the vibrations of stomping on the grate, but pays it no mind. Someone’s always walking around angry—its the end, isn’t it? Some people only have anger, instead of partying. So he doesn’t notice until they’re right next to him, waves of something furious pulsing off them—and then Xavier is hooking a gloved hand into his head phones and tugging them back. All too prepared to tell some other grunt to fuck off, he was working, he liked doing this alone, it gave him time to stare hatefully at the giant steel titan that had stolen the singular person he wanted from him.

Only it was that very pilot and Xavier’s voice abandoned him completely.

“What the fuck are you doin’?” Benji’s voice is husky and clipped. Hoarse, likely from yelling. His chest rises and falls rapidly, as though he’s climbed the whole ladder up to this grated level in front of the Jaeger. Well, actually, that must be what he’s done, because the lift’s broken, so the ladders all there is. Xavier doesn’t find his voice. His mouth slackens as he stares at the pilot. He’s out of his suit, actually. Has on soft, black pants that fit loosely, that hang loosely. A cut tank top that’s just as humble.

He doesn’t look like a pilot like that. Not like the sort they parade on the news, or plaster on the advertisements to distract the general public from the impending looming doom.

Benji’s curly hair is wild, brushed wetly back from his face. He looks freshly showered then. Explains the lack of the suit. Benji should be with the other revelers, with his co pilot, or the other pilots. He should be with the techs that like celebrating, that find any excuse to drink the rotten swill they make themselves. Clear moonshine that could peel paint from a Jaeger.

His eyes are furious, narrowed, thick lashes nearly obscuring the pupils. There’s a line down his forehead, atop the regal shape of his nose.

Xavier gestures with the still running hose to the Jaeger.

“Cleaning,” he finally answers.

“You fuckin’—I don’t mean that,” Benji seems to startle himself almost, eyes popping open as he takes the Jaeger in. His Jaeger in. Xavier’s luck had run out like the rest of the world—not only had he been transferred to the outpost his old best friend was working in, he’d been assigned to the very Jaeger he piloted. God was cruel like that. Putting two people who had no business being together, together. Then ending the world and everything.

The music is still blaring from Xavier’s headphones so he sighs and pats himself down for his phone. Pauses it and then turns back to the Jaeger. He continues washing the dark, murky alien grime from it’s silvery surface.

“I changed my duty shift specifically so you and I could avoid each other,” Xavier says in a flat tone. He tries for unaffected, casual. It’s an effort to keep any emotion from his voice. Benji is so…there. Close. The way he shouldn’t be. The distance between them is a moderately short gap. There used to be a time when that gap never existed. Where their elbows would nearly be bruised by banging into each other so often. That was youth, though. Bruising.

Benji doesn’t immediately respond. He’s still panting hard, though and the sound of his labored breaths makes a sensation in Xavier’s chest flutter.

“Take yourself off the list,” Benji finally snarls quietly.

It’s quiet in the hanger. The sound of him echoes. It surrounds and bounces off walls and bludgeons Xavier. There was a time when he’d gone to sleep, desperately thinking of Benji’s voice. When he’d get to hear it again. He’d promised that when he did, when they were finally in front of each other again, he’d swallow his pride and apologize. He’d make things right and they’d be friends again, no matter what the tests had said about them.

Now, Xavier laughs and it’s a barking, cold sound.

“Fuck you.” He doesn’t look over at Benji. The temptation is strong. The grating creaks as he moves. Shifts from foot to foot, like he’s always done when he’s upset. Xavier can practically see the expression in his minds eye, only Benji is younger in the memories. A sullen, brooding teenager, and then an equally moody young man. He swallows a painful narrowing feeling in his throat away.

“Xavier, I’m not fuckin’ around, you need t’take your name off that list.”

“It’s the end of the world, Benji. You’re not the only one who gets to be a big, self sacrificing hero.”

“S’not like that, and you know it.”

“Oh, I do?” Xavier turns, the hose dangling in his hand. It’s water runs straight through the metal grating underneath them. His shoulders tense, his body clenching like a tightened fist as he stares at Benji. Traitor, he thinks savagely, undeservedly, staring at him. At the beautiful lines of his silhouette, the handsome features of his angry face. Xavier’s lip curls on his teeth. “What the fuck do I know about piloting?”

A tense and painful bubble wells up between them, not yet popping.

“Alright? Well there’s that, then, yeah? So scratch your name off.” Benji emphasizes with a brutal slash of his hand through the air. His tattoos are stark across his bare arms. His dark skin beads with water from the shower he must have taken. Xavier remembers a few of those tattoos. He’d been there for them. He hates that some of them are new. That parts of Benji have become unrecognizable.

“No,” Xavier says in a loud, furious voice. His temper is building to that place it can’t go, to a place that results in fist fights with other mechanics, with strangers sometimes, with anyone that makes him angry. His lip curls more, his nose wrinkling. His eyes narrow. “I’m busy cleaning your fucking robot, Benji. Go away.”

He turns back to the Jaeger, bloody from the Kaiju it—and Benji—had just killed.

“You’ll hate it, Xavier.” Benji’s voice is whispering, but not soft. It isn’t gentle. It’s cold and tight, the way his anger always has been. An opposite force to Xavier’s wild, flame like fury. He grits his teeth and flattens his finger on the nozzle of the hose again to fan the spray once more. He rinses down the delicate jointing of a knee. “Drifting isn’t like we thought it’d be. There’s no privacy—there’s—”

For a moment, he imagines that. Another person in Benji’s head, living his memories, watching the world end through his beautiful, somber eyes. He wonders what they’ll see and for some reason, Xavier thinks of the memory he knows rises unbidden to the forefront of his mind too often. Of them, both of them, in the public shelter, huddled as the world fell apart above them. The thundering sounds of the aliens numerous feet, it’s loud braying like a wounded animal, the concussive fire of a Jaeger’s rifle.

Xavier, falcon like with his arms around Benji, both of them just teenagers and shivering together, knowing that they were both going to die. Very soon, the shelter would collapse around them and bury them, or the alien would crash into it and expose them to the night sky one last time before it fucking killed them itself. Maran, huddled beneath both of them, arms thrown around Benji’s waist, his ragged and terrified breathing. Plaster raining dust around them. They’d not made it fast enough. They were alone, the three of them.

In that moment, Xavier had his nose tucked to the crown of Benji’s curly hair thinking, Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ, I’m going to die. All three of us are going to die. And he was also thinking, Why does Benji always smell so good?

The ridiculousness of that singular memory, of a seventeen year old boy realizing he has a crush, was sometimes the only memory Xavier had.

But of course, if it was Benji and someone was invading his mind to force their neural patterns to same wave length, maybe it would be different. Maybe it would be that the sound of Xavier crying had been annoying, or something equally unkind, as Xavier tends to guiltily imagine Benji being these days.

They’d never know. Neither of them would ever see that memory from the others point of view.

They were not drift compatible, after all.

“Xavier—”

Benji steps forward and so Xavier turns and sprays the water into his face. There’s a shocked, bubbling sound and then the two of them are staring at each other, equally suddenly bewildered. Water collects and drips from Benji’s dark facial hair. Xavier blinks a few times.

“You fuckin’ wanker?”

“Oops,” Xavier says and then lifts the hose and sprays him again.

Benji barks, dancing backward. The grated landing sways a bit. Xavier, unable to help himself, laughs. It rings in the empty hanger—empty except for the two former friends and the giant machine that came between them. Benji’s eyes have widened, his face set in shocked annoyance. He splutters and then raises his hands, as if to ward off more water. Xavier snickers and then lifts the hose again.

“Stop it!” Benji’s voice becomes petulantly loud and he darts forward to grab the hose. Xavier can’t stop himself from laughing again—strength leaving his arms as Benji yanks, pulling them closer together. Off balancing them both as their bodies collide. Benji gets control of the hose and sprays Xavier in turn, making his laugh turn to a gargled shocked sound. “Yeah! You fucker, I can’t believe you.” But his words are suddenly full of a laugh too, a sound Xavier thought he’d never hear again.

“Man, you’re the fucker,” Xavier snaps, but the ire is lost. He gets an arm around Benji, hauling them both until they’ve fallen onto their sides. The grating scratches bare skin angrily, but the pain is a distant second to the heat of a body writhing against his own. The hose is a weak python between them, soaking their clothes. Xavier kicks his long legs rebelliously, but under Benji’s trained and battle hardened form, he’s quickly and easily pinned. Strong hands have him by the shoulders and hold him flat on his back.

Water drips off Benji’s curly hair, hitting his cheek, his eyebrow. His parted lips.

They stare at each other and this is the closest they’ve been since…

Xavier’s eyes flicker over Benji’s face and then lower, to how he’s being held to the floor. He admits the defeat easily, but the mirth drains from him. It’s replaced with two warring, terrible feelings. Arousal that is a hot serpent coiling inside his stomach. And more anger. He chews his bottom lip, breathing heavily in and out from his nose. Benji hasn’t moved yet. He almost seems stunned to be in this position at all. Clearly wasn’t what he came up here for.

“You want me to just do this for the rest of my short, shitty life?”

Benji flinches, a muscle spasming along his jaw and down his throat. Xavier watches water well there and drip more. They’re not teenagers anymore, so his thoughts aren’t so innocent; instead of wondering how his heart can beat so hard when nothing is happening just by standing beside Benji, instead of wondering how he can always smell good and why his sleepy smile makes the end of the world seem less bad, Xavier is wondering what it would be like to clean that water away with his tongue. To put it to his jugular and swipe a path to his ear, to bite the shell of it, to tell him, I miss you.

It wouldn’t be the worst mistake they’ve made—that belonged to Benji for going on to become a pilot without him and Xavier for signing up on the short list of people willing to pilot without drift compatibility. The first had ruined their friendship and the second was a short list for a reason and reckless wasn’t even the surface of it. Benji had every right to be angry at him. He was decreasing years off his life that he probably didn’t even have, considering the whole alien invasion killing the human race thing.

But Xavier had a right to anger too.

He rolls his body a bit, making Benji jump back as if burned. Color’s flooded his cheeks, a red wine that sits pretty on his dark brown skin. He scrambles to stand. The tank top’s sopping to his chest now and he folds arms around himself, his body language guarded. Xavier lays there for a moment longer before he hefts himself up. He crosses to where the hose ends, quickly yanking the valve close.

For a moment, he tries to work up the nerve to say more. Maybe apologize, because that’s how Catholic guilt raised him, until the bible ran out of creativity and hadn’t penned in extraterrestrial invaders will be the end of the world. He’d lost faith after that, like many did. Xavier still fiddles with the gold crucifix necklace that had slipped free of his shirt during the scuffle, pushing it back under the safety of wet fabric. He swallows and crosses to the ladder that’ll descend into the bowels of the hanger, where he’ll clock out and go to his shitty closet of a room and sleep.

Maybe dream of holding Benji, as Benji held Maran, as the world crumbled around them.

“I told you I switched my shifts for a reason,” Xavier says quietly, turning so he can start the climb down.

“I heard you,” Benji replies and the injury in his voice makes a hole open inside Xavier’s heart. His fist rubs his sternum, as if an actual wound has appeared, the water so like blood. But instead of saying anything—apologizing, explaining, begging, laughing, anything—he starts the climb down the ladder and leaves Benji alone with his Jaeger.

#writing #pacrim au #xw #bp #xw x bp #i have no excuses

[hauntedjpegcollection]

in the dark

wc: 5267 au: firewatch au ch: xavier, benji

His sister is in the trees.

Xavier can see her. But not reach her. He keeps running, thin branches whipping across his face and arms, little cuts welling black beads of blood. His breath puffs in front of him, as if it’s winter but it’s not. It’s spring—it’s the cusp of Summer. He’s barefoot, and the rocks cut his feet. This isn’t real, it can’t be real, none of it makes sense. But his sister is in the trees. He thinks.

“Tess!” He yells, stumbling through wet underbrush. His bare soles slide across leaves and dirt, the blood making it even more slick and sticky. His chest burns, his veins throbbing. It’s the beginning of night, when the sun parts the trees and makes it look like a forest fire. Everything smells like rot. Everything decays around him.

And Tess smiles between the trees. Every glance of her she smiles wider, until there’s blood round the corners of her lips, splitting skin, too many teeth. She smiles and her eyes crinkle with it, until they’re just slits in a pale, freckled face. Black and angry. Her arms are too long, her hands spider like as they wrap around tree trunks she hides behind. There’s divots from her nails. Xavier screams her name again, trying to reach her. But he never does.

He’s not even sure it’s her. How could it be?

Tess would never leave him alone in the dark.

—

Xavier wakes with a gasp. It’s so violent that he’s already sitting, legs swinging from the bed, hands to his face. He breathes heavily, heaving shoulders and pained sides. Sweat soaks his red hair and flattens it to his skull. It pools at his lower back, under his arms, along his collarbone. Xavier pats around himself, as if searching for an injury. As if the dream could have hurt him. Memories of his sisters ever yawning smile, torn skin, multiplying teeth make him nauseas enough that he quickly leans over to put his head between his knees.

A beat passes, where he stays just like that. Wind chimes that the last firewatch put up ring pleasantly, mingle with morning bird song outside the cracked window.

“Nasty,” Xavier whispers to himself, hands cradling the back of his neck. The unrest in his stomach calms enough that he unfolds and flops backward onto the mediocre twin mattresses. “Should I call Tess?”

Talking to yourself is one of the first symptoms someone isn’t of sound mind—that’s what he’d been taught in his safety training. But Xavier’s only been at his cottage, underneath his lookout tower for a few days. He’d arrived at the beginning of the week and spent an entire day unpacking—another day just trying to set up all the equipment they’d sent him with. The last firewatch—the man who’d put up those adorable little chimes—had taken his own wood axe to the radio.

Xavier wonders if he’d started talking to himself three days into isolation too.

Routine is a balm against an unwell mind. Something else he’d been taught; not that he agreed with or even liked the phrasing. Unwell mind. It makes him snort as he pulls himself from the bed, pads around the cottage to dress himself and start the meager coffee machine they’d supplied. He wasn’t even really a coffee drinker, but along with slightly offensive idioms about keeping yourself well, he’d been told he would walk away from this job with a new caffeine addiction.

Tess was in the back of his head saying, better than your last addiction. Which was fair. If not doing nothing to make Xavier feel less insane.

It was the dreams.

Xavier’s only been at his post for four days now, and all four days, he’s had those fucking dreams. Not just of Tess, but something in the woods. Something in the woods. Some. One? Not an object, but a manifestation of—a creature or—someone. Haunting the leafy sage atmosphere like a ghost.

“Or a monster,” Xavier quips to himself as he pours black coffee into a mug. He decides to dump at least three spoonfuls of sugar into it and then he makes the same breakfast he’s made the last few days. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich on bread he’d let thaw from the storage the first night he’d arrived.

Routine, unfortunately, was what he was going to have to build. So he did.

Xavier finishes the sandwich. Then he stretches, full body, until he’s limber and loose. Then he lays on the ground and does fifty crunches. He rolls over onto his stomach and then does fifty push ups. He alternates planking on his hands and then on his elbows for sixty second intervals. He hops up to do fifty five pull ups from the bar he’d brought with him and stuck in the closet door frame—just because pull ups were his favorite. He washes the plate and the knife he’d used for his breakfast.

Xavier stands in the middle of the cottage and finally realizes that he has to go outside.

—

The dreams had made him scared of the woods. But once he was in it, that fear melted away.

He shrugs his pack up onto his shoulder as it slips down once more. He parts branches gently with his hands, careful not to disturb the nature too much. He fishes a map from his pocket, even though he’s already memorized it. Something about putting his finger to the little blue line makes him feel good. He glances behind him at the little blue cottage as it becomes smaller and smaller. The lookout tower that it’s directly beneath however, never gets smaller. If anything, it becomes more and more imposing the farther Xavier gets from it—being able to see it, knowing he’ll be sitting in that tower, staring at all this forest.

He continues on.

“Bug spray,” he says aloud, to remind himself. He swats at a fat mosquito that makes an audible thwapping sound against his open palm. “Lymes disease,” he ponders idly as a reminder to thoroughly check for ticks once he’s back at the cottage.

Xavier’s father had laughed when he’d talked about his posting. You’re a fisherman in a forest, he’d said in his loud, raspy baritone. Technically, no one in his family had been a fishermen since his great grandfather, but James Wolffe still clung to some sort of pride about all that. Sailed in the summer time, had taught Xavier all he knew about the water. He wasn’t drawn to the forest, landlocked as he is now. It’s just—well, it was good money. It was good money, if you could stand the loneliness. And Xavier needed the money.

He needed…he needed to pay Tess back.

The woods thin. The ground beneath him gets rocky, the soil harder. Xavier’s breath catches as he finds the river.

Trees line either side of it, but it’s a sizable stretch of water that breaks apart the land. An old, rotting trunk is half fallen, nearly a bridge on either side. A large slate of rock sits at the edge, as if it was created for someone to wander onto and rest. The water bubbles happily, currents helped along by churning miniature falls. He lets his head fall back on his shoulders, inhaling the smell deeply, arms akimbo for a moment as he soaks it in.

It’s doesn’t look deep, but Xavier knows water can be deceptive. Still, he tosses his pack onto the shelf of rock and begins to strip. He’d worn trunks underneath, a short blue thing that he didn’t really care too much about. The sun warms his skin instantly, along his shoulders and arms and bare chest. He won’t be out long enough for sunscreen, at least he hopes not because he doesn’t pause to slather any on. Like he can’t help himself, he crashes into the water.

Then he falls back into it with a slap as his back meets the river. And then, Xavier floats contently.

“Is it considered swimming, if you’re just floating?”

No one answers him. Xavier stares at the blue sky above him, crisp in its morning glory. Lazy clouds slide by, hiding him from sunlight every once in a while. His eyes dilate and contrast each and every time until he decides to close them. The water laps at his ears; occasionally it’s all birds and forest and then it’s his muffled heartbeat. Back and forth, back and forth. His limbs go limp and weightless and the only thing keeping Xavier above water is that innate ability to float he’d learned as a child—that all the Wolffe’s had learned as children, growing up in Massachusetts.

Oh, stop. You can’t be scared of sharks in a swimming pool, Xavier.

He smiles at the childhood fear, but he doesn’t know why it comes to him at that moment. Tess pulls him along into the deep end of the community pool, where the teenagers swim. And Xavier cries, because every time he closes his eyes, he sees Bruce from Jaws.

Sharks can’t breathe in chlorine. Only saltwater.

“Bull sharks can live in freshwater,” Xavier mumbles to himself, nearly asleep underneath the clouds and sun. Just like his little river. The thought makes a childish spike of fear hurt his heart, makes his eyes snap open, his hands dipping into the water to touch the smooth stones below him. Too shallow for a shark, surely. A stupid line of thinking, anyway—there were no bull sharks in this God damn river. Why was he trying to scare himself? Xavier swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. Tess’ hand drags him further and further into the deep end of the pool, her girlfriend laughing high pitched, their friends buzzed from the weed he’d caught them smoking just outside the fence.

No, Tess, don’t make me, I’m scared—

“Fucking idiot.” He can’t help indulging the child in his heart by sitting up in the river—he turns to kneeling, the water rippling at his chest. He glances toward the small falls, where a shark surely can’t survive, and then down further along the river bed where it opens even wider into faster churning current. His heart beats against the side of his throat, his breathing fast. Xavier runs an oddly shaky hand through his hair, wetting it further.

“Fucking idiot,” something whispers in his ear, close enough that he can feel their breath, making a scream rip from his throat. Xavier whirls to catch whoever is behind him, scrambling along the cool river stones, splashing—that attracts sharks—and yelping loudly, terror making him cold and useless.

There’s no one there. Just the burbling sound of the river. The birds in the trees. His eyes scan, panicked. They hop everywhere and all it is is fucking green. He shoots to his feet, stumbling, wicking water from his face aggressively.

“Alright?”

“Jesus!” Xavier screams again and this time, his clambering results in him falling backward into the water. He screams more because of it, briefly dunking his head under the river water (hearing his heartbeat louder and louder) before he pops up again. Xavier jerks himself to stand once more and looks at the stranger, on the rock, directly beside his pack.

His first thought is that his knife is in that pack and not on him, so if this stranger wants to kill him, it’ll be a fist fight. His second thought is that if someone’s going to kill him, at least they are very good looking.

“Shouldn’t swim in the river,” the man calls. His voice is a clear ring across the river, sort of like the wind chimes if the chimes were British and sounded like they hadn’t slept in a few days. He has his hands in jacket pockets, denim shorts messily shorn to the thighs, little white strings hanging off here and there. A hole cuts across the thigh as if he’d made a decision to cut there first and then changed his mind. Xavier tries not to stare, but his maybe-killer has a fucking set of legs on him, muscular and defined and hairy. They end in heavy black combat boots that are lazily laced.

He stands with the sun to his back, putting him in shadows, but not enough to obscure him entirely. From what Xavier can see, he’s got facial hair and a handsome curving nose and eyes that match his sleepy tone.

Xavier also realizes then that he hasn’t said anything at all.

“Hi,” he decides on and then cringes at the stupidity of it all. “Uh, no—I’m the firewatch.”

“Makes two of us.”

“What?” Xavier starts, hands brushing back through his wet hair so it’ll stop clinging to his face. The man stares at him so directly, Xavier feels momentarily pinned in the water. His eyes are black, and narrowed and aimed slightly lower than eye level. Xavier’s very suddenly aware he’s in nothing but these stupid blue swim trunks. He makes for the bank of the river, his movements sluggish, his embarrassment making his cheeks a similar color to his hair.

“M’in the third tower. C Tower. You replacing Gresham?”

“You knew him?” Xavier asks with a quick glance up. He steps and then pain suddenly lances up his leg. Xavier gasps, stumbles back, lifting his foot. Dark red blooms in the water, immediate and thick, like spilled wine. “Oh fuck?” He says it like a question, staring at his foot as he lifts it further and blood wells at his heel, where something translucent is half in his flesh.

“Huh.”

“Fuckin’ hell.”

The other firewatch makes for him then. It’s awkward—his dark brown hand cupping underneath Xavier’s calf, arm wrapping around his waist immediately. Xavier feels light headed and not because of the dull pain in his foot or the sudden injury. He knocks the beanie from the strangers head with a too-long arm and black curls lift in the wind, touching his cheek and his chin. Xavier blinks, his skin warming in a way that also has nothing to do with the injury or the earlier humiliation.

“Oops,” Xavier says mindlessly as he’s lowered to the rock by strong, helpful hands. His own shake, the sudden adrenaline of surprise making him twitchy even though it’s not yet started to actually hurt. “Wow. That is—Wow, that’s bad luck. Is that glass? I thought—this park—people aren’t allowed out here.”

“’Course people come out here. Can’t keep people from doin’ what they want. Hold still.”

Xavier watches deft fingers take hold of the glass and yank without any preamble. More blood blooms, dripping onto the rock and making tiny splattered patterns. Fire ignites from his foot up his leg, but he watches in dull amazement as one of his socks is snatched up from the rest of his clothes and quickly tied around his heel. It gets yanked tight enough to put pressure on the little injury.

And then the man steps back and stares at him.

Behind him, his beanie floats down the river and disappears.

“You said you knew Gresham?” Xavier prompts.

“No I didn’t.”

“Well, you said I was replacing him, which means you knew he was in the B tower.”

“Knew that, didn’t know ‘im.’

Xavier attempts to stand and a firm hand pushes him back down. A brief flare of anger makes his face rearrange into a snarl, but the stranger is nonplussed and certainly not intimidated. His hands have returned to the pockets of his jacket and he stands there, taller than Xavier only because he’s standing. He’s toward the sun this time, and his dark brown skin is a golden sort of pretty under it. His eyes are lighter because of it. Xavier’s snarl disappears, replaced with wariness.

“Thank you,” he says slowly, a glance to his now moderately bandaged foot with his own sick.

“Needs a stitch,” the stranger replies gruffly. His eyes stay on Xavier’s chest, as if he’s unwilling to meet eyes.

“Okay.”

There’s nothing but silence then, except for the sounds of the woods. Creaking branches, birds and the wind. The river that stole the mans hat and cut Xavier’s foot bubbling behind them. Xavier feels the sun on his shoulders and the back of his neck and regrets not putting on sunscreen. He stays there on the rock, wondering if he tried to rise again if he’d just be met with that flat, annoyed palm.

The curly haired man grunts, scratches a hand back through that wild untamed mane, glances left and right and then gestures with annoyance. The silence has either unnerved him or frustrated him; Xavier can’t tell because his expression hasn’t changed from it’s pinched and tired slant.

“Benji,” he says. Xavier blinks, for a second not understanding, before it clicks into place that’s his name. Oh, Xavier thinks, slowly starting to smile. That’s a cute name. It feels suiting, but he can’t place why. Benji clears his throat and points to Xavier’s foot. “Can help with that. C Tower is closer.”

“I didn’t realize there was anyone in that tower,” Xavier says as he reaches for his pack. He tugs out a shirt. “I’m Xavier, by the way.” Once its on, sticking in places where his skin is still mostly wet, Benji finally seems to look at him fully. His eyes do a quick, assessing circle—Xavier can’t help but wonder if it’s simply clinical or more. If he’d maybe like it to be a more sort of look. He runs knuckles over his jaw, tilting his head as he stares in turn. That makes Benji look down and away.

“C’mon. Should clean that cut ‘fore it gets infected. Fuck knows whats in the river. Fish shit.”

“Fish shit?” Xavier barks as he starts to stand. Benji is beside him, a hand taking his arm to loop over his shoulders. He reaches for Xavier’s pack, easily swinging it up and carrying the load like it’s not stuffed full.

“Where else fish shittin’ but in the water, mate?”

“There’s perch in this water,” Xavier comments, allowing his weight to shift mostly to this handsome stranger. He doesn’t mind playing damsel in distress a bit—the bottom of his foot does hurt. And besides, he gets the sense that Benji doesn’t actually mind being the knight in cut off jean shorts. They make an awkward duo none the less, as Xavier tries to ensure his heel doesn’t touch the ground.

“Right, and are the perch walkin’ onto the land and shittin’ there? Point stands.”

“I’m not talking about their shit, man. Jesus.” But Xavier laughs and realizes that it feels good to be talking to someone out loud. Not just himself and the forest. “I mean—perch are good for fishing. You fish?”

“No.”

Benji hefts the pack on his shoulder once more, keeps Xavier balanced as they walk the trail toward his looming tower. They’re far separated. A, B and C make a triangular point of protection in the park—but A isn’t occupied. The ranger who had put Xavier in charge said that the cottage was too derelict and spending the money to fix it wasn’t in the budget plans. It wouldn’t be fire season for another month, so it didn’t seem pressing.

But Xavier wonders about the tower now. Why hadn’t anyone told him that C was occupied?

“Did you know I replaced Gresham?”

“No.” There’s awkward silence for a moment. “They radioed me and told me that he was gettin’ evac’d out. Didn’t say he was bein’ replaced.” Benji looks contemplative for a long moment, his handsome features turning solemn. “Was nice, though, ‘cause the men dropped off premium toilet tissue in a supply crate at the same time, so not too mad he lost his marbles.”

Xavier’s laugh echoes loudly in the forest, sending birds careening into the sky, little ‘V’ shaped dots against the clouds and the wide expanse of blue. He thinks he sees Benji look satisfied, but his chin is tucked close to his chest and their height difference makes it too difficult to look properly.

—

“Wow,” Xavier says, as they stand inside the cottage.

“Didn’t know I was goin’ t’have company, yeah?” Benji’s voice is gruff and annoyed as he slings Xavier’s pack onto the table.

The layout is exactly the same. It’s economy sized, meaning small. A bed pushed into the corner (not made up after a nights sleep), a kitchenette modest enough for cooking and not much else. A table to sit at and a closet. There’s no decoration, just like Xavier’s cottage, but Benji has made the little space look well lived in. There’s clothes piling up in the corner, a stack of vinyls on the kitchen counter, a portable and obviously loved record player beside it. A sketchbook is open on the table but Benji crosses to it and snaps it shut and then pushes everything as far to the side as he can.

Xavier sits without asking, in the rickety wooden chair and feels altogether too large for it. His foot has started to hurt worse, tingling and leaden. The sock is luckily black to begin with, so he doesn’t have to see how badly blood has soaked through. His body aches from the shuffling he had to do to get to this tower, even though Benji was helping. He waits patiently as a first aid kit is brought out the closet and popped open on the table.

“Hello, nurse,” he teases in a playful purr as Benji pulls his leg up. Benji snorts—which Xavier is coming to realize might be his way of laughing—and his cheeks darken. The sock is peeled painfully away and tossed to the side, which makes Xavier cringe harder than the feeling of fabric unsticking from his wound.

“S’not as bad as I thought,” Benji comments, tilting Xavier’s heel on his thigh. He pauses to shed his jacket and toss that backward as well. It lands on his bed and Xavier’s mouth feels oddly dry seeing the blankets all tangled as they are. For a brief moment, he pictures Benji laying in it, sunlight streaming in from the window and turning his dark eyes amber. The intrusive thought makes his entire body flush hotly, his hands coming together to twist and turn in front of his chest.

He tries to focus on the painful push of Benji’s fingertips to the cut in his heel. But with the jacket gone, Benji has also revealed far more of himself. Just like the shorts, he’s seen fit to cut the sleeves off his shirt as well, leaving him bare armed. His biceps are corded with muscle, his forearms tautly defined, and he’s just as much body hair as his legs. But truthfully it’s the absolute sprawl of tattoos covering most of him that makes Xavier stare. The shirt also leans open at the collar, like a mouth yawning, and the peek of Benji’s clavicle is enough to make Xavier blush.

“Just gonna use glue, then.”

“Huh?”

“Medical glue—it’s just going to close it up. You’ll be walkin’ on it, anythin’ else will get ripped open. Glue and gauze. S’all I got for you, mate.” But before the glue, Benji pulls out supplies to clean the cut. Xavier settles back on the chair, trying for comfort. “You need somethin’ for it? Don’t have anything harder than Tylenol.”

The warmth in his body drains, replaced by a creeping cold that makes his throat narrow. Xavier’s twisted, tangled hands unlace and he puts them behind his neck. He smiles, but can feel it flickering, feel Benji accessing him more.

“No, I have a high pain tolerance. Swear.” He raises two fingers in mock scout salute. Benji stares at his fingers and then slides those dark eyes back to his face. Xavier pats his own forearm, where his medley of tattoos spans from shoulder to the dogs head on the back of his hand. Benji looks to them, head tilted curiously. He raises the tube of medical glue and softly puts it to the dogs head tattoo on his hand.

“Good boy,” he says simply and Xavier snaps his head to the side to stare out the window instead. He hears the glue uncap and thinks he might hear that tell tale breathing laugh Benji seems to do.

They lapse into silence as Benji takes care of him. Benji’s window overlooks a stretch of the forest, the same as Xavier’s, just in the opposite direction. Never the less, it’s dense and the sun is starting to get lower and lower, descending the woods into an eerie sort of mid afternoon dark. His eye lids droop, his elbow to the table as he rests his chin in his hand and stares. The trees are closer to his window than Xavier’s. The trees. They have little scratch marks in them…

Thoughts of Tess’ long, thin fingers wrapped around bark, digging into trees that weep red sap make him jolt.

“Sorry—that hurt?”

“No,” Xavier answers quickly, breathlessly. “No.” He repeats it, because the marks aren’t there. It’s just craggy bark, nothing more. Xavier flattens a hand to his chest. He’s starting to feel cold, in just the flimsy cotton shirt and his silly blue swim trunks. The adrenaline dump of his wound, the mild blood loss and the introduction of a stranger. The realization that they’d been kept secret from each other—maybe not secret, but they’d not been told the others existence, which felt like a secret. Xavier rubs a hand down his face.

“Since I got here earlier this week, I’ve—I dunno. I’ve been having wicked weird fucking dreams.” He braces for a laugh, or an insult, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Benji dutifully wraps gauze around his heel, in a hypnotizing, practiced motion. Xavier wonders if he has some sort of certification, or maybe he was pursuing a degree in the field, before he decided the loneliness and pay was worth it for this instead. His hands are blunted and broad, strong, with callouses on the palms. Xavier chews the inside of his cheek. He bounces his heel once on Benji’s thigh and makes the man look up at him.

“You having any weird dreams, or am I just not cut out for this?”

“Don’t sleep much,” Benji replies, noncommittally.

“You should make your bed, then, if you’re not using it,” Xavier comments. Benji looks to be holding in a grin, shaking his head, moving Xavier’s foot from his thigh and onto the ground and then sliding the chair back so he can stand. Xavier does as well, leaning his weight on his uninjured foot. The pain is a dull ache that is almost comfortable, considering he’s been living with it for at least an hour now and it’ll likely continue for a day or two. He thinks about asking Benji if he can come back to have him check it out, but he instantly feels too shy. Instead, he reaches for his pack on the table and begins rummaging for the pants he’d worn before his dip in the river.

Their silence isn’t uncomfortable or awkward, the way it might have been before. Benji finds the sock he’d tossed, throwing it into the trash. He washes his hands diligently and puts away his first aid kit. Xavier struggles a bit with the pants, but doesn’t ask for help because he cannot imagine the idea of Benji touching him more than he already has. He notices the radio in the corner of the room. There should be another, all the way in the look out tower. Xavier has the exact same set up.

“Hey, uh,” he motions toward it, making Benji look at him. “If you ever get bored, you could…” he trails off then, shrugging his pack onto his shoulder and nearly colliding with the wall. It makes Benji grin, his cheeks dimpling. Xavier pats at his chest, as if trying to settle his oddly beating heart. He smiles back, his large, wolfish smile.

“I’ll be on channel seven,” Xavier says.

—

He’d never truly understood dark until he’d come to the woods. Xavier was born and bred city. He’d grown up in Boston where lights never turned off. Noise never stopped. Where people were always there; a home full of parents and his siblings, neighbors that were almost too close for comfort. People talking, the cars running all through the night, sirens in the distance.

The woods were silent. They were dark.

Sleep comes to him partially. Like being submerged in the river water again, he feels waterlogged and exhausted. He lays in the twin bed, his feet dangling off the edge, his arms across his stomach. His head tilts toward the window, toward the dark looming trees. His eyes blink as he dozes, in and out, as the marks of his sisters nails appear again and again in the bark. Xavier’s foot throbs dully with his heartbeat, but he’s nearly asleep when he hears a crackle.

Then his name.

“Xavier?”

He bolts upright in the bed, feet colliding with the floor. He howls at the sudden explosion of pain up from his heal. Xavier stuffs a fist into his mouth to stop himself from yelling any louder, his other punching his own pillow. The crackling resumes, the static of the radio loud in the silent night.

“Fuckin’ hell, is this on? Is it working?”

Benji’s voice is distorted, but still clear. His accent makes his words a little jumbled, but it’s endearing. Xavier had liked the mans voice. He’d liked it a lot. He shuffles quickly from his bed, landing in the cozy recliner by the radio. He fumbles for it.

“Benji?” The radio receiver crackles once more.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Xavier glances out the window, to the forest. To the dark. “You?” He’s not about to admit that he’d been half asleep already and that Xavier was actually, frankly, very good at sleeping almost all the time. He’d even fallen asleep standing up once, leaned against a wall.

“I’m up,” he says instead, looking at his gauze wrapped foot. “It’s late.”

“Do you wanna discuss the weather too, then, yeah?”

“Wow, you don’t like my conversation starters? Tell me your deepest secret and biggest mistake, man, if you hate small talk.”

“Suppose it is late,” Benji replies gruffly and it makes Xavier laugh. He wishes they were in person, because Benji had lit up briefly under that laugh the first time. Instead he rubs his fingers across the radio, just for his hands to have something to do. “Where’s your accent from?”

“Boston,” Xavier replies into the radio. He’s grinning and for a moment, he doesn’t mind the dark of his cottage. The night time like a blanket around him. “You?”

“Liverpool.”

And then, the flood gates seem to open and the two of them talk. And talk. And keep talking. Xavier learns about Saha and he talks about Tess; they talk about music and come to the conclusion they both have very different tastes but Xavier wouldn’t mind coming over to listen to some of the records Benji had brought with him. They talk about easy topics and more than once they say a joke at each others expense and the teasing turns to something mildly flirtatious that makes Xavier’s skin prickle and heat at the reminder of Benji’s rough palms. They talk. They talk all night.

And outside, something in the dark grows.

#writing #firewatch au #bp #xw #xw x bp #addicted to new aus

[hauntedjpegcollection]

same old

wc: 2312 au: core au ch: xavier, benji

The parking lot to the office building is dead empty. It used to make him nervous—parking lots at night, big empty space. A flood light flickers and barely illuminates his path up to the stone steps. Windows line the front, real two way mirror like. Can’t see out as well as you can see in. That also used to make him nervous—Xavier figures he was a pretty nervous man before. But when he shakes off his coat and tosses it onto a rack aside the door, a man at the welcome counter whistles. It relaxes him instantly, this friendly greeting, this familiar face.

“Wolffe, you see that plan on last nights game? Whiffed it, he fuckin’ did, yeah?”

“Go easy on the guy. First time playing after a knee injury? Like you could do better.” Xavier leans over the counter to fish for a pen on a messy desk. Banner heaves back in the office chair, booted feet propped up on the counter. The toes are scuffed to death and they’re clunky and militant, obviously old. He’s former…something. Xavier never actually remembers—which is sort of nice. It’s hazy anyway, just like his own flimsy background that has somehow held for as long as it has. Most of the British don’t seem to care if he was Air Force, Navy, Marine or what.

“I’d hold it down, my own. ‘Fore the—”

“Before the bullet, right, right.” Xavier nods along, grinning toothily as he signs his name into visitors. Not entirely necessary, but since his paperwork is also flimsy, he likes following rules. Makes it easier. Lessens the everyday hovering fear that something will one day happen to take all this away. “Tell Eden I said hello. Meant to bring in the casserole dish, but—” he gestures to the oil stained mechanics jumpsuit.

“Right off from work?”

“Cut out early.”

“Lazy dog!”

“Woof,” Xavier jokes, tongue out as he pushes through the side door that leads into a long, beige hallway.

Used to be Xavier couldn’t stand the color. Reminds him of…

He hangs a right, sidesteps a short woman whose hair is pulled back in a severe bun.

“Going to call security on you one day,” she comments, eyes cutting up above small, rectangular glasses. Xavier presses both hands to his heart, attempts his sweetest, most good boy smile. It might not land, with the little bit of gray that’s seemed to finally push through at his temples. Luckily, the office he’s looking for is only a few steps backward and to the left. Xavier’s hand closes around the little gold knob just as the woman is rolling her eyes and turning back to a printer that will likely occupy her for a full night.

“Oh, sorry,” he says, holding up his broad hands in surprise. Xavier frowns, brows pulling together. He makes a quick glance behind him to the glass window pane that has a last name on it, in big black lettering. “I’m looking for someone. Have you seen,” he turns and steps forward, hands closing onto the back of a chair. It’s nice than those standard wooden chairs in some of the other offices—someone had clearly thought of comfort first, when putting these in here. For whoever might be in The Veterans Affairs office—who might need comfort before anything else.

“My husband? He’s around this tall,” Xavier touches his chest, admittedly a bit suggestively. “Dresses almost entirely in black and has the prettiest eyes. I haven’t seen him in, like, a week?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Benji sighs, tossing paperwork onto his desk.

Maybe it was because Xavier had only just been sitting in his car, looking through old pictures on his phone that Benji’s appearance strikes a hard chord inside his heart. It’s devastating occasionally, knowing time just sort of passes like it does. Xavier feels it slip through his fingers, that metaphor of sand or water or whatever the fuck getting away too quickly. One day, he was standing in front of a job fair booth, making the worst decision of his life; the next day, he was waking up next to a result of that decision and the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Benji removes his glasses, tossing them alongside the paperwork. He pinches the bridge of his handsome, curved nose. He must have been the last of his soldiers already, because he’s yanked all his hair back haphazardly with a claw clip that barely contains all those curls. Gray weaves through them, a thick band that sprouts from one temple and blends with his raven ink colored hair.

He’d gone gray first. Xavier thinks it started back in the forest, with the wound. Benji had aged ten years in that moment, knife slit in his side. Xavier, when he’d finally found himself back in his lovers arms, months and months later, had found the first gray hair. He’d put his lips to it, his nose to it, in that way Xavier showed affection and breathed Benji in and made peace with the fact that the gray would stay.

A dog breathes in the corner, a soft snuffling sounds. Anika lays there, in her SERVICE ANIMAL vest, utterly tuckered out and asleep. Her side rises and falls in that soothing, animal pattern. One of her back legs kick, like she’s firmly inside a nice, sunny dream.

Xavier slinks around the chair he’d been leaning on, hand walking across Benji’s desk. He pokes fingers into paperwork, slides it just a bit further away. Benji snorts at the gesture and it makes Xavier pouty, until he’s firmly on the other side of the desk. Then he can’t hel smiling again, leaning back against Benji’s messy workspace, feet spread to make himself a bit shorter for his husband.

“Promise I didn’t come to revisit the old argument,” Xavier says, holding up his hand in a mock scout salute. Benji’s long hours, huge case load, dedication to his job, all had already been a sore spot at more than one dinner table argument. But sometimes Xavier liked that—what they argued about seemed simple and domestic and sweet because of it. Letting the laundry sit too long so it got wrinkled, or ordering the wrong sized door for the shed they were building, or that Benji worked himself to death sometimes or that Xavier felt he didn’t work enough, didn’t pull his weight, didn’t really add enough to their income.

Benji’s dark hands lift, slide around Xavier’s thighs and squeeze. He pulls himself closer, resting his cheek against the rough material of the mechanics jumpsuit on Xavier’s stomach.

“Mm,” he hums. “Love you in this, y’know.”

“Do you want me to leave and walk back in and pretend I’m just some lost mechanic? Get a little roleplay with it?” Benji’s laugh is a soft bark, something that moves his shoulders. Xavier brushes fingers through that jet black and steel gray hair, appreciating how it causes Benji’s hands to tighten around his thighs as if in reflex.

“Naw,” he drawls and tilts his head back until his chin is resting on the lower part of Xavier’s stomach. A strong current of hot blood suddenly rushes straight to that spot, leaving Xavier dry mouthed and dizzy. “I wanna go home.” Benji’s dark, husky voice makes that hot blood pool painfully lower. Those pretty eyes blink up at him, making it even worse. Xavier groans, loudly, completely unashamed of the sudden and intense desire for his husband.

“Say fucking less,” he mumbles, quickly bending to dark a few kisses to Benji’s mouth and cheek and accidentally, his eyebrow. It causes more laughter, which does not make his hard on any less hard.

—

It’s not noise or temperature or a dream that wakes Xavier up. It’s sheer absence of a body next to his own, when nightly, there is a body beside him. His pale hand pats around the bed, searching for Benji and coming up empty. Xavier lays flat on his stomach, still half asleep, drifting in and out of a dream that was all green and blue and warm. He blinks himself awake, forces consciousness in the wake of realizing he’s alone in their bed. He rises, stumbling a little bit.

Xavier’s long body tips over as his hands scramble along the floor to find his boxers. He tugs them on, yawning with his head tilted back. The elastic snaps on his hips. He notices how much tighter they feel, a little roll of fat above the band. He pinches it, grumbling to himself, because he wasn’t sure where all that came from.

He leaves the bedroom, scratching idly at an itch on his side. Fingers run accidentally on scar tissue, but he pays it no attention because it’s an old wound. A before wound—a knife slipped up to take his life and having missed, just made his pale, freckly skin less pretty there. Xavier doesn’t think about that old scar anymore, barely thinks of any of them. Not even the one along his jaw, since he’s regularly kept just a thin layer of five o’clock shadow. Now that it doesn’t grow in so God damn patchy.

