#XW

[march-hare01]

Photo: ken oath

#falcon #xw #xw falcon #muscle car #muscle cars #musclecar #musclecars #muscle #australian muscle #classic #classic car #classic cars #classic muscle #kustom kulture #kustomblr #kustomstyle #kustom #custom #custom car #car #cars #blown #street machine #street rod #hot rod #hotrod #rod #pro street #pro st #gt

[heavenlyrainbow]

#easter #valentine #pastel #hearts #pixel #colour spectrum #ambient gif #gif #flash #xw

[knownangels]

party

wc: 3.5k

Benji keeps his head down, nose uncharacteristically in his phone. He hasn’t got much to take his attention on the screen; its an outdated model with few apps besides those pre-loaded. He uses it to text and occasionally prove Maran on the definition of some word with a quick web search, but that’s about it. 

He pretends to find something interesting in the notes app, as he’ll likely be doing a few hours from now. Swiping his thumb up and down the screen, seeming busy to bystanders (too many) doesn’t dull the noise of the store, however.

“Why the fuck d-does this list have —“ 

Benji glances up just in time to see Benny shake his own phone at the wall of refrigerated fresh juices. They’re in the organic section, which might as well be a completely foreign country to either of them. 

“What kind of store even stocks p-p-pomegranate juice?”

Benji rounds the cart, accidentally brushing up against a posh looking woman who seems a little miffed to be anywhere near the loud, brash blond’s vicinity. Still, her gaze sort of lingers on the back of his neck as she scoffs and pushes away, which makes Benji snort. 

“This kind.��� He says, nudging Benny aside to point out the hourglass-shaped bottle of dark ruby liquid. “Right there, you bellend. Kill ya to be wrong and quiet?”

“Yes.” Benny clips out, snatching the bottle from the shelf and purposefully shoulder checking Benji as he tosses it in their cart. “It w-would. One fancy fuckin’ fruit juice down—“

Benji sneaks a peak at his list, noting the additions of several of Maran’s snack food amongst the alcohol and party basics. “Five to go?”

“What is she, hiring a full s-service bar?” Benny squints at the list then throws his hands up in the air. “Dragonfruit extract. That’s going to be a fuckin’ grand, at least. I haven’t even had that shit before.”

His tone of voice is one Benji knows well — he’s not really pissed off about the contents or length or price tag of Matilda’s list. She’s paying, after all. And her birthday events are pretty legendary; Benny’s almost guaranteed a good time, even if there will be one too many rich-taste cocktails for his liking. 

No, Benji recognizes his tone. It’s the get me the fuck out of here strain. For him, it’s near constant in a store. And Saturday morning, with the crowd and noise and — 

“Me either. But I’m not gonna be the one to turn up wth a short list.” 

Benny, hands on his hips, looks at their cart full of snacks and alcohol, paper plates and red plastic cups. “She’s not gonna notice one thing.”

Benji peers up at him, fingers clutching his phone tighter now. He’d really like to get going. “It’s Matilda.” He says. “And it’s her birthday. She’ll make it your funeral, too.“

Benny’s eyes narrow as he debates this. Then he sighs, head tilted dramatically back on his neck, and shoves the trolley forward with a hip. “Fuck. She really would, huh. N-No issue sharing the spotlight as long as I’m fucking dead.”

“I’d eulogize.” Benji offers as they circle the produce area, round the bakery, and head back towards the center of the store. 

“You would n-not.”

“I would.” He insists, sticking a foot between the wheels and Benny’s boots in so blatant a trip attempt that someone behind them laughs. “I’d start it somethin’ like: ‘we’re gathered here to remember’ — y’know, blah blah, how those go —“

“Sure.”

“And then I’d have to say, y’know, ‘he was a disgusting freak of nature but he was ours’.” 

“You’ll make me c-cry.” Benny deadpans. He sneers at someone blocking the aisle, which Benji respects. Another reason he hates this shit is because doing that, calling people on their shit public decency, isn’t socially acceptable for some reason. 

“We’ll never get rid of him, not really.’”

“Because he was such a light and good influence.”

“Nah,” Benji chirps. “Roach.”

“Fa—”

An elderly woman rounds the corner in front of them. Benny cuts himself immediately off, flashing her one of his weird yet charming grins with a little faux-hat tip. She rolls her eyes and flaps a hand, but takes the offered space and carries on with her shopping. 

*

They meander towards the exit once their cart fills a bit more. A pint of ice cream sneaks its way in among the party supplies. Benji shoots Benny a teasing look when he realizes it’s Maran’s favorite flavor — double chocolate brownie and peanut butter, and not from a particularly cheap brand.

“Might as well just tell ‘em.”

“Might as well just s-suck —“ Benny’s phone goes off with a tell-tale ding! Benji smirks; he’s got a special sound, some little cartoon noise from one of Maran’s favorite shows, to indicate a text from the man himself. 

“Not a word.”

“Fa—“

Suddenly, Xavier stumbles out from the neighboring aisle. He looks paler than normal, fingers twisted in the plastic casing of a bag of chips. 

“Holy shit they’re all out of Lucky Charms—guys!”

Benji pauses, having taken over trolley pushing duties when Ben’s phone came out to text. “Alright?”

“You guys left me.” Xavier pouts. He starts towards them and nearly barrels over someone, dances around them with comically exaggerated movements that are both graceful and graceless at the same time. Benji swipes his fingers over his mouth to hide the smile.

“Did not.” Benny argues, gesturing down the crowded aisle with too wide a sweep; he nearly hits someone too. “You went, ‘oh, they got the f-f-fancy cheese crackers here’ and ran off.”