Sleepiness still clings to him, dragging him down like a warm blanket, so he nearly trips over Anika. She’s laid on her side, in the hallway, which is where she tends to sleep if Benji’s left the bedroom. The poor girl raises a head and then lays it back down, her tail thumping softly.

“I know, girl,” Xavier says, bending to pet her big, blocky head. He gives her a sweet kiss to the face, a thank you for forever protecting his husband when Benji refuses to wake Xavier up.

It was funny that the insomnia didn’t really go away. There were good stretches of time where Benji slept fine. Better than fine, there were Sundays were they overslept and stayed in bed and cat napped through out the day. Most days, Xavier woke up before Benji to be at the shop early—and Benji was still asleep. Not the half sleep he’d become accustomed too when he’d first come home (here, home). Benji, flitting through a hundred different nightmares, on the precipice of being awake during every single one. That wasn’t real rest.

But Benji did get real rest these days. Most of the time. Love was not a cure all for everything, though. And the insomnia stuck around more often than Xavier would have liked.

The TV is on, but the sound is so soft it’s more for light than anything else. Benji lays on the couch, arms around himself, tucked inward. His side rises and falls softly, but Xavier doesn’t believe for a second he’s truly asleep. It’s that half state again. He can tell because Benji’s fingers dance, twitching here and there.

Xavier says nothing as he approaches. He continues to say nothing as he takes Benji’s wrist and slowly unravels the former medic. Benji makes a few noises himself, a grunt here and there. A resigned sigh. Xavier doesn’t care and he doesn’t stop. He merely tugs Benji up from the couch and starts the walk back to their bedroom. It’s almost child like, pulling him along. He can picture the dour, petulant expression across Benji’s face; caught in his ridiculous independent act. He didn’t like bothering Xavier, he didn’t want to toss and turn in bed when the other man needed sleep. Even years together, Benji had a hard time asking for things.

There’s no use arguing over it. And besides, before it made Xavier angry. Now, he feels nothing but this surging, protective affection that makes him yank back the blankets and shove at Benji to get back into the bed.

“Dickhead,” he mumbles grouchily.

“Mhm,” Xavier hums, climbing in as well. Mean old fuck, Xavier thinks fondly, lovingly, happily. He tucks arms around Benji’s broad torso and yanks him back into the cushion of his chest and thighs, spoons around him like a warm blanket. Benji mumbles something else, not really meant to be heard. Xavier presses a kiss to skin, anywhere he can find it. Shoulder, neck, behind Benji’s ear.

“Sorry,” Benji finally folds. “Not a nightmare, alright? Just couldn’t sleep. Didn’t want to—”

“Just bother me,” Xavier interrupts. “I like being bothered.” He flattens a hand and gropes across Benji’s chest to make him laugh. It’s a lovely, husky sound. Xavier presses another aimless kiss. “Besides, I already called off tomorrow.”

“You never call off work.” Which was true. Xavier’s loyalty and work ethic combined was dog like. Anika would be jealous. Or, if she could communicate, she’d probably tell her stupid humans to stop being so stubborn, so annoying and also to buy more quail eggs for her. Before Xavier can answer, Benji is hauling away from him and patting at the bedside table. There’s a brief illumination—the pale sickly light of technology—and then the thumb patting sound of Benji texting. The phone’s put down and then Benji wiggles back into place—which is both adorable and very hilarious, considering he’d been the one to wander out of the bedroom in the first place.

Xavier does not point out the sudden change of heart. Instead, his fingers brush softly through coarse, black body hair at Benji’s navel.

“I just texted Graham and said I was using a sick day.”

“Ooooooh,” Xavier whispers into Benji’s ear. “So bad.” And he yanks them together tighter, eliciting a huff of affection. Maybe if they were younger, the loss of anticipation for next day responsibilities would have spurned them into turning toward each other with wandering hands. They would have kissed and fucked and talked the entire night. Instead, Benji actually falls asleep. His breathing is a soft, beautiful pattern against Xavier’s arm, tucked as it is underneath him.

#writing #core au #xw #bp #xw x bp

[hauntedjpegcollection]

the way

wc: 3338 au: fantasy au ch: xavier, fiadh, yasiel, tino

In dark and rain alike, Xavier knows his way to the farm.

He knows the Kingsroad and he knows where to cut off from it. He knows this forest, heavy and dense and clawing at their cloaks and putting small red cuts on any exposed skin. He knows that the field is coming, even before they find it—his heart is in his throat, threatening the back of his tongue. He remembers it in the daylight; honeyed sun making him lazy and warm and content. Laying on his back, in soft grass, another’s hand on his stomach as his hooded eyes watch white clouds slip by.

Under the heavy burden of the storm, the field looks so lonesome. Widely empty. Devoid of…of him.

And yet, Xavier still finds the spot in the fences that is easiest to hop. He’d tripped over it the first time he’d ever come crashing into this field. Back then, he’d been lost and young and just as green as the grass. He’d been tired and thirsty and willing to make himself a thief to drink from a strangers well. It had been a mystery to him back then, this sudden and beautiful sanctuary—but now. He’d have this land memorized. Forever.

Yasiel helps Fiadh over the posts, as much as he’s able. Xavier’s long legs had made it easy, even in greaves and mail, but he doesn’t extend a hand to help. The lady’s cloak is stuck to her, making it cumbersome and awkward, but her mage manages. His white teeth bare in the night as he stares at Xavier, hauling himself up and over the dilapidated wooden posts. He slips a few times but draws up with his remaining dignity.

“My lady can’t be under the rain much longer,” he snaps, stomping forward. Mud splatters the ends of Yasiel’s once regal looking navy cloak. He’s not even bothered to keep his hood up and his long raven locks stick to his face messily. Xavier isn’t sure where the glasses have gone, if he’s given them up, and if Ysaiel can even see without them.

The weather batters them all, but Fiadh’s beautiful face is miserably red from the onslaught of cold and forest alike. She has a cut on her high cheekbone and it is vibrant against her pallid tone. She’s tried to be brave about it, the cuts and the rain despite the chattering teeth. She stumbles along with them, not making a fuss, not asking to stop, not complaining. All the same; an illness born of cold could kill. Xavier knows that.

He’d not necessarily meant for this detour, even though the closer they got to it, the more his heart had burned inside his chest. He’s already been here not that long ago (one might be able to say Xavier’s never left, not really), back when he’d finally escaped her and come home to try and find—to look for—hoping…he’d still be here. Only Xavier had arrived to find a father alone. No son. He’d not stayed long after that, because the barn had loomed over him, empty of nothing but memories and hay.

Because Tino and—and he—didn’t look alike, features set all differently. And yet being around him, all he could think—

“Not much further,” Xavier says as he turns toward the field. No he’d not meant for this detour. But it was necessary now, with the storm at their backs, threatening the nobility. Yasiel makes a disgusted, explosive sound behind him. A series of curses follows and Fiadh’s soft voice tries to calm her servants rising anger.

Xavier wants to pause as he passes the well. He won’t, because his pitiful party can’t withstand fucking rain—but Gods, he wants to stop. He wants to run his hands over the stone of the well and remember the first glimpse he’d ever had of his love. Sun high in the sky, behind a halo of curly black hair, and a large woodsman axe on. Swung hard enough and close enough it probably could have taken Xavier’s head off in one solid swing. It was supposed to be a funny memory; they’d laughed over it more than once in the months to come after, because it was a funny memory.

Now, it simply eats at him. Painful, like all the memories he has left now, because they’re just memories.

Xavier bunches his shoulders to the wind as it kicks up again. It slices his face cruelly. One glance behind his shoulder shows Yasiel’s arm tucked around his mistress. He attempts to use his height to keep her protected, to shield from the downpour. Funny, that the spirited storm had come on almost as soon as Lark had departed.

Looks like sun for the rest of your journey, brother, he’d said, with his eyes to the sky. Fortunate thing. Damned thief had cursed him. Or his witch had, just for fun.

The distance closes between field and home. Xavier spots the barn first. His eyes skate over it—to the cottage instead. Its a simple thing, built for both economy and yet, with love. Xavier’s heart thunders, his throat tightening around the roaring muscle as it climbs up him. His body cannot catch up to what his brain already knows; he is not in there. He is not waiting for Xavier. He will not open the door and lean against the frame and look up under beautiful, black eye lashes and ask ‘Here to help with the farm chores then, Ser?’ And he won’t smile with that handsome, tired smile, because he won’t fucking be there.

Xavier’s gloved hand flattens to his chest, attempts to keep himself held together with just that as he closes his eyes and presses forward.

“Be polite,” he calls over his shoulder. It’s more for Yasiel than it is for Fiadh, but he hasn’t forgotten her arrogant mistake with the thieves on the road. “Manners are important with him. Doesn’t take to disrespect, no matter your station. He’s kind. But he has his ways.” Xavier is shocked to find himself laughing those last words.

A memory strikes him, clear like that first day in the field. Of Tino, catching Xavier standing and staring, out into that big field they’d just crossed. ‘Are you going to stare at my son with your tongue out like a dog? Or will you help him cut the fire wood?’ He was that kind of man. Perceptive, quick witted, funny with a bit of a wicked streak. After, when they’d joined for dinner he’d given Xavier two helpings. Soldiers rations had been brutal back then, and he was so thankful he almost couldn’t accept it.

The wind pushes them back even as Xavier reaches the house first. He wonders if it’s an omen. If everything since the day he’s left and was taken and he was held in the mountains, if it’s all just been omens.

Xavier’s pulse thrums. The cottage windows are boarded up against the storm. It’s a strong little thing, built by the very man inside it; and likely with magic. Xavier tucks his chin down to his chest and then lifts a hesitant fist. He can feel Yasiel and Fiadh behind him. He swallows and hammers the door. When no one answers, he raises it once more, and even Xavier is now shaking. From the cold? From the storm? From fear?

Then the door swings open.

Benji, Xavier’s treacherous heart whispers.

Light pours from the cottage, flickering from a dozen candles. It silhouettes Tino, who stands with a flash in his dark eyes. There is a crackle in the air, perhaps the storm. Perhaps magic. Xavier quickly swipes his cloak down from his head. Wet strands of his hair cling to his cheeks. There’s a long stretch of time between the two men, where they are only staring at each other. Rain threatens to spill over the threshold into Tino’s home.

Xavier bows his head.

“Uncle,” he greets with a hoarse voice. Emotion makes it difficult to breathe. He’s met with silence—or rather, rain filling that silence, howling wind behind him, Fiadh sniffling softly, Yasiel’s tight and annoyed words to soothe her—and then he looks back up from the submissive tilt of his chin. Tino has his long pipe in his mouth, not yet lit, looking contemplatively.

“Guests this time, eh?” Fire starts in the bowl of the pipe, no match needed. Yasiel’s breath is sharp behind Xavier. Tino tilts his head to the side, curious. “You know the rules, son.”

“Rules?” Fiadh pipes up in her delicate voice. It’s wispy and thin from the weather, and even in that word alone she sounds like the nobility she is. Xavier cringes, because if he knows one thing about Tino (of whom he actually knows quite a bit), it’s his wariness around the ruling class.

“We’ll help clear any of the debris from the storm in the morning.” Xavier says quickly. He can’t help but smile, his shoulders finally straightening. It hurts to look at Tino as much as it is welcome. To be this close to him again; this close to the memories of his youth. Memories of Tino’s son. Memories of Benji. “Is that enough?”

“And the crank on the well.” Tino puffs on his pipe, face cracking into a warm smile that soothes any nerves Xavier had. It does something to the inside of his chest, like it rearranges the wet, sad organ trapped within his ribcage. “Inside then. And why are you so thin? Not eating enough again, Xavier? And she,” Tino steps aside to allow them to enter. He tuts, shaking his head. Yasiel and Fiadh cross into the warm hearth of the home. “We will get her warm.”

“I could pay you. For food and the night stay,” Fiadh says quickly as Yasiel stands behind her, grasping at her wet cloak to get it free from it’s clasp. He makes a strangled sound at the ignorance of his lady, a hand wrapping around her bicep. “What? What did I do?”

“Interesting people you’ve got with you,” Tino says coolly, puffing rings of smoke into the air, with hooded eyes. Xavier clears his throat and steps toward Fiadh as well, helping Yasiel with her rain soaked cloak. She shivers pathetically, from head to toe, her golden brown hair frizzy and ratty from the stormy travel. It does nothing to dampen her natural beauty. She has giant eyes for him as he does, pink in her cheeks and he almost regrets helping.

Her pursuit of him is rooted in the stories she’s likely heard as a child; dark knights and beautiful young princesses. This is no story, not for Xavier, whose cold, dark, knighted heart is reserved for one person only.

“You’re a mage?” Yasiel asks, shedding his own cloak. He flaps it uselessly, sending water against the cottage wall. He has the decency to look slightly shamed by that and quickly hands it off to Xavier, who places all three to a hook. The fireplace would usually be roaring if not for the storm, a cook pot with infamously spicy, yet delicious food bubbling. He’d loved Tino’s cooking. Benji had inherited a talent for it. He’d always made this delicious bread that Xavier would eat too much of—fall asleep before they could even fool around in the loft of the barn.

“That’s your peoples word,” Tino replies, bustling into his kitchen to provide them some food from his storage.

“Witch, then?” Yasiel continues, curious as he follows. Xavier allows this conversation to distract him, less he look at a door in the cottage. One with a duck painted, old and fading, on a door leading to a room he knows is empty.

“You can tell that, Yas?” Fiadh asks. Her mage holds up his hands, big brown eyes briefly closed.

“Feels like magic,” is what he says simply. She clasps her hands together, impressed by him.

“Not everyone uses magic has to be called something,” Tino intones wisely, and Xavier almost snorts. Once, he’d been privy to Tino shilling magic tonics and trinkets to passerby—no doubt charmed with something because he was at least an honest man. But certainly no stronger than a fishwife’s enchanted gutting knife or a bakers favorite magicked sugar. The act seems to work on Fiadh though, who hovers close to the older man, with newly glimmering adoring eyes. Cruelly, Xavier wonders if she might try flirting with him and then he’s secretly ashamed of that unkind thought.

Once bowls of food are set out for them, Tino disappears to clear out some space for bedrolls to be laid down.

“How do you know him?” Fiadh asks, settling closer to Xavier than he’d like. Strands of her hair are caught all over her lovely face and some strange part of him feels like he should clear them away for her. Fiadh inspires that, he supposes. This overwhelming urge to dote on her. It might be the stare she has, giant eyed and unwavering, or the charming blush to her cheeks whenever she’s around the opposite sex. It unsettles him how easy it is to imagine touching her. It feels like a betrayal.

“Uncle,” Yasiel says and interrupts Xavier’s thoughts, raising his eyebrows, busy with his food. He snorts and chews and rolls his eyes, waves a spoon to the lovely little cottage and it’s candles against the storm. The wind howls. “Neither of you can feel all of that? He’s got some sort of warding spell. To keep people out—”

“Not your business, Yas,” Xavier says flatly. Fiadh laughs beside him, but the two men share a blinking stare, because it’s a familiar enough thing to call someone by a little nickname. Xavier doesn’t want the familiarity—he almost regrets bringing them here at all. This place feels privately his own, when that’s not true at all. Especially not anymore.

Still, he’s quieted the scrawny mage enough that they can finish their meal.

—

Yasiel doesn’t fuss when he’s asked. He merely pulls on his cloak and leaves the cottage, pretty Fiadh in tow as the morning light breaks through the previous nights storm clouds. Xavier watches from the window, as the court mage lowers himself to a kneel and begins milking the goat. He does it efficiently and precisely, which makes Xavier wonder where Yasiel comes from to begin with. Fiadh isn’t making any moves toward the garden, where she’s meant to be picking through and salvaging vegetables. That surprises him less than a nobility’s mage lowering himself to his knees in mud to milk a goat.

“Sleep alright?” Tino’s voice beside him pulls Xavier from the window. A mug of tea is held out in front, pale with milk the way he’d always taken it before. He reaches for it slowly, lets the ceramic warm his hands once his palms close around the mug. He should be moving to check the roof, to repair the well, or whatever else Tino might ask of him.

Instead the two men stand there, in the cottage, a third person’s absence painful between them. Xavier doesn’t answer the question—no, he did not sleep alright. He doesn’t sleep well anymore but Tino doesn’t need to be burdened by that. For the first time, he wonders if Xavier is a painful memory for the man—if Xavier being here reminds him that his son is not there as much as Tino reminds Xavier of that as well. It feels like a double edged sword metaphor and they’re both holding the blade.

Why did he leave, Xavier had asked when he’d found Tino the first time, direct from The Mountain. Laying in Benji’s bed, being nursed to the sort of half health a man returns to after being held hostage by a sorceresses, the warm comfort a man who was paternal by nature, to any young man that wandered into his path.

Why would he leave you? Why wouldn’t he wait for me?

But he knew the answer to that. Benji had already waited. He’d waited a long time.

“I’ve packed you up some rations. Don’t argue. I don’t like the way your clothes are hanging off you—and that magician is as reedy as a cattail.” He raises a finger severely, one eye narrowed, daring Xavier to argue with him. He wouldn’t. Never with Tino. Instead, he drinks the spicy, milky tea. “Might even have packed some chocolate for the girl. I’ll take it back if she doesn’t get started on that garden though.”

“You’ll see Yasiel doing it soon enough,” Xavier snorts, sparing a glance to the duo outside.

“Ah, well,” Tino tuts. “So long as someone does it.” Then he softens all over and points to a chair by the fire Tino started when they all woke that morning. Xavier eyes it with confusion, but approaches none the less and sits. Then Tino bustles around his cottage, leaving Xavier time to appreciate it in the light.

Morning cuts through the window and washes the place golden. It’s not messy but it is deeply lived in; a broom leans near the door, a coat thrown over a table, a book propped open with pages folded for later attention. A kettle sits off to the side, a sack of grain against a wall, a row of herbs over an oven. The floors are clean, but scuffed with age. A well worn path between rooms. Xavier’s fingers trail the brick of the fireplace, his eyes straying once more to a door with a painted duck. If it were opened, there’d be a room he’d snuck into more than once, through the window, so Tino was none the wiser (even if he was always wise to his son’s antics).

And if that door were opened, in the frame would be a series of notches.

Benji, age 7.

Benji, age 12.

Benji, age 13.

Benji, age 17.

And so on. And so on. And so on.

Xavier’s throat closes, his eyes burning as he looks to his hands. Without his gauntlets, they feel small, when he knows they’re not. They are callused and rough, dirt permanently underneath his fingernails now. They feel weak and incapable. He opens and closes them, until he feels a touch to his shoulder. Then he looks up and finds Tino, with a golden pair of scissors in his hands.

“It’s gettin’ long,” he comments, taking a strand of rust colored hair.

“I don’t think about it,” Xavier replies honestly. Save for a braid at his temple, Xavier doesn’t care for his hair. He washes it when he gets the chance, when they happen upon a river. Snags his fingers through it messily. But he doesn’t pay it any mind. He tenses like a traitor as Tino stands behind him, a hand on his shoulder, the other on the top of his head. It radiates warmth down through him, as calming as the fireplace.

Moments later, dark red hair scatters the floor of the old cottage. Xavier keeps his chin tilted down slightly as it’s sheared away. He sneezes at one point, because the strands tickle his nose—and it makes Tino bark that fatherly laugh that comes from somewhere deep in his chest, right by his heart. And then when it’s done, his hands swipe hair from Xavier’s shoulders and the tired knight rises from the chair, too tall for this cozy little home. He smooths a hand back through it, feels how much lighter he is for the cut. Short on the sides, unruly on the top, the braid left untouched.

Tino stands there, the scissors still in his hand until he slowly reaches and puts them on the mantle of the fireplace. He smiles, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“There y’are,” he says.

Xavier goes for him then. Wraps long arms around the man and they stand there, embraced in the cottage, for a long, long time.

#writing #fantasy au #xw #ym #flk #tl

[hauntedjpegcollection]

first kiss

wc: 6567 au: valorant au ch: benji, xavier

Xavier’s the last one in the bathroom. He tolerates teasing from his friends, hip cocked against the sink, tooth brush in his mouth.

“Two minunesh,” he says, with his fingers raised, foamy toothpaste on the corners of his upturned lips. That was the time dentists recommended to reduce cavities. And Xavier would do just about anything to avoid another root canal. Not because it had hurt—which it had—but because of the conversation he and Tess had overhead the next day. Crouched on the landing, parents at the dining room table, pouring over bills.

Fifteen years old, Xavier was only just now realizing that things cost money. He’d known, in that sort of way kids knew money existed and that their parents worked to get it, but now he really knew. Xavier had held an ice pack to his cheek, Tess’ arm around his shoulder, while his parents talked about just precisely how much money his tooth had been worth. His mother had done doubles for a week to pay for that root canal. He would brush his teeth for two minutes if that meant she didn’t do that again.

Video games play loudly down the hall, some violent little shooter that his friends were currently obsessed with. David and Mark are equally as noisy; brash and young and on the wrestling team, just like Xavier. They were bitter at him for sprouting inches over the summer. He was bitter about how much his joints hurt, the growing pains stretching and pulling around him. He’s awkward in his own body now, gangly when his prior height had been perfectly fine. Everyone looks up at him now. His jeans are too short on his ankles. He’d had to size up twice for the annual sweatshirts they were given for the wrestling team.

Xavier leans over the sink, spitting toothpaste into the ceramic bowl. He washes his toothbrush and tucks it back into his overnight bag. When he straightens, David’s sister is staring at him.

He’s been a friend of the Thompson’s family since he was five years old. Their mothers had a book club together. They met on Tuesdays and drank wine in the living room and giggled loudly, stuffed together on a couch. Their fathers grilled during the summer and complained about politics (whatever president was currently in office, Xavier found that his dad hated him fiercely). He and David were in little league together. They’d joined wrestling as a unit because where Xavier was getting taller every single year, David was getting wider. He looked like his father, broad and intimidating. Sometimes people called Xavier and David, Stick and Rock, which secretly hurt both their feelings and they secretly kept that to themselves.

The same summer that David and Xavier turned fifteen, Rose had turned thirteen. And before, she’d been shy and nervous and kept to her room when boys ransacked the house, looking for snacks and entertainment. She kept out of the way most of the time, but Xavier—who was raised Catholic and by an ER nurse and an HVAC technician—was always polite. He said hello to her in passing, he used her name instead of the endless nicknames David had for her. When he was over for dinner, he sat on her right and passed her the salt when she asked. Sometimes he caught her staring and had no idea what to do but smile at her.

That’s what he’s doing then, since she’s standing just outside the bathroom door, staring. Xavier’s lips feel dry from the toothpaste.

“Hi, Rose,” he says awkwardly. Earlier that summer, along with becoming too tall, his voice has started to change. It spikes up randomly and then changes a few octaves too deep. Right then it decides to be too deep and Xavier has to clear his throat around it.

“I need help.” Rose positively blurts it, nearly runs the entire sentence together like it’s one singular word. Xavier blinks a few times as his brain catches up, fitting the words together. He’s an older brother, so his first natural reaction is to immediately panic and think the worst.

“Are you okay?” Xavier asks just as quickly, taking a small step toward her. Rose’s face turns a dark shade of red that he almost thinks makes her look…pretty. She looks a lot like her brother. They have the same small, upturned nose and wide set brown eyes. She’s wearing make up; just a hint of it, mascara on her eyes and a lip gloss. Xavier has no idea what to do with that information. Is she supposed to be wearing make up? He tries to remember when Tess started slathering eyeshadow on—probably around the same time she shaved her head. This felt like a very different sort of make up. And Rose had long hair—long curly brown hair. David kept his hair short—it was easier for sports.

It’s half a second before he realizes she’s said something.

“What?”

“Can you come with me?”

“What?” Xavier’s voice comes out high then, a squeaky scratch. He clears his throat again and rubs a broad palm over the back of his neck, glancing around the bathroom. “Should I get Dave?” David was trying out being called Dave and Xavier was sort of jealous, because there was no cool way to nickname Xavier.

“No!”

“Okay.” His hands come together. He twists fingers together, held in front of his chest. Xavier is so much taller than her that she has to tilt her head up.

“C’mon,” Rose says, turning on her heel. Xavier can hear her brother down the hall, with Mark. They’re laughing. He turns around from David’s door and toward the end of the hallway where Rose sleeps. The Thompson’s house was very cool—it had a pool, but it also had more bedrooms that weren’t used as bedrooms, because the Thompson’s didn’t have four kids like the Wolffe’s. It was just David and Rose, so there was an entire room dedicated to just books.

Emily would have liked it. She was always hungry for a book. She would finish one, and immediately pick up another. Sometimes Xavier liked to sit in her room while she read and he worked on homework, because the sound of the pages turning was soothing. She listened to the worst sort of music, slow sad stuff. But she was his sister and it was nice to have company.

He wonders if Rose wishes she had a sister, as she trails him into the book room.

“I need you to get that book for me.” She points to a volume that is, admittedly, much higher than she can reach. Xavier stares at it. Then he turns and points at the step stool in the room.

“Can’t you just—”

“Oh my God,” Rose whines. “Please?” She enunciates the word. Xavier does as she asks, reaching with his long arms. He tucks a finger into the spine and yanks. He barely needed to move at all, and when he turns with the book in his hand, he feels oddly pleased. He likes being helpful, it’s why he spends so much time with his uncle, who works on cars. Xavier loves when his uncle asks for a wrench and he finds the wrench and gives it to his uncle, who then asks for a flashlight and then Xavier hands him the flashlight.

Rose smacks the cover of the book and it thumps on the floor.

“Rose,” Xavier gasps, annoyed. “What the fuck—” When he bends to pick it up, two hands close around his cheeks and yank him forward. Xavier stumbles, catches hold of the bookshelf, his other hand closing around Rose’s forearm as she kisses him.

For about a year after that, that is the only kiss he ever experiences, so in that moment, it’s the kiss of all kisses. Something about being tricked into it even makes him feel more crazy about it, wildly alert, with his eyes sprung open. He can see her dark lashes. In reality, it’s the most chaste and awkward press of lips together. It lingers for a moment too long, making him cringe in memory and almost terrified in the moment.

Xavier is fairly sure he does it wrong (whatever he is supposed to do back), but when Rose pulls away, she looks content. Which pushes out the terror and adrenaline from his chest and fills it with warm satisfaction. He grins, blinking. He really does like making people happy.

“Don’t tell my brother,” she demands, with a finger raised.

“Okay,” Xavier replies in a whisper. He finishes bending fully and takes the book in his hand. He stands and holds it out for her. Rose wrinkles her nose and shrugs and then she leaves.

With nothing left to do, Xavier replaces the book. He leaves the little library and pads his way barefoot back to David’s room. They’re still playing the new game; he’s entirely uninterested in it, even when they try and cajole him into taking the third controller. Instead, he sits down on the floor, on the pillows and blankets that they’d made into a nest, where they’ll all sleep later. Mark warns them they’re getting too old to sleep together. It’s ‘gay shit’ he declares, but he doesn’t protest throwing his pillow he brought from home into the mix.

Xavier is locked inside the kiss, staring at the TV screen, watching pixel enemies die in a video game. Occasionally, he isn’t sure why, but he glances sideways to where David sits, hunched over with terrible posture, eyes shiny with excitement for the game.

He and Rose really do look alike.

***

“You fucking cheated,” Xavier accuses, but he’s laughing. Benji spreads his hands, innocently. A card sticks out from his sleeve. He swears and stuffs it back up, but Xavier launches forward to snatch at it. “You fucker. You absolute fucker.”

Benji howls out a laugh, as Xavier lands on his thighs and pins his wrists and threatens him. He snarls like the rabid dog everyone always says he is. And it makes Benji laugh. God, it makes him laugh.

“I’ll kill you, man! Stop cheating at cards when we only get one fucking round to play.” Gunshots are ringing off in the background. Three short whistles. A brief respite. Benji. Benji, Benji, Benji. Dangerous game.

“You’re supposed t’be killin’ me already, asshole,” Benji snaps back, performing such an easy grapple that one might wonder if Xavier let himself be put in that position. He’s flipped onto his side, a leg pinned between his, an arm over his throat. Weight pushes him onto his back, the submission total. It sends a shiver up and down his spine that makes his calves clench, his stomach hurt, his lungs squeeze. There’s absolutely no real strength in that forearm; instead it’s pressed softly, and Xavier’s skull would have smashed into the concrete if a gloved hand hadn’t caught it first.

It tickles his hair.

He pants, arms splayed on either side of him, eyes narrowed delightfully. Benji hovers above him. His brown eyes are dilated. Dangerous game.

“Round two?” Xavier asks, smiling with all his teeth, knowing they don’t have time. They’ll never have enough time.

***

“Wow, you’re dog shit at this.”

Xavier, exhausted and sweat slick, looks up. A willowy frame blocks out the blistering sun, which he’s so thankful for he could cry if he didn’t know exactly who it was. Instead he swallows, his mouth rusty and dry. He puts a hand over his eyes like a shield, leans back on his haunches and then sighs.

“Riley,” he says.

“Xavier,” the other private replies.

“Come over here just to watch me struggle?” Xavier gestures to the pathetic excuse for a tent beside himself. Of all the things he’s struggled with, he has no idea why it has to be this. Xavier scores perfectly on marksmanship. His close quarter combat skills are good enough he helps with lessons. Xavier can start a fire in the desert from nothing, he remembers policies and can cite them off with a memory that makes superior officers grin. Xavier does what he’s told, when he’s told and they like that about him.

But he fucking sucks at pitching a tent. And the only person in his platoon that finds that funny, is Riley Matheson. Because the only person Xavier doesn’t get along with with is fucking Riley Matheson. He isn’t sure why and it feels like an inside joke he isn’t in on, because it feels like everyone else knows why. They throw glances over their shoulders, sneer in that secretive ways that isolates Xavier. It scares him. He doesn’t want to be alone.

“Maybe I like watching you struggle,” Riley quips, folding hands behind his lower back as though he’s at rest. He’s an impressive figure, tall and slender like a blade. He has one of those tans that turns honey brown in the summertime, makes his pale brown eyes stand out. Xavier’s never told anyone, but he actually saw Riley once or twice just before the first day of basic training. He’d had shoulder length blond hair that had been wavy, like he spent all day laying in beach water. It had been really beautiful before they’d shaved it off.

“They have a word for that,” Xavier mutters, attempting to reign his tent under control.

“Word for what?”

“Watching people—exhibitionism or some shit.”

Riley chokes, his hands falling from behind his back. He looks around as if he’s checking to make sure no one’s listening. And they aren’t really—more interested in hunkering down for the night. Their tents are all set up, nice and neat. The sun is hanging low in the sky, about to fall under. It’ll be night soon and Xavier will be sleeping on top of his tent again.

“Xavier, that’s not—Man. That’s voyeurism, when you wanna watch someone—exhibitionism is when—”

“Oh, see. Look at you, knowing fancy fucking definitions. I knew you were into some weird shit, Riley,” Xavier’s voice grows hotter as he snaps the poles for his tent. The canvas slides right off and piles at the edge. He picks it up and begins tearing at it, gritting his teeth together. It wont actually rip under his hands, but he’s so damn angry that he has to do something.

“Dude, stop.” Riley’s hand closes around Xavier’s shoulder, making him freeze like some strange prey animal caught in a trap. His heart is thundering in his ears, the pitiful shame of not being able to do such a simple task causing heat to bloom along his skin. He refuses to look up at Riley. He can’t stomach being teased right now.

For their entire trip, they’ve been at odds. Riley sits next to him at breakfast, eating a shitty MRE. He mocks Xavier’s Boston accent and asks why he eats so fast. Riley shows off how easily he can run in full tac gear, pulling ahead of Xavier, who is so used to always leading the front. Riley doesn’t listen when their squad leader tells Xavier to relay information. Riley questions him, always, a hundred different questions. Xavier feels hot all over every single time Riley comes up to him and asks Xavier to repeat himself.

Just for me this time, you know I can’t understand a word you’re saying, Xavier.

“Let me help.”

Riley drops to a crouch beside Xavier, just like he does every morning, drinking sludgy coffee from a dented thermos. Their shoulders bump together as the other soldier takes the tent in his hands. His movements are fluid and practiced. Smooth. He has broad, tanned hands. Calloused and rough. Strong.

And Riley helps Xavier with his tent every night after that. They still don’t get along—if anything, sometimes Xavier feels like it’s worse. Like Riley helping him has made him even more frustrating to deal with, maybe that he holds something over Xavier now. They jostle each other for attention from the Corporal. They argue over the same ideas and can’t decide which one of them is right until someone yells at them to shut up. They try and best each other in everything, running, combat, marksmanship, finishing meals—and still, Riley helps with the God damn tent.

Xavier feels too big for the tent too. He has to lay with his legs slightly bent. He keeps a hand underneath his cheek, because they aren’t given pillows. Just bedrolls that get packed up into neat little squares in the morning. Sometimes the wind batters the tent and he feels like he can hear people in the wind. Voices, telling him he chose wrong. He made the wrong decision, at eighteen years old. He’d done it for his sisters. He’d done it so his parents didn’t have to worry about where money would go—to what child.

The tent flap flips open and Xavier bolts upright. His knife is already in his hand until the flap is zipped loudly shut. Then the knife is sliding and dropping loudly on the cold dirt beneath him and his bedroll.

“Riley?” Xavier’s voice is thin with concern. “Are you okay?”

“What?” He seems startled by the question, sinking to his knees. He has to straddle Xavier’s ankles just to fit. It’s so dark that Xavier isn’t even sure how he knew it was Riley at all. He’s embarrassed to admit it might have been because Riley has such a distinct silhouette. This proud, straight shouldered form. That Xavier has spent a lot of time looking at him and his broad, defined shoulders.

“What are you doing?” Xavier asks. “Is—Is everything alright?”

“Why are you asking me that?” Riley’s voice holds no heat, just confusion.

“What the fuck? Because you’re in my tent in the middle of the night—did something happen?”

He laughs. It lances Xavier with humiliation that he’s done something wrong. Nerves rise up along his skin, making him jittery as he tries to scoot himself back in the tent, but there’s nowhere to go. His legs are suddenly very firmly trapped underneath Riley’s thighs. Xavier’s stomach flutters uncomfortably. The other man comes closer, hunching forward.

“You’re so good, you know that, Xavier?” His mouth dries at the words and the feeling in his stomach swells. He thinks about using the knife to cut open the side of his tent and yell for help. His hands twitch, flat on the ground beneath him. They’re sweaty. Xavier leans as far back as he can, head brushing the canvas.

“I can’t believe you just worry about people like that. Makes me sort of dizzy that you’re worried about me.”

“What are you talking about, man?”

“Shut up.” Then Riley kisses him, which makes Xavier slip. He’s on his back, with Riley above him, lips pressed to his own. The weight of his body is overwhelming. For a moment, it’s surreal that every single kiss he’s ever had flashes in front of him; his first kiss, his first girlfriend, the last kiss he had before stepping on a bus to basic, kissing his now ex girlfriend when he finished boot camp and she broke up with him. It seems like his life is full of a hundred little kisses and Riley’s tongue touches his lip and Xavier, who really, really likes kissing, grabs the back of his head and pulls him in for more.

Riley sounds surprised and Xavier swallows that sound. It turns to an open mouth moan when their tongues slide together. It becomes messy and wet and when they part for gulps of air, Xavier becomes aware that Riley’s hands are tugging at his shirt, shoving it up. He stops him with a grasp around the man’s wrist. His thumb touches a wild pulse and the hammering effect of it crashes around his skull.

“Riley,” Xavier says between heavy breathes and the sound of his name makes the soldier practically moan. Something like pride bursts inside Xavier’s chest; a strange feeling, but to make someone feel so good… “I’ve never—I uh—not with a guy before—” Riley snorts and the feeling of pride bursts and instead embarrassment replaces it. The constant tug of emotions makes Xavier feel unsteady and afraid.

“Yeah, that’s obvious.”

“Fuck you.”

“Straight to the point,” Riley purrs, spreading his hands underneath Xavier’s shirt, warm, rough palms sliding along his fever hot skin. “But not straight, after all.”

“Guess not,” Xavier mumbles and wonders when they might start kissing again. He’d sort of like to start kissing again.

“It’s fine, Xavier.” Riley adjusts, sitting more on the lap underneath him. That’s really when Xavier realizes how hard he is—and the feel of their bodies rubbing together makes his head fill with white noise. Riley laughs once more, a soft chuckle under his breath.

(Years and years down the line, Xavier realizes that Riley was laughing both at him and with him and because of him, altogether. It wasn’t a terrible experience, this haphazard kissing, this weird relationship they built for the year or so they knew each other, but it wasn’t entirely wholesome either. It was formative in some ways; Xavier grew a fondness for making people laugh. And a fondness for ones with a bit of meanness to them.

It’s not really until an enemy soldier crashing into his life that he discovers that he likes peeling the meanness back and finding what’s underneath. But for now…)

 Riley’s hands cup across Xavier’s chest, squeezing appreciatively and making his eyes widen. “It’s cute, man. You’re cute. You’re so fucking cute.” And then they kiss again and keep kissing for an entire night.

***

He blinks sweat out his eyes. A bit of blood trickles from a cut on his brow that’s mostly scabbed over. It touches his lashes. Xavier groans, a hand tucked around his ribs that never stop aching, leaned back against the crumbling brick wall he’s hidden behind. A lighter strikes. Once, twice. Then finally it catches and Benji has a cigarette in his mouth. Xavier watches the cherry turn red and bright against the dark. Smoke rises above them and then Benji, on his knees is leaning close.

He holds the cigarette out.

“Sorry, mate. S’all I got.”

“Lifesaver,” Xavier croaks, taking it and dragging on the cigarette hard. It burns his lungs sweetly. He holds it longer than necessary before blowing a stream of thick gray smoke into the air. There’s some small explosion in the background, the ground shaking below them. Xavier closes his eyes slowly—then regrets it because of the blood. He listens to the sound of Benji’s gear crinkling, his exhale and then a warm shoulder is against his own.

Xavier takes another greedy puff from the cigarette and then holds it out for Benji.

“Stop gettin’ hurt,” the medic says gruffly.

“Tell your friends to stop shooting me,” Xavier replies.

“Not all friends,” Benji comments icily.

Xavier’s head rolls on his shoulder to look at him. The dark is heavy and there’s no light where they’re hidden, yet he can make out Benji’s most basic features because they’re close enough. The curve of his nose, his heavy brows. The curly hair pushed back from his face. The burning cigarette in the night.

“I like it. You taking care of me. You’re a good medic,” he says. Holds up his hand for the cigarette. Benji passes it. He can feel the enemy soldiers hot gaze on his face, so he takes a slow drag from the cigarette. Drops his head back and exposes the long column of his throat and briefly imagines Benji leaning in, tongue touching his pulse. It makes his heart beat spike painfully.

But instead, the cigarette just burns down to the filter.

***

He’s never been called into the commanders office before.

Xavier is shocked to find it as lived in as it is—Diana Crowley is too put together to occupy this sort of space, surely. The desk is messy with paperwork—a glass fawn paperweight sits on a stack of manila folders. A blanket lays over a chair in the corner, as if the commander sleeps there often. There’s even a change of shoes by the door—sneakers to replace the heels she seems to permanently wear. There’s more than one diploma on the wall and a picture of an older man beside the computer monitor, bearing her resemblance.

Crowley pulls her long salt and pepper hair back into a messy looking bun. It suits her in the exact way it also seems incredibly unlike her. In this rare moment, it feels like a gift to see her so soft. Xavier’s heartbeat feels uneven and desperate in his chest.

They talk—but he can’t remember the conversation. It must not be important. When Xavier pulls at this memory, all he remembers is the way she’d stood from her desk. Rising elegantly, fingers trailing across the mahogany, the paperwork. How she’d walked around it to face him. Crowley was not a short woman, she was short compared to him. Everyone’s short compared to Xavier.

He remembers how his jaw had gone slack at the touch of her hand on his bicep, the press of her body against him. It had been autopilot for his hands to rise and cup her slim waist.

And then Crowley was leaning up and—

***

Benji crashes into him—funny how he knows it’s Benji too. Should just be a random soldier, and even the red cross stamped on his gray armor shouldn’t be enough. But even before they get around a car, crouch behind it’s metal protection, even before Benji’s tearing his helmet away and holding Xavier by the biceps, he knows it’s him.

He dances around the word fate. Xavier is crazy enough to believe in it. He’s crazy enough to believe in anything now. Crazy enough to keep going. Tempting it.

“What are you doing?” Benji hisses, his gloved hands making quick patting assessments across Xavier’s arms. His sides. Careful with the right, because Xavier had told him the story of those broken ribs once when it was just them and some abandoned room that they shouldn’t have been hiding in together. Xavier pants, goes for the buckle of his own helmet, but doesn’t pull it away just yet.

“My team is pushing point,” Xavier says quickly, a hand wrapping around Benji’s wrist. “Didn’t know there’d be so many of you.”

“You need to turn ‘round, mate,” Benji replies. Bullets splatter the ground in the street, kicking up pavement. They don’t aim for the car just yet.

Not without Lark, Xavier thinks, not without Benny. He lingers on staring at Benji’s widened, tired eyes, the pools of which look pretty in the sun. The light turns them amber. His hair is messy from the helmet, flattened on one side, too fuzzy on the other. His chest heaves in hard breathes, because he’d all but tackled Xavier into safety like this. Has someone seen him? Will someone catch Benji defending a Kingdom mercenary like this?

Xavier shoulders against the car, daring to look above the hood for a brief moment.

“Listen, Xavier,” Benji pants, coming closer. Xavier can feel the heat of his body. It makes him blink sweat rapidly from his eyes, stare down at the medic as he stares up. The air between them feels thick. “Go east, alright? There’s less of ‘em.”

Them, as if Benji isn’t also them. With every collision of them and fate, they’ve tested that boundary far too many times, pretended not to be what they actually are. Spoken to each other like friends (the secret desire of something more not ever said aloud), not people from different realities, fighting on very opposite sides of those realities. Even now, Xavier finds it hard to think of Benji as anyone other than just Benji.

Instead of replying, he winks and smiles. Benji’s face trembles with dreadful realization. Then Xavier stands to assess where he needs to go next. He can’t leave without—

Then he’s on his back.

A series of very odd memories come to him then; running in the backyard with Spot, crying when he got to hold his baby sister for the first time, arguing with his father in the living room, Tess telling him ‘don’t go’ and, ironically, he remembers how hard it had been to sleep last night. He lives inside that moment as if he’s an audience to it, inside his skull, staring down at his hands as he sits up in bed.

There’s a dull ringing in his ears and Benji yelling and when the bubbles in his ears pop, he hears rather than feels himself being dragged across pavement and rubble. His tac gear scratching the street, his heavy boots thunking uselessly. Xavier’s eyes blink sluggishly, the sky coming into view, bright and cloudless. Nice day for the beach, if he could make it.

Xavier’s breath catches hands raising to his head, no helmet.

Then Benji is beside him.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” he chants. The terror in his voice hurts. It seizes Xavier wildly, like a fist clenched around his heart. His mouth is dried from warzone dust, his teeth gritty with it. “Oh fuck, Xavier,” Benji continues as he kneels over him. Xavier feels hands touching his cheeks, his temples. He feels them sliding into his hair, cradling the back of his head.

“Did I just get shot?” Xavier asks. He imagines his helmet, bullet dented and in the street. Benji’s hands are still holding him, one cupped underneath his head, the other at his temple. He feels adrift, like he’s being lapped away by the waves, instead of ass down in the dirty remains of a street. Xavier’s breathing stutters out of him, his side welling with pain, as it always does.

“Why’d you stand up?” Benji finally snaps. One of his thumbs presses against Xavier’s eyebrow. It smooths across it, making the big red head shudder. It’s so small in it’s intimacy and he wants so much more of it. “Xavier, can you hear me?” Benji’s voice cracks, anger bleeding back into fear.

“I can hear you.”

Everything tunnels for a moment, to Benji’s hands holding him. To the very slim amount of space between them. To either of them, dirt crusted, sweat soaked, war weary. The sky behind Benji’s head is an endless, summer blue. A curl of hair has sprung forward, dangling against his dark cheek. Xavier moans and his arms sling forward, wreathing around Benji’s neck and shoulders; he brings them together, chest to chest. He hears Benji’s knee pads scraping on the concrete below them as he’s tugged closer.

Their mouths meet.

Xavier dives into the kiss with a painful desperation and another low, throaty moan. A hand slips into Benji’s hair, fingers knotting through curly black strands. His tongue presses between lips, tasting. It becomes frantic and messy, their mouths suddenly slick and sliding together. Xavier’s leg curls around Benji, shoving their bodies firmer together. Their tongues roll, heads tilting back and forth, teeth nipping lips. Xavier’s hands cup Benji’s cheeks, devouring hungrily. And when they part for air, he doesn’t even stop himself. Just gasps between smaller kisses.

His chest rumbles, his whole body shivering for a moment with strained pleasure. Benji’s pupils are so dilated, it’s as if the irises have disappeared altogether. Xavier holds him still as his tongue swipes inside his mouth once more.

“Christ, I love the way you taste, Benji,” he groans, their foreheads knocking together. His hips gyrate up, his leg tugging their bodies together tighter. “More,” he manages to whisper, their lips almost together again.

Then Benji disappears.

Xavier scrambles up and onto his knees, heart beating wildly. His hands scrape the scorched earth, eyes darting until he sees Lark.

The radiant stands, wind whipping around him. His dark jacket flutters, bleach blond hair messy. Lark stands, but Benji is held, kneeling at his feet, hands slightly raised, surprise etched on his face. The wind also yanks at his curls. They’re too exposed, in the open like that, Xavier’s chest bursting with fear redoubled. He stumbles to a stand, unsteady on his feet. His head surges with pain from the bullet earlier, the helmet catching lethality but not the bruises that will be forming later.

Lark’s hand tightens on Benji’s collar.

Xavier yelps something wordless, stepping forward. But he’s beaten by Benny, coming around the bend like a terrifying stalking beast through smoke and gunfire. He holds his Operator, muzzle swung low to the ground. For a bulkier man, he’s quick on his feet and he skids to a stop beside the radiant and medic. Then swings the rifle up, muzzle at Benji’s temple.

Panic explodes just like pain inside Xavier; there’s a brief moment where he envisions Benji, dead on the ground, half of his head blown out and brains on the ground. No helmet to save him—not that anything could save him from the Operator. Not at this range, at least, not really at any range, when it’s Benny on the scope.

“Benny,” Xavier says his friends name like he’s approaching a skittish creature. Benny is trembling, head to toe and maybe someone who doesn’t know the mercenary would figure it’s adrenaline or excitement. Blood thirst. Maybe they’d look at someone like Benny, covered in tattoos, wielding something as deadly as a sniper rifle, and think he’d enjoy this. The muzzle pressed against Benji’s temple stutters a bit and the medic winces, eyes swinging back and forth.

Xavier knows Benny though. The man’s terrified. He’s trembling from a pure, dangerous sort of fear. Cornered animal type of scared. His finger is disciplined, not yet curled around the trigger, but Xavier has seen what Benny can do out of fear.  His heart squirms inside his chest, his stomach turning cold and leaden. Please, he thinks. Oh fuck, please, Benny. Anyone but him, anyone but Benji.

“Where’s your body cam?” the sniper barks, his accent clipped, his voice feral. He snaps the muzzle on Benji’s temple again, making the medic look wide eyed and then furious.

“Oi, you blond fuck, you have any manners?” His hands turned to fists upraised in the air, his lip curling to a sneer. Xavier wants to howl at Benji to shut the fuck up? Of course, he’d be mouthy, even now. What did Xavier expect? He tries to breathe through his nose and out through his mouth, but instead he pants like a winded horse, hands raised to try and calm Benny down.

“Where’s—your—body—cam?”

“They don’t waste that on medics, mate,” Benji snaps. “What? Think they’re combin’ footage of me slappin’ gauze on half dead pricks?”

“Benny, put it down.”

“Y-You fucker, if you h-have any footage of him—”

“Didn’t I just say, they don’t waste that on medics? Pat me down, dickhead, see what you find.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Benny snarls and Xavier lurches forward, his terror filling his blood like ice.

“No.” Lark steps to the side of Benji, easily nudging the Operator’s muzzle aside. It makes Xavier’s heart flip around in his chest, imaging a misfire. The radiant stands, knees spread, crowded around Benji’s side. Some insane, possessive part of Xavier’s brain barks, snarls, spits, says he’s mine, get away from him, he’s mine. Lark’s hand doesn’t leave Benji’s collar, firmly holding the medic on his knees.

“Killing medics is a war crime,” Lark says cooly, staring at Benny.

“I’m a war criminal,” the sniper seethes, his smile curling on his face, rancid and mean. There’s a pause where either men stare at each other, Benny with his chin tilted down and Lark, even and unafraid. His calmness works like a balm to Benny, causing him to suddenly sag, his rabies like grin twitch into a frown. And then turning altogether into blatant, vulnerable concern. Benny’s ice colored eyes swing toward Xavier.

“I saw you get sh-shot,” he says and Xavier’s ribs constrict. Christ, he can imagine being Benny. Up and away from it all, in the safety of a perch and watching a man getting shot in the head. Dragged away by an enemy soldier. That fear makes sense—Xavier feels guilt push through his own and he takes a step forward.

“I’m fine, Benny.” Pale, tattooed hands wrap harder around a rifle and then relax. He goes slack. The wind continues and the distant sounds of gunfire make anxiety pool sweat underneath Xavier’s arms. “I’m fine, see? Not even bleeding.”

One of Benny’s hands darts out, touching the side of Xavier’s head. He does a quick scrub through sweat slick red hair, searching for a wound and coming up empty. His hand lingers, cupped around the nape of Xavier’s neck. Then he pulls away. Benny slings the rifle around his shoulder, teeth gnashing together. He makes a motion with his hands, thumb corkscrewing on his flattened palm.

LATER.

It’s a furious sign as Benny stalks away, heavy combat boots ominous. Lark is smiling tightly when Xavier looks over at him. He finally unclasps his hand from Benji’s collar and raises flat palms, fanning the air slightly in front of him.

TROUBLE.

“Yeah, yeah,” Xavier growls, stepping closer. One of his hands brushes across Benji’s cheek and holds it, a thumb brushing back and forth across skin. He tries not to pay too close attention to the way Benji’s lips are swollen, still a little slick from how messily they’d been kissing just moments before.

“I’ll take him back to his squad. Or, close as I can get him anyway.” Lark’s smile is crooked, confident.

“So, not dyin’ today?”

Xavier’s hand becomes a possessive paw, curled tighter on Benji’s face. His thumb makes a divot on a handsome cheek. Benji stares up, with glittering mischievous eyes.

“How ‘bout you never die, huh?” Xavier says, giving him a fond, flirtatious shake.

“Just because I stopped Benny from killing him doesn’t mean I want you two flirting in front of me,” Lark interjects as Benji opens his mouth to say something else. He wisely shuts it and then starts to stand slowly. Lark’s hand grips around a broad bicep, holding tightly. “And you can just stay silent the whole ride. If you talk, you risk bugs in your teeth.”

“Ride? What ride—”

Then Benji disappears. Xavier listens, ears straining to the sound of his voice appearing, popping wildly in the distance with surprise and indignation. Then it’s gone and Lark’s gotten too far away to hear either of them at all.

Xavier stands there, the ghost of kissing on his lips, a horrible bruise forming across the left side of his scalp. His fingers twitch and he looks down at his hands, where they’ve been scrapped across pavement and rubble. He closes them slowly, licks his lips to remind himself Benji had just been there. He tries to breath evenly, but it rattles around in his lungs, caged like some sort of animal.

“I’m judging you,” Benny yells from across the distance, already somewhere higher, safer and hidden. Xavier laughs, the sound a scraping bark from his throat. He pulls his sidearm, presses close to the wall of a building to keep himself safe. To be prepared to exit once Lark makes his return.

#writing #valorant au #xw #bp #xw x bp #i actually despise these men so much why do i keep writing them kiss for the first time over and over

[hauntedjpegcollection]

black hole

wc: 3490 au: college au ch: benny, maran

I told you so, sits very comfortably on Benny’s tongue, just as Maran’s heel sits on his knee. He has to chew the inside of his cheek to not say anything—no matter how justified it would be—fingers feeling fat as they peel open a large, square bandage.

He has to flick his hand to the side to get the plastic backing free. It flutters away and falls like a feather, discarded beside the other wrapper in his already very messy room. Maran fidgets, because Maran is always fidgeting in some way or another. His hands wind into Benny’s hair to keep himself steady, as he stands in front of the bed on one foot. Benny sits, focused on the easy task at hand, even though those fingers do get distracting.

He smooths the bandaid around Maran’s angry red ankle, fingers pressing at the edges to make sure it sticks. He knows from experience how sweat can make a bandage curl up and begin to peel away.

“There,” he concludes, hand wrapping around Maran’s bare calf. He glances up with raised brows.

“Oh, just say it, Ben. Know you want to.” Maran’s teeth indent his plush lower lip, creating a spot of white Benny feels compelled to suddenly kiss. He resists that urge, in favor of giving in to another potentially more sinister one.

“Well,” Benny grins as his hand pulls Maran’s leg closer. The boy stumbles forward, his hands roaming from hair to Benny’s shoulders. He glowers, but it’s an adorable and brattish expression, nothing serious. Pale, inked hands wander over Maran’s muscular leg. His body hair is coarse and short, making him delightfully fuzzy. It wouldn’t be the first time Benny’s caved and simply enjoyed rubbing his face against him.

“I did tell you to be careful.”

“Come off it,” Maran huffs, expression still petulantly cute. Benny kisses the top of a freckled knee, eyes big and triumphant. “Alright, yeah, I’ll stick to my converses today.”

—

After they’re dressed, Benny spares a glance at the cause of Maran’s bloody, blistered heels. Brand new white Doc Martens sit beside the front door to the apartment. There’s a bit of blood on the inside of one of them that Benny will sit down and clean out when they get home.

They’d been a present. One of those ‘just because’ presents. Just because Maran deserved gifts. Just because Benny was a sentimentalsap and he knew something about seeing Maran kicking around in big blocky boots would be so fucking adorable. Just because he loved Maran. Even if he didn’t say it out loud, he thought he could say it like this.

“You have to wear t-two pairs of socks,” Benny says as they cross the wintery parking lot of the shitty apartment complex. He wraps arms around Maran’s waist and swings him around and over a spot of black ice, his boyfriend squirming and barking a laugh as he does. “And keep the bandaids on wh-when you wear them next.” They cross a desolate street, no traffic this early in the morning. Benny can practically feel the headache forming, the caffeine dependency making him twitchy.

“And y-you need to walk with your weight on your heels more,” Benny continues, palm slipping into Maran’s. “Like a penguin.” Their hands tangle more together and Maran swings them back and forth. The wind is cutting and cold, but it’s not that bad out, considering it’s supposed to be winter. Snow lingers, dirty and slushy in the gutters and the trees are barren and dead. The world is sapped of color, grays and cool blues. Maran’s cheeks are bright red underneath the chill. Benny peppers them in kisses before they enter the dinner.

“Hey, Ben,” the girl at the counter calls out, weaving between cooks behind her. She holds up a full pot of coffee, dances toward people to refill mugs. “Maran!” She calls out happily, giving a wave that he enthusiastically returns. “Sit yourselves!”

So they do. They find a regular spot, a nice table that can only fit them, next to the window. It’s not necessarily scenic, especially with dreary beginning winter weather outside, but Benny feels comfortable next to windows. He doesn’t like feeling boxed in—and Maran likes it because the pastry display is directly on the other side of them, so he can begin planning what overly sugared monstrosity he’ll end up getting.

Their feet bump together under the table, Benny’s old, broken in combat boots and Maran’s scuffed up white converses.

“They’re kind of busy,” Maran comments, elbow to the table, chin to his palm. The red in his cheeks has faded mostly. It lingers on the bridge of his nose, on the tips of his ears. He fiddles with a sugar packet idly. Benny sits slumped with his hands in his jacket pockets, a sneeze building behind his nose.

“Whoa. Hi, Benny.”

The sneeze rips out of him, louder than he means it to, making his entire body rock forward. He’d barely been able to catch it in the crook of his elbow. More than a few turn to stare at him, but once Benny wrenches his face free from his arm, all he can look up at is Kel’s golden face.

They’re doing something new with their hair. Or, was it new? Benny can’t even remember the last time he’d seen them. Surely it’s been over a year—and even then, it’d been a passing accident at a party, where Kel had offered to get him a beer from the cooler they stood beside and Benny had told them he was trying to cut back. Kel had laughed, but Benny couldn’t remember if it was a condescending one, or if they’d just been awkward. Kel was awkward; they were a bit strange and eclectic and why the fuck were they working at Henry Street Diner, where Benny came to eat breakfast with Maran nearly three times a week?

Kel tucks a strand of their maybe new, long black hair behind an ear.

“Long time no see,” they say.

“Uh,” Benny replies.

“This is weird,” Maran comments, looking sweet in his own confused smile. He also looks apprehensive and Benny is reminded that Maran has psychic feelers attached to his entire fucking body; he can just absorb waves of emotion and sort them into categories and know what someone feels. Benny loved Maran for it, because it made it easier when he was struggling to even put a word to what he was feeling, but in that exact moment, it made him sort of nauseas.

“Uh,” Benny repeats, hands flattening on the diner table.

“So weird,” Kel laughs, pulling a notepad from the apron cinched at their trim waist. “Not every day your ex boyfriend sits in your section.”

Maran’s sneaker lands in Benny’s lap. It makes him grunt a bit, reach down to readjust so the flat heel is against his thigh instead of sitting on his aching knee. All the pink has drained out of Maran’s face now, and he stares at Kel.

“Could ask to switch with someone else,” Maran finally says and his smile is anything but friendly. Maybe to a stranger, it would be—Maran is the sort of pretty where every expression he makes seems somehow inviting. His cheeks are round and his jawline is cuttingly handsome and his eyes are big and full lashed. But he tilts his head, chin still cupped in his jaw and there is something resembling cold snow in his stare. Benny is only a little surprised.

They could both do better about jealousy. Benny could probably stop slapping drinks out of peoples hands as they try and give them to Maran as a come on—Maran could probably stop shoving himself literally in front of Benny when people came to approach him for flirty conversation (not that Benny minded that, because it usually planted Maran’s ass directly in his lap and he very much liked that ass). But Maran didn’t usually act so snippy so quickly.

“I’m not trading a two top for a family of six,” Kel replies, with a thumb over their shoulder to the rowdy group behind him. Sure enough a child is throwing pancakes onto the floor with reckless abandon and neither of the parents seem to care. Benny’s eyes switch from the child to Kel, and he realizes they have a name tag then. Benny slowly pushes the heels of his palms into his eyes.

Because he’s definitely talked about his first college relationship with Maran. Not with any details other than ‘well, they broke my fucking heart’, desperately moving on to another conversation instead. That was enough for Maran, who was, if nothing else, a very fierce defender of Benny’s heart.

“How h-have you been?” Benny finally asks, in a sort of pathetic attempt to make temporary peace. The tension doesn’t seem to have affected Kel at all, who uses their teeth to uncap their pen.

“Well, I have a second job now, so could be better. Could be worse!” Kel has the same spiky smile that had made Benny approach them; it was a dual sided snide and friendly, cocky and a little self conscious. Their brows knit together. “You’ve graduated by now, right? Is it Dr. Benson yet?”

Bennny’s stomach sinks and he’s surprised at the grief that fills him. At the cold feeling that wraps around his heart and squeezes and the angry wasps that swarm around inside his head at the realization that Kel thinks more time has passed than it has. Or truly can’t remember what year he’d been in when they’d started dating. He swallows and rubs a hand down his throat, but before he can answer, Maran does for him.

“Didn’t you guys date, like a year and a half ago?” He laughs. “You started your program around the same time. What, time flies when you’re broken up with?” The comments more overtly mean than Maran usually is. Benny’s hand sinks below the table and wraps around the man’s ankle, holding it. Maran really only has eyes for Kel, who blinks down at him. They look incredibly unsure, hazel stare flickering between the two men.

“This is my boyfriend, Maran,” Benny says.

“I like your jacket.” Kel points with his pen at Maran, who looks down at it and then smiles wider.

“It’s Ben’s, actually.”

There’s a beat of silence and then Benny clears his throat and points at Marissa, the girl behind the counter. She holds up a fresh pot of coffee, smiling and oblivious to the incredibly surreal and weird scenario that they’ve landed in.

“Coffee?”

“Jesus, true.” Kel slaps their notebook against the table and starts to turn. “You were the worst coffee addict I’ve ever dated.”

Maran looks positively stormy about it, his expression not to dissimilar to earlier, when Benny had been smoothing bandaids over his blistered heels. The heel of his converses is getting the top of Benny’s jean clad thigh wet, but he doesn’t mind. Having a bit of Maran to hold onto is nice. Strings of his blond hair fall around his face as he leans forward. Benny folds his arms on the diner table top.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Maran replies, pouting.

“Want to split an entire pie?” Benny asks, pointing to the bakery display, where warm, fresh apple pie sits. Specialty of the diner, hand made sort of shit that Benny didn’t necessarily care for, but knew Maran went wild about. His boyfriend’s face splits into more of a smile then, especially since he damn well knows Benny is going to eat two bites and then leave the rest for Maran.

Which is exactly what ends up happening.

—

Maran is lacing his converses, furiously, for the second time that day. He’s muttering under his breath. He stumbles a bit and shoulders the wall for balance so he can get the second one on. A classic X-Files poster is crinkled by Maran’s hand on the wall. I WANT TO BELIEVE. It’s survived all the way from Benny’s pathetic high school days. Maran’s tongue sits between his teeth, pink and cute and bitten for concentration.

“Maran,” Benny says, sitting on his bed, back to the wall. Pillows prop him up against it. They’d both been there together, cuddling for lack of a better word. Only now Maran was yanking at the jacket he’d all but finally stolen, shoving arms through it. His cheeks are red again, and not from the cold this time. His teeth click together on another muttered sentence. “Maran.”

“What an asshole!” He explodes, a hand waving toward nothing in particular. He stomps his shoe on harder. “Who says that to someone?”

“I dunno. Black holes are cool.” It’s an attempt at a joke, but it only seems to make Maran angrier. His lips thin and his brows knot together and his eyes narrow. He keeps clenching and unclenching his hands—and Benny can understand the frustration. The anger, really. If the roles were reversed, he’s not entirely sure if Maran could stop him either.

“I’m going to go back to that diner and—”

“Kick their ass?”

“Throw them in the street!” Maran yells again, hands thrown in the air. He’s like this, in all conversations. Hands used to emphasize every point. But Benny doesn’t like when he’s so angry he starts tossing them around, when his chest is heaving for air because he’s so furious. Maran doesn’t get angry a lot, not like this anyway. It makes Benny feel guilty, but it also makes him feel…good. Justified, a little, even if that wasn’t the right reaction. And that only makes him feel guiltier.

“Mar, I w-was a bad boyfriend.”

“You probably weren’t. And—and even if you were—that’s no reason to compare someone to a black hole.”

“One of the c-coolest natural phenomenons in existence?”

“You’re a person!” Maran snaps, now gesturing toward him with those frantic hands. Then all at once, his shoulders sag visibly. His face crumples into something pained. Benny glances down at his lap, so he doesn’t have to see it.

Truthfully, Benny hadn’t been a good boyfriend to Kel. Sure, he’d not been bad. He’d not cheated or worse. He’d let Kel move in when they’d only known each other a few weeks. He’d been just as jealously possessive as he was with Maran, and Kel had liked it just as Maran secretly did. They’d gone on dates, most of them fun. They’d slept together in a variety of different positions so nothing ever got boring. Kel had never felt boring—but Benny had always felt static anyway.

He’d never actually let Kel close, is what he’d realized, in dating Maran. He’d never told Kel why he hated Halloween. He’d never admitted, like he had with Maran, that he was self conscious of his hair or his teeth. Kel had never stayed up until morning hours, helping him with index cards and rubbing Benny’s sore shoulders after hours of sitting at a desk. Kel had never asked why Benny didn’t ever mention family. Maybe they’d been sort of shitty to each other in different ways, dating in a way that was superficial and fun but never anything more.

Maybe Kel hadn’t been wrong that Benny had some black hole inside him that was impossible to fill. But…maybe Maran was right that they were a bit of an asshole to say it.

Benny holds up his hands, to indicate silently to Maran that he wanted to hold and be held. It was probably the only thing that would actually stop his boyfriend from storming out, going to the diner and making a scene. And Maran does stop, immediately and cross toward the bed. He crawls up and onto it, knees on either side of Benny’s thighs. His hands cup underneath a pale, stubbly jaw, thumbs brushing. He presses kiss after kiss to Benny’s forehead, so many that his cheeks start to go warm under the affection.

“You’ve got sneakers on my bed,” he mumbles.

“I thought you liked when I wore the sneakers in bed?” Maran says suggestively to Benny’s temple. It surprises him enough to bark out a bashful laugh. He loves being surprised. Maran’s lips move from his temple to his cheekbone, to his nose and then his lips. The kiss is planted firmly, more loving than it is sexual. Benny’s arms wind around Maran’s torso, jerk them closer.

“You are not a black hole,” Maran says.

“Mar—”

“I mean it, Ben.” His dark, pretty eyes are fierce and furious. He shakes Benny’s face, their foreheads touching. “You. Are. Not. A black hole.” They’re silent a moment, their breathing mingled and close. He tries to suppress the rising emotion in his chest; it threatens to prickle behind his eyes. He doesn’t want to remember how much that statement had originally hurt—how it had shaped the way he made friends for a long time after that. How he’d nearly fucked up knowing Xavier and Lark because of it. And he still, sometimes, kept both those men at a distance, because it was easier. Benny swallows, audibly and breathes out and tilts his head back until it touches the wall.

He opens his mouth and Maran leans in close again.

“Don’t argue with me,” he warns. The feeling in Benny’s chest dislodges. He huffs out a wet laugh and then another one, that’s real and warm. He slides his hands across Maran’s lower back.

“God, you’re hot,” Benny groans. “C-Can you say that again, but with your m-mouth on my mouth?”

“Ben,” Maran laughs. His name, a laugh. Benny loves that. Maran rocks a little in his lap.

“Oh yeah, just like that,” Benny continues, smiling nastily. “You wanna sixty-nine?”

“Ben!” The laughing dissolves as he’s wrenched to the side to lay on the bed, and Maran’s laughing is cut off by their mouths coming messily together.

—

Afterward, they’re both spent and laying lazily tangled together. It’s cold in the room, but everywhere their bodies touch is warm, warm, warm. Benny lays on top of Maran, head to the boys chest, ear to his sternum. The steady thump of his heart was hypnotizing; he’d listened to it go from racing to steady. Maran’s fingers card gently through his hair, making a shiver run up and down Benny’s spine occasionally. It almost felt better than the sex, being touched in this gentle, sweet way.

He could have fallen asleep. He was dozing as it was. Benny need only let his eyes fully close and he’d probably pass out, a sweaty mess on top of the other man. He knew from experience that even if it became uncomfortable, Maran would still just lay there. He’d let Benny sleep for however long he needed.

“What’s that one moon you like?” Maran asks. His voice is slightly rough, hoarse from the oral sex. It makes a tingling sensation mingle with the shivering. Benny is effectively spent, but the well of arousal for Maran seems so fucking endless sometimes. He sighs contently, moving to sit up just enough so they can look at each other.

The lights have been switched off, but Maran had put up string lights along the walls. Benny was fond of them now, especially because they made Maran glow softly.

“Titan,” he answers sleepily. Maran’s fingers brush a strand of floppy, pale hair from his face. Benny stifles a yawn straight into Maran’s chest and then raises his head again. “Saturn’s largest.”

Not technically a dwarf planet, but still bigger than any others classified as such. Benny liked Titan, because it was also the first moon he’d ever memorized, and he liked Saturn. The rings. He saw them from the sky once, when he was younger, and his obsession had grown. He doesn’t think Maran is asking for a lecture, though, so he doesn’t continue. He just tucks his face to Maran’s side, nose brusquely close to the mans underarm, where the smell of him is enough to make Benny insane.

“Okay,” Maran says. His fingers draw a path from the nape of Benny’s neck, over his tattooed shoulders. “That’s you, then, alright? To me.”

Benny’s jawline twitches, his teeth grinding together. He tries to swallow down the huffing sound he makes, but it doesn’t work. Instead it comes out a bit strangled and he rolls until he’s on his side, facing away. Maran doesn’t seem to mind—this is a familiar and well loved position. He wraps arms around Benny’s waist, tugging him until his back is to Maran’s chest. A leg slides between his. Benny’s breath catches a few times.

“It’s a cool moon,” Benny says lamely, his throat a little constricted.

“You’re a very cool boyfriend,” Maran replies and it doesn’t sound lame coming from him. It makes Benny snort. It makes him feel so ridiculously loved. And he is.

#writing #college au #jlb #mgc #jlb x mgc #tiny follow up from terrible :)

[hauntedjpegcollection]

terrible

wc: 8827 au: college au ch: benny, maran

Benny swiftly learns that college is nothing like the military.

Sometimes, he misses the rigidity. The ease of obedience that came with the Air Force, someone always there to tell him what to do even if the compromise to his person had always hurt. Sometimes, he still misses waking up at four in the morning, running PT drills until he threw up; a mans arm around his shoulders, someone laughing, him laughing, a Sergeant barking. Sometimes, he misses the organization and the routine as much as the frantic mania of a jet hanger. The noise that left him with a near permanent ring, at least in his left ear. He misses the smell of fuel and oil and the starchiness of his uniform.

Misses knowing exactly what he was doing.

He feels too old to be a freshmen; even if twenty-two is no where near old and his professors joke that a frontal lobe isn’t even finished until twenty-five. Benny had done his contracted five in the Air Force and then left and the military was paying for his Bachelors now, as they fucking should. They owed him.

And Benny loves college. Even if it’s scary. Even if he feels awkward and out of place and people mistake him for a few grades above—or worse, mistake him for a drug dealer so often he wonders if he should start actually dealing drugs. He loves the classes, loves learning, loves feeling exhausted all the time and living off coffee and cigarettes and most of all, Benny loves the parties.

They are the closest thing to a jet hanger he can get outside the military. Hectic and loud and rotten smelling—it’s these parties where he finds that he really does like drinking (even if he’d told himself he’d be different from—he’d be different, he’d avoid the alcohol for as long as he could). Beer goes down easy and he doesn’t get hungry and he finds himself a bottomless pit, endlessly able to drink and drink and drink. People think he’s funny, especially when he’s drinking and no one minds the stutter because they are all also drinking.

So he goes to the parties, as many as he can. Even the frat parties, where he obviously doesn’t belong.

“Pick a card,” Benny purrs playfully, two girls in front of him, giggling into their red solo cups. The music is almost too loud to hear what one of them says—she leans in close to try and tell it to his ear and he can smell her bright floral perfume. Benny imagines kissing her, imagines touching her waist and her shoulders and her throat. He’d really only started sleeping with women a few years ago that sometimes the attraction still felt startlingly new. He seeks them out at these parties especially, to feel his way around what he likes.

Benny fans the cards in his hands, performs a silly trick to shuffle them, listens to the girls laugh, feels almost just as intoxicated by their attention as he does the mostly rum and very little coke he’d just finished. The heavy, almost wet air inside the frat house presses and makes him sweaty, makes his hair as moppy and stringy as usual. The girl compliments the stupid shirt he has on, a graphic t-shirt he’d yanked from a thrift store without paying. He does another sleight of hand while they drink.

A heavy body presses up behind him—an instinct of pure fear makes Benny’s pupils dilate, something long remembered in a few broken bones scream at the surface of his not-fully-formed frontal lobe. His mouth dries as he twists his head to look over his shoulder.

Connor Alexander stands behind him, chest to Benny’s back, his eyes shiny with alcohol and cruel glee. Benny’s brain whirs like a computer, sorting Connor into categories; guy with two first names, lacrosse player, asshole, asshole, asshole.

“King of Spades,” Connor says, his breath smelling sharply of beer. Sour and tangy. Benny wants to get out from under him, but is trapped between Connor’s broad chest and the two girls in front of him. The girls seem excited with the lacrosse player there—Connor is big and pretty and popular and a senior, or super senior, whatever it means when someones been in college for far longer than they’re supposed to be.

Benny should hate Connor. Maybe he sort of does, maybe he hates Connor’s perfectly straight teeth (Benny has a crooked row, he smiles close lipped mostly so no one sees), hates his broad shoulders and his summer time tan and his big hands, one of which is closing around Benny’s shoulder. He should hate the way he smells, but he doesn’t, something boyish and pine and clean, even when he reeks of weed and alcohol too. Mostly, Benny hates himself for not hating Connor, who has always been an absolute prick to him.

“You’re n-not supposed to tell me the card,” Benny sneers, trying to shuffle his deck back together to keep it away from Connor. The last time he’d been at a party and some jock had zeroed in on him, the cards had been scattered everywhere for him to pick up. Near tears, cheeks burning, humiliated in a way he hadn’t felt since he was ten years old, while people laughed.

“This guy,” Connor says fondly, with a hint of condescension as his hand turns to an entire arm around Benny’s shoulder. “Man, it’s sweet you’re entertaining girls for me.”

Traitorously, they giggle.

“Someone h-has to,” Benny comments, shuffling the cards once more with ease of muscle memory. “I’m p-prepping them for the inevitable joy of yo-your presence and the endless discussion of sports, sports, yourself, sp-sp-sports again and then yourself. Here.” Benny finds the king of spades, holding it up between two fingers. The girls laugh, which makes Connor’s face go a dark red color. He has a pretty ‘Summer at Cape Cod’ sort of tan, so it’s more maroon than anything else. It was ruddy before from the drink, but now its worse and so is the glinting meanness to his eye.

Connor takes the card and licks it. Benny tries to ignore the strange stir in his stomach that mingles with the unwarranted violation against his property—then he reels when the card is slapped to his forehead. His feet sort of scramble against sticky hardwood floor, the heavy arm around his shoulders anchoring him to the humiliation. Benny’s lips pull back from his teeth, hands shoving at Connor’s chest to get away—the girls laugh and laugh and laugh.

When he finally does get free, the card flutters to the ground, lost to him, the deck now incomplete.

—

Benny drinks more.

He drinks so much that he is stumbling when he finds the bathroom. His hands sliding across the wall to keep himself mostly upright. Everything comes to him in tiny spurts of imagery. Wall, hand, bathroom door, open door, girl crying on the tub, girl leaving, him apologizing. Hands on the sink, holding himself upright. Mirror. Himself. His eyes, his creepy fucking eyes. He fishes into his pockets to try and find his sunglasses until he remembers why he’s in the bathroom.

The toilet is missing the entire lid and seat, so all he has to do is manhandle himself out his jeans and boxers—the release of pissing is long and satisfying. One hand holds the wall while he does, a drunken groan escaping him. His head feels clearer somehow, his sunglasses almost sliding off his nose to join the piss and toilet water. He stuffs himself back into his boxers, careens his way to the sink to wash his hands.

And the door to the bathroom bursts open.

“What the fuck?” Benny yelps, and then jumps back. He collides with the tub, falling down into it, head banging against the tile wall. Pain explodes viciously, white and blinding. A little kid inside himself cries at the pain, like it always does—he slips and slides against the sleek bathtub, legs floundering and kicking. Nausea rolls inside his stomach, alcohol splashing around his insides, no food to soak it up.

“Dude,” Connor laughs, his voice booming and echoing in such a small space. The music is a living heartbeat just outside the walls, a constant bum bum bum because it’s all house club techno something that Benny doesn’t like. He stares up, with giant and undeniably terrified eyes. The lock clicks behind Connor and Benny feels his insides churn. His heart jackrabbits, thunders against the calcium of his ribs until it crawls into his throat. Benny has been here before—no need to get jumped in a bathroom, to get hate crimed at a frat party—he thinks about the knife in his back pocket and if he can scare Connor away.

“Let me help.” Large hands wrap around his biceps and yank him up. Benny stumbles, the alcohol making everything inside him swimmy and unbalanced. His ear is ringing, like it usually is. His eyes dart everywhere, like little nuts and bolts on an axis, sliding around all oiled up.

“L-Leave me alone, man—let m-m-me go.” He hates how small and terrified that sounds. He wants to be big and intimidating and frightening, because he’s done being little. He’d just gotten tattoos over his forearms, because they looked scary and he liked that. The skin was still tender, still feeling bruised and sensitive.

“Relax, holy shit—dude, you’re geeked, did you take something?” Connor’s hands move from his biceps to his shoulders and one of them touches under his jaw. Benny feels stuttery and uneven, his chest moving rapidly. He wants to slap Connor’s hands away, to get out of the bathroom, to get back to his dorm, to fall asleep in his bed. His bed, how safe he felt, just in his bed alone. Something he owned, even if it belonged to the school, it was his. Benny’s sunglasses are pulled from his nose and set on the ceramic bathroom sink with a tiny tink sound.

“What th-the fuck?”

“Your eyes are so blue.”

“Fuck you.”

“Well,” Connor says, leaning back against the bathroom door. “It’s not a closet, but it works.”

“What?”

Big calloused hands take Benny’s face and pull. He stumbles into Connor, his own hands hands flattening on the bathroom door behind him. Their chests are warmly pressed together. His eyes stay open the entire time Connor kisses him, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He feels a tongue slipping into his mouth, tastes the burn of alcohol, the sweetness of spit. Benny’s eyes dart everywhere. He can see Connor’s blond eyelashes fluttering.

When they withdraw—or rather, Connor does because Benny had been yanked forward to begin with—warm breath fans his face. It makes him shiver, makes an uncomfortable part of his stomach burn. He clears his throat, resists licking his now wet lips.

“I thought you didn’t like me.” Benny is ashamed at how much of that is a whisper. His mouth feel bruised from how hard the kiss had been. Facial hair had scraped across his skin and now it burned.

“I don’t,” Connor snorts, eyes rolling. Benny is equally ashamed at the small hurt inside his heart at that; just the tiny crack that forms, knowing it’ll take so long to shove plaster in to seal it back up and keep it whole. Benny swallows and attempts to tug himself away, but Connor’s hands are still firmly attached to his face. He doesn’t go anywhere and the other man leans in once more. Benny shoves his hand up and across Connor’s mouth to keep them from kissing again.

“Man.” It’s drawled out in an annoyed tone, gorgeous hazel eyes rolling for a moment, hot air on Benny’s palm. “At least I’m being fucking honest with you. What, do you want me to lie? You’re weird. You’re hot but weird. You kind of creep me out sometimes and—”

He sputters a bit when Benny’s fingers slip past into his mouth to shut him up. Then his face slackens into something lusty. His tongue moves and Benny thinks this is not the first time Connor has done this—not this, finger sucking in a disgusting frat bathroom, college party, music in the background, drunk and high—but this as in, down low with someone who he knows wouldn’t say anything.

For a moment, Benny tries to pretend that’s empowering. It’s secretive and gross and isn’t that what he wants? This was easier, this was better even, this was like owning a part of Connor that he couldn’t ever deny.

You couldn’t unfuck someone.

So Benny pulls his hand away. And he leans in for them to kiss again.

—

When it’s over, they’re both quiet as they reassemble their clothes.

Benny struggles with his belt because he keeps missing a loop. The orgasm and alcohol make his hands awkward, his breathing still ragged, a tingly feeling across his entire body. He keeps leaning and nearly colliding with the bathroom wall, cursing under his breath as he fixes it over and over.

Connor reaches out and grasps his shoulder and smiles at him. It’s as gorgeous as ever, as untouchable by lower class as it can be, it’s the perfectly sculpted smile of a man who grew up with two rich parents that loved each other and got him braces at the first hint of a problem.

He says, “Thanks, I needed that.”

And Benny has no idea what to say back, so all he says is, “Sure.”

And then Connor leaves.

So Benny locks the door to the bathroom behind him and yanks his belt all the way off and throws it into the bathtub and leans his head against the wall. It’s cool to his feverish, drunk skin. After a moment of that, he takes his shirt off to wrap around his elbow. He slams it against the little window above the shower and luckily it doesn’t shatter—his elbow or the glass. It just pops out, like the caulking for it was crumbling anyway, not taken care of for years—it falls into the grass below the house and Benny finds it easy to shove himself through it. He’s still lean from the years of military service before this languid, hedonistic stint in school.

Ben lands on his back, a loud thump, a soft whoosh of air from his lungs and stares at the dark blanket of the sky above him as the music dulls even further. He’s glad to be away from it. The outside air makes him feel even more sober than the sex had. Grass tickles his bare torso, which reminds him he’s shirtless and when he sits up, he realizes he’s still very drunk. The entire world shifts and spins every which way, his head woozy and unstable. He manages to get the shirt back on and shove himself up from the grass. He only slides a few times.

Someone says his name off to the side and he waves.

He hits the sidewalk and stumbles. He tries to find his cigarettes and lighter in his pockets. Finds that he’d crushed the pack of cigarettes when he’d jumped from the fucking window, but one is still good enough to light and carry him home.

—

There are strings of Connor’s, because Benny never really stops going to the parties. As dirty as it feels, there’s something equally as intoxicating about it. Sometimes, when it starts to eat at him, Benny relies on the old familiar rationalization that has carried him so far in his life; his father would have fucking hated it.

His father would have killed him for it.

Good.

—

It doesn’t take very long for Benny to realize one degree isn’t enough. Something inside him is hungry and never satisfied and he can’t imagine a world that isn’t lectures and books and learning—so he reapplies and just keeps going. The military stops funding after four years (the irony that he’d given them five of his own, just for them to pay for only four is not lost on him), but he’s smart. Benny finds that he’s very smart, that cleverness takes him far. He gets scholarships and funding, he pinches pennies between meaningless jobs and his grades never slip.

Then he meets someone named Cael.

And for the first time in his entire life, Benny is suddenly dating someone. No more secret hook ups in bathrooms, closets, random strangers bedrooms. No more meeting people on easy dating apps for one night stands that are sometimes more than one night. No more Connor’s.

His grades still don’t slip.

Benny teaches them to ice skate because they’re from New Orleans and have never seen snow. They move into a place together and Cael decorates the kitchen and Benny admits to not knowing how to cook anything but minute rice. They sleep on the left side of the bed and he sleeps on the right. Cael sings in the shower. Benny picks up their favorite kind of beer on the way home and they watch shitty reality tv and eat pizza and both resolve to start working out because they’ve gained weight dating each other and it feels so normal. It feels so…wrong.

They last a little over a year, until Cael breaks up with him.

Spring makes Benny’s allergies atrocious, which explains the painful pressure behind his eyes. Cael tells him that he has an empty hole inside him that he keeps trying to fill with anything he can get his hands on, and that they don’t want to be shoved into some place dark and cold. Benny tells them to stop fucking therapy talking him—and they break up with him because he isn’t in touch with his emotions enough to justify dating anyone.

The irony is that he apartment hunts the day after and finds a place that some man named Jeb is renting under the table. He isn’t in touch with his emotions enough, but he can’t stand that they’ve left their fancy lavender soap in the shower. He can’t stand finding their hair ties everywhere. He can’t stomach the stain on his couch from where they’d dyed their hair and it had gotten little spots of bleach everywhere.

So he moves.

Then he meets Lark and Xavier.

—

And of course he fucks Xavier.

Not right away, because at first he thinks the two men are dating. They have an ease of affection that makes his skin itch. A polarity that keeps them spinning and revolving around each other, without a string of sex tied between them. Benny sort of hates them both for it, not that he’s without friendships. Few and far between friendships and occasionally they chafe with the desire to get close and he shoves them away and thinks of Cael telling him he’s got an empty black hole that he keeps trying to fill.

So of course he fucks Xavier, because Xavier is also incredibly beautiful and has big eyes that just scream ‘I’ll make you feel good’.

It’s fun—both of them sweaty and in his bed and covered in the little tell tale signs of mouths, biting and nipping and tasting. Xavier’s long body is bent over his mattress, hands grasping at sheets, pulling them free from the edges of the mattress. He has freckles everywhere, but they’re lighter on his lower back, where the sun must not kiss him nearly as often. His skin pinkens easily with enough pressure. Benny’s tattooed hands slide in appreciation over a tapered waist, over slim ribs.

When he bears forward, chest to back, Xavier makes a sound that veers too suddenly high and it causes Benny’s harsh thrusting to pause. His new room mate is more vocal than anything he was expecting or at all used to—it strokes a part of his ego that he wasn’t even aware of. It’d made everything more enthusiastic, more fast paced, this desire to get a louder sound on every slap of his hips forward, on every twist and different position he found Xavier easy to mold to.

Instead of continuing, he brushes sweat slicked red hair from Xavier’s temple.

“What?” he breathes. The sound is so breathy and sweet its almost distracting.

“Did that hurt?” Benny’s hand cups around the back of Xavier’s neck, massaging enough to watch pond colored eyes roll close.

“Uh,” Xavier pants, his cheeks flushed and shiny. A bead of sweat runs down from his temple to drip off his chin. He smiles that awfully pretty boy smile, eyes still closed. Benny feels warm affection blooming in his bloodstream that he isn’t entirely sure is purely sexual. “It’s—” Benny paws a hand forward, groping across Xavier’s chest and making him huff a laugh and a pleasurable little sound, grinding his forehead into the pillow. He places his mouth to a warm, slick shoulder.

“Tell me.”

“You’re sort of heavy,” Xavier admits.

“Are you calling m-me fat?”

Xavier starts to protest, but Benny leans himself back from the way he’d folded over Xavier. He hadn’t even realized that most of his weight was pressed down on the other man, that he’d truly pinned him to the bed like that—he liked the feeling of being bigger, of making someone else pliant beneath him but only if the other person liked it too. Benny shifts to one knee, the other raised and yanks Xavier’s hips back. This time, his sound is strangled, but deeply positive. His freckled back muscles flex and dance.

Benny pats him affectionately.

“Tell me wh-what you’re into, Xavier,” Benny says and for a moment, wonders if all this talk is making them both too soft to continue. Until his request for communication is met with an eagerness that drains them both to bone weary tiredness after all is said and done.

—

Over breakfast the next morning, they agree to not have sex again.

“Thanks,” Xavier says, sleepy eyed and smiling widely. He has a little bruise on his neck that’ll fade in a few days.

“One and done,” Benny replies, eating cereal like he’s never had a meal before, hunched over the table as if someone might try and take the Cheerio’s away from him.

“What’s one and done?” Lark asks, his athletic shorts making awful swishing sounds as he walks around the table to open the fridge. Xavier clears his throat and rubs knuckles against his cheek and his face goes so red it looks painful—and Benny doesn’t answer Lark, he just laughs manically and finishes his cereal.

—

It’s a year or so later when Maran is opening the door to his bedroom.

He looks surprised, as if he isn’t the one nosing around a strangers apartment. Lights from the party pour through the door frame, as does music and the loud energy of drunk people in a gathering. Somewhere between freshmen year (Connor) and the beginning of his Masters (Cael), Benny had stopped enjoying the parties. For some reason, they get thrown more often at his apartment; maybe because it’s bigger, or because the complex doesn’t complain or the cops never show up or because Lark is very popular.

Benny’s too tired to engage most of the time, and that night particularly, he’d been more concerned with cleaning his chemistry set.

“Oops,” Maran says, looking equally bewildered at himself for saying anything as he does for opening a random door. The light around him pools at his edges, his silhouette turning bright like he’s a drunk little angel. Benny can barely make out his features, but he’s seen them before. Knows those high cheek bones turn a pretty shade of red when he’s had too many fruit cocktails that Matilda or Xavier have made. Benny stares, sitting on his stolen lab stool, black gloves on his hands. He holds up tweezers that have a cotton swab pinched between them, as if he’s saying hello.

“I’ve only ever seen those in movies.” Maran dares to take another step into Benny’s room. He briefly wonders what his little sanctuary looks like in the eyes of a stranger. Messy, disorganized, refuge? From the party anyway. Was Maran looking for that? “It’s dark in here.”

“Mm,” Benny makes a humming, noncommittal sound.

They’ve not really been introduced, though they’ve technically met. They’ve been in the same room as each other once or twice, at least. Benny doesn’t like parties anymore, but he shows up for Matilda—because she was Matilda, so of course he does. And he’s seen Maran across the room, or in passing. He’s been on the receiving end of that big, pretty smile and felt his heart thump in ways it shouldn’t be thumping.

Maran came with Benji and Xavier was skittish about Benji (for reasons Benny could easily figure out), so no, Maran and Benny have not formally met.

And it’s starting to look like they’re not even meeting now, because Maran takes his step back. Looks like he might retreat into the party, back into the noise and alcohol and too many people. A prickling sensation crawls over Benny’s scalp, down the back of his neck. He tries to get his mouth working, but nothing happens, so instead he stands.

He points at the stool.

“Oh.” Maran steps toward it. “Are we about to do something fun?”

Benny ignores a very warm sensation that fills him from the stomach up. He clears his throat and points again—and Maran slowly lowers himself onto the stool. He sits just like Benny could imagine him sitting; hands around the front between his thighs, feet tucked behind on the stools bars. He swings his head back to look at Benny, who slowly removes his gloves. It could be a trick of the light (what little there is) that makes Maran’s eyes seem so shiny, watching the gloves get plucked away and tossed into bin.

Benny crouches in front of the mini fridge he has. He withdraws beakers filled with ominous looking liquid and returns to his desk and his chemistry set and the cute boy.

“Yunno—I’m sorry for barging in, like, intruding. On your—I’m assuming this is homework.” Maran seems to ramble when he’s nervous. Benny doesn’t mind, because his voice is nice. Very nice. Benny stands behind him and reaches over Maran’s shoulder to put the beaker down. It’s full of a dark brown, bubbly liquid. He puts another, full of clear, equally bubbly liquid down on the other side of him. For a moment, they’re touching. His biceps on Maran’s shoulders. Then he lets his arms drop.

“If y-you mix those, we’ll blow up.”

“Really?” He expects Maran to turn around, but instead he just drops his head back like it’s on a hinge. The top of his brightly dyed hair brushes Benny’s torso. His long, beautiful brown neck is exposed. Benny’s sweaty hands twitch at his sides. He feels like someone’s just walked through the library inside of him and selected a book, withdrew it just to blow dust off the pages and crack the spine.

“Highly to-toxic. Incredibly deadly. Drop a p-penny in and it’ll dissolve.”

“Which ones the penny again?” Maran asks, head falling forward to look at the two beakers. The nape of his neck is fuzzy with the smallest wisps of hair. His ears are pierced, the jewelry small but pretty. There’s a thin line of silver, a necklace that disappears underneath his shirt. Benny reaches over his shoulder once more and takes the one filled almost to the brim with black liquid.

When he lifts it to his mouth, Maran gasps. He turns his whole body on the stool, a sneakered foot pushing against the hardwood, and he reaches up. One hand touches Benny’s bare, tattooed forearm. He’s so warm. It’s dark in his room, the lighting soft and low because his eyes hate the light. Benny smiles as he gulps down the mysterious toxic liquid.

“Do you uh,” Maran’s throat bobs. “Do you drink the other one next and explode as a party trick?” It is so absolutely absurd that Benny sputters a laugh, tossing the beaker onto the desk. It rolls and rolls and rolls and clatters against the set. He puts both hands on Maran’s shoulders and leans so they’re looking at each other.

“It was root beer.”

“I can smell it.”

“What? Am I too close?” Benny grins, leaning in just a bit further. Maran doesn’t scoot back the way he expects, so they are too close right then. Instead, he smiles, his sweet drunk smile. It makes all the noise from the party disappear completely. Benny’s ears ring. Maybe not just from the jet damage. He fumbles a hand down Maran’s arm and then grasps the other mans palm and gives it a hard enough shake to jerk Maran back and forth.

“I’m Benny.”

And Maran says, “Hi, Ben.”

—

The beginning of Summer is unbearable. Heat comes quicker than the calendar predicts and the apartment becomes stuffy and disgusting with three men too hot to function. Windows are thrown open, fans are turned on, shirts discarded and tempers strung tight. It feels ominous to Benny, like there is something just on the horizon, a bubbling sort of storm that brews until it finally breaks the sky open.

He tries to keep to his room, where he has a window unit. Stands in front of it, hands on either side of the wall, lets the cool air hug around his torso. He never liked Summer.

The heat makes his hair worse, makes it clump together in strings. Makes him feel greasier than usual—he’s clean, he swears, he showers sometimes twice a day but it just sticks to him and now he’s just known for it. Being gross, being dirty. That’s Benny. Nasty. He swipes a tattooed palm down over his face and finds a shirt to throw on that’s big and comfortable, with a large rip at the collar. He contemplates staying in his darkly lit, air conditioned room, as he rips the collar further, tears the whole thing off and tosses it into the waste basket by his door.

But instead, he creeps his way to the living room, to the sounds of voices. Benny lingers for a moment, in the safety of the hallway, rocking back and forth on his heels, teeth indenting his lower lip. He holds his phone in front of himself, staring at the little text message that had pulled him out of hiding, out of air conditioning.

we got ice cream ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶ i got ur favorite flavor!!

Above that text are three more, details of Maran’s day, with those small wiggly things included. A good morning text with too many exclamation marks that he’s suddenly started receiving every day like clockwork, a picture of the sloppy breakfast sandwich he’d gotten (Benny had noted with no small amount of happiness that he recognized that sandwich, that they’d gotten them together only a few days ago), and a text far later in the afternoon that finally proclaimed that he and Benji were coming over.

Benny locks the phone and shoves it into his pocket but stays in the hallway. He recognizes voices and knows its not just Benji and Maran. Xavier, obviously, because if Benji exists in a place, Xavier is already there too. Lark, whose laugh is distinct in its short, huskiness. And then…someone else.

It’s strange to be scared in that moment. Benny can sometimes fool himself into thinking that fear isn’t a regular part of his day anymore, that he’s largely moved on. He’s far past twelve years old, but some sort of trauma to the brain has made him like a freakish animal that cannot control it’s hair trigger response to flee. He pictures himself like a deer, stupid enough to stand in the middle of the road, but terrified enough to run head first into trees and snap its own neck.

When he turns the corner into the living room, four people turn to look at him.

Maran and Benji don’t seem to mind sitting so close even in the heat, and Benny has to wonder if that’s because they’d grown up with never an inch or more between each other. So they’re together on the couch, Maran with one leg drawn up (too much bare thigh revealed, those God damn shorts), and Benji slouched beside him, with booted feet kicked before him. Xavier, despite being the tallest, seems easily comfortable sitting on the floor, elbows on the shitty coffee table Benny had stolen from a thrift store.

Lark perches on the arm of the other recliner, opposite side of the couch. He’s the only one that looks mostly unbothered by the heat, one of Benny’s own baseball hats on and turned backward, a peek of blond hair at the front. He’s not sweat slicked like Xavier, who looks drowned by the weather, and he doesn’t tug at his shirt collar the way Maran is—distracting Benny’s attention more than once.

“You’re being loud,” he finally complains.

“He’s alive!” Xavier proclaims, hands thrown into the air, face tilted to the ceiling. It makes Maran laugh, because he finds Xavier funny. Benny thinks Xavier is funny when he’s making Maran laugh. He yanks the fan’s head toward himself as he settles into the misshapen recliner beside the couch. “No, hey—I’m hotter than you, stop it.”

“Pfft,” the lone stranger in the living room’s suggestive snort makes Benny stare.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Xavier says bashfully, a tucked hand behind his neck. His cheeks are pink. Benny presses a socked foot against his bare freckled shoulder and gives him a playful enough push that Xavier grins sweetly and the pink drains away.

—

His name is Rex—which is a dogs name. Or the shortened version of a dinosaurs name. It might be a nickname and he might have explained the story behind it but Benny doesn’t listen. Quickly tunes that voice out the second it starts talking and finds it easy, because the heat just depletes him into the recliner anyway. He is melted STEM major, a puddle of advanced Chemistry minor.

Benny fiddles with his silver zippo lighter, not daring to actually strike it and bring even more heat into the living room. The constant anxious turning of it over and over in his hands makes Maran stare at him more than a few times. His quick glances become a constant for a moment before conversation gets strung between Xavier and Lark and Maran, obviously and then Dog Dinosaur Boy.

It’s only a few hours before night finally sweeps through and no one wants to turn on a light, as if that might ruin the little bit of cold darkness.

“The ice cream,” Maran says, launching himself from the couch. His familiarity with the apartment makes some part of Benny feel tender, oddly vulnerable, weirdly sublime. It twists something inside his chest, and his eyes stay following him. Maran’s in those unbelievably cute shorts, a shirt that’s too big and his dirty converses.

Though he knows it’s one deeply strange, perverse thought, Benny imagines himself yanking Maran’s legs into his lap and unlacing those white converses and pulling them away—he envisions leaning in to kiss clusters of freckles on a knee, sometimes skinned by skateboarding. He imagines his hand wrapping around a brown calf and raising it higher to kiss the sharp bone of an ankle. It’s such a blatantly sexual and somehow intimate fantasy that his face heats and he fumbles for his sunglasses in his pocket, despite how dark it is in the living room.

When Maran returns, Xavier and Benji retreat with their pints—and that’s nothing new. They often do, even though Xavier has nothing but fans in his bedroom and he runs hot like his blood is a degree warmer. Benji seems stalwart against heat, though and Xavier is so head over heels stupid in love he’d do just about anything for him (besides ask him out). Only, Maran doesn’t take the couch back, he perches beside Benny, handing down a pint and a spoon. It’s cool to his fingertips, but his shoulder brushes Maran twice and then nothing feels anything but warm after that.

“Salted caramel,” Maran says, slapping his own spoon directly onto the top of Benny’s ice cream. It makes a tiny pap sound. “You know—I figured you’d be a mint sort of man, Ben.”

“Gross,” Lark interjects.

“Agreed,” Rex chimes.

“Why’s that?” Benny asks, his eyes only on Maran, who also seems to only be looking at him. Benny can’t tell if that’s wishful thinking or not—for a while he’s assumed Maran has a crush on him. The sort of awkward, first crush a man gets on another man and isn’t sure if it’s real or not. Benny is too scared to find out, but he takes a slow bite of ice cream and Maran’s eyes skate away and to the ceiling and then down to the floor, his own spoon tap, tap, tapping against his lips.

“Y’don’t like sweets, really. Mint’s more refreshing, right?”

“Mint makes my skin itch,” Lark complains, with his shitty plain vanilla bean ice cream. Benny tries not to be annoyed with him, because Lark is still the only person in their entire circle who hasn’t noticed Xavier and Benji are moony over each other—and while he has no doubts Lark has a queer radar that never stops, he has so obviously not picked up on whatever small tension bubbles between Benny and Maran.

“They didn’t ha-have blue raspbe—berry?” As Benny asks, Maran looks down at his ice cream, tongue sliding across his lower lip to catch some. He shrugs. Something about the gesture is bashful, rounds his shoulders in a youthful way. See, I know your favorite too, Benny thinks, with smug satisfaction. He contemplates touching Maran’s thigh with his now cold hand, just to get a reaction from him, some sort of laugh or a squeak. He wishes they were alone, like Xavier and Benji.

“Cherry suits you, Maran,” Rex says smoothly.

It makes Benny snort, cool eyes on the other track star Lark’s dragged into their home. He’s very handsome. When he sweats, it looks misted and natural. Not greasy. Trailer park trashy. When Benny glances up to Maran, he expects the same level of petty annoyance at these awkward, bumbling flirtations. Like it would be an inside joke between them, something they could laugh about, in his room, in his room with the air conditioning, in the dark together—can you believe this guy? What a fucking loser?

Only Maran smiles. That chin tucked, big eyes looking from under his lashes, teeth indenting his lower lip smile. He uses his thumb to wipe away some of the ice cream on his mouth, his tongue touching the pad of his finger to clean it. Rex comes alive under that smile. He leans forward in excitement for that smile, elbows to his knees, spoon in his mouth, corners of his lips turned up. Benny can only imagine rows of straight, white teeth in that mouth.

He stands quick enough that Maran stumbles from the arm of the recliner. His dirty sneakers squeak on the hardwood as Benny retreats to the kitchen. It’s a good thing Benny’s ears are ringing, so he doesn’t have to hear whatever snide comment is made as he leaves.

—

You’re terrible at sharing, Isaac says. He’s smiling. It makes his eyes narrow and mischievous.

I don’t own much, Jonny rationalizes, his voice cracking around puberty painfully. I don’t want to lose anything.

—

Shame makes it too impossible to leave the kitchen, so he pretends that he wants to be there. Sits at the pub table, paperback spine cracked and folded so he can read with one hand. Lucky enough he’d left it on the counter when he’d come home from class to begin with—lucky more so that Xavier hadn’t neurotically cleaned the entire space hours earlier. Benny isn’t really reading. His eyes are skimming sentences, but they skip words. Nothing sticks. He isn’t thinking of anything even remotely related to the book.

Of course he’s aware of the presence inching into the kitchen behind him. Maran’s converses scuff on the tiled kitchen floor. Benny licks his finger tip and turns a page.

“Hi.”

He doesn’t answer.

There’s another scuffing sound. Cool air brushes against him as the freezer is opened. Then Maran is shuffling around the table. For a moment, it seems like he might sit down across from Benny, but then he simply stops and stands beside him. His hands keep moving from in front of him, fiddling with a gold bracelet that is strikingly beautiful against his dark skin, and then down behind his lower back. His knees switch and bend with weight shifting side to side.

“Haven’t seen you dip out all day,” Maran comments. Benny feels a brief surge of anxiety at how awkward he sounds—his voice pitched a little higher with worry. It makes Benny’s hand indent the slim paperback even harder. He doesn’t look up. “Benji get’s pretty bent up if he hasn’t had at least one, so—I mean cigarettes.”

“I’m trying to quit,” Benny mumbles, staring at his book.

“Yeah?” The one word sounds more like please than anything else. It feels rotten, Maran shuffling beside him, trying to ply him for attention. What does he want? Is that it? Just someone looking at him? Benny scrubs a hand down his face, sweat sliding down his throat. He’s disgusted by himself, thinking like that. Knowing Maran better than that. Two different emotions keep fighting for the most attention in his brain. Petulance and worry. It makes him nasty.

Benny finally pushes himself away from the table and stands. He means to answer with some sort of bite, but can’t say anything at all when Maran looks at him. It’s a quick flick, because he has his phone out.

“Wh-What are you looking at?”

“I got this weather app,” Maran explains, brows tilted upward. He looks nervous, even though he’s smiling. It mingles into something that twists Benny’s insides around like an angry fist is punching into him. “It—Well, it’s really fucking cool, Ben, actually. Can I show you?”

Maran, I would let you do anything, Benny thinks, even though all he does is continue staring. He slowly runs a hand down his own throat, wicking away sweat thats pooled in the hollow of his neck, at the top of a dagger tattoo. Maran’s eyes stay there longer than he’s ever stared at any part of Benny. Usually he is fast about trying to avert his gaze. Benny lifts a finger and taps his phone.

“It talks about cloud density—and light pollution near you—and uh, weather patterns. Right. I’ve been checking on it, today and—”

Their bodies bump together as Benny gets closer to look at his phone. The background is a pretty starry sky graphic. The font is cute and bubbly, pleasing to the eye in a way that Benny does not find pleasing at all. A small round planet with an adorable face that resembles those wiggly things Maran uses in his text messages has a dialogue box that says PERFECT WEATHER CONDITIONS FOR STAR SIGHT ❤

Lark and Rex talk in the living room, but they sound distant. Benny turns his head, his chin touching Maran’s shoulder.

“I wanted to look at—you told me about that constellation! That’s bright! And out there,” Maran waves his hand at the ceiling. The little planet on the phone screen blinks. It bounces slightly, in a constant, happy animation.

“Lyra,” Benny says quietly.

“Right, but you said it’s hard to see in a city. Because of—”

“Why do y-you wanna look at Lyra?”

“Because you told me about it.”

Oh God, he wants to kiss him. Benny wants to slam him into the refrigerator and kiss him. He wants to shove their bodies together and taste his tongue and hold him and squeeze him and bite him. He wants their faces so close they’re just breathing each others carbon dioxide until they’re stupid. And then he wants to kiss more. Instead, Benny just keeps staring at Maran.

“Do you want to,” Maran hooks a thumb over his shoulder, smiling. “Balcony?”

“Yes,” Benny says darkly.

—

Maran wasn’t wrong. He’s probably being such a bastard because this is just his second cigarette of the day—he’d not left the living room that entire evening as it bled into night. Like some strange sentry, he’d merely sat there, feeling tethered to this man in red shorts, as he leans against the balcony ledge. Maran stares up into the night sky. The wind makes his shirt billow slightly, around his boxy form. Benny lights a cigarette with little fanfare and sinks into the lawn chair on the balcony.

The nicotine thins his bloodstream immediately, makes him relax.

“I like when you do it like that,” Maran comments, chin tucked over his shoulder. His hands wrap around the metal railing. His toes brush the concrete of the balcony, drawing himself up on the strength in his considerable biceps. “Blow the smoke out and breathe it in like that. Looks like a trick.”

“I’m so impressive,” Benny sighs, kicking his socked feet out in front of him. He inhales hard on his cigarette, taps his cheek as he breathes out, blows rings that make Maran snort and roll his eyes.

“I think I can see it,” Maran says, pointing up above the awning of the balcony.

“Maybe.”

“No, really. I looked it up, to see it online first. I swear, it’s up there.”

“Of course sh-she is. But the city—Maran, stop it.”

Benny stands when Maran begins shimmying up the railing. One of his hands stay wrapped around the rail, the other with his phone open to his camera app, held up high.

“No, I swear, it’s just on the other side.”

“Maran, ge-get off the fucking railing.”

“C’mon, Ben, I just want a picture.”

“Maran.”

Benny shoves himself from the lawn chair. The cigarette drops from his mouth, drops the whole eight floors to the parking lot below. The cherry becomes tinier and tinier, sort of like a star blinking up in the sky. Benny wraps arms around Maran’s torso as he wiggles himself onto the railing.

His heart thunders in his ears, along with the ringing. His arms tighten harder, pushing Maran’s torso into his chest. He wears a little locket, a heart shaped trinket with the word ANGEL written on it. He smells so good, the scent of his sweat and body and the shirt he wears. Laundry and some sort of body spray. His muscles tense and flex underneath Benny’s grip.

His cheek presses to Maran’s chest, his own heaving with anxious breathes as Maran hefts himself up a little to get his picture. A warm hand wraps around the back of his neck for support. Fingers brush along sweaty skin, making Benny’s teeth gnash. He squeezes that much harder.

“Oh, I got it!” Ben pivots on his heels and tosses Maran down into the lawn chair. It skids backward just a bit. Maran’s smiling, cheeks dimpled, until Benny hunches forward. His hands wrap around the arms of the lawn chair, their faces inches apart.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Benny seethes through clenched teeth. His blood races in his ears, tingles along his entire circular system. He feels so nervous that his stomach hurts with it. He pictures Maran having slipped, falling, one sneaker caught on the railing, all that’s left of him. Benny’s fingers grasp the lawn chair harder. “Do you hear me? Don’t ever fucking do that again, Maran.”

They’re so close, he can feel breathing against his lips.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Maran whispers, his eyes roaming. They hit every point on Benny’s face. His eyes, his cheekbones, his nose, his mouth and up again. “I’m s—”

“Don’t apologize,” Benny snaps. He closes his eyes and leans forward just enough to touch their foreheads together before drawing away. “Just—Don’t f-fucking scare me like that.”

Maran’s repeated ‘okay’ is smaller. It’s not reprimanded small, it’s not scared small. There is, undeniably, some sort of sheen to his eyes, and a half smile to his plush lips. He puts knuckles to his mouth, looking down at his phone. His face falls immediately and he sags back into the chair. Only then does Benny realize he’s still leaning over him and move away. The heat all over his skin feels so much less like summer and more just Maran.

“What?”

“My picture turned out shite,” Maran complains. His lip juts. His brows knit. He looks so unbelievably adorable.

“You were leaning off a balcony.” The smile turns shy. Benny rolls his eyes and gestures for the balcony door.

“C’mon.”

—

Once back inside, they see brightly dyed orange hair and soft pastel blue hair. Matilda’s facial expression at Rex as she passes to the couch where Lark has laid himself out says everything Benny needs to know. He’ll delight in talking to her later about Lark’s terrible friends outside their circle.

“Do you like movies?” Rex asks Nomi as they pass to the front door of the apartment.

“Do people not like movies?” Nomi replies, in such a confused voice that it makes Benny smile.

—

Up on the roof, even in the middle of night as it is, it’s still just as hot. Benny finally gives in and strips off his shirt and tosses it to the side, where more lawn chairs are scattered. An empty cooler and a skateboard lounge beside the chairs. There’s a mattress that Xavier had dragged up his first year living there. The sheets are always somehow fresh—neat little freak. Benny flops himself down onto it, briefly starfished and happy.

Then Maran’s weight joins beside him. He’s trying very hard not to look at Benny, who tries very hard not to take that as a compliment. He shuffles over to give the other man more room to lay down as well. Then when he finally does, Benny lifts a hard and points.

“Oh,” Maran whispers. His voice is so sweet. So awe inspired and gentle. Benny is not even remotely looking up at his favorite constellation. He stares directly at Maran. His side profile is lovely. His full lips, his strong nose, defined brow. His hair is just starting to grow out a little. It’s been dyed recently. There’s always a bit of a lingering smell, chemicals and shampoo. Benny would give anything to put his nose right to Maran’s temple. To kiss him, underneath Lyra.

“There you go,” Benny says instead. “No suicide necessary.”

“I was not jumping!” Maran’s elbow nudges Benny’s bare ribs. He smiles and closes his eyes. “You had me, anyway. Wouldn’t fall. Not with—you were holding pretty tight.” He can feel the vibration of those words. He can read through them. Benny lays with his hands on his stomach, comfortable and hot.

“Maran,” he says.

“Mhm.”

“You’re st-still life guarding at th-hat shitty country club pool, right?”

“Green Acres? Yeah. Why?”

“Do you want t-to break into the pool with me to-tomorrow?”

The mattress wiggles. Maran himself, wiggles. He gets onto his side and Benny is forced to open his eyes and stare at those beautiful eyes, thick black lashes making them look so God damn fucking pretty. He has a freckly on the inside corner of his eyelid. Oh fuck him. He hurts. He makes Benny boil inside.

“Really?”

“Really, really.”

“Wicked,” Maran laughs. The stolen word from Xavier’s vocabulary makes Benny love him. They drift back into silence as Maran rolls back onto his back. The little app on his phone hadn’t been lying. The sky is completely clear of clouds. It is just one titan of a blanket, laying over them.

“Nomi wants to know if she can have the rest of your ice cream.”

Benny smiles ear to ear. He thinks of her blue hair curling around her ears, her perplexed look at dino-dog-boy. He thinks of the tiny mole she has right next to her left eye.

“Sure.”

“She also—uhm. She wants to know if she can come hang out.”

Benny rolls his head to the side and finds Maran no longer looking at the sky. They’re staring directly at one another now. Benny can see a flush rising on Maran’s cheeks, not weather warmed, but something else. He’s seen Maran with Nomi, the way he moves like an orbiting little meteor around her glow. Benny laughs, shaking his head.

“Tell her to come up s-so she can meet Lyra too.”

#writing #college au #jlb #mgc #jlb x mgc

[hauntedjpegcollection]

rendezvous

wc: 6438 au: valorant au ch: xavier, benji

Xavier doesn’t like coffee, so he orders himself some overly sugared latte that’s more milk than anything else. It’s pale and frothy and the green haired girl at the counter smiles brightly at him, has to tilt her head back just a bit and there’s a rose color to her cheeks when she does. He sticks a five dollar bill into the jar next to the card reader that says FUNDS FOR NEW PLAYGROUND because apparently in the last attack, the one down the street had been demolished. This cafe had withstood, but the neighborhood wasn’t all that big. The sense of community was nice.

He hadn’t been here for that particular invasion, but he’d heard details. Mercenaries talked—a lot. It had been messy work and he’d known his extraction crew could have done better. Usually, anyway, but he wasn’t the one in charge. He isn’t even there for extraction today, isn’t even with his crew. All things considered, Xavier shouldn’t be here, not this quaint little coffee shop on the corner of a street, regular civilians buzzing about. A man reads a newspaper, a headline stamped across that says WHEN WILL THEY STOP?

He was being selfish. Maybe reckless—definitely reckless. Xavier wasn’t used to the former, all too used to the latter when it benefited Kingdom. He didn’t usually tug his leash, though.

Not like this.

“Seat taken?”

“Does it look taken?” Benji snorts. He doesn’t even look over his shoulder. Instead, he continues tapping a ball point pen rhythmically against a small, pocket sized sketchbook. The edges of it are battered, the page currently open filled with different small but well done drawings. The style is messy but pretty. Xavier skates his eyes away from the page—it feels invasive to be looking at it.

Invasive, he thinks, heh, laughing to himself.

That gets Benji’s attention. Maybe doesn’t like the idea of a stranger (is he a stranger?) standing behind him, laughing. He turns in his chair, looks up with a nasty expression that turns bewildered at the sight of Xavier. His lips part, jaw dropped. His eyes are pretty, widened like that.

“Sorry I’m late,” Xavier sighs dramatically as he slides himself into the empty chair across from Benji. He throws his long legs out on either side of the table, puts his cup down and drapes his arm around the back of the chair. “Traffic, you know?”

“What are you doing?” Benji leans forward with his hissing whisper. He’d picked a corner table at the cafe, no one around him. They’re next to a window overlooking the street, but it’s frosted glass so everything looks surreal and feels warped, far away and insignificant. It’s like that for Xavier, who isn’t from this world. Sometimes, even the air feels different. This was an upside down world, where he existed out there with his sisters but he wasn’t this. Mercenary. Man responsible for a leveled playground.

Sometimes he thought of breaking the glass of that other him.

Xavier takes a sip of the latte, finds it buttery smooth and warming. He raises eyebrows at Benji.

“What?”

“What d’you mean what? How did—why are you—” As Benji sputters over his sentences, Xavier leans in with elbows to the table. He takes up a lot of space. Benji leans back an inch or two. His hands are wrapped around his own coffee—something iced with no milk. There’s condensation still on it, which wets his fingertips in a way Xavier is acutely aware of. He has broad hands. Sparse hair peeks from underneath the length of his sweatshirt, at the tops of his wrist.

“I’m supposed to be doing recon—but right now?” Xavier smiles. He can feel how crazy it must look. Once, he’d probably had a nice smile. Now it’s all just teeth. The stretching of skin across his face. “We’re just two guys getting coffee, right?” Then he leans back once more. His fingers tap on the wooden table. There are rings of coffee stains, nicks here and there along the edges. It feels worn in, used in the best sort of way. This shop is a staple in the neighborhood. Xavier hopes it never becomes a casualty. Benji is a regular to this exact table. Xavier’s watched him sit here three times now—this fourth being the only time someone has sat down with him.

“You look good in civvies, by the way.”

Benji glances down at himself. It’s not a lie—his leather jacket is worn with age at the elbows, at the seams and shoulders. It’s lost luster, is faded and well loved (he’s worn it every day Xavier has watched him). It fits him, it suits him, it looks like something that he’d pull off a hanger everyday to wear. Benji must get cold easily, because the hood of a sweatshirt pokes out, the sleeves longer than the leather. Something about the style makes him look younger, somewhat boyish. It’s all black, even his jeans which have split at the knees, little strings of fabric clinging together against dark brown skin.

Xavier’s fingers twitch when blush spreads over Benji’s defined nose and cheekbones.

“You followin’ me?” he finally asks, quiet with his brows knit together in a menacing sort of look. Not angry—wary.

“Yeah, a little.”

“Out your fuckin’ mind then, mate?”

“Yeah, a little,” Xavier repeats, tilting his head back and forth, scanning the cafe once more. He cannot help himself from being slightly alert. He is an intruder after all. If Benji called for reinforcements… “I’ve only watched you, like, three times. Which I don’t think qualifies as stalking yet.”

He groans as he stretches arms above his head, trying to relax. He’s tired from being awake all night in a room with a sniper rifle trained on a building he already knew was too secure to get into, tired because of the shift from his world to this one (it always sort of felt like his bones were being compressed and stretched and shoved back into his skin, it never felt right). He catches Benji’s eye roaming and selfishly enjoys the attention. Stretches further, languid and pleasant, arms out above his head, sweater pulling up on his stomach. An painful burst of heat makes his stomach hurt when Benji’s eyes flit down and then immediately away. He scowls. The expression isn’t unattractive.

“Tryin’ to collect a thank you, then? You were actin’ mad fixing me up twice now. Don’t owe you for that.” Benji takes a sip from his iced coffee, licks his lips as his expression continues to sour into something delightfully pouty. Xavier’s memories of this face are tarnished somewhat. Sweat and blood and dirt and gunpowder. He doesn’t regret this, no matter how idiotic it was, how dangerous it was.

“How’s your hip then?”

“Had worse.”

“You’ll have to show me the scar someday,” Xavier flirts shamelessly. It makes Benji’s glare harder, narrows his sleepy eyes. Wary still, full of distrust but—tension doesn’t return to his shoulders. They stay pleasantly rounded, a bit mopey in his posture as he sits there. The ball point pen has nearly rolled off the edge of the table, but he makes no moves to get it. Xavier lightly taps the edge of his boot into Benji’s chair.

“This is kind of nice, huh?”

“Had worse,” Benji slowly repeats, the corners of his lips twitching into something almost like a smile. Xavier feels an intense burst of pride, sunny inside his ribcage.

It’s obvious why he keeps trying, isn’t it? Benji is good looking. Very good looking. He’s combat medic strong, thickly built with defined arms and legs. He has nice hands, a handsome nose and heavy brows, a stare that makes Xavier’s insides feel weak. His face had been burned into Xavier’s memory, had lived inside his thoughts ever since that first day. And then the second, finding him bloody once more. Sometimes, when his mind was otherwise going someplace dark, he’d let himself sink into those memories instead. Even if they were blood and dirt and gunpowder tinged, an empty gun smacking his shoulders, a moody medic snarling at him.

There can’t be any other reason he tries than sexual attraction. It scares him otherwise.

“This is also nice,” Xavier says, tapping the edge of Benji’s coffee. “Now I know what kind of coffee you like.” He takes a sip of his own, as if punctuating the sentence. Now I know something about you. Benji stares at him, eyes on the cup as it lowers to the table. He clears his throat and adjusts himself in the wooden seat. The ambient sound of others around them, drinking and talking and the workers making coffee make them feel pressed closer together. Finally, Benji lifts a hand and gestures.

“How do y’take yours then, yeah?”

“It’s a latte.” Xavier uses two fingers to slowly push it into the circle Benji has clearly outlined around himself. “Wanna taste?”

“No,” Benji scoffs with a curl of his lip.

“It’s really good.”

“Puttin’ milk in coffee is a crime, mate.”

“It’s sugar cookie flavored. C’mon. You know you wanna taste sugar cookie flavored coffee, man. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, really. It’s off the menu next week—”

“You’re not goin’ t’shut up, are you?” Benji is halfway to another grin when he reaches for the cup. “They pay you by the word over on your side?” Xavier’s eyes are narrowed to the single act of Benji lifting the cup. It pauses at the edge of his lips, and for the first time since he’s started this game (and maybe for the first time in a long, long time even outside this), Xavier feels sort of hot around the ears and cheekbones. He’s not usually one for that—he is good at flirting. Or, he’s disastrous at it, but he never has to put that much effort into it. His eyes flick up to meet Benji’s as he takes a small sip.

“You’re not a quiet guy yourself.” He reaches over to take the cup back and almost wishes they’d have one of those adorable movie moments. A brush of fingertips, an electric spark. But that moment never happens and instead, Xavier is slumping back in his chair, staring at the lip of his cup. “You were going to talk yourself to death, last time.”

“Tactic. Waitin’ on reinforcements. Had you real cornered, Xavier.”

He fakes a shiver to play scared, but there is a very real part of him that does feel shaken, because Jesus Christ he loves the way Benji’s just said his name. The first time he’s heard it, since they’ve exchanged them. He realizes that they’re both smiling at each other and it makes that shiver deepen. Too much time has passed. He wonders if they could ever invent technology that pauses the world—they’ve already invented something that lets you hop them. Why not something that gives you a little more time? What he wouldn’t do for a little more time.

Xavier fishes into his pocket and then fully hunches over the table again. This time, Benji doesn’t retreat as far, or as quickly.

“You think I’m insane don’t you?”

“Bit out of it, might say.”

He slides a folded piece of paper forward until it slowly disappears beneath the sketchbook. Benji can decide whether or not to look at it or throw it away (or give the information up to someone who will use it to kill him), but Xavier feels safer with it tucked out of sight. His heart beat has suddenly found it’s way into his throat and a certain sort of dizziness makes his ears ring. Xavier had not known for sure if he was going to do that, when he first sat down. He’d half thought all that would come from this was a small respite. Worst case scenario, maybe he’d be dead. But the piece of paper if out of his pocket now. It’s underneath Benji’s sketchbook.

It’s in enemy hands.

“Three short whistles, I’ll know it’s you.” Xavier moves quickly then. He stands from the chair, hands shoved into his jacket pockets so they don’t betray him. They shake with anticipation. Excitement.

He smiles down at Benji, who looks, miraculously and hilariously, lost for words.

—

Xavier hates the sort of music that Crowley puts on. It’s this velvety soft jazz music that feels uninspired and meant more for an elevator ride than background music to sex. He suspects that she puts it on half because she likes it and half because she knows he doesn’t. Crowley is like that; he is not twenty-four anymore, deluded into thinking he was special to her, or that she even likes him. But even fully aware, he still finds himself next to her, on her couch with a manila folder in his hands.

Sweat is still cooling on both of them. The music is grating his nerves, but she’d made dinner. Some sort of pasta meal that had tasted a little too fancy for him. He’s sated, in a way.

Xavier bites his finger as he reads, a strange habit he’d picked up as a kid and never let go. It’s not gnawing with an intent, he’s merely resting his teeth against a knuckle bone as he scans the pages of information Crowley has given him. Xavier eats it, consumes everything there is, like a hungry dog on the side of the road pawing roadkill. Because Crowley doesn’t like him and maybe he doesn’t even like her, but there is a mutual benefit to this gross relationship they’ve built over the last four years.

Crowley likes sex and she likes feeling in control. Xavier likes sex and he likes information. If he can have any say in what happens in Kingdom, even this little bit, then he feels important. No small part of him weeps at the idea of being important, being needed, or necessary. He feels like he can keep Lark safe. Ben safe. He can influence Crowley to move pawns in different directions.

He wasn’t smart. But he was logical.

“Go with this one,” he says, tugging a paper out and putting it atop the others. “You’d risk your radiants with the other maneuver. It’s stupid—Stiles lost her lieutenant in the last invasion. She’s not thinking clearly and won’t make the best decisions.”

Crowley’s fingers move into his sweaty, messy hair. Nails drag down his skull, his flesh pebbling to goosebumps, shoulders shivering as her hand draws down to the nape of his neck. Her perfume is dark and overbearing. She taps a finger a few times as if contemplating. Her salt and pepper hair falls across her face, skimming his skin as she looks at the paper. He’d not bothered to put his shirt back on, even though her penthouse is kept impossibly chilly.

“It’s a shame Lark is still recovering, or I could put your team on point, couldn’t I?”

No, he wants to snap at her. Sometimes he wants to bite her just to get her to shut up. He thinks she’d like it too much.

“He only got hurt because you didn’t listen to me last time.” His tone is clipped, voice level but that hint of anger bubbles at the surface. He tries to remain calm in her presence, because his anger had never scared her. And that scared him somewhat. Anger had always been his best defense. It made people leave him alone. He was big and strong and when he was scary, people backed off.

Crowley leans in, plucking the folder from his hands and tossing it onto the glass coffee table in front of them. Empty beer bottles and her glass of wine, thrice refilled, sit there as well. He feels her shifting to get into his lap and so he leans back to accommodate her. Because, well, there wasn’t really anything else Xavier was going to do. And his hands find her soft waist just as her mouth seals over his.

—

“You promised.”

“I said I was sorry—”

“Stop saying sorry, it doesn’t fix anything!”

Xavier has to pull his cell phone from his ear, because Tess screams so loud that it crackles. The city sounds around him are just as loud, just as cruel to his already aching head. The beer had not gotten him drunk, had only given him a migraine that was needling behind one of his eyes. Xavier didn’t suffer headaches that often, didn’t know what to do when his entire skull felt close to exploding with the pressure. He digs a heel into his eye as he walks the lonesome sidewalk. A newspaper flutters by, caught by the breeze. WHEN WILL THEY STOP? He swallows and clears his throat. Attempts diplomacy with his sister.

“How mad is she, then?”

“She’s not mad,” Tess seethes. “She’s—she was expecting you to be there. That’s all, okay. She was—Xavier it’s a big deal. Okay? PhD? She’s going to be—what is that, like a doctor?”

“Can you be a doctor for writing?”

He relaxes when he hears her laugh, even though it’s strained at the edges. Xavier presses on down the sidewalk, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s cold out, but just barely. The wind nips at him here and there, but it feels nice. A reminder that he’s flesh and blood and real and alive. He passes by shops that are both closed and open, some of them dark and some of them lit up, calling to him to stop and rest and drink more or eat or do anything that wasn’t argue with his sister.

“I’ll call Emily,” Xavier finally says. “You know last time I tried to send her a gift card she yelled at me for like an hour.”

“It was an Amazon gift card.”

“The hell is wrong with Amazon?”

Xavier knows he’s going the wrong way toward home, but that doesn’t make much difference to him. He lets himself be guided, his eyes tired as they glance up at a smoggy, starless sky.

“Her boyfriend was there, by the way.”

“She has a boyfriend?” His voice goes deep and angry, reverberating from his chest. For a brief moment, when he thinks of Emily, he can only see her as the shy and awkward thirteen year old she’d been before he’d joined the military. Standing there with big, pleading eyes. You’re joining a fascist regime, she’d said and he had no idea how a thirteen year old even knew the words fascist or regime. All he’d known at thirteen was video games and comic books. But Emily had always been the smartest Wolffe. He’d envied her for that.

Only she’d turned twenty five earlier that year and he was still envious of her in a lot of different ways.

“Tanner. Which—I already know you’re going to say—”

“That’s a douchebag name.”

“He was very polite. Dad approves.” Tess says it lightly, but Xavier reads the tone. Dad approves. Dad approves because Emily is going to college and she’s going to be someone and she’s going down the right paths but most of all, Emily isn’t gay. He doesn’t detect envy or pain in Tess’ voice, but he knows if she were there, if they were in his shitty slum apartment, if they were sharing a joint together on his broken down couch, they’d both have the same expression. Defeat.

When he reaches Lark’s apartment building, he punches the code in so angrily, he thinks one of the buttons stick.

“I’ll call her.”

“And me. More often, thanks.”

It makes him smile as he passes through the lobby, the bank of mailboxes, into a dingy elevator that looks like it’ll break any day. It’d not even been functional when Lark had moved in, but he’d had such a shine of excitement on his sweaty face as they carried boxes of things up for him that Xavier couldn’t bring himself to disparage the place.

“I will,” Xavier says in a softer voice, shoulder to the wall of the elevator. It crawls higher and higher. “I love you, Tess.”

“Love you, Xavier.”

—

He tried not to make a habit out of showing up randomly. It had gone bad, once before when Xavier had opened the door to Lark’s bedroom and a woman had been asleep next to him. Even if it was a story that had made Benny laugh so hard he’d nearly pissed himself in his snipers perch, Lark hadn’t spoken to him directly for an entire week after. That had been the longest stretch of time they’d not talked since Xavier had picked him up from Kingdom headquarters two years ago.

Now, though, Xavier knows Lark will be alone.

When he sneaks into the mans bedroom and finds him laying on his back with an arm across his face, the bed is empty beside him. There’s a cast on his other arm, something slim and medical, high tech that was promoting faster healing than anything that was capable before that valuable mineral they were desperately fighting for. It sits on his stomach, which rises slowly and heavily with sleep. Xavier tries not to judge the absolute mess of Lark’s bedroom. Clothes strewn everywhere, plastic water bottles lining the dresser. He toes off his combat boots and attempts a silent approach as he crosses to the bed.

“You creep,” Lark says sleepily. His arm doesn’t move off his face. Xavier has never been able to sneak up on him before; he isn’t sure if Lark is a light sleeper by nature, or if prison had done that to him.

“Hows your arm?”

“Broken,” he replies dully, lifting the cast. Then he lets it fall back to his stomach. Xavier strips himself of his jeans and then lifts the blankets at the edge of Lark’s bed to crawl under. Despite the mess he seems to keep, his bedspread and blanket always smell of fresh laundry. Xavier settles into the bed and sighs, hands tucked underneath his head. His eyes have settled to the dark, and a cut of the outside night city light crisscrosses the ceiling. It’ll be morning in just a few hours.

“Emily has a boyfriend.”

“Okay.”

“Named Tanner.”

“She has awful taste.”

“Well, she liked you, so yeah.”

Xavier whuffs a sound when an elbow lands on his stomach. But both men snicker at least a little bit. Xavier falls asleep better, listening to Lark’s even, safe breathing directly next to him.

—

Three distinct, short whistles pull him to a complete stop at the entrance into a crumbling office building. The floor has split somewhere to his left, pipes burst and draining down into the floor below. Lights flicker a above him. Xavier slowly creeps his way into the next room. There’s a pause and then—three whistles—and—

“Fuckin’ hell, gives a note and doesn’t show—dickhead that one, should—”

“Should what?”

Benji’s rifle snaps up automatically. A red dot appears on Xavier’s chest and then immediately it skitters away and across the wall and then to the floor. Then disappears entirely when Benji thumbs it off.

Amongst all the rubble of what was once some random building, Benji looks stark and real. His uniform is gray, washed out amongst the beige and the crumbling plaster walls and yet, he is so there. His dark skin peeks at his throat, at the edges of his wrist. Benji lifts to yank his helmet off and his hair goes everywhere. Little sprouting curls that are frizzy from sweat. His gloved hand pushes strands back. His eyes are still as tired as they have looked the past three times, but they are shiny. Bright and excited and—just for Xavier. They’re staring at each other for a long moment before the mercenary takes another step into the room.

Something feels crackly and intense inside of him. Outside of him. In the air. Between them.

“Jesus,” Xavier says and laughs loudly. “Holy shit. You showed up.”

“Yeah,” Benji replies in a hoarse whisper. “Well. Yeah.”

He isn’t really sure which of them makes the first move then—even when he replays the events later for himself, in bed. On his side, an hand tucked protectively around an old wounded rib, staring at the wall and trying to memorize every small detail. That one escapes him, who had moved forward first. Maybe it was both of them, maybe the toes of their combat boots had met awkwardly and they’d nearly stumbled because of that closeness. A gap bridged in just an instant—but he will not ever forget the way Benji’s hands had slid around the plate armor he wore and held him steady in front of him.

“Yeah, well, m’here.” He mumbles it, his dark eyes up on Xavier. He has to tilt his head back just for that alone. His chin is almost touching the black vest. “You wanted that, right?”

Little bursts of energy explode inside Xavier’s fingertips, making him feel shaky all the way to his bones. He hasn’t moved at all, except that step forward. Benji’s eyes darken. They lid even further, no longer just sleepy. This close, Xavier can see a defining scar down the inner corner—he feels instantly possessive of that light brown cut, feels insane for wanting to know every single detail about it. Who did it? Are they still alive? If they are, they wont be for long.

Xavier has no idea whats happening, Benji’s fingers sliding further into his vest and pulling them a notch closer. Was this the same man who threw a gun at him? Who leaned back at the coffee shop? Who blushed when he was complimented? Xavier’s mouth dries and his throat narrows, his breathing coming out short and staccato. His eyes blink rapidly in some sort of attempt to clear.

Arousal swells in his lower stomach, pools heat down his thighs, between his hips.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Xavier says, through numb lips and a thick tongue. He has no idea why, of all things, that comes out first. It seems to unbalance Benji for a minute, but only a minute before that dark, heady look returns to his eyes. And it becomes obvious what Benji thought this rendezvous was for.

And was he wrong?

Xavier had been thinking about it. He’d been thinking near nonstop about it. He had been imagining Benji, imagining shoving the sleeves of his shirt up and kissing the inside of his forearm and kissing more places than just that. He’d imagined bending Benji over something, revealing back muscles and brown skin. He’d been thinking about Benji so much it felt like other things were being pushed out. Replaced. He closed his eyes and went to sleep, wondering when he’d hear three short whistles.

But now that he’s there, standing there, looking down at him, all Xavier can think is, I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried. Every time I’ve seen you, there’s some new injury and I’m not good at taking care of those. I’m better at shooting a gun. There’s a reason they gave me sledgehammer. I’m glad you’re okay. Jesus, I’m so glad you’re okay.

Benji’s hand moves and touches the buckle to his bulletproof vest. The click is so loud it feels like gunshots.

“Wait,” Xavier’s hand wraps around Benji’s wrist.

The rejection in those pretty, dark eyes is so immediate and so painful that Xavier has to suck in a breath because it feels similar to the crack of a rib. The wrist he holds onto is wrenched away and the space put between them feels impossibly cavernous. Benji’s face twists into blistering humiliated anger. Xavier’s stomach goes cold and hollow, the tingling in his hands getting worse, more like buzzing anxiety. He lifts them, palms up and fingers spread.

“Wait—”

“What the fuck do you want?” He tries to reach out once more and Benji swipes his arm away and out of reach. He is stumbling backward, toward the way he came. No, don’t go. “What the fuck are you—Why did you tell me to come here, then? Are you fuckin’ with me, mate? Is this some game?”

“No, I swear, I—”

“Mental fuck, I swear, if you’re tryin’ somethin’ with me—”

“I’m not,” Xavier hisses, reaching out again and snatching Benji by the bicep. His fingers curl harder than he means. He’s well aware that Benji is more within reach of his rifle than he is. That he could easily put distance between them and Xavier would be nothing but a mist of blood across the beige walls. He swallows and his breathing is short pants, his hand holding even harder as he tries not to lose this moment.

“Then what?” Benji snarls. He’s not putting up a fight to get away. That hurt in his eyes had felt worse than a knife to the gut—it hadn’t said, but I wanted to have sex and you’re taking that from me, it had said, I thought you this and now you’re making a mockery of me and Xavier hated himself for letting Benji think that. Even for a second. “I’ll break your teeth, mate, I will—”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” Benji replies so quickly, spitting it so furiously, that it stuns both of them to silence. The only real sound is some continued gunfight far, far in the distance from this building. Slowly, as Benji’s cheeks start to darken, Xavier’s dimple with a giant smile. He can feel it, crinkling his eyes. His hand loosens. Benji jerks out of his grasp. He doesn’t step away.

“Don’t let that go to your head. Liked it ‘fore I ever met you.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You have that look on your face,” Benji gestures with a gloved hand. Xavier tries to make his smile smaller, or at the very least, tries for something more humble. He doesn’t think it works. Benji continues to stare at him, his jaw working. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to get to know you,” Xavier admits. “I just—I wanted to hear your voice again. And talk to you.”

“Why?” He tries not to let the suspicion in Benji’s voice hurt, but a small part of him does feel lost on that sound. He palms the back of his neck. His hair sticks to his temples, helmet flat. Xavier runs a hand back through it, feeling as it sticks up everywhere with the path of his palm. Benji stares. When he goes to say something—he isn’t sure what, because he’s not sure he could explain—Benji cuts him off.

“What’s yours then?” he asks. “Red? Black? Somethin’ scary?”

“You think I’m scary?” Xavier asks, like its a compliment, putting a hand to his chest. Benji doesn’t answer. He makes a move as if to turn and Xavier reaches out, long fingers looping around Benji’s forearm. He half expects to be shaken off. He isn’t. “I like yellow.” He thinks of Lark’s brightly bleached hair, underneath the sun. The golden lab he’d had as a kid, wiggling against him and licking his face as he howled laughing, when life still felt pure and simple and small. It was a good color. It felt like home.

“My turn, then?” Benji asks. Xavier feels worry prick along his skin. Until, “Right. What kind of music you listen to?”

“Oh man,” Xavier laughs. He slowly backs up, still holding Benji’s forearm, pulling him along. “You’re not going to like my taste in music.” His back hits the wall and he slowly slides until he’s sitting, a nod to the side to indicate Benji should do the same. He’s unsure how much time they have in the same way he is exactly aware of how little time they have. Benji hesitates, but only for a second before he turns and lets his back hit the wall. He slides until he’s sitting. His knees bent, one arm around the leg, the other resting next to him. Like a silent approval for Xavier to still be holding onto him.

—

“No, fuck no,” Xavier laughs. Benji stands in front of him, a hand outstretched to help haul him up.

“You’re having a laugh at me, right? There’s no way you’re scared of horror movies. You’re—you.”

He feels weightless as a strong arm yanks him. Xavier stumbles just a bit, pats at his ass to get plaster dust off his tac pants. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

“Man, just because I’m a mercenary doesn’t mean I can handle Pennywise the Clown. I had nightmares for weeks. I called my sister like, nightly.”

“Older or younger?”

“Older.”

Benji’s brow quirks, his smile softening. It looks nice that way. Xavier wasn’t going to pretend that Benji’s dark, mean and sometimes snide little smile wasn’t nice (or that it didn’t shake something inside him like a dog with a bone). He liked that flutter of gentleness though, the smallest hint of a softer side.

Though Benji doesn’t say it out loud, he has a feeling there’s an older sister in his life as well. Something shared between them. They had shared probably too much together, on the floor, listening to some rumbling and fighting that they should have been engaged in. Xavier worries for Benji, that his absence might be noticed, but the medic assures him there’s plenty of them. He’d called himself canon fodder and had only stopped laughing at that when he’d met Xavier’s stormy, furious expression.

“Should go now,” Benji comments, looking out the wide blasted hole in the wall. The sky is turning shades of purple and pink. The fighting will be nearly over. His job will only just be starting. When he turns back, he seems startled to find Xavier close once more. There’s only really a few inches between them. Steel toed boots scuffing once more. The crackling underneath Xavier’s skin has returned. An urge to touch so strong it feels overwhelming.

“I wanted to do more than talk,” Xavier admits, quietly. Benji’s expression becomes unreadable and that worries him, so he lifts his hand and closes it around the same bicep he’d held far too tight earlier. He worries that he might have left a bruise. He almost hopes that he has, as selfish and disturbing as that is. The physical proof of him lingering on Benji’s skin—something inside stirs at that, but he stomps it down.

“Xavier,” Benji begins. His accent makes it sound like his name ends with an ‘a’. It’s so impossibly fucking endearing.

“I mean,” he laughs. His hand slides from bicep to the back of Benji’s shoulder. “I really, really wanted to give you a hug. Sometimes, when I look at you—Jesus, all I can think about doing is hugging you. You ever meet someone who just like needs a hug?”

Then he does, wrapping an arm around Benji’s shoulders. The other goes around his lower back. Xavier pulls them nice and snug together and for a brief second images all the gear gone. He doesn’t even necessarily imagine it sexually, but the idea of intimacy is almost sexual in the way he desires it so strong.

Benji feels like he might pull away. Until he doesn’t. Until his entire body goes slack and two hands touch Xavier’s lower back. Then they’re hugging, this awkward but lingering and affectionate embrace between two enemies. Xavier pulls them tighter still, his arms briefly shaking with how hard he grips them together. He doesn’t mean to but his nose slips into Benji’s hair. He tells himself it’s just because he’s so tall compared to the medic. But it isn’t true, especially as that nose slips down the side of Benji’s face.

As it continues into the crook of Benji’s shoulder. He feels the slide of sweaty skin across his cheek. Xavier sighs contently and then inhales roughly. The hands at his lower back dig in tighter. He sighs out contently, rubbing his face harder against where shoulder meets neck.

“God, you smell amazing,” Xavier groans happily. He squeezes their bodies together once more. He tries to memorize the way Benji smells underneath smoke and war and gear. He’s too tempted to put his tongue there and feel the pulse underneath his warm skin. He’d meant it. Benji needed a hug, he just needed to feel arms around him. Xavier knew it.

Because Xavier needed it too.

An explosion goes off, far too close to them.

They shoot apart. Benji’s hands scramble across himself for his rifle, until he swears and darts for it, as it rests propped up against the wall. Xavier doesn’t reach for his own, but he sighs heavily, head rolling back on his neck. He swears he can still smell Benji, he can still feel the warmth of his body.

“That was one of mine,” Xavier explains, almost sheepishly. He reaches up for the radio on his chest and briefly switches it on.

“Motherfucker—yeah, f-fuck you! Hah! Fuck all of you cocksuckers—”

He switches it off.

“Snipers,” Xavier says, with a shrug, as if to explain.

“I’ve heard that one,” Benji says. “He scares our ground troops.”

“Ben?” he laughs as he crosses to the blown out wall. It looks out over a rubbled street. Xavier glances around outside of it. He pats around his pack on his side for the rappel. “He’s all bark, no bite. Swear. You’d like him, actually. He’s funny.”

“Xavier.” Benji’s voice stops him as he unhooks the rappel, the length of rope just enough probably to get him down to the ground. He glances up to the medic, who still stands there in the middle of the ruined office building, where they’d just talked for probably half an hour about absolutely nothing. “Are—”

He stops himself from asking the question. Xavier can guess what it is, but he doesn’t say anything as he hooks the rappel onto the ground, as secure as he can get it. He fights the urge to glance up, to take in Benji’s oddly vulnerable expression. Are. Are.

Are you going to want to see me again?

“Well, be fuckin’ careful, alright? We’re on the third story.” Benji’s voice is gruff and close. Xavier looks up as he positions himself to rappel down. He stands there, right at the edge and Xavier has to resist the urge to shove him back in, toward safety. Open area always meant danger. Instead, they both just look at each other, Benji staring down, and Xavier staring up.

“Soon you soon,” Xavier says and winks before he launches himself out the building.

#writing #valorant au #xw #bp #xw x bp

[hauntedjpegcollection]

outside

wc: 8596 au: valorant au ch: lark, crowley, xavier

Diana Crowley’s mother had once told her that high heels were a womans best kept weapon. Not in practicality; she had never expected her daughter would need to use one to puncture a man’s throat, or defend herself against a mugging in an alley and to Crowley’s credit, she’d just use her pistol in that case. She brought guns to knife fights—her father had given her that tidbit of life advice.

But there was some sort of credence to her mothers words and she’d ruined her arches by the time she was in her early twenties. Crowley still wore heels and they echo loudly in the prison hallway, snappy clacks that clearly annoyed the correctional officer in front of her. The tiled floor underneath every sharp staccato beat is shockingly clean. Not nearly as grimy as her playful imagination had made it on the car ride here. Crowley doesn’t visit prisons often, not that her quarry weren’t often in some sort of cell that needed unlocking.

She had people to do this for her, usually. People, she found—not from her mother or father but rather herself—were also a womans best kept weapon.

That’s why Eric King struggles to keep pace with her, as they are escorted to a secure holding room. He’s not a short man, but she’s not a short woman either. And in her heels, she’s the same height as him. Sometimes, she’s even an inch taller when he slouches, which Eric is often fond of doing. His posture’s not her concern—Eric is good protection if things were to go wrong and Crowley did not go anywhere without protection.

The officer stops in front of a plain, oak door with a small viewing window. She peers in, with a curious tilt of her chin. Two men sit inside, one of them in the obvious orange jumpsuit of an incarcerated individual and the other in the business suit of a very obvious lawyer.

“You’re coming in with us?” Eric asks, gesturing toward the correctional officer. He has a night stick on his waist, but no gun. Crowley had read in a report that Daisuke Tanaka should not be within two hundred feet of a gun—she wonders if that means he doesn’t get outside time, since the only correctional officers that have rifles are the ones patrolling perimeters. Is he allowed sanctioned, special time to meander the lonely dirt lot outside the facility? Or has he not seen the sun for a very long time?

Not for the first time does she wish she had more information. But buying Tanaka from the private prison was going to be costly enough; they were holding their cards tightly, just in case she didn’t bite. Crowley already knew she was going to, but that didn’t mean they had to know that yet.

“’Course. Dangerous, that one.” The officer indicates the door with a jerk of his head.

Crowley doesn’t mind making Tanaka and his lawyer wait, so she indulges this for a moment.

“Is he allowed in general population?” She watches the officer suck his teeth and tilt his head. He’s not much taller than her either, thanks to those heels. He glances her over, not shy in staring her down in either appreciation or disgust. Maybe both. Men that worked in prisons were not much different than police officers in the sense that they often felt very entitled to stare at a woman. And pass judgment.

“Started out in isolation for a while. Long while. Integrated a year back. We’re testing waters.”

“Because he’s dangerous?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The officer sucks his teeth again, rocks on his heels, smiles at her nice and wide. He has very white and very straight teeth that look fake. “And, you know. There was some fuss about it all. Him being what he is. If he were in gen-pop, his lawyer said he’d get jumped.”

“Because he’s a radiant,” Eric drawls with a condescending curl to his lip. “Or because he’s transgender?”

Crowley tilts her head and smiles her own very white and very fake teeth. Veneers. Weapons. Etc. The officer stares at Eric for a long moment and then looks to her, as she continues smiling. The skin at the corners of his eyes goes very tight. He does not humor Eric with a reply and instead turns to the door and thrusts it open.

—

After introductions with the lawyer—Jeremy Pool, a rather well known criminal defense attorney—there is nothing for them to do but stare at each other for a long while. Eric sits beside Crowley, the large (undoubtedly, two way) mirror to their backs. His knee moves in a steady rhythm that one might think is from nerves, but she knows is from electricity building up underneath his skin. Crowley sits the way she always does, which is with one leg crossed over the other and her hands forming a small, meditative triangle in her lap. It was a ritualistic sort of thing she did, made her shoulders look broader and her collarbone more prominent.

Tanaka is not baited by a woman in his presence. Though she’d combed his records and found no visitors, Crowley wonders if she is the first he’s seen in his three years of incarceration. She spares a thought to female correctional officers or medical staff; plain, boring or unsightly. No matter the tight skirt or her square neckline and the dainty thin gold necklace, the prisoner only stares at his own cuffed hands.

Crowley had expected him to be more intimidating. Not that it would work on her, but she expected more. A presence that would fill the room, something bordering on terrifying or wicked. Worthy of the money she would be spending. Instead, he sits there, looking average, if not a bit underwhelming. Not necessarily in size, although he is not large. Slim and short, lacking in the bulk people picture when they think of a criminal. He has a smattering of tattoos she can see on his hands, forearm, one underneath an ear. His hair is shaved down tight, more for economical reasons than looks, she thinks.

“Would you like water, Mr. Tanaka?” Crowley begins, waving a dismissive hand to Eric. He begins to stand from the chair, buttoning his suit jacket as he straightens. She’d always liked that about him, that he knew when a suit jacket was meant to be buttoned or unbuttoned. He’s barely out of the chair to move to the door, to find the vending machines they’d passed, when Tanaka speaks.

“What do you want?”

When he finally looks at her, his eyes are two black holes surrounded by sleepless rings of purple. The weight behind them feels instantly like two hands around her throat, cold and gentle in their warning. A thumb grazing the column of his neck, looking for the pulse. Eric stops moving, half in his chair and half out. She catches his hands twitching. Crowley gestures for him to sit back down and though it takes a moment, he finally does. He unbuttons his suit jacket. His knee continues shaking.

“Didn’t Mr. Pool speak to you before we came?”

“He says you can reduce my sentence.”

“I said they could try,” Pool quickly interjects. He sits the way a good criminal defense attorney does; slightly tilted toward Tanaka, one hand on the table, the other on the back of his chair. He glances between all three of them several times, a roaming watchful eye. Even occasionally over the back of his shoulder to the correctional officer standing in front of the door. He wears an expensive navy suit and there is a band of paler skin around his wrist where a watch must usually sit.

“Not necessarily,” Crowley unfolds her legs, just to refold them in another direction. Tanaka stares only at her face, his eyes unwaveringly still. Three years of federal prison had made him very different from the mug shot she had studied before this meeting. He’d had more fat to his cheeks, a terrified shine over his eyes. Dents in his lips from how hard he’d bitten them, likely to keep from crying or stem the tears that had already started. There’s really no hint of that young, dumb innocence anymore.

She reaches toward Eric and he meets her halfway, with the manila folder she’d brought with them.

“You’re in prison for arson, but theft was your passion, am I correct?”

“Don’t answer that,” Pool says quickly.

“I suspect you were the reason most of those robberies went so well?” Crowley flicks open the folder. “I paid to have your juvenile records exhumed for me. Breaking and entering at age fifteen, grand theft auto at sixteen, assault with a deadly weapon at eighteen—that was your first stint in jail?”

“What,” Tanaka says quietly, leaning over the table in a way that makes the correctional officer step closer, that makes the lawyer scoot backward, that makes Eric’s twitching knee stop. “Do you want?”

“I think,” Crowley says slowly, closing the folder. “It’s not what I want, it’s what I have. Which is money—and considering this—” she taps a finger on the folder. Underneath is the mug shot, that terrified boy who died somewhere in the last three years. “It seems like you understand money very well.”

“Money is not solving Elias’ problem,” Pool laughs, condescending and snide. “A work release program—sure. I know the government is trying to collect more of those…like my client. More—what he is—We can work with that.”

“I don’t work for the government,” Crowley purrs. She lifts a hand and feels across her hair for the bobby pin keeping strays from her face. When she slides it out, strands of black and gray hair fall across her eyes. A small swipe of her hand tucks them behind her ear. Tanaka follows the movement like starved animal, the only hint that something in him is breaking. Crowley holds the bobby pin up, as if it were some sort of key. Maybe it is.

“I work for Kingdom.” Crowley puts the bobby pin on the table and slides it across. “Could you demonstrate?”

“Absolutely not,” Pool seethes, reaching for the pin. Tanaka’s hand is a blur, closing over top of it. His tattoos are fine and small, all over his knuckles, across the back of his hand and up his forearm.

“Elias, I cannot advise you enough to not do what you are thinking of doing.”

Tanaka doesn’t listen. Instead, he slides his hand to himself and turns his palm upward to look at the slim, black bobby pin. A key.

“Alright, enough,” the correctional officer drawls. He steps forward and Eric stands.

Despite all those moving parts; the lawyer, the officer, the other radiant, Crowley herself, Tanaka simply takes the pin and straightens it in his slender, pale, tattooed fingers.

“I said enough, Tanaka—” But when he reaches for the inmate, Eric moves around the table. Tanaka manipulates the pin, jabbing it into the keyhole of the silver cuffs on his wrists. There are familiar red marks on his skin from the chafe of metal. Three years of captivity and correctional officers and these white washed concrete walls. Crowley watches, with rising anticipation sliding along her spine.

Eric is fast, his hand securing at the apex of shoulder and neck. The guard grunts and then twitches all over as electricity crackles underneath Eric’s broad palm. His eyes roll back, jaw slack, his giant body folding backward like a puppet with strings severed. Jeremy Pool makes a shocked and horrified sound as the guard crumples to the floor, still trembling. Eric’s hand stays in the air, little bits of white energy raining down like sparks.

And then the cuffs make a small clinking sound and Tanaka raises his hands out of them.

“That took longer than I thought it would,” Crowley comments.

“Plenty of people pick locks,” Tanaka says quietly. “You wanted to piss off Duart. So he’d have an excuse to put him down—and so I’d know he’s dangerous.” He gestures with his chin to Eric, who finally lets his hand drop to his side. The lawyer still stares, with wide, disbelieving eyes that dart between them all. He unfortunately lives in a realm of legal and illegal. He should know better, but he doesn’t.

“You’re very clever,” Crowley comments, tilting her head in a way that makes more hair fall free. Tanaka’s eyes flicker there and then back down to his hands and then up once more. “I wouldn’t be negotiating for a sentence reduction. Or a work release program, though you will be working. For Kingdom. It wouldn’t even be a negotiation. Just a transfer of funds from our accounts to the prisons. You’ll have all the civil liberties of a free man, I can assure you.”

There is an almost imperceptible change in Tanaka’s breathing. A harsh, quick inhale through his nose.

“I’d just like another demonstration is all. Now that it’s just friends in the room.”

“Elias—don’t—”

Crowley blinks when Tanaka disappears from in front of her. The bobby pin sits on the table, as do the cuffs. Her heart tumbles in her chest for a moment, unsteady and out of balance—and then she slowly tilts her head to the side, one eye glancing up to find him behind her.

“What do you need me to do?”

—

“We already have teleporters,” Eric comments, eyes down on his phone. His tone is bored, but his body language is severe and tight. Crowley barely spares him a glance. Her eyes are drawn forward, through the glass. It muffles all sounds, a bundle of people behind them speaking softly to one another, a phone call being made.

Daisuke—Elias?—Tanaka has barely broken a sweat, his arms and legs pumping in easy rhythm as he runs on the treadmill. A duo of nurses stand on either side, one of them with a tablet while the other monitors vitals on a desktop. She’s unsure how long he’s been running for, but it’s felt like close to half an hour.

He’s changed from the orange jumpsuit, into clothes she’d found in a training room down the hall. Ironically, despite what he is, Tanaka looks more human in the dark charcoal joggers and the black cotton shirt. Something about the movement of his body brings him alive, a flush to his face, an expression that is so close to a smile.

“Mm,” Crowley hums when she feels Eric’s eyes boring into her.

“And plenty of people that can run fast.”

“That’s true.”

“Is there a reason we just spent an entire quarters budget on this?” Eric waves a hand toward the glass. This. That. A person, or a thing?

“Did you know,” Crowley sighs, tucking an arm around her ribs, her other hand cupping her cheek. She continues to watch Tanaka as the treadmill’s incline changes. He adjusts naturally, with no decline in speed. “That your chance of being assaulted in prison goes up by seventy-five percent when you are only a week away from your release date?”

Eric says nothing to that.

“I’m lead to believe that the reason is—I’m sure you can guess. Jealousy, naturally? That is the human condition explained, in one easy word. Jealousy. So, a group of inmates that are in for life, who are free from consequences because there’s nothing that will ever be worse than a life in prison—they conspire together to assault a man a week away from freedom.

And that man has to make a choice. He will either lay down and take it so as not to risk his release date, or he will fight back. On one hand, you walk out of prison free, but probably with something broken. Maybe not even something visibly broken, but I’m sure no one’s necessarily normal after being dragged into a closet and beaten by four or five men. How do you live normally after that? Curious—but, I suppose it’s the second option we’re to consider.”

The treadmill slows as Tanaka paces himself to a cool down walk. His eyes are forward, feverish and bright.

“If you fight back, you save yourself from injury—or worse. But, time is added onto your sentence. Your week before release becomes a month. Or months. Or a year—or years. Depending on how much you fought back, maybe. How bad it all was.” Crowley tilts her head to smile at Eric. “And which option do you think Mr. Tanaka went with?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

“So, you’re right,” Crowley sighs, turning away from the window. Away from her investment. She leans back against it, arms crossed under her breasts. She continues smiling. “We have teleporters, or people who run fast—we have people that can light things on fire or create toxins or—whatever the fuck these people do. But, we are lacking, fundamentally, in desperation. People who are going to do what we tell them to do, because the only other option is something so horrible there aren’t any choices.”

Eric’s throat bobs as he swallows, as he swipes a hand back through his dark, curly hair.

“Jesus, Crowley. You are something.” Something so horrible, she assumes.

“I’m going to give him to Wolffe.”

“That fucking idiot?” Eric groans, eyes rolling toward the ceiling.

“Trust me.” Crowley steps forward and smooths a hand over Eric’s chest, watching his expression flit to satisfaction—and wariness. “I know what I’m doing.”

—

Xavier Wolffe is insane.

“Fuck you! I’ll kill you, asshole!” He screams, half out the window of car. “Fuck your mother! Prick!” He continues, yelling at the car that zips in front of them, that weaves around night time traffic. Xavier had been driving fairly similar, but seems to appreciate being cut off by another driver less. Lark has no idea what else to do but sit there and stare. One of his hands keeps running up and down his own thigh—the sensation of denim feels so out of place. It tingles underneath his palm, gloriously rough. He’d not been prepared for how things would feel.

The cotton shirt, the overly large jacket swallowing him up. Lark had not remembered his sizing for normal clothes, so the jeans are too tight and the tops are too loose. He was thankful for what he’d been given though; the shirt, jacket, jeans and sneakers are the only things he currently owns. And even that feels miraculous. Unearthly.

“I can’t fucking stand out-of-staters,” Xavier growls as he settles himself back into the drivers seat. Lark’s hand stills on his thigh, suddenly scared he might get caught. Doing what? What even was he doing? He tries to remember how to sit casually, but almost every muscle is tensed in a way he can’t unclench.

Xavier is big. Big. When he’d stood in front of Lark, he’d taken up so much space that a step back was necessary to see all of him. And he was so obviously dangerous it felt maddening that no one else seemed to notice. Xavier prowled when he walked them to the car, and though he’d been smiling and making off handed jokes and comments, his eyes had swept back and forth. Clean sweep of the environment. Danger assessment.

Xavier’s scary. Lark’s sense of survival makes his ears ring. He does not like being in a car with Xavier, but what else is he supposed to do? Say no? Lark’s simply not sure what he’s allowed to do and what he isn’t allowed to do. He isn’t aware of the rules outside.

“Where are we going?” he finally asks, shoving his hands into the pockets of his new jacket so that he’ll stop feeling idiotically mesmerized by textures.

“Well,” Xavier drawls the word out happily. “I know they got you out a couple days ago and all—but this is like your first day out, right? I thought we could celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” The suspicion in his voice is more icy than he means it to be. Lark realizes that he isn’t sure how else to talk; if he could make his voice less harsh.

“Yeah, dude, celebrate. Like—I dunno, consider this a welcome party, alright? Welcome to Kingdom.” Xavier, despite how off putting Lark knows he is, does not seem at all daunted. In fact, he leans his head to the side, till his cheek is squished against his shoulder, giving Lark a big, dopey smile. “You should have fun, man. I’ll make sure we have fun.”

Lark does not trust Xavier at all.

—

The alley behind the club is dank and disgusting—and the smell is overwhelming. Lark has to keep the sleeve of his jacket underneath his nose because fuck, when was the last time he’d smelled this? What even was this? A dumpster nearby leaks an oozing, black liquid. A puddle just a few steps away is brown, viscous on top. There are cigarette butts everywhere and a barely flickering light.

Lark stares at Xavier with flat, annoyed eyes.

Music pours out of the building. A loud, thumping sensation that makes Lark’s heart beat feel irregular. If it’s this loud, with the barrier of walls, he can’t imagine how it sounds inside. His throat feels tight and narrow, his mouth dry at the thought of inside. He’d only just gotten out, he didn’t want to be inside anywhere anymore. He wants to stand in an open field and scream and run in circles and throw himself onto grass and roll around and cry—he mostly wanted to cry. A lot.

Instead, the door finally cracks open and just as Lark suspects, the noise is immediate.

“You,” the bouncer snarls, with an angry glare at Xavier. He’s tall, but not tall like Xavier. He fills out a tight black shirt with the word SECURITY stamped across it. Lark cannot decide if he’s good looking or not, because his entire body thrums with the sudden fear of the unknown. He does not know this man. He barely knows Xavier. He barely knows whats going on.

“You’ve so much fucking nerve, Wolffe.”

“Aw, man, c’mon.”

“Don’t ‘aw man’ me. What do you want?”

“It’s my friends birthday,” Xavier lies, stepping behind Lark. He puts big hands on his shoulders. Lark’s entire body protests the sudden intimacy of touch. He feels a broiling underneath his skin, a wave of nausea and longing and disgust and annoyance. But his face must remain placid, because the bouncer merely looks at him blankly.

“So?”

“Desmond,” Xavier’s voice turns sultry and low and makes Lark shiver at the sensation of it behind him. The night speeds along at a current he cannot grasp and it continues scaring him. He watches the giant red head slip forward, the same broad hands that had been on his shoulders now snaking their way around the bouncers hips. Lark feels invasive to witness one of Xavier’s pale thumbs encroach underneath the black shirt and touch dark skin. “You’re still mad at me?”

“If I let you in and you start a fight, I’ll kill you. Just so you know.”

“You’re so hot, you know that?”

Lark clears his throat, his cheeks painful and hot, his skin tight all over. He stares at the puddle of…whatever. His shoulders are so tense that it’s starting to hurt.

“Fine,” Desmond the bouncer finally snaps. He shoves the door open wider. “I’m serious—no fighting. I’m serious.” Xavier places a wet sounding kiss to the mans cheek, his hand wrapping around Lark’s wrist to fully tug him in. As he passes through the door frame, Desmond stares down at him, with curious eyes. Lark can’t stand being looked at like that (or at all), so a shaky hand slides the hood of his jacket up.

And then they’re inside the club.

—

Sometimes, Lark wonders if three years had felt so long just because he was inside. How much of the world could have changed in three years? How much could have happened that he’d not been part of? Would it have made any difference if he’d been there? What movies were out, what was his ex girlfriend doing, where was his sister? Was he out of touch with slang?

Was he out of touch with music?

He doesn’t recognize any of the songs, which makes him feel so oddly lost. Not that it’s Lark’s genre to begin with. This is fast tempo club music, two songs mixed into one, with too may hi hats and too much beat. It’s music for people to dance to, when dancing doesn’t matter so much as moving your body in time with another person. Lark’s still panicked, listening to the music as it shifts from one song to the next, trying desperately to find a song he remembers at all.

Lark had been allowed CD’s in prison. Not many, but a few. Good boy behavior. Sometimes, having things only invited people to want to take, though. He’d had to hide them more often than actually listen to them.

“What do you drink?” Xavier yells into his ear. “Beer? Cocktails? What’s your poison man?”

Money, Lark thinks instinctively. I don’t have any money.

“I can’t,” he yells back. Xavier tilts his head. For some reason, it’s like the motion of a curious puppy. Like all the layers of something scary had suddenly been stripped away from Xavier, underneath the clubs lights and the music. He smiles and it doesn’t look as terrifying anymore. Just white shiny teeth and big, pretty green eyes. Lark is stunned by how attractive he is, that realization sudden and dizzying. Lark’s not been attracted to anything but his own fucking hand for three years.

“I don’t have any way to pay for it,” he turns his pockets inside out, playfully. Trying for a joke, trying to smile. He isn’t sure if he actually does or not.

“Oh, dude,” Xavier laughs loudly, slinging both arms around Lark’s shoulders, pulling him in so close it’s nearly a hug. Lark’s stomach twists and turns. He can’t remember the last hug he’d gotten—who had it been from? Eliza? No. He couldn’t think of her anymore. “I’ll get us free drinks, don’t worry.”

—

And he does. He gets them too many free drinks.

Lark would have been drunk off of just one; but he doesn’t stop at just one. When Xavier places a cool beer bottle into his hand, it feels like something untwists inside him. Something releases, some worry or fear finally slowly dissipates, or is replaced instead by substance. It pushes everything out and that feels glorious. That feels beautiful. Lark realizes halfway through the third one, where he is.

A club. Outside. Around people. He’s not inside. He is not going to sleep inside a cell tonight. There are no guards, there are no other prisoners, no lawyers, or judges. Mania sets in almost immediately, like a creature that’s finally chewed it’s leg free of a trap. Lark takes the next beer—and the next. He laughs, one arm around Xavier’s slim torso, letting himself be pulled into the writhing mass of bodies dancing to songs that were released and remixed during years he spent incarcerated.

He doesn’t decline the drugs when they’re offered to him, when they make their way into a small, dark corner of the club. The ground is sticky beneath their feet. His new sneakers have perfect tread; it’s such a bizarre thought to have as he stares down at them. Everything is bleary and smeared together and his head feels stuffy. His hands don’t feel attached as they hold Xavier’s waist. He holds someones waist—he touches someone, he feels the warmth of their body radiating into his palms. He glances up as Xavier takes a small baggie and squeezes it to pour a shaky line on the back of his phone.

“Only one for you,” Xavier says, his voice rich and warm and gorgeous. He has freckles all over him. Lark hadn’t even noticed them because he’d been so scared staring at him. He has freckles on his neck, even. They disappear into his fiery hairline. “Okay, put your finger—like that. And—don’t laugh. Lark, don’t laugh.”

“I’m not,” he giggles, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’m not. I—” He is, though. He’s laughing, because it feels so good. Outside—he is outside. Not…not technically, but it’s outside the way prisoners talk about outside. Out, I’m out, I’m not in. I’m not inside. He pinches his nose shut on one side. It feels like he’s part of a movie as he leans over the phone and then inhales the little white line.

The world explodes in stars around him, the lights going brighter and brighter like a solar system turned on just for him. He slides a hand across his short, buzzed hair, feels every single one. His eyes roll for a moment—it feels so unbelievably good. Like running—oh God, it feels like the first time he ever realized he could run fast. The first time a track coach had slapped his back and told him to run, run, run and he was the best guy on the whole team—he was so good, he was so good he got a scholarship for it. And it was so free, he was so free, he was—

“Oh shit!” Xavier’s laugh brings him back into his body. Lark watches with blown out, too big pupils as he drags a wet, pink tongue over the back of his phone, cleaning it of cocaine. “Are you going to dance with me?”

“Yes,” Lark breathes.

He becomes completely unburdened then, swept into Xavier’s arms and half carried back to the throng of dancing people. Lark unzips the jacket, loses it (a part of him crying for it, because he doesn’t have anything else, just the jacket, the shirt, the shoes, the jeans and now he doesn’t even have the jacket) and he feels himself squeezed between bodies, one of them Xavier.

I love you, he thinks, staring up at that happy, freckly face under all the lights, under all waves of music he feels like he can see.

“I love you too!” Xavier yells, somehow louder than the music. Lark didn’t even realize he’d said it out loud. But it feels natural, loving Xavier feels so suddenly easy and nice and warm and comforting and safe and isn’t that what Xavier is? Hadn’t Crowley handed him over, because Xavier would keep him safe, wasn’t he going to be staying with Xavier for a while, learning what being outside meant? Wasn’t this good?

And Xavier is so big in every single way, not just height, not just in prettiness, he’s just there and holding him and they’re jumping to music he doesn’t know. Does Xavier know he burned someones house down? Does he know and not care? Could people not care? Could Lark stop caring? Oh God, he’s so high and he’s so drunk—he’s outside and—

It doesn’t take long for others to notice Xavier, either.

—

The girls names are Melonie and Isla. Lark tries very hard to not fumble over their names and he also tries to remember that the brunette is Melonie and Isla is the blond. They are both so beautiful it makes him nauseas.

All four of them dance for a minute, but it feels less special with them involved. Lark tries so hard not to think about that, to feel like something was being stolen from him in that moment, because Xavier is very clearly interested in Melonie. His hand looks big around her slender shoulder, he leans in close to her ear to speak to her instead of yelling. He brushes his knuckles across her forearm.

“Where are you from?” Isla asks to his ear. Lark blinks a few times. He thinks the cocaine might be wearing off. He isn’t sure how long cocaine even lasts.

“Oakland,” he answers and she smiles curiously. “California.”

“Wow!” The word pops out of her. Lark’s suddenly aware that he has another beer so he chugs it quickly, because he has no idea what to say to that. What to say to her. She’s so pretty; her lip gloss is shiny and her nose is slender and long and her eyes look like they’d be hazel maybe if he could look at them clearly. “Oh my God, Melonie.”

When he glances over, Xavier is kissing the girl. Shock makes Lark drop the beer, which rolls away, gets kicked across the club by someone dancing to the side of them. He can’t remember what kissing is meant to look like; should it have so much tongue, should his hands be covering her whole face like that? Strangers. They’re strangers, Lark only knows they’re names. He suddenly is afraid again, a pulsing fear in his chest—what do they want?

He doesn’t remember coming with them to the private seating. The music suddenly feels too loud and heavy, a headache beginning to pulse behind his eyes. He’s sitting—Lark doesn’t even remember sitting, his knees slightly spread because a body is between them. Isla’s hands touch his thighs—the denim. The texture of jeans, foreign and strange. She touches them, her warmth making his skin buzz. The smell of her shampoo, her body, it’s sweet and cloying as she leans into him.

Her lips touch his and Lark trembles as he tries to remember the way he used to kiss before prison. Before three years of it. His hands try to find the places they used to go to. Her tongue pushes past his closed lips. She tastes like cocktail juice. Her hands rise, one of them slides along his thigh more and suddenly, he’s aware that she’s looking for something he doesn’t have.

Fuck, he’s stupid. Lark’s stupidity crashes into his skull, a car crash of it. How could he have forgotten this part? Her hand continues, squeezes, her lips pepper over his jaw and to his ear and she says something, but Lark’s eyes go dim and terrified. He doesn’t know what to do, if he should shove her off, how he can explain something so quickly, under such a stranger circumstance. His limbs are jittery and nausea rolls up his throat. Not just nausea. Oh God, not just nausea—

“Uh oh,” Xavier’s voice is loud in his ear. “I got you, man. Don’t worry, I got you.” And strong arms wrap around him and pull him away before he throws up all over the floor.

—

Lark adds to the mysterious puddle in the alley way with green looking vomit. It’s stringy and wet from his mouth, horrifyingly cold. How long had they even been in the club, that the beer in his stomach hadn’t even warmed? He heaves, his back muscles tensing and flexing. He holds onto the wall for support as one of Xavier’s broad palms flattens on him and rubs soothingly. He cannot forget Isla’s touch though, her searching hand, her breath on his ear. He shudders all over, closing his eyes.

He feels stunningly sober suddenly.

“I got that girls number, if you want it,” Xavier says, stepping back to give Lark room to unfold. He leans against the cool brick wall, temple to it. He lets himself breathe a few times, the taste of bile and alcohol on his tongue disgusting.

“I don’t have a phone,” he finally breathes quietly.

“What?”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

Xavier blinks a few times and then his face turns cold. His eyes look glinted in the amber alleyway light. His nose curls, wrinkled at the bridge, lip lifted angrily.

“Fucking Crowley,” he snaps, pulling out his own phone. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets you one.”

“Why?” Lark breathes through his nose, eyes closed. When he opens them again, Xavier is staring. Assessing. He doesn’t like the sudden feeling of being cared for, even though he distantly remembers that drunken, intoxicated obsession with just that. He clears his throat, arms around his chest. “I mean, why would she get me one?”

“Pfft,” Xavier snorts, tapping away on his phone. “She’ll do it if I’m the one asking, you know what I mean? I got uh, sway.” He winks, a vulgar gesture with a fist at his hip. “You need a phone, man. Don’t worry about it.” And he tries not to, he really does. But a strange feeling reanimates his limbs and makes him move closer, away from the pool of sick.

Xavier glances at the throw up and then up to Lark, with a small smile, brows bunched together.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“I haven’t.”

“What?”

Lark gestures to himself, to the air, to nothing.

“I didn’t eat today.”

“Dude,” Xavier breathes, slinging an arm around Lark’s shoulders. “C’mon.”

—

They walk down the street to a burger place that is, blessedly, mostly empty. A gaggle of college aged kids sit in one corner, one of them throwing curious stares their way. Lark sits at the booth with arms around his middle, trying to remember how to breathe. The lights inside are blindingly white, casting them both in horrible shadows. Xavier doesn’t look nearly as regal as he had underneath the flashing club reds and greens and yellows—he looks tired too. Exhaustion draws lines across his handsome features, but he still looks pleased.

Especially with a hamburger between his hands, eating happily.

Lark tries to tally up everything in his head, so he knows exactly how much he owes Xavier when all of this is done. He gets lost trying to count how many beers he’d had—and if Xavier had even paid for them, or just flirted haphazardly with a bartender to get them. He eats his fries slowly, half the burger gone. His stomach is tender and sensitive and trying to fit more in feels like a heruclean task.

“Are you sleeping with Crowley?”

Xavier stares with giant, moss colored eyes. There’s red around them, from the coke or the drink, or the night in general. He swallows the massive bite he’d just taken, and then his expression turns sheepish. Uncharacteristically boyish, if Lark even can think of it that way. Xavier should still be a stranger to him, but sitting there, across a diners laminated table, he feels closer than he has to anyone else in years. Three to be exact.

“Older women are good in bed,” Xavier says with an impish smile. He uses his thumb to wipe at the sauce dripping down his chin.

“Isn’t she—like. She’s the uh, boss. Of it all?”

“Not of Kingdom,” Xavier laughs. He shoves the rest of his burger into his mouth, chewing happily. He sucks nosily from his fountain soda. “She’s Commander. It’s not a big deal, man. I’ve known her for years.”

One of the first people to approach Lark, to see if he’d let them fuck him, hadn’t been a fellow prisoner. He’d been in seclusion for a long time. He’d not counted, he was still afraid to really know the details of those long stretches of time. How long they actually were. It had been a guard—not a guard, that didn’t feel specific enough. It had been the security supervisor, in charge of the cameras. He could turn them off, whenever he wanted. That’s what he’d said. That power had scared Lark, so bad that he’d slept with the makeshift shiv he’d managed to cobble together, for weeks.

Nothing had ever happened, but it had stuck with him. People in power liked fucking people. They liked owning people. Xavier didn’t seem like someone who should be owned like that. It made Lark’s insides hurt even worse, made him feel worn to the bone with the realization that maybe outside was just as bad. What had he gotten into? What was he doing?

“Are you going to eat that?” Xavier finally asks, his boyish face innocent like a fist wrapped around Lark’s heart, squeezing. Finally, for the first time maybe in the entire night, Lark smiles and slowly slides his tray of half eaten burger toward Xavier.

—

They stand outside while Xavier makes a phone call for someone to pick them up. Something about that feels so responsible; that Xavier wasn’t making them walk all the way back for his car, that he wasn’t driving. Lark isn’t sure where to place that kind of consideration. If he should even be overwhelmed by it at all. Everything is raw and bruising, though, even the casual way Xavier throws an arm over his shoulder while they wait.

And when the car—an old, but well maintained mustang—finally arrives, a white, blond man is leaning out the window.

“H-How much for a night?” He asks, in a slimy edged voice. Lark tenses from head to toe, but Xavier laughs, darting toward the car.

“More than you could fucking afford, fuck you—unlock the car. Ben, fuck you, seriously, it’s cold.” The door gets thrown open for him, the back seat entirely all his as Xavier slides into the passenger seat. The car smells like nicotine, but not in that nasty way. It doesn’t hurt the back of Lark’s sinuses, instead it’s something soft and smoky.

The driver turns fully around, staring at Lark with unimpressed eyes.

He looks a few years older than Xavier. His hair is shaggy, brushed back from his forehead. His eyes are so intensely blue they almost seem to glow. They rake over Lark slowly, appreciatively. He slowly extends his hands, but not like he’s going for a handshake. Instead, he splays his fingers, and between the webbing are little tattooed eyes. Lark realizes that Ben—Xavier’s friend, his new team mate, someone else employed by Kingdom—is completely covered in tattoos. The ones between his fingers are faded light blue.

“Me too,” is all he says, with a savage, twisted grin. “Lucky I d-didn’t get sepsis.”

“Prison boys,” Xavier laughs fondly, his hand ruffling Ben’s pale, stringy hair.

—

“You can sleep on the couch,” Xavier says, as he tosses a pillow onto it. The inside of his apartment is sparse. It’s cramped too, with walls closing in. Lark has to steady his heartbeat with a hand over his chest to not remember the cell. The four walls. The closeness constantly drawing in. He watches Xavier instead, dragging a blanket out of a closet. Lark looks around at the neat little space and it feels so oddly un-Xaver like. Not that he’s known him for longer than a night, but how can something so small and clean and white and plain belong to someone so—so like Xavier.

“I’ll help you apartment hunt, but I hope this is good enough.”

“It’s perfect,” Lark says quickly. He steps inside the little living room. His hands stay as fists by his thighs. He swallows and stares at Xavier.

“Cool, do you—”

“I don’t wanna fuck,” Lark quickly cuts him off. His voice is higher than he’s ever heard it, pitched through with anxiety that pools coldly in his veins. His hands would be shaking, if they weren’t so tightly clenched by his sides. Xavier stares, his hands still holding the blanket meant for him. He blinks a few times until dark red spreads across his cheeks, down his throat.

“Uh,” he laughs awkwardly. Clears his throat and pats the top of his head, attempting to tame the wild, club crazed red hair. “I have—I’ve made a really bad impression on you haven’t I?”

“No,” Lark breathes it quickly. “No. Fuck, sorry. It’s—sorry.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, rubs the heel of his palm into his eye, sighing heavily. He tries to collect his thoughts, sobriety really just there. He feels like he could fall onto the couch and sleep forever, he could let his exhausted body finally relax. It’s just right there, but he also—he wants to say this.

“When I was inside, I had a therapist. Dr. Wexler. He was—he was great. He uh, he was trying to help me get organized for being released.” Before it all went wrong. “And one of the things he told me. Hah—he’d said, uh. Well, he said that the first person I ended up with, I was going to want to sleep with them.”

Lark hadn’t taken it seriously, back then. He’d been so high on the idea of finally leaving, that he’d barely listened to anything, so it was funny that those words of advice were with him now. He scrubs hands back over his buzzed hair, laughing and looking at the ceiling. Because, well, yeah. He could imagine it. He could imagine following Xavier into his bedroom instead, he could imagine being kissed like that girl had been. Hands on his face, tongue in his mouth. He knows Xavier would be good at it, would be good for it. He knows it would feel good, but he knows more than anything else that he doesn’t want that.

He looks at Xavier, standing there, one hand still on the blanket, and all he wants—all he wants from this man is a friend. Please, he thinks, ashamed of the crying sound of his own voice in his skull. Just be my friend. Please.

“I was going to ask if you wanted to watch a movie,” Xavier says, smiling. It’s curled at the edge, but it’s softer than that giant, wolfy grin he’d had in the club. “Promise to keep my hands to myself.”

“I don’t think you’re capable of that,” Lark laughs, wiping a hand under his nose. He didn’t know why it was so wet, why his cheeks hurt so much. “You’re like, a very touchy guy, Xavier.”

“It’s part of my charm!”

“It is,” Lark admits, sitting slowly on the couch. Xavier does as well, adjusts the pillow and the blanket to be more on Lark’s side, long legs kicked out in front of him. He fishes for a TV remote as Lark slips his own sneakers off and puts them beside the couch. He gets comfortable. Really comfortable. He lets his limbs relax and his head lean against the back of the couch as Xavier puts on an old comedy. One he’s seen before. That is so oddly comforting that it’s easy to fall asleep.

—

“Wolffe just checked in,” Crowley says, locking her phone and placing it down on the coffee table. She reaches for her glass of wine, sighing as she leans back. She toes her way out of her heels, rolling her neck with a hand pressed to the nape. Eric’s heavy weight settles into the couch beside her and his hand replaces hers.

“I’d like to go a night without hearing about that asshole,” he says, close to her ear.

“I didn’t peg you for jealousy,” Crowley sighs back, letting Eric’s hand enclose around her aching muscles. His thumb digs perfectly into a sensitive bundle of nerves that make her calves tighten.

“Well, technically, you haven’t done that tonight yet.”

“You think you’re funny, Eric, but you are actually very dull.”

“And you think Xavier Wolffe is any better?”

Crowley turns to face Eric, bringing her wine glass up to take a long sip. He’d discarded his tie somewhere in her room, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, revealing dark swirls of chest hair. He thinks he’s more handsome than he is, but most men are like that. His hand withdraws to find his own glass, scotch that she keeps just for him.

“You’re as much a dog with a bone as he is,” she says casually, eyebrow quirked. “He has a longer tongue.”

“You disgust me sometimes,” Eric replies just as calmly. “Why did you give the new radiant to him?” The wine is bitter on her tongue. A dark red that she’d selected from a store after much careful consideration and heavy weighing in from the owner. He was her favorite, his little shop quaint and perfect for when she needed a break from the day to day. She sighs, eyes rolling, taking another long and perfect sip.

“Remember what I said about desperation?”

“You think Xavier will do whatever you want because he’s pathetic?”

“I know Wolffe will do whatever I want,” Crowley corrects, slowly moving herself into Eric’s lap. “Because he’s even more desperate than a man trying to escape prison. And that’s my favorite thing about him.” She watches Eric’s expression turn haughty, and because she likes hurting him, she tilts her head and bats her eyelashes. “And his tongue, of course.”

Eric groans with exaggerated annoyance, but he doesn’t protest when she leans in to kiss him.

***

Nomi has to dart around people in the hall, because they somehow don’t notice her. A shoulder nearly clips her here and there, and even though she huffs under her breath or stomps a chunky heeled boot, this is an office building that thrives on not paying attention to the little things like her. This is where magic happens, after all. Where money is spent on a galactic war; Nomi, for her part, is simply carrying a USB in her hand and trying to make it to Matilda’s office before she logs off for the night.

“Excuse you,” Nomi snips as she’s nearly knocked over by a man and a woman chatting excitedly about whatever latest news is plastered all over the walls. The television screens whip scene after scene of gallant interstellar fights for radianite. Nomi knows it’s propaganda, but even she sometimes will pause to watch an interview, or scroll an article on her phone, looking for some handsome face, quoted heroically about saving the world.

Matilda has a nice office, a frosted clear door separating her from the nosier parts of the building. When Nomi pushes in, she relaxes considerably to see Matilda still there. Sitting with her headphones slung around her neck, a lazy hand typing one finger hunt-and-peck style at her keyboard.

“Do you want sushi tonight or should we do Mexican again?”

“I have footage,” Nomi says breathlessly, stomping her way to the side of Matilda’s messy desk. Half a cup of coffee sits precariously on the edge, paperwork building up, a cute little glass cat paperweight and a scattering of sketching pencils nearly rolling off the desk.

Matilda slowly removes the headphones from her neck and tosses them onto the desk. The pencils almost escape but Nomi catches them—she opens a drawer, shoves them in where she knows Matilda keeps her sketchbook and then snaps it close.

“Footage of?”

“Don’t be coy,” Nomi sighs, rolling her eyes. She slides behind the desk, yanking at Matilda’s laptop to shove the USB in.

“Is this footage illegal?”

“Of course.”

“You didn’t answer. Sushi or Mexican?”

“Sushi,” Nomi replies, before double clicking open a file and slowly straightening. She’s seen it already—this new radiant, this blitz and blur of movement. It’s short, merely a security camera’s quick snapshot of a man blinking across the street. Pausing, pulling his hood down, glancing to the side, as if looking for something. Nomi’s eyes slide to Matilda, because she’s seen the snippet already. His dark, curly hair, sharp and terrifying eyes. Nomi watches Matilda’s chest expand and contract with a deep inhale. Her chin tilting up slightly.

She watches her friend smile, eyes narrowed with immediate interest.

#writing #lt #xw #dc #valorant au #oh my god #releases this into the fuking universe

[hauntedjpegcollection]

relax

wc: 3326 au: college au ch: lark, benji, xavier

“Sorry, Xavier’s just like that.”

Lark watches Benji pluck a book from an endless shelf of them, the library a humming sort of quiet. There is conversation to their left, a bundle of girls their age tight together, pouring over a novel in quiet conversation. Brief whispers to each other (when they don’t occasionally shoot a glance to Benji, who remains blissfully unaware of their shiny eyes).

The air conditioning is a distinct background noise, and the August storm outside is fierce and awful. When Lark looks out the windows, dark rain batters passing students and the pavement viciously. The wind howls equally as loud every time the doors open to admit laughing students, shaking water free until the librarian gives them a harsh and wicked eye.

“S’alright,” Benji comments as he selects another book. This one has a dissected anatomy model on it. LESSONS ON THE MUSCULATURE is bold across the front in black serif letters. Lark looks down at the meager poetry novel in his hand. He has no interest, but being an athlete in general education meant he had to get at least a passing grade in his shitty English coarse.

But it doesn’t look alright. Benji looks tired, his hair clipped away from his face, his eyes shadowed with purple rings. They’d stayed out too late last night, incessant ‘one more drink’s from Xavier and Benny, who could become nightmares that never stopped at a certain point.

“He’s always been touchy,” Lark continues to overly explaining as they walk back to the corner table they’ve reserved. He feels empty armed with just his poetry book when Benji carries heavy medical tomes. “I don’t think he means to, you know? He just has grabby hands.”

Which was true.

Lark had been on the receiving end of Xavier’s endless affection for years; he’d been picked up and peppered with kisses and had his hair ruffled and squeezed into a hug. Xavier threw Maran over his shoulder on more than one occasion, endless laughing as Benny chased them angrily, demanding his boyfriend back. Lark even tolerated the way Xavier would sit behind Matilda and braid her hair mindlessly without thinking. Leftover habit from when he’d do his sisters hair for them.

But Lark is thinking specifically of last call at the last bar they’d crawled through, when Xavier was sitting drunkenly on a stool, smiling up at Benji with all his pretty white teeth. When the lights had dimmed even further and the bartenders had wandered away and Lark was trying to remember who was in charge of ordering a car, Xavier had wrapped his long arms around Benji’s torso and pulled him in so flush and close it looked like they’d become one person with too many limbs. Face tucked to Benji’s side, Benny cackling in the background as he helped a worker flip chairs onto tables, the ultimate signal that the place was closed.

Lark was just a tad more sober than everyone else, as per usual, so he’d watched Benji’s expression flit into several different shades of pained.

“Lark, said it was alright, m’not mad at Xavier for anythin’.” Benji unburdens the books from his arms, letting them clatter onto the table louder than he maybe should. He sags into the wooden chair, spine bent at a terrible angle as he sits. His exhaustion is a dark storm cloud above his head, similar to the one outside raging against the library’s brick walls. “He’s good, yeah? Good guy.”

“I mean—yeah. The best. And I think he really likes you, that’s all—he doesn’t pick up on body language sometimes. He’s just really nice—”

“Yeah, mate, he’s nice—”

“If you two keep complimenting Xavier, you’re going to give him another inch.” Yasiel slowly lowers the book he’d had his nose shoved into, two toned eyes flat behind his giant lenses. He snaps the book closed. “And I don’t mean to his height.”

“Ew.” Lark cracks his own poetry book open, narrow glare aimed at Yasiel. “No ex boyfriends at the study table.” Yasiel mocks tear tracks down his cheeks with fingers, rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and then imitates a vulgar gesture with a closed fist. He picks his book back up, in the way Lark had always appreciated. One handed, thin painters fingers stretched, thumb to the middle to keep it open.

“It’s big enough, is what I’m saying. No need to start a fan club for the guy.”

“Man,” Lark says, making the word long and exhausted, a hand up and gesturing at Benji, who is uncharacteristically quiet.

“He plays basketball with Benson in sweatpants and the court is right next to my apartment. Fiadh and I get bored. What, I’m supposed to not watch sweaty guys play sports? That was half your appeal to me.”

“Dude,” Lark continues, exhausted as he folds a hand over his forehead. This was all too familiar of a routine with him and Yasiel. They’d broken up over a year ago, almost too amicably and as hard as Lark tried, he never really could stop liking Yasiel. Not romantically, which he didn’t think either of them had ever truly felt, but he was the sort of nasty rude that Lark couldn’t help but indulge sometimes.

It made him wonder if he had a type, considering Matilda’s last string of text messages had been anything but nice.

Usually, that was just her way of asking him to come spend the night without actually having to ask him to spend the night. I guess you’re just out with your other girlfriend, or something to that nature to annoy him enough to come over and as sharp tongued as she was, Matilda always fell asleep nicely tucked into his chest, like she was just craving that.

“I don’t think Benji needs you defending him from Xavier, that’s all I’m saying.” Yasiel’s cool gaze slides to the side, where Benji has not looked up from the notebook he’s transcribing notes into. Lark’s stomach feels cold at the rare silence; Benji usually trades nasty barbs with Yas—and it’s usually very entertaining because Yasiel overestimates himself and underestimates Benji.

Instead, he clicks his pen several times, circles a random word.

When Lark glances over to Yasiel, his ex looks entirely too smug.

—

“Holy shit,” Xavier says softly, standing at the front door.

His apartment is silent behind him, a rare and beautiful thing. Which is why he’d invited Benji over in the first place (his favorite person to share a rare and beautifult hing with)—his own hangover had given him a headache from hell. A phone call home to his nurse mother had briefly made it worse (“alcohol kills brain cells, Xavier, you’re too smart to be doing this”) and then better when she’d advised him on the medicine cabinet full of pain killers that Benny kept.

Now that he felt fine, he wanted to feel fine with company. Specifically…

“What?” Benji blinks and a blush creeps over his cheeks and even that barely gives him enough color. He’s washed out, especially in his dark leather jacket, gray sweatshirt underneath. He looks tired in a concerning way. Not like he usually does, which to Xavier was…well, he blushes himself thinking about what a tired sleep deprived Benji smile could do to him.

“Last night was a bit much, huh?” Xavier replies, taking a few steps back so Benji can cross the threshold. As he comes closer, Xavier pinches the hood of Benji’s sweatshirt and flicks it off. Water droplets land on the entryway floor. The storm had been soothing when he was nursing his headache, laid on his bed beside the window and dozing to the sound of rain lashing the apartment complex.

“What about it?” Benji sounds absent minded as he slugs his bag from his shoulder and onto the floor by the coat rack. It drips wetly. Xavier, without thinking, reaches around Benji from behind and starts helping him get the jacket off. The wet leather doesn’t feel as nice as it usually does, but it smells good—something about the rain had activated a dormant scent that was like polish. Benji shakes his arms out once he’s free of the jacket and Xavier hangs it on the coat rack.

He pretends like he’d helped only because Benji always forgets the coat rack. He didn’t want water tracking, he’d just cleaned the floors last weekend. That’s all.

“Dude, you look exhausted.”

“Slept fine.”

Xavier can sort of hear the lie. Benji’s voice is gruff usually, his accent guttural and strong. He talks quieter when he’s lying, and there’s a rasp to his words. Xavier feels oddly anxious about it all. But he’s been feeling anxious around Benji a lot more often. Something to do with laying awake at night, staring at his ceiling, hands folded on his stomach and realizing he was ridiculously in love with his best friend.

There’s a nasty bit of guilt that he can’t really remember last night. Had he done something wrong? Pushed something too far? Said something he shouldn’t have? But Benji turns to look at him and even though he’s watery at the edges, not just from the rain, he grins. One of his hands holds and then squeezes Xavier’s forearm. The sensation makes all the bones in his body feel liquefied.

“I downloaded like, all of the episodes of that cooking show you like,” Xavier says, leaning in and down, speaking just for Benji even when there’s no one else around. The apartment is softly quiet around them, peaceful when it’s usually full of loud, loud men. And because it’s just them and there’s no noise, Benji smiles in that way he smiles when they’re all alone.

—

The routine is easy, which makes Xavier’s anxiety ease just enough that it doesn’t show on the surface. Benji changes from the charcoal gray hoodie he’d been wearing, into the faded navy sweatshirt he seemed to favor from Xavier’s closet. ST. GEORGE’S BOYS WRESTLING is barely still on the chest, nearly worn out from years and years of washing. The hoodie had always been big on him, and it wasn’t small necessarily on Benji either, who was shorter than him. But it tightened around his arms a considerable amount and Xavier had no idea how he could be comfortable like that.

He didn’t mind. Because he liked seeing Benji wear it—and liked even more when he returned it and it smelled like Benji. Clean laundry and the spices he used to cook dinner and also something distinctly earthy.

Xavier tosses himself back onto his bed, sighing out pleasantly as Benji crawls in beside him. His laptop is warm over as it gets slid over his thighs. Usually, he keeps at minimum two fans going and cracks his window. But Benji was always cold, even in layers, so Xavier tried not to make that even worse. Instead, he just made sure to strip down to soft athletic shorts he’d stolen from Lark and cotton shirt that was nearly see through with age.

“How was studying?” Xavier asks, absently as he fiddles with the laptop to get the media player Nomi had downloaded for him running. His laptop is ancient enough that it starts whirring immediately.

“Yasiel showed up.”

“Of course he did. Did Lark make him leave?”

Benji snorts, rolls his eyes, shakes his head, then, “No. ‘Course not. Softie to his fuckin’ core, ain’t he?”

“Yas isn’t that bad. Once you get used to him anyway.” Xavier hums as he sorts through the file folder. Benji doesn’t reply to that, which is unusual because Benji always has something to say. Xavier knew that Yasiel and Benji didn’t get along, but he usually faulted the artist for that—Yas was difficult. He picked battles he shouldn’t, he was down right nasty at times, he liked putting his nose where it didn’t belong.

But Benji was easy. Benji was really easy to get along with. Xavier had never met anyone so easy, so comfortable…

He crashes their shoulders together, nearly sending Benji off the bed.

“Oi!”

“You’re so fucking sleepy, dude, oh my God.”

“Shove off it, mate.”

“I’m so scared—” Xavier cuts off with a yelp when Benji turns in the bed and attacks him. His hands skitter up and down Xavier’s sides, making him explode into bursts of gasping laughter. He kicks and the laptop gets shoved precariously toward the end of the bed. He howls with laughter, tears peeking through his dark auburn lashes. Benji crackles with his own laughter, pinning Xavier to the bed further, capturing arms and shoving them down.

“Mercy, oh fuck, mercy,” Xavier laughs pitifully, shaking himself to try and dislodge his friend. Benji’s long curly hair falls in waves around him, his shoulders heaving with the momentary burst of energy. They stare at each other, both smiling so wide—Xavier wonders if Benji’s cheeks ever hurt at the end of the day. He’d spent nights where he’d had palms cupping his own, massaging away the soreness of smiling so much.

Then Benji finally relents, darting toward the end of the bed to snatch the laptop.

“So studying,” Xavier resumes, laughing breathlessly as the laptop resumes its place. As they resume their places. As their arms line up against each other. His entire body feels flushed and hot and he wonders if it bothers Benji, or if he likes it, since he’s always cold.

“Was alright. You?”

“Online isn’t the same,” Xavier mumbles, trying not to show how self conscious that small admission was. “I just post on Blackboard discussions twice a week. I mean, I do have this history paper I’m working on right now, but…” He trails off. He clicks on the show and it begins playing, but like usual, the volume is sort of set at the just right level. Enough to hear, but not enough they can’t talk.

“What’s the paper on?”

“Well,” Xavier scoots down, settles in, smiles at Benji, who is watching the episode with sleepy and half hooded eyes.

—

An hour into describing the current state of his essay (he’d chosen Cleopatra, because he found it interesting that she was not actually Egyptian, despite the many movies he’d watched referencing her as such and that was his favorite part of history, finding where it was wrong), Xavier notices Benji nodding off. It’s very subtle, the slow dip of his chin down once and then twice. His head rolls slightly to the side, almost onto Xavier’s shoulder which feels him with such a sudden burst of yellow honeyed warmth that it nearly kills him.

Then Benji yawns, shakes his head, blinks and refocuses on the show. Two women fight to keep a monstrous looking cake from falling as they wheel it in front of a panel of judges, none of whom are known for their monstrous cake building skills.

“Benji,” Xavier says quietly. The air in the room feels thin. Benji’s dark eyes blink over to him.

A few nights ago, Xavier had woken up from a dream that he’d had to rip himself out of. But even though dreams were fickle and strange and usually left like water through open hands, this one had stuck to him. Had clung for longer than he’d really wanted to, because in the dream, he and Benji were kissing. There were no other details he could remember, no overarching plot. Nothing funny, like dreams were sometimes funny, it wasn’t set in his old high school or his childhood room, or outside. It was just them, kissing, the soft and urgent press of lips together.

“If you’re tired, you should just take a nap, man.” Xavier reaches out and taps the space bar on the laptop. It pauses, comically, on a frame where a woman is blinking and turning her head. Motion blur makes her look a little freaky.

“M’fine. We’re going to Til’s later, yeah?”

“Oh, fuck, I forgot about that.”

“She’ll murder you, mate. Know how she gets about her parties.”

“A party to say goodbye to summer is kind of lame, when it’s like pouring out.” They both look over at his window. The sun is nearly obliterated behind the dark clouds. The rain had loosened actually, had turned into this soft and gentle thing. “More reason to take a nap now. So you can be like, energized. For partying. I know how much you love partying.” His tease is soft as he elbows Benji’s abdomen.

When Benji looks like he’s going to disagree, Xavier slaps the laptop close. He leans himself to put it down on the ground beside the bed—he tries very hard not to pay attention to the way their bodies squish together as he does that. Torso to torso. Benji’s breathing seems to hitch and Xavier apologizes, laughing softly and readjusting.

“I’ll look at my phone and wake you up when it’s like, an hour before. Alright?”

“Sound like me when you say that,” Benji replies gruffly.

“Alright?” Xavier mocks the accent, but only just. Because Benji starts to get comfortable, pulls the blanket up a bit higher. Tucks an arm behind his head and closes his eyes. Xavier tries not to stare. He really does—he tries to look elsewhere, like his phone, or his walls or the ceiling, or anything. But instead, he watches Benji’s eyelids flit and his chest go even.

There’s only a few moments of restfulness before Benji starts moving.

Then he’s moving again. He tosses onto his side and tucks a knee up to his chest. He squirms a bit and wiggles some more. He pats at the blankets around himself. He grumbles beneath his breath and moves onto his stomach, face buried into the pillow. Xavier stares, in a sort of stunned way, as Benji seems to try and wrestle himself into comfort.

“Benji,” Xavier laughs his name out and puts a solid, firm hand to the middle of his back. Right between his shoulders. “Oh my God, man. Relax. Dude. Breathe. Relax.” The rain has settled into the most soothing, softest version of itself. Xavier feels Benji’s body tense and wonders if it was a mistake, but he’d never really thought touching Benji was a mistake before. Then he moves his hand in a rhythmic, easy circle. A soft rubbing motion.

Benji dissolves into the bed.

“There you go,” Xavier laughs again, turned on his side, hand on Benji’s back. He continues, until Benji’s breathing becomes deep and labored. Something insane stirs behind his rib cage, wild and alive and very manic. Xavier swallows the narrow tightness in his throat and closes his eyes and accidentally falls asleep as well.

—

“You’re late,” Matilda snips, pulling Xavier by the elbow into her studio apartment. It’s noise on top of noise; people and music, laughter and techno. He recognizes his own playlist with a sort of bashful pride. He lets himself get tugged along, glancing over his shoulder back at Benji. His friend raises a hand, smiling softly, the tiredness in his eyes lifted. He’s still wearing that silly boys wrestling sweatshirt as he disappears into the crowd.

“Your hair is getting long again.”

“Will you cut it for me?” Xavier asks, winding arms around Matilda’s waist and tugging her in for a hug. He smiles boyishly big because he knows that the sister inside her cannot resist a brotherly smile like that. Matilda fake gags, a finger into her mouth and all, but he presses a swift kiss to her temple. She shoves at his head.

“I need your brawny boy muscles to help Lark carry up the kegs.”

“You could have told me that before I came all the way up.”

“Oh, I could have. But I needed Benji for—where did Benji go?”

“How did you know Benji was going to be with me?” Xavier asks. Matilda, to her credit, does not laugh in his face.

#writing #college au #xw #bp #xw x bp

[hauntedjpegcollection]

speak with dead

wc: 2391 au: bg3 au ch: xavier, lark

They find the paladin amongst fallen rubble and foliage.

It would be a beautiful resting place, if the battle field were not twenty paces away reeking of offal and death. Yet the sunlight cuts through the overhang of trees and paints the red haired man in little dapples of yellow. The shrine he and many of the others had been working to protect stands mostly surviving, but the stone around him is bright white and lively. His eyes are open, staring upward, green as pond water.

Avery thinks hes beautiful, imagines him alive briefly. Stunningly tall, a sword as long as he is. Gallant and knightly. An extended gauntleted hand that would help her onto a horse—a brown mare and the paladin would hold her knee briefly through her skirts and smile at her.

His breast plate is cracked open however, his blood a dark red color soaking into the dirt underneath him.

“Use the amulet,” Torvald hisses. He throws anxious glances around his shoulders, as if the dead will rise and attack them for their thievery. The air is stagnant and thick with blood and misery. There is hardly any sound in the forest. Even birds have silenced themselves in the wake of the small battle. The dead will rise, Avery thinks; at least enough to ask them questions.

He is the fourth they’ve harassed from a peaceful death, her brother convinced that one of them will have the key to the shrines lockboxes. Or will know how to solve some secret puzzle that will send stones sliding to uncover a hidden indent in a wall—an amulet more useful than speaking with the dead. Something that will sell for lots of gold, enough that Torvald’s debt might stop haunting him.

“Avery,” he snaps in a thin voice and she flinches.

There is a scar across the paladin’s face. Something thin and almost delicate—a slice over his chin and nose. He has a very dignified nose, she thinks, staring down at him. A long, handsome thing. Regal, really. Avery imagines him related to nobility. She imagines that he was the son of a well off family that cried when their brave, oldest son went to take an oath. She imagines the ancient oath, something honorable. He is exceptionally pale. Maybe from all the blood loss.

And he has so many freckles.

She breathes in slowly and finds that odd place inside her that a connection to magic resides. She could be a sorceress maybe. She could train as a wizard. She could sell her soul to be a warlock. Avery lifts a hand, grasping at what remnants of the paladin’s soul are still there inside his body. He’s fresh enough to talk to—a part of her knows that means he’s also fresh enough to be revived. If only she had a scroll, if only she were a cleric. Maybe. A cleric would be nice too…

As the paladin rises from the ground, limbs rag doll and limp, she notices just how large he is. Massive really. Taller than Torvald by two heads at least. She has to reimagine her daydream then. He’d be able to hold her by the waist to help her onto the horse. She could lean down for a kiss. His green eyes become nothing but a glowing sickly light, mouth slack in waiting for a question.

“Who are you?” Avery asks. Torvald crowds behind her shoulder. She can feel his breath on the nape of her neck. But since she is the one with the amulet, he has to let her have this one question. No matter what corpse she speaks to, Avery always gets the first question, and that first question is always—

“Xavier….Wolffe….”

“Ask him—”

“I know,” Avery clips out. Her tenuous connection to magic wavers a bit, strumming power along her outstretched hand. Xavier…What a handsome name. “What are you here for?” She swears for a moment, outside the ringing of necromancy in her ears, that she hears something in the woods. A rustling. Something approaching, but—

“Benji…”

The name shocks her. It’s not what they’re looking for—Torvald wants to know which of these dead are here because of the shrine and which just got caught up in the skirmish. Paladin’s are noble. They’ll fight for whatever is right. At least, that’s what Avery knows of paladins, anyway. She touches her lips with her other hand, thinking of the name. Benji. Who?

“Don’t ask,” Torvald snarls, stepping around her shoulder and glaring into her eyes. A thick, mottled bruise covers one half of his face. It’s a cruel reminder of how badly they need coin. Avery wishes they could use it to catch a cart and leave, to find some remote village where she could maybe become a medium and Torvald could go back to masonry and they could have a normal life. Not something scrounged for on battlefields, picking between corpses for gems and coppers.

“I want to know,” Avery snaps. Xavier…She feels strongly about her paladin now.

“Who cares?”

“I….care….”

Both of them recoil and stare at the floating corpse. It doesn’t move. It hangs in the balance of life and death, just enough soul to bid them answers to a necromancer call. But no corpse had ever answered her brother, even when he’d used the amulet once before. She feels dread in her stomach. If Torvald could use it, he might not need her. What then? Where would she go if she wasn’t following him?

“Only two left,” Torvald says. His hands tremble at his sides; scared that the dead paladin had answered him instead. Good. Maybe if he was too afraid of the power, it could still be hers. Avery stepped closer. She could smell the tang of blood, iron and salt. Her hand reached out further. She wanted to touch him, to keep a part of him for herself. His head hung loose, glowing eyes on nothing.

“Is there treasure here?” Avery whispers, finally asking the real question Torvald had wanted this whole time.

“Treasure….” The paladin doesn’t move, but she feels something. Through the link from her to the amulet to him. There is a broiling beneath the power. Something unknown and strong; it’s her turn to be afraid. Xavier scares her now. Whatever he is thinking, it is such a connection that his soul rallies at the thought of it. What treasure?

“In…bag….treasure…”

“Yes! Bloody fuckin’ right there’s treasure!” Torvald darts around the paladin, scouring the grass for the paladin’s pack. He must have been crawling for it, as he was dying, to have gone so far from where the battle had started. Avery watches her brother rip into a leather satchel, and her eyes fall once more to the paladin. The air hums with the electricity of the final question. Her brother might want another, might want to know about the shrine, or the temple that’s further into the forest. But instead she comes closer. Her hand tentatively touches the paladin’s shoulder.

“Do you have family?”

“Avery, come off it,” Torvald growls, emptying the pack into the bloodied grass with a frantic need. But she doesn’t care.

“Someone should at least know—”

“Lark….” The dead paladin breathes out in a soft, gentle whisper.

And then the connection severs, and his body floats back to the ground with a heavy thud.

Avery feels empty as she stares at the dead man. At the promise of his entire life, snuffed out because people had come to—what? Steal, pillage, murder just for fun? And he’d stepped between it all. Who was Lark? A brother maybe. An uncle perhaps. She’d never know. Avery never knew anything but the five questions. She leaves the paladin by his rubble and stands beside her brother instead.

Torvald howls in frustration and fury, tearing through the pack. She watches a tiny wooden ship clatter onto some of the pristine, white rubble. There’s a bottle of ale that nearly smashes. She saves it with the tip of her boot, thinking she’ll drink the rest of it tonight when they inevitably stop at a stable and sleep amongst the hay. Torvald shakes the pack and more items tumble free, but none of it…nothing looks valuable.

A dagger that is handsomely made, but perhaps no better than Torvald’s own swordbreaker. A book that she crouches to look at. The cover is worn, the title nearly rubbed clean. PALADIN’S AND THEIR OATH’S. She runs her fingers over the cloth cover. Torvald begins to cry, big frustrated sobs as he slaps a bundle of parchment to the ground. He punches the soil next, childish and furious. Avery ignores him to gently take the stack.

They are held together by a strand of green yarn.

A cawing makes her flinch, stumbling from her couch with the parchment in her hand. A raven—the biggest she’s ever seen—sits on Xavier Wolffe’s chest. It’s curious head cocks to the side, beady eye on her.

“He said there was fuckin’ treasure,” Torvald continues, taking the wooden ship in hands. He attempts to crack it over his knee in blind rage, but he’s either not strong enough or it’s not just simple wood. And when that doesn’t work, he throws it at the bird. The raven hops into the air and when it’s wings spread as if to take off, a man appears instead.

“Those are my brothers,” the drow says, with a lifted finger to the papers in Avery’s hand.

Torvald screams, the sound high pitched and wet and the sound of branches breaking behind her lets Avery know he’s run. She can’t take her eyes off the drow; his dark grey skin, the luminosity of his pale yellow eyes, the inky tattoos on his face in the shape of…something sinister. She can barely see, because her eyes have welled with tears.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” she begs. Her brothers screams fade. He’s far from her now.

“Give me them.”

Avery throws the bundle of parchment to the ground. When she turns, the leather cord around her throat snags and she chokes. The amulet slaps across her collarbone and her hands claw at it, the tears siding down her cheeks and making fat droplets onto her miserable grey dress. Oh please, no, please help, she thinks uselessly and imagines the paladin once more.

Then the cord is cut and Avery runs for her life.

—

Xavier picks up the wooden homage of Alandei and sits on the stone steps leading to the dais he’d crawled toward during those last, dark moments. He pushes out the memory, the way his vision had tunneled, how he’d known that he had nothing left to give and still had to get this far. A sending stone, for him to touch and let Lark—who had waited in the woods for some sort of signal—know that things had gone very fucking wrong.

He sighs and fixes the mast, which had bent only slightly under the thief’s abuse.

“Can’t believe you still have that,” Lark says, standing in front of him with arms crossed over his chest.

“No love for our home village?” Xavier asks with a sheepish smile.

“I don’t come from Alandei,” Lark replies, with his own sly grin.

“No, just wash up on it’s shore. I’d say you’re more born of it then me, since the sea spit you onto the beach.”

Lark waves a bored hand. Xavier gently tucks the wooden toy into his bag. The strap had been torn, the contents still mostly scattered. A gathering of clerics still hum, a short distance away where most of the carnage had been. Xavier can feel the thickness of their divine power, the tang of their holy magic on his tongue. But he’d not been revived by a cleric.

“Do I owe you?” Xavier asks, grinning at his brother, and his reviver.

Lark slowly holds out the bundle of letters. His heart wrenches at the sight, his hands greedy enough to shake as he takes them. Xavier inspects, as if he’ll find dirt of blood from the nasty thieves, but they’re in tact and whole. Unmarred. He looks from under his eyelashes to the druid standing in front of him.

“So I do owe you,” he wagers, gently tucking the letters into his ravaged pack. One of them, the top letter, is actually penned by him. Meant to be dropped off at the next town he’s in, so Benji can get it at the next town he’d sworn to be in.

“I won’t tell Benji you died if you help me find Matilda.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found,” Xavier reasons as he slowly stands.

“Yes, she does,” Lark sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “She just wants to make it difficult for me, because she loves to see me struggle.” They share a laugh; Lark’s quiet and reserved and Xavier’s much louder. He can see clerics in the field over looking at him over their shoulders. He raises a hand slightly, trying to appear friendly, despite the bloody hole in his armor.

“Did you see anything?” his brother asks quietly, coming to stand beside them. More men rise on the battle field. Not everyone could be saved. Such is the way of the world. Luck plays a part in it, Xavier knows that. His hand unconsciously dips into his pack, fingers touching sheaths of parchment. “When you were—well. Did you see—maybe you saw mother—your mother.”

“Ours,” Xavier corrects, with a soft smile. Then he’s quiet for a long moment.

He had seen something. But it’s already slipping, because he’s no longer dead. Xavier only remembers the warmth, really. Like being in water, head tilted back for the sun to heat the skin of his cheeks, his shoulders, his chest. He remembers the smell of salt and the kiss of the sea. And he remembers—

“I don’t remember,” Xavier finally answers, clapping a guantleted hand on Lark’s shoulder. “Matilda went East.”

“She told me South,” Lark hisses between sharp, white teeth. His yellow eyes turn slitted and feral like an animal and Xavier’s laugh gets loud enough to scare the birds that had returned. Up into the air, the flock casts shadows of V’s across them all.

#writing #xw #lt #bg3 au #:)))

[hauntedjpegcollection]

a mother's love

wc: 5281 au: dishonored au ch: nomi, matilda, jack

Nomi is eight years old when she decides her name is Nomi. It, coincidentally, is when everything in her life changes as well. Not just her name, but her home and her family. Or, rather, the lack of family. It’s Nomi and her mother now, when it was Nomi and her parents before. Nomi and her father are no longer, just like her old name is no longer. She doesn’t think her name has anything to do with it, but that the changes all line up at the same time nonetheless.

Her mother reassures her anyway that it’s nothing to do with her.

That’s his own fault. Rat bastard, she says, hand in hand with the little eight year old. Nomi knows not to repeat it, but she tucks those mean little words inside her to later think on. They have one suitcase that carries everything they own. Nomi, in her other hand, holds the stuffed rabbit she has had since she was not Nomi. It’s always been her favorite and that was never changing. One of it’s ears is half torn off and her mother would usually dutifully start about restitching it on, but they’re not home any more.

The little square room adjoining another families little square room all stacked on top of each other in a tall building squeezed between other tall buildings, is not their home any longer. Nomi has no idea if she’s meant to be upset about that or not. She’ll miss the corner she slept in, because it was right underneath the window and she liked looking at the smoggy sky and it’s sometimes twinkling stars.

But she wont miss the paper thin walls, the constant drip from the sink, or maybe even her father. Maybe she wont miss him at all. She hasn’t decided yet.

—

Even though she’s only eight, Nomi is very smart for her age. That’s what her mother says, especially when brushing through her ever growing navy dark hair. Smart, beautiful, kind. Her mother’s praise never felt empty; Nomi felt and believed every word. But it also felt like her mother was trying to quilt a blanket to cover her with. That if she said it enough, Nomi wouldn’t hear anything else that was said about her. Obstinate child, rude, sneaky, wrong.

Nomi knows to wait outside the room while her mother ducks inside to talk to the head of staff. A severe woman in a black dress with no adornments, her gray hair swept into an equally punishing looking bun. It was so tight, it looked like it peeled her skin back from her face, cut an intimidating and cruel expression. But when she had placed her hand on Nomi’s shoulder to guide her to the door, it had not been cold. It had been light, but gentle.

“Your mother will be out after her interview,” she’d said. And Nomi, who is very smart for her age, had plucked the edge of her skirt and curtsied and then turned to look elsewhere.

Because she’s eight, Nomi has no concept of how much time her mother is gone. Eventually, Nomi sits, with her legs thrown out in front of her and the rabbit sitting on her lap. Weary of it’s torn ear, she pinches the other soothingly, feeling the soft velvet of its material. It’s small, bead eyes stare at her, expressionless, offering nothing to the little girl whose whole life and name has changed in an instant.

And because Nomi is preoccupied wondering what an interview is, or why her mother had looked so nervous, she does not hear the other girl approaching at all.

“What are you doing?”

Nomi looks up and a girl her age stands there and amongst all the finery and the obvious wealth of the hallway, she is more beautiful than anything else. For a moment, all Nomi can do is sit there, holding her rabbit, with a wide eyed, open mouth stare. The girl is taller than her, as thin as a reed, with a sharp and cunning stare. Her long hair is braided to the side, but strands fall all around her face, framing a pale and angular shape. She seems less like a child, to Nomi, who is acutely aware of her round, baby face and cheeks that adults love to pinch.

“What?” she finally says.

“Hello?” The girl walks to stand directly in front of Nomi. She puts curled fists to her hips, feet stood firmly apart. She wears a little emerald dress with a neat sort of bow around the middle. Nomi’s dress is grey, to her ankles and too big on her because her mother had hastily bought it from a neighbor before they’d left. A newish dress to go with her now new name. The sleeves poke over the ends of her knuckles and she’d had to tie the back twice to not make it sag around her shoulders.

“Hi,” Nomi replies.

“What are you—Oh, nevermind. Get up, then,” the girl says with a huff and a gesture of her hands. Nomi only stares, her glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose to sit daintily at the tip. “You’re not busy, clearly. And I need help—and my scientist isn’t around.”

“Your scientist?”

“A man. Not tall, dark hair, glasses like yours. In a white coat usually. I’m his favorite.”

“You mean your father?” Nomi stands, using her back against the wall to make it easier, subtly trying to tuck the rabbit behind her. The girl notices of course, with eyes that are glinting and brilliant. But she doesn’t comment on it. Her face screws into a confused and annoyed expression.

“No. My scientist.” There’s a beat of silence between the two children. Nomi realizes she can’t remember the last time she talked to someone her own age. She feels a fluttering fear in her heart, a nervous and anxious broil beneath her skin. The sudden realization that this girl could judge her in a matter of seconds and deem this conversation no longer important. Nomi doesn’t want to be alone. She’s tired of waiting for her mother.

“You’re weird,” the girl decides and Nomi’s stomach turns cold and her hands go tingly. “No one talks back to me like this. Sometimes, they don’t even talk to me at all.” She turns up her pretty, long nose again, surveying Nomi with a calculating stare. She wants to rake fingers through her hair to make sure it’s untangled. She wants to pat down her dress. She wants to appear like a Nomi.

“Well, I’m Matilda. Isaac took our game of hide and seek too seriously and now I can’t find him.” A dainty and pretty hand is held out to her. Nomi stares at it a moment too long until she finally closes her own around it. Girls didn’t shake hands, she didn’t think and yet this feels right. A proper introduction.

“I’m Nomi. Who is Isaac?”

“Come on. I bet I know where he’s hiding. He thinks he’s so clever.”

Matilda doesn’t let go of her hand. Instead, she turns down the hallway and tugs Nomi along.

They spend an hour looking for the boy, who Nomi later finds was simply in his own bedroom, reading a book. They spend that entire hour talking, or rather, Nomi listens mostly as Matilda talks. She tells her all manner of things, secrets about the manor, a ghost story about a fireplace that’s big enough to walk a horse through. She tells Nomi about her mother and the mysterious suited figure that comes in the night to see her mother. She talks about the scientist again.

Nomi tells Matilda about her new name, about the window she’ll miss, and how her mother is in interview. Matilda surprises her by actually listening, hanging on to every word. She snorts and laughs sometimes or makes a comment here or there, but she listens. She squeezes Nomi’s hand sometimes and laces their fingers and then unlaces them and then stops them in front of a painting that’s as big as a grown man to talk about a hidden safe behind it. Nomi has no idea whats the truth of not.

But she’s in love, she’s absolutely head over heels, she is captivated entirely by Matilda immediately.

Her mother is in tears when the girls are finally found, sitting outside on a stone bench in a garden that is looking worse for wear as winter approaches. Her mother cries and shakes her by the shoulders and tells her never again, never run off again like that, I didn’t know where you were, what were you thinking, Nomi, Nomi, Nomi.

But the head of staff stares down at Matilda only, with not a single reprimand. Just smooth, ivory colored hands folded in front of her. One swift glance to Nomi and then back to Matilda—and Nomi’s mother has the job.

—

At thirteen, Matilda complains enough that Nomi is the only one allowed to do her hair. She’s not yet actually at the age where she’d be taking over a lady’s duties like this, yet it doesn’t matter. Matilda, she found in the five years she’s lived on the Rhoades estate, usually gets what she wants.

“I don’t know how you’re so good at that,” she pouts. Matilda’s mother has imported dye to make her hair this beautiful, rich, red color. It also makes it shiny and soft, makes it a bit slippery, which makes designs with it difficult. Nomi ignores the difficulty, like the reality of it doesn’t matter in comparison to the reality that Matilda, well, she gets what she wants. And if she wants Nomi to braid her hair into something beautiful for the little dinner party her mother is throwing, it happens.

“You’re too lazy to do it yourself, so I’ve learned well,” Nomi teases, a pin between her teeth as her pale fingers make quick work of the intricate knotting braid. Matilda snorts, undignified and entirely unladylike. She’s started wearing more bold dresses, things that have cut outs along the arms, sheer lace and dark velvets. Heavy necklaces that accentuate her slim, delicate throat.

Nomi wears the exact same black dress Agathi wears. It’s high around her throat, with a row of buttons down the back. Nomi liked its simplicity. And she liked matching the head of staff, the single most intimidating woman that Nomi had ever know, besides Matilda’s own mother. Jaqueline Claire Rhoades stares at them from a painting across the hall, Matilda’s door open to allow the sounds of staff getting ready for the night through into her wide open, luxurious room.

“Why would I do it when I have you?” Matilda twists suddenly, turning so she can look up at Nomi. A strand of hair falls to her cheek. She looks mischievous and pretty and Nomi decides to leave that strand, like a suggestion to Matilda’s furiously strange side. She might be the only daughter to a wealthy and terrifyingly influential woman, but she was also, to Nomi, a wicked little girl.

And her best friend.

“Aren’t you done yet?” Both girls jump in surprise, whirling to face the sudden intrusion at the door. And at the sight of him, Nomi’s hands twitch and she tucks them nervously behind her back. A warmth on her cheeks makes her uncomfortable, ears full of a faint ringing sound for a moment as Matilda’s oldest brother stands there. Well. Leans there. His shoulder to the door frame, an ankle crossed over the other. He looks bored and annoyed, with an annoyed look on his handsome face.

Leo and Isaac look remarkably like Matilda, as though they were triplets instead of siblings. Only, where Nomi could spend a whole day with Isaac, she has avoided Leo as much as she can. Something about being around him makes her stomach hurt. Makes her hands feel clammy and awkward and her awareness of her pores and hair and teeth feel stark and evident. That’s why her hands stay behind her back, to prevent her from checking to make sure all of her is presentable. She does not know why she even cares what Leo thinks of her at all.

“Aren’t you done yet?” Matilda mocks in a deep, brusque voice. Leo’s cheeks flare a pretty red color. His voice had started to crack and deepen, his awkward entry to adulthood evident in the way his hands were suddenly too big and his voice didn’t stay in one octave. “Go away, Leo. If you hadn’t interrupted, Nomi would be done. Barging your way into a room, demanding attention, that’s not how you get a girl to notice you.”

“Matilda,” Nomi grinds her teeth together and Leo, looking as stormy as he did boyishly beautiful, stomped out into the hallway and slammed the door shut behind him.

“He’s been trying to grow a mustache for a year,” Matilda comments, examining her nails as Nomi resumes her work. Its cathartic, almost rhythmic.

“Only for a few months or so,” she hums, standing back to admire her work.

“Caught,” Matilda replies in a sly hiss, turning fully around in the ornate wooden chair to stare triumphantly at Nomi’s burning face.

—

Nomi is fifteen and spending the night in Matilda’s bed, as usual. They girls have stolen romance paperbacks from the expansive and beautiful Rhoade’s library. They keep a candle lit, each of them taking turns holding it while the other holds the book and reads aloud passages that make them blush and snicker. Nomi sighs wistfully over handsome knights with big swords and Matilda rolls her eyes at it all, but secretly makes Nomi read her the second novel of a rouge like serial.

They stay up too late, their legs entwined, their heads bent together as they whisper. Nomi isn’t meant to be sleeping in Matilda’s bed anymore. In fact, it was strictly forbidden, in the way things are strictly forbidden to girls of Matilda’s stature. Many things changed in the last year alone, the sort of parties she went to, the kinds of dresses she wore, what sort of paint she was allowed to use on her face and who could be her friend and who couldn’t.

Nomi had tried to keep up with it all, but that part of Matilda’s life was not for her. She was the girl who braided her hair—she was not meant to be more than that. It scared people that sometimes, she was more than that. There was a bridge between them that was wider than just money. It was nature for Matilda to be above Nomi, yet here she was, in the girls bed, petting her hair softly and reading about a thief who stole a maidens heart in the night.

So, the assassin is not aware there are two girls in the bed that night, because Matilda is meant to be alone. It is meant to be easy, something quick and savage and ruthless. A knife in and out and the Rhoade’s only daughter a candle flame snuffed in the night. And the assassin liked killing young girls, he’d taken the job for cheap, because he found their eyes prettiest when they died. The assassin is not aware that the one girl is still awake and staring at him in the dark, her pretty eyes still open and seeing him.

The blade is luminescent against moon light that pours in through the same window he’d crawled through. It’s long and curved, with a hook at the end, something she’d seen the cooks use to gut the fish. Nomi, for a wonder, feels no fear in that moment. Only an intense knowing that permeates her entire body. That knife was going to go into Matilda’s stomach and that assassin was going to carve up to her heart, and then pluck it out like fish guts.

“No,” she manages to gasp in a breathless voice as it descends—and then Nomi is leaping up. She is surging forward from the bed with her hands and grasping the knife in both of them. She makes no sound, almost an eerie lack of it as she stares into the assassin’s night black eyes.

The blade is sharp and cuts through the meat of her hands like butter. She feels the curved tip touch bone and she still makes no noise. Nomi isn’t sure she remembers how, her only thought is no. No. No. Not Matilda. Not her. I won’t let you—she’s mine. No. And the pain is overwhelming, like her hands are in boiling water, it arcs through her veins and along her entire body. She moans at the feeling, the only sound she makes as he saws the knife, but her grip doesn’t relent. It is caged iron around the blade.

“Bitch! You bitch, let go!” The assassin’s voice is a wasp nest hiss, his eyes wild and furious. He yanks her entire body around, throwing her to the floor, but he can’t get the knife from her grasp. He raises a fist, as if to punch her in the face and Nomi knows if he does that will be that. She won’t be able to hold the knife and he’ll get to Matilda. He’ll get her.

“Fuck you,” she snarls in a voice that is low and raspy and deathly cold, her foot whipping out to connect to the assassin’s inner thigh. He grunts with the pain and it’s enough to make the blow glance off her temple and connect more with the ground. White hot blood pours down Nomi’s forearms. It almost feels like nothing, it’s almost—

The mans hand wraps around her throat and squeezes so hard she almost loses consciousness from the pain.

“Get off her!”

Matilda’s scream is everything Nomi isn’t. It’s loud and shrill and scathing, like a flaying knife. She’s screaming more, repeating herself (get off her, get off her, get off her) like a demoness. Nomi watches with eyes black at the edges as Matilda pounces onto the mans back. Her sharp nails claw across his face, causing him to howl. But it’s the hairbrush in her hand that’s turned into a real weapon; it’s made of ivory. Perhaps real whale bone, how pretty it is. And it’s handle is a sharp point.

Nomi watches in a mute daze as Matilda shoves the point of the hairbrush into the mans neck. Over and over.

Then, the door to her room is broken open. So hard it comes nearly entirely off the hinges. Nomi’s vision continues to blacken at the edges as she watches. Matilda is pried off the man, still screaming, wild and bloody, by the very scientist she loves so much. Nomi had never thought of him as strong, yet he wraps arms around her and even though she thrashes, he moves not an inch. His glasses are askew on his face as he stares at Nomi, on the floor.

The moonlight hits his eyes and they reflect, like he is an animal in the night.

Then Nomi loses consciousness.

—

The moonlight is once again her friend, a single light across her bed. It hits her mothers face perfectly, accentuates her heart shaped face beautifully, but does not wake her up. Her eyelids flicker, as if she’s dreaming and Nomi thinks of waking her up—but she’d cried herself to this sleep. Maybe she needed the rest. Even though her mother has not left her bedside in the three days Nomi has rested.

Her bandaged hands are thick and awkward. They burn, even then. The pain has not dulled since the torn flesh has been sewed together. She’d only managed to get herself up to a sitting position by leaning on those hands and snapping her teeth together through the pain. But she was tired of laying. She was tired of not knowing anything but this little room.

Why hadn’t Matilda visited her?

Nomi isn’t sure how much time passes, because there is no clock in her room. She keeps it mostly spartan—her rabbit sits on the bedside table. She hasn’t slept with it in years. She hadn’t needed the company. She hadn’t been lonely until now. Nomi reaches out, but the bandages are so cumbersome, she couldn’t pick him up even if she tried. She feels a pinch of tears to her eyes, but ignores it.

The door creaks open.

Light from the hallway—yellow and buttery in comparison to the cool silver of moonlight—spills across the hardwood.

Jaqueline Rhoades walks in.

Whatever time she was cognizant of stops altogether. Nomi has lived in this manor, on this estate, loving this woman’s daughter for eight years. The same amount of years she’d been alive by the time her mother had been hired as a laundress. She has been in Jaqueline’s presence alone maybe only three times and not a single one of those times have they ever shared a private word.

It is not just Jaqueline, but the presence of her. The room is suddenly filled with the dense, heaviness of a powerful feminine force. Her elegance is striking, even in just a moonlit room. Her posture straight, but not tense. Nomi feels like she should say something, like she should get up from the bed and ask what the lady needs. But in her hands is a tray and on that tray is a bowl of soup and a chunk of fresh bread that still steams slightly. The woman says nothing as she slowly crosses toward Nomi’s bed. She spares the mother a look. It’s not remotely unkind, merely assessing.

Jaqueline slowly puts the tray down across Nomi’s lap and then pulls in another chair from her modest desk and sits down.

They stare at one another. Jaqueline’s children all look like her; they all have the high cheekbones, the arresting eyes, the smooth and unblemished skin. Their height must come from someone else but Nomi dare not think of him as a father. She knows very little of that situation, but she knows that no matter what DNA says, those children belong solely to the woman sitting in front of her. Nomi’s hands throb, the pain secondary to the absolute awe of this late night visit, but a constant nonetheless.

“Is Matilda okay?” Nomi bravely asks. Jaqueline tilts her head, a sheath of her pretty blond hair falling to her cheek. She does not wear it in the fashion that every other woman in her league does. Perhaps to set her apart. Perhaps because she knows that her beauty would radiate no matter how she wore her hair.

“You’re the same age as my daughter, yes?”

“Fifteen,” Nomi answers. Which feels stupid. Jaqueline knows her daughters age. But it feels good to say something, to use her voice for something other than softly reassuring her mother that she was okay. Her hands were ruined. Perhaps permanently, perhaps forever, but she was alive, wasn’t she?

She’d never braid Matilda’s hair again, not with these hands.

“I’ve heard something about you,” Jaqueline says as she reaches for a spoon on the tray. Nomi realizes with sudden surprise that the woman means to feed her. Should she refuse? She can’t possibly let the lady reduce herself to that; it is so beyond appropriate that Nomi feels briefly terrified. But when the spoon of soup is raised to her mouth, Nomi only leans forward and accepts it.

The broth is delicious and salty. It tastes so good she can’t help but sigh. She’d not even known she was hungry.

“My other staff, they tell me that you never lie.” Jaqueline rips a piece of bread from the chunk and dips it into the soup. Then she places it on the spoon and lifts it. Nomi blushes, her eyes fighting to stay on Jaqueline’s piercing and terrifyingly cool stare. She chews before answering.

“Everyone lies,” Nomi says. Her eyes go wandering to her mother, who doesn’t wake, even with them speaking. She is exhausted with the sudden awareness that she has a daughter who is now, essentially useless. No man would marry her if her hands were covered in scars and she wouldn’t be able to do laundry work. She wouldn’t be able to work much at all. The doctor had said he’d done what he could but surgery might be necessary and what money did they have for surgery?

“But you?”

“It’s not lying, if you don’t say anything at all,” Nomi offered. She opens her mouth to accept another spoonful of soup. It’s richness makes her feel relaxed, warm to the bones. Even her hands hurt less, somehow. “When something is uncomfortable enough to warrant a lie, I just stop speaking.”

“Pragmatic, I suppose.” Matilda’s mother feeds her a few more spoonfuls. They share a silence that is not companionable because they are not companions. Nomi is the daughter of a servant and Jaqueline is the woman who employees that servant. Yet their silence isn’t pained or awkward.

“You won’t lie to me when I ask why you saved my daughter, then.”

“No.” Her voice is unwavering and cool, belying the nervousness that makes her bones feel like jelly.

“Should I ask?” Jaqueline’s stare is so overwhelming that Nomi has no choice but to look down at the slowly disappearing bowl of soup, the little chunks of leftover bread. The pain in her hands truly has dwindled to a simmering fire instead of an overwhelming burn.

“I love her. She is my best friend. I didn’t want her to die. I would be all alone, if she died.”

“That’s a hint of selfishness I wasn’t expecting.” But Jaqueline is smiling when she says it. Not a smile necessarily, but the sort of sideways tilt of a red painted mouth. It’s not pleasant but nor is it cruel or angry. It’s assessing. Nomi feels like a puzzle that is quickly being solved. “You would still have your mother. Mother is God in the eyes of her children, correct?”

“I don’t read philosophy,” Nomi admits, smiling in her own crooked and tilted way. “But a mother isn’t a best friend. I would do it again. Even if he cut them off this time.” She raises her bandaged hands, feeling a bit woozy as she does. There’s a sleepiness to the edges of her. A softening of all her muscles. “Is she okay?”

Jaqueline doesn’t answer. She only continues to stare. Then she reaches out both hands and slowly tucks strands of Nomi’s navy hair behind her ears. The gentleness is disarming and it makes her close her eyes and tilt her head back. She feels the motherly tenderness as her pillow is adjusted. She feels a cool and soft hand on her brow and then on her forearm.

“Have you met the scientist?”

“I love Matilda, but she’s very selfish with her favorites,” Nomi admits boldly. And the scientist had never really paid Nomi much attention, perhaps because any time she saw him he was flitting about rooms with a nervous, high strung energy. His occasional pause to indulge Matilda in something, or to pat her head or cheek was always between the running around he did. Sometimes, there was something red on his coat, so he scared Nomi enough to not mind that Matilda kept him locked in a tight chest inside her heart.

“Would you let him look at your hands?” Jaqueline asks, setting the tray on the desk beside them.

“We don’t have money.”

“My daughters life is not measured in money, Nomi.”

A cool shiver makes her open her eyes and roll her head to the side. Nomi had expected to be met with those cool, intense eyes, but instead there is a sudden softness about Jaqueline that makes her inhale with wonder. She is still holding Nomi’s forearm. She is leaning in closer, with a mother’s pained expression of worry. In that moment, Nomi would have taken a knife for her too. She would have let anyone cut her to pieces for any of the Rhoades family.

“But if you need a transaction, I have one.” The hand on her forearm squeezes in a tender way. “He will fix your hands and you will never leave her side. Could you do that for my family?”

Nomi’s eyes close again and she smiles.

“Yes, I…” the painkillers in the soup sweep her under.

—

So Nomi is twenty six, sitting at an expensive and elegant oak dining table.

A man sits, slumped into his pork roast dinner, foam at the edges of his mouth. At the far end of the table, Matilda pokes her nose into her glass of wine and takes a healthy few sniffs. She dresses in a fashion that is so uniquely her, so sensual and somehow uncaring at the same time, with sleeves that plume transparently over her arms and a tight bodice that she hadn’t bothered to lace entirely.

Nomi has not changed out of the high necked, black dresses. She slowly peels the soft, supple velvet gloves from her hands and sighs.

“I put too much in,” she says with a dour expression to the dead man at the table. Matilda rolls her eyes and leans back in the chair, splashing her own poisoned wine across the table. The glass gets tossed behind her, but it doesn’t shatter, which makes Matilda pout a bit. A crease between her brows and a delicate pinch to her lips. Nomi snorts and then laughs.

“Well, I’m not sorry. Idiot tried to poison me first, didn’t he? Good that he went out frothing like a disgusting beast.”

“That’s an insult to beasts,” Nomi replies, rising from the table. She needs to speak to the staff to ensure that the clean up crew gets to this room before anyone else. Candles snuffed, midnight plunged into the hallway, someone to take care of—well. Another idiot in a long line of idiots that have tried to kill a member of the Rhoades family. Murder is not entirely surprising in Dunwall.

Surprising, she supposes, that they keep trying when—

The wind wheezes as a dark figure slides in through a window. He straightens and dark eyes blink at the dead man and then go severely cold. The rogue is in all black, head to toe, even a mask to cover the lower part of his face. A shock of blond hair pokes from beneath a hood—a choice he’d not entirely been the owner of. His black hair suits his job better, but what Matilda wants, Matilda gets and—

Nomi thinks its sweet that her little thief had sat still for her while she’d tested expensive overseas dye on his thick, wavy hair.

“I told you not to let him in,” Lark’s voice is a cold knife jab as he darts around the table. Matilda hasn’t moved an inch, she merely lounges with a bored expression, an arch of her dark brow.

“I didn’t realize you were my father and told me what to do?”

“Don’t say that—”

She knows this argument will last for as long as she’s in the room with them. She knows the argument will then fall to hushed voices, to intimacy she shouldn’t be around for. A cupped hand on a pale cheek, a kiss to Matilda’s slim throat, hurried words of worry, thinly concealed emotions. So instead of delaying Matilda’s romance, she swipes her gloves and makes for the door. Her scares are thin and white on her hands, and she pauses to look at them for only a moment, before she throws it open to find Agathi.

#writing #dishonored au #nw #mmr #nw x mmr #jr

[hauntedjpegcollection]

NO GREATER DESIRE EXISTS THAN A WOUNDED PERSON’S NEED FOR ANOTHER WOUND. — GEORGES BATAILLE

pinterest - writing - tag

BASICS

FULL NAME → Yasiel Edgar Salazar Marquez

NICKNAME → Yas, Yazzy (mostly just by Mouse)

AGE RANGE → 20-30’s

BIRTHDAY → July 1st

SPECIES → Human

NATIONALITY → American

GENDER → Cis Male

ORIENTATION → Bisexual

OCCUPATIONS → Archivist (specializes in painting restoration), Court Mage/Necromancer (fantasy au)

THREAT LEVEL→ Very Low (mostly nonexistent unless you count surrounding himself with dangerous people)

SPOKEN LANGUAGES → English (fluent), Spanish (fluent), French (conversational)

APPEARANCE

FACECLAIM → n/a

EYE COLOR(S) → Heterochromia; right eye hazel/blue, left eye brown

HAIR COLOR(S) → Black

DOMINANT HAND → Truly Ambidextrous

ACCENT → Midwestern American

HEIGHT → 5’10’’

WEIGHT → 150/160 lbs

BODY → Fit but only moderately muscular. Lean and slender, with long limbs. Arms much stronger than the rest of him. Broad shouldered, but tapered waist. Has very nice hands and forearms. Freckles are mostly on his face and shoulders. Has a few moles on his stomach and back. Cuts a very unintimidating figure all things considered.

TATTOO(S) → House of Leaves book cover design on his shoulder and bicep, an eye on the inside of his left forearm, a mouse on his left ankle.

PIERCING(S) → Ears

GLASSES → Yes, large and square.

SCARS → None noteworthy

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN → Lorian, Ohio USA (lies and says Manhattan NY)

FINANCIAL STATUS → Lower Class

EDUCATION LEVEL → (frontier help)

RAP SHEET → None

PRISON TIME → None

RELATIONSHIPS

BIRTH ORDER → Twin

PARENTS → Domingo Salazar (father, estranged), Jashiel Marquez (mother, estranged)

SIBLINGS → Mouse Marquez (twin sibling)

SIGNIFICANT OTHERS → Lark Tanaka (ex boyfriend), Lethe (there is not a summarizing word I don't think)

CHILDREN → None

ENEMIES → None (right?? right???)

PETS → None

VICES

SMOKES → Yes, highly addicted

DRINKS → Socially

DRUGS → Weed, occasionally

VIOLENCE → No

SELF DESTRUCTIVE → Moderate (his self preservation is very strong, but he also romanticizes the idea of self destruction like a loser)

PSYCHOLOGY

MENTAL → OCD

PHYSICAL → Very bad asthma

ANGER EXPRESSION → Hot, egotistical, mean. Can be downright nasty and cruel when angry; sort of a bitch, lets be real.

ALIGNMENT → Neutral Evil

PERSONALITY TRAITS → Romantic, Loyal, Organized, Empathetic, Moody, Avoidant, Flighty, Morbid

MISC

SIN → Gluttony

ZODIAC → Cancer

ELEMENT → Water

SEX PREFERNCE → Switch that leans heavily submissive

ANIMAL → Goat

MUTATION → Telekinesis

#stat sheet

[hauntedjpegcollection]

here

wc: 4746 au: dishonored au ch: xavier, benji

For a long time after dying, Xavier does a commendable job of staying away from Benji. He has to be careful—conscious of the effort. Because more than once or twice, he’d felt himself in that between world, that nothing place, searching. Drifting, like a fishing boat meant to come to shore—right to Benji. He was home, wasn’t he? The lighthouse that was alive just for him. Then Xavier would snap into consciousness on the brick wall, all too ready to fall forward into the estate. He’d be at the dock where they’d shared their first kiss, knowing that Benji was only just behind him. If he was selfish (or brave) enough, he could go and get him.

Xavier tries to be good, because he swore that once upon a time, he was good. Benji had told him that, lips to his ear, hand pressed against ribs. So good. There was some sense of morality that he could still cling to, even as something cosmic was ripping apart all the stitching, all his seams that held in all that good. Xavier shed humanity day by day, with every hour he could no longer count.

He couldn’t even be considered human anymore, could he?

But he could be good.

What he’d found about himself—his new self—was nothing short of monstrous. Disgusting—terrifying, a nightmare, a myth. But Xavier could do one thing, for both him and Benji. And that was stay away. Occupy the same city and never see each other. Never share a bed again, never touch one another. Sometimes, Xavier is sure the kindness is cowardice in disguise—he cannot imagine Benji looking at the walking corpse of his once lover with anything other than horror.

And still.

It really is a long time. Until it isn’t. Until he slips. Purposefully.

—

For about the same amount of time Xavier went without seeing Benji, he also sought to find some sort of cure. Not the kind that would reverse what happened—becoming a lab experiment’s version of a God came with knowledge. Sometimes infinite, sometimes small. And Xavier knew, somehow, in the void that replaced his heart, that there was no going back. He would never be Xavier Wolffe—who got too freckled in the summer, who always forgot to lace his left boot, who loved his sisters and fought with his father, who wanted a sword because he wanted responsibility, who dreamed of a green house in the woods—again.

But he thought, maybe he could die again.

Maybe it would be permanent this time.

Maybe they could bury him, like they couldn’t before. His grave wouldn’t be empty any longer, the absence of him would no longer be a hole inside the chest of everyone who once knew him. Maybe there would be closure.

But it didn’t matter—no knife ever found his throat a second time. In every instance that it came close, there was this bone deep survivor inside him that made Xavier parry a poorly aimed blade. It became easy to take someone else’s life instead of his own. Killing began to feel good. It was righteous. He found and killed men, just like Gabriel—if one remembers, the man who orchestrated Xavier’s death entirely. And he killed the men protecting those men.

And it was a cycle that didn’t end.

Xavier thought he could live in that chaos.

But.

It’s not that different from dodging a blade, really.

—

“Only tonight,” he whispers. “Just one night.”

This is a promise he already knows he will break. Omnipotence not needed for that.

Still…

The blankets and sheets rustle as Xavier slides into Benji’s bed (and tries not to think that this is now Benji’s bed, and never will it ever be their bed again). It feels all at once familiar and completely new, because Xavier is not entirely Xavier anymore. All the memories of Benji are stark, bright. Like glints of sharp edged mirrors; he remembers nearly everything. Every word they ever shared together, every kiss or caress, every meaningless fight he would redo a thousand times if he ever got the chance. He knows he won’t.

Things are watery for Xavier. Hazy. He feels like his hand is almost always reaching into the fog; but Benji has always been clarity.

Yet, his body feels awkward and clumsy, trying to remember the way they used to fit together. This is a vessel not meant for intimacy. That’s the crux of the issue, because Xavier has been newly alive for years now and he has not held anyone since that painful rebirth. He’s never tried. It terrifies him to be close to something mortal, something that he isn’t hurting.

As Benji’s back meets his chest, and Xavier’s arms wind around his middle, just the same as they used to lay before it all happened—he cannot help but wonder if Benji has ever had another. If any man has shared this bed in those painful stretching years of silence; of when Xavier was dead in the sense that Benji did not know he was alive, and then of when Xavier was dead in the sense that he was simply trying so hard to keep them apart.

Not alive, still, by any means.

If Xavier tries, he can find the answer. It’s not always something he can easily control. Knowing everything, being everything (being nothing). But it also feels like a violation. If Benji wanted others, he could have them—what was Xavier going to do? What could he ever expect? Only, when he thinks of it, the windows in the room shake slightly. He presses his nose into Benji’s hair, closes his eyes, tightens his arms. Wills away thoughts of anyone ever touching his lover (his, always, his), because Xavier is constantly so close to not having control over something he barely understands.

“You still smell so good,” he finds himself admitting quietly. Benji shivers. The shivers turn to trembles. Xavier’s nose presses deeper into night black curls. He fills his lungs in a deep, hard inhale, and he can feel Benji in him then, like that. Xavier is full of him, instead of water and oil. His arms tighten on reflex. The longing opens in him like a wound down his middle, as though he’s been gutted with a fishers hook.

“You’re cold.” Benji’s voice is thick and wet at the edges. There is a brief pause. And then, Xavier moves apologetically, murmuring to them both as he turns to pull himself out of the bed. Mistake. He’ll leave. He’ll run away, and keep running and maybe not look back this time. Be good. Good. Only Benji’s hand snaps around his wrist as his arms unwind. He is so warm it is almost painful. It’s like a brand, rough fingers holding him so tightly. If he were human, maybe that grip would even hurt. But he isn’t mortal anymore; and instead it feels so good.

He doesn’t want to stop being touched.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare, Xavier,” Benji whispers in a wounded hiss. He hasn’t moved at all, even as Xavier sits up. He lays there, on his side, face turned more toward his pillow. Strands of hair give him privacy, covering his face. The hand not holding Xavier’s pale wrist, clings around the edge of the mattress instead. His knuckles are pale with the effort.

“Don’t go.”

So Xavier doesn’t, even if he should.

There’s a brief and still crystal clear memory of the first time they slept together (not as children, when Maran, sweet but easily scared Maran, would ask them to sleep in his too big bed and they’d lay there all night instead while Benji made up stories that scared all three of them). This is Xavier cresting adulthood instead, this memory is one he revisits so often it would be yellowed at the edges if it were paper.

Xavier had laid behind Benji, just like this, in a bed not too unlike this one, too small for his too long body. Gangly at that age and Benji—he remembered Benji sleeping all curled up. Knees bent, arms tucked around himself. And for some reason, Xavier had hated it, made a joke as he wound himself around Benji like vines and forced him into something he found more relaxing. They’d only slept that night, but it had felt more intimate than when they kissed.

He lays back down, sliding his leg between Benji’s knees. His arms return, cradling this much warmer body closer. There’s a moment of silence until Benji’s shoulders begin to shake.

“You’re never cold.”

It’s funny; he remembers every time Benji had cursed about Xavier being the warmest man alive. Now Xavier realizes that every time Benji had said that, what he was really saying was I love you, I love how warm you are, I love being in a bed with you, it’s warm but safe. What he didn’t realize—What Xavier couldn’t understand was the loss of something so small and so significant to Benji.

All he could do was continue laying there, while one more piece of him was mourned and lost forever.

—

When he was human, he used to sleep so much.

Xavier remembers loving it; he remembers coveting it, stealing mid day naps when he could, sleeping in on prayer days (the irony not lost on him now, when he stands in front of his own altars and looks down at their offerings). He remembers blankets smelling like his lover, pillows that were flimsy and thin but somehow heavenly after a long day on the docks. He remembers laying in the grass under the thin excuse for sun that Dunwall had while Benji did garden work beside him.

He did not have the green thumb Maran did—but he was so strong. He was so strong. The grounds workers never turned down his extra help and Xavier?

Xavier would lay there, playing with a blade of grass, watching. Benji couldn’t ever help himself—he’d promptly kneel when no one was looking and press one sweet kiss to Xavier’s brow. Lazy, he’d say, but he’d never make Xavier get up.

Sleep is different now. He isn’t sure if it is sleeping. Sometimes, it feels similar, because he’s prone on a bed and not there for a long, long time. And there’s dreams too; nightmares often. It doesn’t rejuvenate because Xavier’s exhaustion is different now too. It’s not like the feeling in his biceps after hauling crab traps, or how the tiredness would spread through his whole body after a morning run. Xavier’s tired in other ways. And sleep doesn’t have the respite that it once had and he doesn’t want sleep the way he used to when he was mortal. Human. But he was asleep none the less, and then awake, when fingertips touch his cheek.

Benji faces him, when they’d fallen asleep with his back to Xavier’s chest. He’s on his side, a hand out stretched. Just the bare hint of a touch to a scar that goes across Xavier’s nose and down his cheek. Another that separates his eyebrow, that had nearly cost him an eye. He inhales sharply when Benji’s palm cups his ruined face softly. It feels like a moment that was penned for him to exist in and everything narrows completely to just Benji, and the hand touching him.

“The drug wore off,” Xavier explains. Once, he might have had a sleep rough voice that Benji would have mocked. They’d have woken up with well planted kisses, complaints about morning breath. Instead, Benji is staring at him, with wide eyes. Xavier shouldn’t talk about it because he knows every single word is going to hurt, but Benji stays quiet. Xavier can feel how bad he wants to know, wants any detail. As if knowing can somehow make it better.

“Underestimated how much they’d need, ‘cause I’m big,” Xavier laughs and slides a hand just below Benji’s ribs. Through the thin fabric of his shirt, he can feel the warmth of him. Blood, muscle, bone, life. His thumb rubs softly. He can see the expression on Benji’s face breaking just slightly. Imagining Xavier and a knife and a stranger. “I must have—I think I sat up. On the st-stone, when they were about to—and I scared them.”

Xavier doesn’t remember it, but in the way he knows everything, he knows that as well. And he knows it almost made them stop. A ruined sacrifice, face split open. But someone had said to keep going—that he’d be perfect when it was over, that it didn’t matter. Maybe the change hadn’t healed his wounds to his face and left scars instead because he wasn’t perfect. Because he hadn’t fully become what they’d wanted him to be.

And now here he was. A hideous, malformed accident.

Only Benji didn’t look at him like that—Xavier could see it in his eyes. Maybe they’d been apart for so long, maybe he wasn’t even human anymore, but there was something pulsing inside him, something that always knew what Benji was thinking. The part of him that would hold a hand out knowing Benji was already reaching for it, the part of him that knew Benji was cold and offered his jacket, when he knew Benji wanted to leave a social gathering because it was too noisy. The part that knew Benji wanted a kiss, or a soft touch under the jaw, a hug.

Xavier closes his eyes and rolls away from him.

The bed creaks and now he knows Benji has gotten out of it. He could recognize that shifting weight from mere memories alone, where he’d lay in bed while Benji woke up first. Because Xavier had loved sleeping in…

“You know I can’t,” Xavier says, as he sits up on the bed at the exact time Benji—

“Why not?” His anger is icy and smooth. It’s like running a hand down a cold, stone wall in the middle of Dunwall’s winter. Impenetrable and unbreakable. “You’re here, yeah? You came.” He stumbles over the last words. His voice wavers. He stands in front of Xavier, who comes up to his chest, their height difference stark even when he’s seated. Something still human inside Xavier feels tender and bruised.

“I’m being selfish.”

“You’re bein’—I want you here—”

“That’s why I shouldn’t,” Xavier’s teeth click together with the effort to keep his voice down. Benji has picked a secluded place, somewhere lonesome and wholly his own, far away from any other Giarizzo estate workers. But it isn’t just people he’s afraid of hearing him. “I shouldn’t be doing this to you.” He palms his forehead, elbows to his knees. Shame and disgust and self loathing broil underneath his skin. The only warm part of him left.

“Gwed, yeah? All your choice, not mine? Fuck that, Xavier.”

He stands quickly, but Benji doesn’t relent even though the physical enormity of Xavier is suddenly right up against his space. They’re as close as they were when they were sleeping. Benji’s chest heaves with hard, furious breathes—Xavier’s shoulders tighten like a cord has been strung between them and yanked. He stares down with a tilted chin and narrowed eyes. The wood inside the room creaks, like there’s a pressure from something pushing against it.

“It’s no ones choice,” Xavier seethes, raising his hands to gesture in his fury. “This isn’t good for you—this is wrong—I’m wrong. And being here is—it’s hurting you, because I can’t—”

“No one can!” Benji’s winter like anger finally snaps, arms thrown at his side. “No one fucking can, Xavier! Y’think what? I’ll find some bloke in this shit hole city? Go lookin’ in a bar and bring him here? Here?” His hand slices toward the bed they’d just shared. Benji’s laugh is more a snarl, just as cold. “That’s your bed—”

“No it’s not!” Xavier laughs and that’s a howl, like a dog barking. “I sleep on a pallet in a fucking clocktower.”

“Well who told y’to do that, dickhead?”

“Where the fuck else do I sleep?” Xavier’s voice raises loud enough that something in the room shakes and falls over. Something cold and slithering and ancient feels along his skin.

“Here!” Benji’s voice matches in volume. And then it softens. And the softness is louder somehow than the yelling. “Here.” He repeats, with the heels of his palms pressed against his eyes. His arms quiver. “Fuck you, Xavier. Y’could sleep here. You could.”

“Spirits, you’re mean to me,” he huffs nastily, snatching Benji closer. The space between them is feverish. His hands shake where they hold onto broad, strong hips. There’s only fabric between his palms and Benji’s skin. His warm, smooth skin. The memory of that skin haunts Xavier. “Always knew how to make me mad, didn’t you?”

“You started fights,” Benji replies in a hoarse voice. His pupils are coin sized, shiny and bright in the dark. There’s a flush to his cheeks, this sudden dark magenta color that is beautiful on his brown skin. Xavier feels a guilt that can’t be ignored because of how much he’s missed that color—how much he’s missed this closeness.

He’s always missing Benji. It’s a constant wound in his side, a thorn underneath a fingernail. Never leaving; the painful tug of it the only tether besides hate and vengeance and violence that Xavier has to this mortal world. Without it, maybe he would burn out completely and become the void he’s meant to be.

But there is so much shame because he doesn’t just miss Benji. He misses—touching. He misses holding. He misses running his tongue along the divots of Benji’s muscular chest. He misses feeling the stretch and burn and rocking motions of sex, he misses the sensation of their bodies sliding together. The taste of his tongue. Misses Benji’s whispered words and his strong hands and—

“You ended them,” Xavier murmurs back. He feels dangerously close to what it is like to be The Outsider. He feels violently close. His shoulders shiver with the anticipation, breathing deepening. The world groans once more around them. Darkness shutters the windows, preternatural. Defiant and cold. This is what he was afraid of. What he was worried would happen—what he knew would happen. Xavier can’t control whatever God sits right underneath the skin and Benji always made him feel feral. Even human.

But when he looks away—

Hands connect with his chest, sending him sprawled back onto the bed behind them. The suddenness of it surprises Xavier enough that a crack splits down the mirror in the corner of the room. Neither of them even notice, neither of them look anywhere but each other. Benji crawls onto the bed and the sight alone causes Xavier to whisper out a sound. He swallows a thick feeling in his throat, his hands raising to touch. Please, to touch. Benji continues his crawl forward, his eyes shiny in the dark of the room. His posture powerful.

Weight sinks onto Xavier’s lap, making him bite down another sound. It comes out strangled. The shifting body above him makes his eyes screw shut. Pleasure, long forgotten and ignored makes him moan. It feels so good it makes his head swim.

“I missed you so much,” Xavier admits and when he opens his eyes, Benji is seated, straddling his thighs. It feels hollow, because it cannot describe the actual sensation. The painful yearn that has flayed him alive.

I thought it was better this way. I thought I was making things better.

“I’ll stay,” he says. His hands take Benji’s thighs. He remembers the shape of them. They’re just as strong as his memory. He wants Benji naked, wants him striped of every barrier.

“Wasn’t gonna let you leave, Xavier,” Benji promises in a voice heated like metal.

There’s a man across the city praying at an altar with a dogs head painted above it—and there’s another in a manor paying for extra guards that will be useless in two weeks time when Xavier puts a sword through his heart. There’s a young girl scurrying the street because she’d painted the symbol of The Outsider across a wall, because she thinks He’s the only God worth worshiping anymore—and there’s another woman sitting at her desk, turning the pages of an ancient book, paper yellow at the edges, thin as flayed skin, thinking of ways to Undo whatever went wrong with Gabriel Giarizzo-Cohn’s mistake of a sacrifice—

And all the while that very Outsider is laying in a bed. Their bed. His pale, cold hands spread across thighs tight around his hips. He stares up with sea foam green eyes while Benji stares down at him. Not letting him go. Not again. Not for a second time. The world feels like it starts and stops there, Godhood forgotten in the glow of that hot stare.

Xavier is the first one to frantically move. To lift his arms above his head, the searing feeling of Benji’s palms across his torso and chest shoving the scratchy cotton material up. Words disappear, but sounds don’t. Benji groaning with the sensation of Xavier’s hands clutching desperately at his waist. Xavier making breathy, whimpering sounds from every kiss to his throat, his chest, the swell of his bicep even. Teeth replace lips and a tongue sooths over the little pleasurable hurts they cause.

The string of his pants is yanked open, fabric pushed down. Xavier’s body tenses and flexes, back arching from the bed. Benji’s mouth tucks into the hollow of his throat and he murmurs encouraging familiar words that have not lost an ounce of their heat; that’s it gorgeous, c’mon, Xavier, give me it, beautiful. He pants, head tossed back, eyes rolling at the sensation of Benji’s hand around him. Tugging faster. Thumb swiping a sensitive tip. Xavier is burning, his stomach muscles dancing.

And then he cums, so quickly it feels like a dizzying blow to the head. He goes lightheaded and breathless. Calves tightening, hips twitching. Benji’s mouth draws away. Weight shifts on the bed once more and all too quickly does Xavier realize how quickly that went.

“I—” he sits up, braced on elbows. The hot knife of embarrassment is surprising in his chest. It’s so human that he feels so unmoored and panicked. And those feelings too are so mortal, so definitively unlike what he’s slowly becoming, that it makes his chest flutter with uneven staccato breathes. “I’m sorry—I—” His words tumble thick and wet and ashamed until Benji darts toward him.

Their mouthes collide. It’s a messy, misdirected kiss that catches the corner of Xavier’s lips more than anything, but their heads tilt to capture each other better. A kiss, a real kiss. Their first since—their tongues slide together, Xavier’s hand tangles into inky black curls. They moan open mouthed against one another, wet and messy and needy. Benji’s desire tastes heady. His strong, warm hands roam upward, slide until they’re firm around Xavier’s shoulders. His strength is unexpected even teh second time as Xavier is flattened to the bed. His head hits the pillow and he gasps.

It feels so good—it feels too good. Shoved down, Benji’s hungry stare above him. There can’t be any humiliation then; just the basic human desire to be touched again. And again. And again—with someone who wants to keep touching.

Again and again and again.

—

He’s dozing. Its a sensation he almost forgot existed. Eyes fighting to stay open, breathing slowly evening and then hitching every time he blinks himself awake. It’s warm and pleasant, like bathwater warmed to the perfect temperature, like the giant tub Benji had once found and bought himself with his little funds just so they could both fit. Xavier’s cheek is pressed to Benji’s stomach, arms wrapped firmly around a body he never wants to let go of again. A dark hand cards through his sweaty, messy hair. The feel of his breathing is so soothing it nearly pulls him under again.

“The bed still creaks,” Xavier mumbles instead.

Benji, blessedly, fucking laughs. It’s a throaty sound, because they’d just spend the last few hours being anything but quiet with each other. His stomach moves with it and that just makes Xavier turn to face it. His nose nuzzles into the hair, broad abdomen. He moves to lathe his tongue from navel up to rib. There’s a scar there he doesn’t remember. It scares him, because he could find out. He could know, but—like dozing, he imagines daydreaming. Of laying in this bed forever and asking about every new part of Benji.

His gray hair included. Xavier’s eyes narrow on that spot of gray that blossoms from his temple. His tongue continues up as Benji groans out, low and appreciative, teeth tugging a nipple meanly until he settles his chin to Benji’s sternum.

“Sorry, never got ‘round to fixin’ the bed. Bit busy, yeah? Guardin’ Maran left and right from swarmin’ ladies that want to marry him for the oil fortune and all.”

“Oh, poor Maran.” Xavier puts a knuckle to his eye, pretends to wipe a tear, pouts.

“Told you to fix the bed, anyway, didn’t I?”

Xavier opens his eyes wide, innocent. Benji’s hands cup his cheeks. He doesn’t even flinch when thumbs brush the edge of his pale, jagged scars. He doesn’t stop to wonder if Benji might secretly think he’s the hideous replica of his dead lover. It doesn’t pop the bubble they’ve formed, for this night alone at least.

“I was busy.”

“Bein’ a lazy dog.”

“You dare,” Xavier growls, rising, bracing hands on the bed on either side of Benji. He curls back his lip, brows knitted, face a mask of pretend fury. “You can’t insult The Outsider.” Benji’s hands move from his face. Fingers dance down his throat, down bruises that Benji has left with his teeth and mouth. Bruises that shouldn’t ever have formed, loving marks that Benji never should have been able to place. Proof that The Outsider was also, sometimes, just a man.

“No,” he says as his hands move until they dig points into Xavier’s lower back. Until he shoves them together firmly once more and Xavier is between Benji’s thighs. It’s intimate, to be touching like this, to be wedged together, unselfconscious. Skin to fucking skin. “M’not talking to The Outsider. I’m talking to you, Xavier.”

I am The Outsider, Xavier doesn’t say. Not when Benji’s leg is hooking around his waist and pulling them that much closer. The sensual roll of his body upward is suggestion enough for what he wants. And maybe—maybe Xavier could just be—maybe in this creaking bed, on an estate that belongs to a man that had singled him out for ritual murder—maybe Xavier could just be a man in love and not whatever hate filled chaotic entity he was meant to be.

If anyone could tame something so wildly inhuman and so mournfully dead, it would be Benji.

Xavier’s hand nearly crushes the headboard with every thrust into him. The darkness never clears from the windows, but it doesn’t feel like an omen, but something protective. Benji’s arms feel stronger than nature around his shoulders, stronger than magic or sacrifice. They kiss, hungry devouring kisses that don’t pause or interrupt the furious rolling movement of their bodies.

After that one, they finally do actually sleep.

—

Benji forgives Xavier for not being there when sunlight breaks through clear windows. He can feel that from inside, wherever Benji lives. His heart, his pathetically mortal but beautiful heart that will solely beat because of the connection that no knife could have ever fully severed. He sits on the edge of that clocktower, a knee tucked under his chin as he looks at the murky, ugly horizon of Dunwall.

He feels sore.

It makes him grin, something like the old smile, even with the scar that wrinkles over his nose. He feels sore—it should scare him. No man or woman has ever managed to actually hurt him, since he was crashed onto the shores, onto the rocky wave breakers of the ocean. But Benji’s teeth are a ghost beneath his jaw, over his torso, on his inner thigh.

The wind ruffles his sex mused hair. His eyes close to the weighted feeling of sunlight on his skin.

#writing #dishonored au #xw #bp #xw x bp #this one is evil evil

[hauntedjpegcollection]

bang

wc: 3210 au: space horror au ch: xavier, benji, maran, nomi, lark

Corporal Wolffe’s boots are heavy on the ships metal grated loading dock. They echo with every step as he approaches the newly caught prisoner, the sound bouncing off the rusty metal interior. Xavier is not a small man and he doesn’t pretend to be—not when he’s striding toward the bounty hunter knelt on the ground. The specialist behind him slips forward, agile and quick in silent comparison. Lark’s rifle stays up up, safety off. Xavier’s stays slung around his shoulder; the gathered soldiers cannot decide if he’s reckless or brave. But it doesn’t matter.

These two have been caught.

He can see his reflection in that anti-facial recognition helmet—his own sleek black re-breather, his red hair sweat slicked to his forehead. His wide, unpleasant smile. They’d not made it easy—he hadn’t expected them to. This wasn’t ordinary quarry, these weren’t regular criminals.

Xavier tilts his head. A lock of hair falls into his eyes, stringy with sweat. Lark has already moved behind the bounty hunters. There are a dozen red dots alight on them, but one more to the back of this one’s head might not hurt. Even masked as he is, there is an energy radiating off him. Something killer, something that says revenge would be easy and swift, if it were just Xavier and him.

The other one, unmasked and with hands held just enough above his head, attempts to inch closer to his partner. He’s handsome, freckly and bright eyed with a short cap of tightly curled hair. Boyish. Modified, at least from a quick glance at his black fingertips, his metal shined jaw. He stares up at Xavier with an equally impenetrable gaze. The corporal doesn’t pay him much attention.

Instead, his hand lifts, and slips fingers underneath the lip of Benji Palanivel’s helmet.

A few breathes pass, where Xavier only stands there. Domineeringly tall, hand forcing the criminals head up to look at him. Xavier can’t see their face, the helmet a smooth and glossy black privacy screen. He raises his hand just enough that the bounty hunter has to stretch up on their knees. Xavier’s fingers twitch. Then—he presses the button to unlatch the helmet, and none too kindly, he yanks it free. It clatters to the ground, skitters across the loading dock—the other bounty hunter lunges toward him, knelt as he is. But Lark’s quick rifle tap against the back of his head stops him.

Xavier hardly notices. A face is in front of him now. One that asks for his attention.

Their newly captured prisoner has dark hair. It’s curly and wet with sweat. Little snake curved designs stick to his temples and his cheeks. His skin is dark brown, bright on his cheekbones, reddened with fury. Benji has dark brows, pulled in and knotted viciously. His sneer is mean, condescending, curling. It says, you got me, in the same way it says, try me and it’ll be the other way around now. He looks tired, but his eyes are black pools of venom and hate. Alert and…very pretty.

Xavier’s eyes continue to flicker over the face, pulling in details of a criminal too well known for not having a face. Prominent, curved nose. Strong jaw, smooth dark facial hair. Well. He’s handsome. There’s no point pretending he isn’t. A bead of sweat slides from Benji’s temple. Xavier watches it as it disappears into his facial hair. And as he does, he lifts a hand and takes off his own re-breather.

The device hisses, tendrils of vapor slipping from the edge as his skin meets air. Xavier can see Lark’s eyes narrowing furiously. But he’s spared only a glance before Xavier is ultimately drawn back to those heated, dark eyes staring daggers up at him.

“Captain,” he speaks to his chest, chin tucked. The comm crackles, but no one answers. “Targets located.” Then Xavier points a finger at the bounty hunter knelt in front of him, thumb cocked.

“Bang,” he whispers, his smile stretched wolfishly from ear to ear.

—

The doctor interrupts her in the middle of the seventh episode of a terrible Mars reality show; Nomi is hunched at her station, uncomfortable looking on the spine with one knee underneath her chin. Her tablet is propped up, washing her in vibrant colors. Nomi’s glasses, big and round, have slid all the way to the end of her nose. Her favorite contestant had just offered to swap eye transplants with someone—which was romantic, she figured. If you sanitized it.

“One of the prisoners is heavily modified,” Dr. Toussaint says. No hello necessary, straight to the point the way they always communicate. His accent is mild, but his presence behind her shoulder is heavy and annoying. He smells of antiseptic and cologne that is too expensive for a military carrier doctor to own. Nomi sticks her hand into the contraband snacks that Benny had smuggled onto the ship their last refuel stop. She tosses seaweed flavored crispy snack bites into her mouth as she tilts her cheek onto her knee.

A man on her tablet screen begins kissing someone—the new owner of his old eyes. The sounds are noisy and wet.

“In what way?” she asks.

“Whole arm.”

Nomi’s eyes glaze over.

—

“Are they dangerous?” she asks quietly from the observation room.

Glass separates them from the bounty hunters; it’s dark on their side, see through on hers. Only Lark stands inside with them, which seems risky. Shouldn’t there be…more? Shouldn’t there be more soldiers, or the Captain, more people watching these two men who took effort to capture. Not that Lark wasn’t plenty capable. Sometimes he even scared her with how quickly his face could flicker from friend to dangerous. She’d see his eyes go black with it, scrubbed visual data from the soldiers before to put into neat little files sent back to base. There was a reason he was usually first in, last out.

Lark stands directly in front of them, posture militant and clean.

She has an arm around herself, cupping her elbow as she chews on a thumbnail that isn’t a real thumbnail. If Nomi slid it out, there could be a type C plug underneath. Very handy and an easy modification that had barely cost her anything at all. This nail biting habit had started young, though when parts of her were more organic and she hadn’t lost her sense of human.

The criminals sit on their examination tables, hands looped in cuffs. Nomi had helped design them. If either put pressure on the cuffs, attempted any sort of tampering, they’d be shocked. Hard. Not a soft little tap. Piss yourself sort of shock, leave little burns on the wrists type of shock. Nomi had made sure of it. She didn’t like the idea of people trying to slip cuffs. Her hand dances up her throat, curling around it protectively as she looks to the doctor, brows wrinkled upward.

“Oui,” Dr. Toussaint says mildly. “Are you scared?” Nomi pushes the sleeves of her neon hi-vis jacket up and shakes out her hands nervously. Her eyes flick between the two men inside. It’s a ridiculous question. And he knows the answer.

There really isn’t a man God or Machine has invented that Nomi hasn’t felt should be muzzled.

“What are their names?”

“Ah,” Dr. Toussaint adjusts his coat. He swats invisible dust from his shoulder and then leans against the one way viewing glass. “Does it matter?”

Nomi pokes her glasses back up her nose and shakes her head, but stops before the door. She only needs to flatten her hand to the scanner, let it read her palm and it’ll hiss open. Instead, she flexes her fingers. She stands there, feeling the doctors eyes on the back of her neck. Nomi slowly looks over her shoulder. Nick is not an unattractive man, but he is eerie underneath the bright white lights of the infirmary. He stares with cool blue eyes that are nowhere near as beautiful as Ben’s light snow colored eyes.

“Maran,” he finally says, pointing at the taller of the two bounty hunters. “Benji.” His finger trails across the glass to the shorter one. They stare at the glass. They stare, together, like they share a sense, like they are somehow aware that Lark has a gun but Nick Toussaint is the real danger.

Not her, though. She swipes her palm over the reader and steps inside the lab.

No one is ever scared of Nomi.

—

Once fully inside the lab—which has always been an unexpected comforting place for her, it’s sterile white environment, the low lighting Dr. Toussaint will turn on sometimes just for her—all three men turn their heads to look at her. And Nomi instantly regrets everything.

She regrets joining the military (necessity, to not starve), she regrets taking transport duty (the only detail she could get), and she regrets being born in this shitty, weird world (not her choice). Nomi’s hand slips back to her pale throat, head bowed forward slightly. Her glasses slip right back down her nose. The men don’t react.

“Nomi,” Lark greets in his stoic husky voice. His face is equally as marble, but his eyes are sharply alert. He side-walks in that soldiers way until he’s closer to her. “Tall one,” he mutters. Lark knows why Nomi would be there—it’s not a secret that she is the most modified person on board, nor is it a secret that she is the best at caring for them. Her jaw works, teeth on her lips as the tall one looks at her.

Maran, she supposes, is handsome. He’s angular in the face, like maybe he should be eating more. Food hard to come by as a criminal? Nomi knew what that life was like once, when she was also a criminal. As she steps closer, his eyes follow her—he has modifications there too. Nothing as garish and hideous as Tillman’s. They are soft white rings inside his dark brown pupils. He has freckles that stand out underneath the fluorescent lighting. She is unabashed about staring, head tilting as she looks at his short, curly hair. When her eyes find his again, there is a strange red color to his cheekbones.

She’s interested in the jaw, which does not completely overtake his face. It’s almost delicate looking, a sleek black metal that descends his throat.

“Which arm?” she asks without much more preamble.

“Cheers,” he laughs. “Buy me a drink first?” Nomi blinks at him. She uses a finger to slowly push her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Maran,” she says, looping her hand into the cuffs that are keeping him relatively subdued. He jumps a bit at the sudden movement into his space. More of that pretty red color spreads across his face. Nomi lifts the cuffs, watches as both his arms move as she does. Like he’s on a leash, almost, and she is holding it tightly. Nomi thinks more men should be cuffed, just like this. Sometimes, permanently. She can feel Lark’s movement behind her—the way his tactical gear crinkles as he moves.

“I’m Nomi,” she continues. “Dr. Toussaint isn’t good with cybertech. Old Earth trained. Classic surgeon.” She frowns, her brows pulled together, looking at him with her chin tucked. He is tall, even sitting on the medical bed. His pupils seem to keep adjusting, looking at her. “Even prisoners should get proper medical care, yeah? Thats the law.”

Then her thumb slips into the cuff, into a small recess where she knows it’ll read her very modified fingerprint. A small whirring sound and an electronic click later and the cuffs fall open.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lark seethes behind her, in Japanese. Nomi pulls the cuffs away and sets them on the examination table beside them.

“Me next?” She jumps at the sudden noise because she had forgotten about the other bounty hunter entirely, with this one right in front of her. Benji, in comparison to Maran, is shorter but broad. He’s sullen looking with thick brows that crease and make him look severe. He lifts his cuffed hands, splaying his fingers as if trying to prove innocence.

“Shut up, prisoner.” He says it with no real heat, but an urgency underneath it anyway. He’s stepped forward, crowding behind her back. Nomi’s pink eyes slice their way back up to Maran’s face, who is looking at Lark’s rifle. Then looking back to her.

“You’re too close to me, Lark,” Nomi says quietly. “You’re always so worried about me.”

“Put those back on him.” She can hear his teeth grating together, his jaw clicking. “Your Japanese is too formal, by the way.”

“Remove your jacket, please,” she says to Maran, ignoring Lark’s stormy presence behind her.

“Can’t really refuse the lady.” He’s speaking to Lark, above her shoulder, who she can feel bristling harder and harder—but, if this were really an issue, Dr. Toussaint would have come into the lab. She’s not ignorant enough to think he’s left the observation deck. He would have radioed for more soldiers—maybe Xavier. Or Ben. Both of them are like throwing gas onto a fire. That’s the doctor’s style, though. He wouldn’t let Nomi get hurt; not without purpose anyway.

She takes a step back to watch him unzip the jacket. He moves fluidly, natural and effortless, giant and easy motions to get his arms free. Maran keeps his eyes on her, which makes little sense considering Lark is the one with the gun. The rings in his eyes dilate with his pupils—she wants to examine those too, but is afraid if she gets too close to them, he’ll see her own modified eyes too well. She doesn’t particularly want the examination to go both ways. So instead, she watches as the frayed and well loved jacket gets set down beside him on the table.

“Tada,” he says.

“Oh.” Nomi instantly steps closer with lifted hands. She hooks her foot around a rolling stool and sits in one easy motion to begin her assessment.

Nomi had gotten her first modification at fifteen, with credits she’d earned as a mule. She’d been good at it too, because she was so plain. Boring to look at, unobtrusive, easy to ignore. Nomi had been able to walk through a group of peacekeepers and they didn’t even glance at her—not even once. No one actually looked at her (even now, it felt, she could blend in with the furniture). She had done the drug running for a while, until she could get her very first implants. Her eyes would always be her favorite because of that.

There was something very special about your first modification.

“This is fantastic work,” she murmurs as her fingers delicately begn moving over his right arm. The musculature of it is black and dynamic. The muscles are weaves, plates of metal shiny with wear and tear around the edges. It flows together seamlessly, beautifully. It’s fascinating to look at—she’s never seen a full limb like this. Ben’s scorpion arm comes close—her own are mismatched across her body, but she’d opted for something closer to synthetic skin for visuals alone.

Nomi scoots the stool closer, lifting the arm and feeling the weight of it. She has one hand to his elbow, the other on his palm. The metal isn’t cold, like a machine would be. There’s fluid inside of it that keeps the muscles moving, connected to nerves that input commands from Maran’s thoughts. Similar to a real arm. She slides her hand to the swell of his inorganic bicep. Nomi’s eyes are wide and appreciative, her glasses nearly tipped of her nose. She wonders if he can feel all of these light touches, if his nerves are that integrated. Can he feel her pressing her thumb into his palm? His fingers curl as she does—so that’s a yes.

“Did you have a difficult time regaining balance?” she swivels around to the other side of him, quickly picking up his real arm. His skin is warmer to the touch, soft and pliant underneath her fingers. Her hand curves around his forearm, finding it muscular beneath her palm. She feels a strange sort of shiver. He has fingers on this arm that aren’t fully organic either, but they don’t make much sense to her. Replacements, or modifications?

“There is such a miniature difference in weight, but I can assume it would have been hard.” When she looks back up to him, Maran’s face has gone a darker shade of red.

The other bounty hunter snorts, cuffed hands dangling between his knees in a way that almost makes him look petulant. Lark’s eyes roll upward to the ceiling, but his finger stays disciplined. Nomi gets the sensation that she is missing a joke, but she doesn’t care. She stands from her stool, her interest falling now to the cybernetic jaw. Maran is smiling in a way that stuns her enough to stop her from moving an inch closer. It makes him look younger, touches his eyes in a way that is just as beautiful as the mixture of machine and skin on his body. Her mouth dries and her throat narrows.

“I’m a quick learner,” he says confidently. Nomi, still holding his half human half machine hand, flexes his fingers. She’s pretending to look a the joints for anything necessary to repair. He’s kept excellent shape of his modifications. “In a lot of things, by the way, not just balance.”

“Hm,” she curls his hand into a fist and then pats it as she rests it on his own thigh. Nomi steps between his widened knees, fitting herself easily there to take hold of his cheeks. Maran has a full body reaction, moving backward as her hands take hold. There is a squeak of rubber on tiled floor as Lark moves just that much closer to the examination table. But for Nomi, it’s simply her and this man and the incredibly interesting texture of his modified jaw.

“Quick learner,” she mumbles as her hands tilt his head back far enough to look at the way the plates in his throat move. It’s not entirely man made. The peek of skin mixing with metal is there. Good work. She runs her thumbs slowly down his jawline; an excuse to watch him shiver while she inspects for anything out of order. Modifications done to vital areas are the scariest to upkeep. She tucks knuckles into the hollow of his throat, head tilting back and forth like a bird as she looks examines him.

“Not quick enough to avoid the space marines, though.”

Benji’s huff is less a snort then, louder to a crescendo of actual laughter. Nomi should not feel nearly as gratified, but she glances over Maran’s shoulder with an appreciative and shy smile. Maran moves back to tilt his chin down and stare at her with surprised eyes, his lips a perfect ‘O’ shape.

“Prisoner,” Lark says in an exhausted voice before Maran can reply. “Suffer your examination quietly, thanks. Nomi, don’t ask him any more questions—these two don’t shut up and I have a headache.”

#writing #space horror au #xw #lt #nw #mgc #this rewrite was so fucking satisfying

[hauntedjpegcollection]

baldur's hero

wc: 3253 au: baldurs gate au ch: xavier, benji

Xavier rarely goes to the courtyard without purpose.

It’s too noisy with too many people and never enough room to breathe—the restoration to the gate had been beautiful to witness. To be a part of, even. But years since the destruction and the noise has returned, like birds returning to the skies or brooks bubbling once more. It was in full swing everywhere but especially in The Heroes Yard. Blooming gardens surround marble statues, lovingly tended by a circle of druids that helped Baldur’s Gate and then never left the city. Their constant humming—occassional singing, even chanting—was the undercurrent to people.

He dodges a throng of young mages in electric colored robes, as they’re lead through a trail by a wizened teacher. She knocks her cane against a statue here and there, imparting wisdom to the sleepy group who follow dutifully. Xavier deftly bends and snags a scroll thats slipped free of one pupil. When he winks to her, she blushes all the way to pointed blue ears and covers her smile with a clawed hand. There’s not a hint of recognition about her silver eyes, just amusement and maybe embarrassment as she tucks herself back in with her group.

It’s nice not to be known. There is no statue of Xavier in this yard. But—he does find the one he’s looking for.

It’s only just past a lovely fountain. A popular spot, where people gather to idle free time. It is rarely empty. Sometimes, Xavier wishes he could have been part of the decision making process that went into this particular statue’s placement. It feels only right, after all, that maybe he should have been able to direct the artist who’d captured his husbands likeness.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Xavier says to the life sized rendition, taller than him only because it sits atop a pedestal. Benji’s pose is hilariously stiff, not just because he’s made of marble. Whoever had been commissioned to fill The Heroes Yard must have spent at least some time with Benji. They’d gotten the heavy set to his brow, the uncomfortable placement of crossed arms, his grimacing (but gorgeous) mouth. A stranger might look at him and find his stance confident, boastful. Strong in the face of adversary. Chin tilted back to survey the very city he’d saved.

Only, there has been an addition to the statue. A fuzzy black mustache made of felt has been taped to it, covering the natural stones rendition of Benji’s actual facial hair. It’s a bit lopsided, admittedly silly looking. Makes Xavier grin staring up at it. But it’s hard not to grin at Benji, even if this isn’t actually Benji.

He sits down at the edge of the pedestal, rustling through his coat pocket for the mutton sandwich he’d brought himself. It’s been hastily wrapped in yesterdays news paper, oil making it translucent here and there in little dots. They have too many copies, because Benji cannot stop himself from purchasing a page from every young busker on the street. So they mill about their home, hoping not just for a glimpse of the hero, but some of his coin.

“I always add too much oil to these,” Xavier complains quietly to himself and to Benji’s hero statue. “What I wouldn’t give for a curry.”

It’s been some time since Benji’s left, so he fends for himself in the kitchen. It’s a lonely part of their home now. But that’s Harper business. Xavier doesn’t ask. Not because he doesn’t want to know but—

They’ve had more than one fight about Harper business. The old argument that maybe Benji should retire, should simply stay home and find something worthwhile, something heroic here has been shelved for some time now. They don’t argue that one anymore, because Xavier understands that one better. The need to be doing something. The need to be helping. But the renewed and much debated (hotly, with both of them saying things sharper than they mean) is about Xavier’s safety.

Because is is safer for Xavier to not know the details. However, a part of him itches for someone to think of him as Benji’s weak spot and come looking for an easy belly to cut open. Xavier is no longer a paladin (if one ever stops truly being a paladin), but that doesn’t mean his hands don’t sometimes ache for the hilt of a sword.

The sandwich is still good, even if it has far too much oil on it. He leans back against one of Benji’s marbled legs, one of his own tucked up. He stares out across a pretty horizon overlooking the ocean that runs up against Baldur’s Gate. Xavier misses his tiny fishing village sometimes, especially when there’s all this noise (lovers laughing as they sit by the fountain and hold hands, a baby crying loud in it’s mothers arm as she shows the faces of countless, timeless heroes, the wizard and her students). He closes his eyes and enjoys the sun.

“Oi!”

Xavier blinks and looks to the side. Then adjusts his gaze much lower so he can look at this intruding stranger properly.

“You do that?” the tiefling looks furious, pointing at the statue he leans against. Xavier follows the child’s finger up to Benji’s face and the terrible mustache.

“What?”

“Y’think that’s funny then, do ya? Defacin’ a hero like that?” if Xavier were standing, the tiefling would come up to his waist. If that. He’s small, with just the barest hint of horns. A dark umber color, with dots all over his face and bare arms. His eyes are shockingly yellow, the kind that glow a bit when the sun hits them properly. Xavier tilts his head and then looks up to the statue, and then back down to the tiefling.

“This guy?” He jerks his thumb back at Benji with a smile. The tiefling’s face floods darkly, clawed hands balling into little fists at his sides.

“That guy! You new to the gate, half elf? That tief’s a hero, I said.” The child enunciates the word hero so hard it feels like he’s trying to cast a spell with it. He’s slight, but not not waifish, nor is he unkempt. Xavier remembers the refugees. No one could forget the refugees—no one with a heart, anyway. The outpouring of orphaned children, many of them just like this one. But Benji’s fan wears clean clothes and good shoes. His curly black hair is combed back, even if it also fans out around him messily.

“You don’t say,” Xavier ponders, glancing over his shoulder. He’s trying hard not to smile, brushing his hands together to clear his palms of crumbs. “He your idol or something?”

“That’s none of your business.” The little boy adopts Benji’s posture, arms crossed over his chest. He has a dangling earring that is silver, in an interesting snowflake design. Xavier slowly slides his way off the pedestal and stands. As he does, the tiefling child stutters back a bit. He blinks up and up until his head is nearly tilted all the way back—despite that, he still glowers, even if it’s less pointed now.

“What did he do that was so important?”

Xavier watches the tiefling climb his way onto the pedestal. He clings arms around Benji’s statue to keep himself upright. Xavier’s hands begin to raise on reflex, but he quickly lowers them when the child looks his way. However, when he turns back and starts awkwardly trying to snatch at the mustache, Xavier’s hands return to a safe distance. If the boy fell and broke his elbow all because of a mustache that Benji himself had slapped onto the statue, his husband would be distraught about it for weeks.

“They not teach history lessons where you’re from?” the boy asks, grunting with effort and an outstretched hand. The way Benji’s arms are crossed make it difficult for his short arms to reach. “Alright, how about this? A trade?”

“Oh?”

“I’ll tell you the story if you get this blasted mustache off him—s’not right! No one messes with the statue of Gale Dekarios.” He says the mans name with a haughty, sniffling air. Xavier has to bite his lip not to laugh.

“Not a fan of the famed Wizard of Waterdeep?”

“You wouldn’t get it. People are always tellin’ the stories of human men. All the time. Had to hear about them my whole life growin’ up. Even elves, yeah? Even half elves. No ‘fense to you.”

“None taken.”

Xavier understands what the boy means.

Gale was a handsome human man who did not want to save Baldur’s Gate—or maybe he did. Maybe his ideas would have saved the gate and the people within the city. But what would have become of the human man, with all that power? And when did Gale’s desire to save the city become more about wanting the power? No one else knew that story, because Benji was good. Benji was a hero, who didn’t go telling people the truth. That Gale Dekarios, whose statue was never defaced, wanted to take that stupid fucking crown for himself.

He breathes deeply to avoid letting himself get lost back in that day. It’s not what he’d come to the yard for. He’d come, because he’d missed his partner and wanted to see his face, even if it was a marbled version.

“Alright, son,” Xavier says, stepping forward. He takes the tiefling by the hips and gently picks him up. The boy weighs practically nothing and he’s easily set back down on the ground. He doesn’t protest. For a moment, Xavier can imagine a father doing exactly this. Taking a rowdy child and hoisting them around. There’s a twinge inside his chest. Children with parents. How special that it’s not a novel idea anymore.

“Tell me the story then. Benji, right? One of Baldur’s heroes?” He hefts himself up onto the pedestal and throws a lazy arm around the statue’s waist. He can briefly imagine himself doing the same to the real Benji. How warm he’d feel, snug against him. How good he would smell—like healing herbs and something spiced, like a hint of rain or the promise of rain. Xavier stares down into the statue’s eyes.

I miss you, he thinks fondly, smiling. It feels good to miss you, it reminds me of before. A letter sits inside his coat as well. Just like before. He’d meant to drop it at the post before coming to the yard, but he’d been hungry.

The tiefling boy begins telling Xavier the tale. Some parts are wildly exaggerated—Benji rode a dragon, he dual wielded maces blessed by Tyr himself (Lathander, forgive him, Xavier laughs internally). Some are painfully true, like his one mystical hazel eye, the long draw of a scar down the middle of it.

“Mm, he didn’t get the scar from the eye,” Xavier comments softly, finally plucking the mustache free. He cannot stop himself from pressing a swift, chaste kiss to the statues cheek and then hopping down to the ground. The heavy sound of his body makes the tiefling jump back, though Xavier lands perfectly with knees bent. He rises slowly, holding up the mustache with a toothy grin. The boy is blushing even harder than he was in anger.

“He’s married, y’know,” Benji’s fan snorts, pointing to the statue. “Heard his husband’s ferocious—seven a half feet tall with a sword that calls lightning. They say he killed Ketheric Thorm—but I don’t believe that.”

Not just me. It is rarely just one person who kills a God.

“That’s good. Shouldn’t believe everything you hear. It was Dame Aylin that killed Ketheric.” Let her have the glory; she deserved it. Xavier toys with the plain silver wedding band on his finger. He feels a roll of nausea from the memory of Ketheric Thorm, but it is an ancient hurt, a cold and dead fear that he’s mostly grown free of.

“No. It was Karlach Cliffgate—you’ve pro’lly never heard of her, ‘cause she’s another tiefling.” The boy turns his nose up, snorting contemptuously. Xavier does not tell the young boy that Karlach had not been there for that particular fight, but instead a powerful and terrifying Githyanki woman, who stories do not tell of frequently enough for his liking. But that was history.

Favoring the Gale’s of the story—even glorifying Xavier to a seven foot lightning wielding paladin, though nameless as he was.

“You know,” Xavier says contemplatively. “I bet, whoever keeps putting these up there does it early in the morning. Probably right before dawn, so no one can see.”

His thoughts ease into the memory of Benji, the sunlight not even peeking over the horizon yet. The window to their bedroom open, because they’d secured a spot by the water and the smell of it comforted Xavier. Their hands on each other, touching faces or sides or arms. Small kisses while Xavier is half dozing still, almost asleep—Benji’s leaving, is telling him he’ll be back soon. Telling him to write, telling him he loves him.

The boy looks struck by the idea, his grin going sneaky. Then he schools it neutral and huffs.

“Not thankin’ you. Was an even trade. Information for help. That’s fair by Baldur’s ways.” Xavier bows deeply, making the boy look instantly sheepish. He turns to run, down a winding and flowered path. At the end of it sit two tieflings, a fat and happy baby in their lap. Xavier watches the boy crawl up onto a stone bench, whispering conspiratorially into a mans ears. The tiefling is the same shade, with the same spots.

Xavier lets himself have one last look at Benji’s statue before he leaves the garden.

—

Finally in his hands once more, Xavier does not let Benji go again.

Not for the entire night. There is no moment where he is not touching him; from the exact second Benji crosses the threshold to their modest home, Xavier’s palms slide across his forearms, to his shoulders. Their mouths crash together in a desperate, laughing kiss. Benji is lifted off his feet, crushed to Xavier’s chest. His armor clinks. The smell of leather oil and dirt, but also Benji.

His hands stay when they take a well earned bath together in a washing tub that they’d specifically bought for this depth, this width. To fit the two of them. Hands touching while they’re in bed, and not necessarily just for the sex that they have. That ranges from rough and needy and desperate and wild to slow and languid and sore and tired. But his hands stay even after that, just simply cupping ribs. Running over a broad torso, a hairy chest. His fingers roam until they find—

“This scar was not here before you left,” Xavier snips, pushing Benji to his side to stare down at the small healed wound on his side. It’s a tan scar on dark skin, no longer than his finger. It’s minuscule in comparison to the one on his back, or another on his hip, or the burn on his calf. Xavier peers down at it with narrowed eyes. The black kohl he paints around his eyes has run horribly and Benji’s cupped hand on his cheek brushes a thumb through it.

“That’s always been there,” he argues innocently, with wide eyes. One black and beautiful and the other hazel and ethereal.

“Fuck you,” Xavier seethes with a laugh. “I know every single scar on you. I’ve tasted them with my tongue.” He punctuates that sentence with a flat lick to this new, offending scar. It makes Benji shiver, his hand clutching harder around Xavier’s cheek. His other finds a home in his hair, carding through the long red strands.

“Arrow grazed me, s’all.”

“Archer dead?”

“If I said he weren’t?”

“Suppose I’d take my Oath up again and find him and shove an arrow through his fucking—”

“Archer’s dead,” Benji laughs, pulling Xavier closer for another kiss. It doesn’t stay gentle, though it starts with just the press of lips and a sigh of air. It deepens with both their mouths opening wider, their tongues rolling and sliding against one another. Xavier moans into the kiss, sliding himself until he’s entirely over Benji—and his hand stays around this new scar he has to memorize. They kiss until it’s messy and when they part, a string of spit momentarily connects their mouths. Xavier licks it hungrily, greedily, eyes hooded and it snaps.

“Death of me,” Benji mutters dramatically.

“Swear that,” Xavier laughs, ducking underneath Benji’s chin to kiss his fuzzy jawline. He moves until he finds his pulse. He sucks it hungrily, thinks to leave a long lasting bruise so that anyone who sees the Hero of Baldurs will know that hero does have a terrifying, greedy husband.

“What am I swearin’ to?”

“Your death is to me only.” Xavier pulls back. Their breathing has both gone harder. There is a flicker of Benji’s youth around his eyes; but they are both so undeniably older now. Gray to their hair, wrinkles at the corners of their eyes, scars everywhere. “An archer can give you a scar. Maybe some Zhentarim fuck surprises you with a dagger—maybe you come home with a scar here instead.” Xavier cups underneath Benji’s knee, touching the soft skin that is never touched by anyone but him.

“But you swear that, Benji. No Harper business takes you from me, I’m there the day you die, or you don’t fucking die, got it?”

Because it all felt unfair sometimes, for Xavier. The city got it’s statue. Boys got their heroes. Harpers got their cleric. He leans forward until their noses are nearly touching. Benji’s eyes have gone dark. Possessive. His hands touch Xavier’s lower back and shove firmly until they are touching every place they can touch.

“Swear,” Benji says in a husky voice.

—

“Tyr’s fucking greatsword,” Xavier moans through a mouthful of food. Breakfast sits, hot and loving prepared on their kitchen table. It’s wooden and long enough to fit company, when they eventually have company. That morning, it is only the two of them, Benji sitting on one side with a mug of steaming tea and a satisfied and sleepy expression.

“I missed your cooking.”

“Could learn to do it yourself.”

“I made sandwiches.”

Benji’s head rolls back with a loud crack of a laugh. Xavier has never heard him laugh like that around anyone, save maybe Maran. Lark’s never gotten that laugh—Benny’s never gotten it either. Matilda gets his soft, snorting laugh when she’s making too mean of a joke. Nettie gets his chest deep chuckles, whenever they visit the grove. Children, that swarm him in droves on the street when they recognize who is he, get humored, if not sometimes awkward laughs.

Xavier scoops more food into his mouth, goes for quick sips of the slowly cooling tea. If he were in the right frame of mind (certainly not the messy, debauched, fucked senseless and tired version of himself that finds getting out of bed harder and harder with every year that passes) he might have ruminated more on that laugh. On how much of Benji stays his, despite how much of Benji is also for others.

Instead, he clears his plate and flips the sign on his blacksmith shop to close—and they spend the evening together, the windows shut to the noise of the city.

#writing #xw #bp #xw x bp #bg3 au

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wc: 2786 au: vampire au ch: benny, maran

“I was sixteen.” Benny flicks cigarette ash out the window as he leans against his desk, hunched close as the wind blows his curtains around. They’re the thick black out kind, because he sleeps during the day more often than not thanks to work.

“I mean.” He tilts his head back and forth, taking another drag on the cigarette while his other hand messes with his already disheveled pale hair. He holds that inhale in his chest for a moment and then finally blows smoke out the window. It’s not night time for once—this is rare. The sunlight is still low and soft, the world outside a dull and thin gray color. It’s early morning instead of night, about to be a full day in just a few hours. The sunlight is a pensive sort of yellow, watered down to nothing. It still hurts his sensitive eyes, but it was nice to see daylight. Remember he was human.

Benny grinds his cigarette butt into the windowsill and tosses it out. Then he slides it almost shut. He likes the little bit of breeze that the wind brings in, a cool spring sort of smell. Wet grass to mingle with the dark permanently smoky smell of his room.

“I th-think I must of known before I was sixteen, bu-but my first kiss that counted w-was with my best friend, Isaac.”

“Aw, Ben,” Maran’s voice is tinted with laughter, from where he lays on the bed. He’s on his stomach, pretending to read the messy hand drawn schematics that Benny had been working on before this impromptu morning visit. “That’s sweet, yeah? I love that.”

Maran had shown up, red around the eyes with a sniffling pink nose. He’d shown up with wet lashes, shown up with that smile he always had but so obviously forced—so blatantly fucking put on that Benny hadn’t known what to do for a moment. There had been a dislodging inside his chest, like something crumbling without structure to hold it up. He’d done the only thing he could think to do. Let him in and bring him to his room, where he’d happily let Maran distract himself.

Distract didn’t feel like the right word either, because he didn’t think Maran was using him that way. Sometimes, when someone as beautiful as Maran, it was impossible not to be anxious about that. People like Maran didn’t like people like Benny. He was unapproachable. He was weird and he was mean and he was unsightly, with vampire scars he’d gotten almost covered with enough tattoos. Benny wasn’t sure how someone like Maran could ever look his way and smile—so if he got his heart broken, that was a problem for future him to deal with.

Benny, right then and there, in his sweatpants and shitty tank top, was not turning Maran away.

He goes to the bed and pulls his notes from the younger man. Pretty brown eyes follow, up and up until they reach Benny, who folds and stuffs the schematics behind him on the desk. This is not the first time they’ve been here, in this room, in this exact position. Maran on the bed and Benny standing at the edge, waiting for some invisible hint of permission to join him. He thinks of Maran’s question, volleyed randomly during conversation. How did you know?

He wants to ask, too. But he knows that’s selfish, because he knows the answer. It’s not right, but—

“Was it me?” Benny cups a hand underneath Maran’s chin, tilting him up further and further. He can feel the other man swallow. He watches the bob in his throat. There’s a slight tension to his tendons, making his neck look pretty. Exposed and stretched—Benny can almost understand a vampire, presented with that. He wants to put his mouth there, to feel Maran’s pulse. He’s in some oversized shirt that slips low around the collar. In similarly too big jeans that have rips in the knees, waist band loose and lifted at his lower back to reveal a hint of his briefs.

A window of smooth, bronze skin sits there, as if waiting for a hand to stroke across his lower back.

“Not my first kiss,” Maran replies, laughing. His eyes are shiny with humor, either oblivious to Benny’s unrepentant consistent devouring gaze, or enjoying it. The feel of Maran’s warm breath, tickling across his fingers has Benny’s throat narrowing. “Sorry. Sara Dahlgren in primary got there first.”

“Bitch,” Benny jokes with a sideways sneer. “Didn’t mean your fir-first kiss ever—that’s not what you asked.” Maran’s cheeks flood. His eyes have cooled since whatever made him cry before (Benny hadn’t asked, because he knew Maran would talk if he really needed to) but now his face is red once more. His eyes are shiny again, with a different sort of gleam.

“Isaac was the f-first guy I kissed.” Benny slowly slides his cupped hand from under Maran’s chin to his cheek. His thumb draws a gentle circle over a defined cheekbone, then his whole hand moves to Maran’s hair. It’s grown out a bit more—he’ll need it cut soon. The texture is thicker and coarse, compared to Benny’s thin blond. He can picture it growing in tiny, coiled rings.

He moves onto the bed. His knees first and then slowly makes his way up onto it, pushing Maran back by the sheer intrusion of his body alone.

There’s a bit more shifting on the bed and then they’re both laying. Benny on his back, one hand comfortably folded behind his head. Maran, on his side, with an owlish gaze in the dim morning light. He has one of his freckly hands tucked under his cheek, creating a somewhat adorable curve that makes him look even more boyish. He is undeniably one of the most handsome people has ever met, but he also manages to capture an essence of innocence in moments like this. It makes Benny feel less aroused and more…protective. Hungry, not to kiss and bite and fuck and have and own, but something else. Something worrisome, like tenderness.

“Yeah, you were the first,” Maran finally says. His words come out slightly muffled because of his squished cheek. He’s smiling though, which is also slightly warped because of that. It is crooked and beautiful. Benny reaches out and touches fingertips to his lower lip, enjoying the sudden dilation in Maran’s pupils.

“That’s shit,” Benny laughs. “I’m a bastard, you d-deserve better.”

“Hey!” Maran propels himself forward, hands curling around Benny’s shoulders, body shifting over top of him. They erupt into a laughing argument about that, jostling together. Maran’s knee’s pin between his thighs, widening his legs until they sort of sit around the other’s hips. Benny has a suspicion he has no idea how good that feels, so he clamps his teeth together to stop a noise. Benny flops his hands above his head, defeated, surrendered and breathing heavier.

“Just adm-m-mit you have bad taste, Mar.”

“I think you taste pretty good.”

Clearly, his witty tongue gets the better of him there. Maran sits back slightly, his hands resting on Benny’s thighs. His cheeks turn an even darker shade of crimson, a wicked color that descends down his lovely throat. But he still smiles, because of course he does. Cheeky little fucking brat—shy sometimes and awkward occasionally. Unsure of himself sometimes, but always with that hint of cockiness, a smile that makes Benny feel like a caged animal straining on a leash right against the bars.

“I taste like cigarettes,” he argues.

“Sort of,” Maran admits, and his smile is bashful once more. “But it’s very—like, guy. Tasting. Manly?” He fumbles his hands together like he’s trying to talk himself through the description. One of Benny’s legs hooks a bit higher around Maran’s waist. His hands are still above his head, resting there. Maran’s eyes quickly go anywhere but him, scanning the messy room as if he can find something to help him. All he would find are wooden stakes and dirty clothes. “Girls taste like chapstick most of the time.”

“Well, I’m no fucking girl.”

“I can tell—you don’t use chapstick.” The quick, clever tease makes Benny snort and laugh, lick his lips on reflex. Maran’s eyes follow the movement. Ben does nothing more than shift a bit to get more comfortable, one knee still half bent, the other leg pulling Maran in closer. He fumbles a bit, hands sliding down sweatpants clad highs. He blinks his pretty brown eyes a few times and Benny realizes that all the times they’ve been together, these positions have always been reversed.

Benny likes topping. He likes being the dominant partner, even. He likes leading—guiding. Teaching. Corrupting. Telling someone what to do, and if he was being rougher about it, demanding. Sometimes, with a mean hand behind a neck and filthy whispers into their ear. But Benny also likes this. He likes being spread out slightly beneath another man, he likes the feeling of being looked at and he likes that Maran so obviously likes looking at him. It pets his ego, but it also makes him feel desired in a way that isn’t…nasty. Benny fingers curl and uncurl, above his head.

“Do you wanna touch me, Mar?”

The offer puts a visible hitch in Maran’s breathing. Benny slowly reaches to take the edge of his tank top and move it up over his stomach. He adjusts to get the fabric higher, until its sitting above his collarbone and then Benny returns his hand above his head. Maran’s eyes dart everywhere for a moment and then they quickly slide away. Then they stutter back and then away again. He laughs, nervously but doesn’t move or say anything else. It seems to get stuck in his chest, whatever he might be trying to articulate.

It reminds Benny of when Maran is right there, about to cum and quickly stuffs knuckles into his mouth to quiet himself. What he wouldn’t give to show Maran it’s okay to be noisy; that Benny wants to hear everything he’s going to moan or whimper, or just say. Anything at all.

“Y-You’re not gonna do anything wrong,” Benny laughs. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the pillow, lets himself relax. “I like being touched.”

A beat passes. Benny feels his heart speed up. Another beat and then—hands slowly slide around his waist. Benny sighs and relaxes into the warm sensation of dry palms on his skin. He doesn’t open his eyes yet, because he has a feeling it’s giving Maran confidence to explore. And he does explore; his hands notch a bit higher on Benny’s torso, cupping ribs in an intimate manner. A shiver passes up Ben’s spine at the sensation of thumbs drawing across his skin—tracing the edges of moth wings, he realizes, inked underneath his sternum.

As Maran sits forward, their hips slide together more and Benny takes advantage. He hooks his legs harder and forces their bodies closer.

“You’re so warm,” Maran mumbles quietly. A hand brushes downward once more. A finger taps underneath his belly button—a painful bruise heats inside him there and he cannot stop himself from blinking down. Maran is staring directly at the spider tattooed there. His eyes are lidded, heavy and hungry in a way Benny has not seen before. That naked desire has an effect on his entire body that is like grasping an electric fence.

Maran’s hands travel once more. Up again. One passes over Benny’s chest and he cannot help but let his head fall loose on the pillow and moan. It’s entirely unintentional, but that doesn’t mean he tries to quiet it. The blankets rustle as Maran presses in closer (that brings their lower halves closer once more, tangling them up in a way that could also make him moan). The hand on his chest cups his pectoral and with either confidence or intuition, Maran squeezes and makes inhale hard.

His eyes pop open, flit about the ceiling before landing on Maran. He seems half pleased and half fucking battered. The expression is so sweetly, adorably his boy that it makes Benny tilt and laugh. A hand lifts to wrap around Maran’s forearm, slide appreciatively up the curving swell of a darker bicep. He squeezes his own appreciation.

“Y-You’re surprised?”

“I wasn’t expecting that!”

“It feels good!” Benny’s laugh peters out softly. His hand doesn’t leave Maran’s arm. “F-Fuck off, you ha-have nice hands, Mar.”

“I do?” He lifts it off Benny’s chest, to glance down at his palm. With his free hand, Benny snatches it and returns it directly to his chest. To curve around his tattooed flesh, to hold and press against a now alert nipple. The brush against it makes Benny shiver and sigh pleasantly. Maran’s cheeks are bright again.

“It’s different,” he says. His hand curves harder, just enough to put tension on that sensitive nub. Benny closes his eyes once more, gives into the relaxing feeling of being teased and toyed and enjoyed. “Like, yeah? Obviously, yeah. Knew it’d be different—touching you, verses…touching—right? But. It’s not so different in other ways.”

“Guess you’re just a na-natural.” Benny’s voice sharpens on the last word when his nipple rolls between Maran’s index finger and thumb. “Or humans have sensitive nerve endings regardless of gender.”

“Alright, professor?”

“Oh, are you into that, baby? Want me to teach lessons—” Benny’s sentence cuts out with quick, excited gasp when he feels Maran’s mouth close around his pec. A warm tongue lavishes, pointed, making his hand scramble. He touches defined shoulders, a muscular back. Maran’s strength hides underneath his baggy clothing, but Benny’s fingers dig hard enough to bruise. That seems to make the mouth against him hungrier, kisses moving to his sternum and then up.

Maran kisses him then—and Benny can see why girls probably liked Maran so much. He kisses with an intensity that makes melting feel humanly possible. Like he’d pass straight through the mattress, seep through floorboards. His hands yank at Maran’s shirt, pushing it up and up until their kiss breaks apart long enough for the fabric to be thrown aside. Then they kiss again and Maran kisses him hard. Hand curled behind Benny’s neck, the other doing appreciative gropes down his chest. Benny has to pull away because he’s fucking dizzy, because Maran’s kissed him fucking lightheaded.

And Maran only presses kisses to his jaw then, to his neck. The blooming warmth is beautifully overwhelming.

“Jesus,” Benny pants, snatching Maran’s cheeks and yanking them to look at each other. “You’re killing me here, man.”

“Hm?” Maran hums instead of dignifying a reply, his lips crooked.

“Insatiable little fuck.” Benny punctuates each word with a shake of Maran’s head. The grin only goes wider and more crooked with each gesture. “Last time I give you the upper hand.” It’s a lie. Benny likes being on top…but sometimes he likes this too. He likes being consumed like this. Their chests slide together as Maran lays over top of him, between his legs. The position is so familiar that it’s hard for Benny to think. The momentary vision of Maran, wedged between his thighs, holding up his knees to keep them parted is enough to make Benny slap a hand over his on eyes.

“We could keep going.” The suggestion is sing song, right against his skin.

Instead of replying, Benny reaches out blindly to slap until he finds a wire. It’s a charger, connected to a mostly broken phone. He pulls the thin white wire until the phone dangles enough for him to read the time, even upside down. He shares a glance with Maran, who attempts innocence once more at the sight of how late (or early) it is. Wide eyed, hands on Benny’s chest, eyebrows raised. He plinks his lashes.

“Take off yo-your jeans,” Benny says. Maran’s eyes widen and he sits up quickly. When he shuffles off the bed and starts yanking at them, Benny rolls over and smacks at the light switch on the wall. The room goes only moderately dark, since morning has fully crept upon them and buttery light spills in from the window. Maran crosses to it, quickly snapping the black out curtains close.

When he slides back into the bed, Benny traps him with the blankets, cocooning him into a squirming mess. He presses a snarling kiss to Maran’s cheek, more laugh than anything else. The laughter quiets because of the kissing, but Benny doesn’t let it go much further than kissing and Maran ends up falling asleep swiftly.

#writing #jlb #mgc #jlb x mgc #vampire au