Xavier aims that pleading puppy stare on Benji, who avoids eye contact and shrugs. He had done exactly that.

“I got way too high, dude,” Xavier whispers. His breath is hot on Benji’s neck, as close as he’s gotten. He does his best to ignore it. “I’m like five more seconds of noise away from running out screaming.”

Benji snorts. With a hand cupped under Xavier’s elbow, he guides them away from the crowded aisle towards a stack of chips. Xavier tucks one under his arm as they pass.

“Here.”

“Benji.” Xavier whines excitedly, tugging at Benji’s sleeve as he delves into his jacket pockets for — “Oh, shit. These are your good ones.” 

Benji deposits the pair of earbuds into Xavier’s massive palm, fighting another grin. They go into his ears immediately. He has a playlist on his phone specifically for — well, this. A bunch of electronic and house music he’s not particularly attached to

“Noise cancelling.” He offers. 

Xavier tilts his head, gesturing towards his ears. Can’t hear you — then the playlist starts. His face lights up. Benji has to turn away, cheeks flaming about the fact that Xavier follows only a step behind him the rest of their shopping. At the checkout, which is as crowded a section of the store as possible, their hips brush several times as Xavier tries to maneuver himself away from the press of bodies and noise. Still, his foot taps to the music. The sense of victory is enough that Benji doesn’t mind the drain from his account.

“Forgot my c-card.” Benny pouts exaggeratedly, out-turning his pockets and no doubt hiding the credit card between his fingers in some magic trick. Benji glances at Xavier, happily in his own world, and shrugs.

*

On the way back to the car, Benji hears a shout rise up in the parking lot. A patter of feet and the loud brrrr of a car horn follows. Something crashes into the back of his legs, and he stumbles against the boot with a soft, surprised noise.

“Yuna!” A familiar voice cries. Benji glances around for it, twisted at the waist, and then instinctively down.

Little arms wrap around his calves. Yuna, a sleight girl of six who sports a poorly managed bob because she insists on cutting it herself, clings to him. He knows her from the community center’s music program for kids; his first semester at the university, he’d found a flier in the campus bookstore requesting musicians for youth tutoring and has been doing it every weekend since. Yuna’s one of his favorites, and a bit of a genius besides.

“I saw you in the store!” She shouts. She lets go of Benji’s legs and takes a step back; his hand shoots out and grabs her shoulder, pulls her back away from the busy lot’s lane. 

“Yuna, where the f— where’s your mum?”

“Dad day.” She announces. Then her tiny voice drops, conspiratorial and whisper-light. “I saw you steal grapes.”

Behind him, already lazy behind the wheel while Benji unloads their party haul, Benny snorts. Benji’s face heats up, especially when he hears Xavier’s muffled what, what? and a shuffle that tells him the other man is getting out of the car.

“I wasn’t stealing.” Benji insists. He squats down to fix Yuna’s hood back up around her ears; it’s rainy, and the tips of them are going pink. “I was testin’ to see if they were good.”

“Were they?”

He shrugs, mouth pinched in a thoughtful grimace. “Meh.”

“Yuna!” 

Her father, out of breath, jogs across the parking lot. Benji rises to his feet and snatches Yuna up around his hip as he goes. She kicks and laughs, her rain boots knocking a familiar rhythm against his thigh.

“You been practicin’ that song?” Benji asks. He hears the passenger door shut, another set of footsteps on pavement. Slower than Yuna’s father as he approaches, and then they too pause.

“Ba-ba-ba-dum dududu bam!”

“Nice.” Benji laughs. He passes her off fluidly to her father as he approaches. “Can’t wait to hear it on Saturday.”

“I’m so sorry,” the older man says. He squeezes Yuna close, briefly burying his face in her neck. “Yuna, you can’t do that. Daddy needs you to stay holding my hand in the parking lot, okay?”

“But—“

“I told you we would say hi, but we didn’t want to bother Benji.”

“I wanted to bother him now.” Yuna insists. Her bottom lip trembles, but her eyes don’t well up. Benji tries not to laugh at the manipulation attempt.

Benji steps closer to fix her boot, which has started to slip off her foot from all the jostling. “Yeah, happy to be bothered. But you listen to your dad, okay? There’s a buncha cars and it’s dangerous to run around like that. You might see them, but they don’t always see you because you’re so little.”

“I’m not that little.” Yuna insists. She tugs at her father’s jacket lapel, turning the big shiny eyes to him instead with the same goal. Benji watches him soften a bit more and squeeze her tighter. “I got a whole ‘nother inch on my height chart yesterday.”

Benji whistles to indicate how impressed he is by this information.

“If you’re okay to be bothered more —“ her father says, pulling Benji’s attention up to his bespekcled face, “Yuna’s at mine this weekend. I’m, uh, doing this new meal prep thing. Made way too much food. If you have a day open…”

“Oh?” Benji tilts his head at the little girl, makes a face to get her to laugh. “Might have to rain check that, got a stacked calendar. But I’ll see this one Saturday like regular, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Yuna shouts, throwing both tiny fists into the air. 

“Uh. Yeah.” Her father agrees, with slightly less enthusiasm.

They say their goodbyes and Benji goes back to emptying the rest of the cart. He’s glad her father hadn’t made mention of the copious amount of alcohol going into the car. He’s almost done loading it all up when he glances over the hood.

Xavier stands on the other side of the car, his palms flat to the roof and face…strangely blank.

“You’re getting rained on.” Benji laughs incredulously. “M’all done here, already loaded up. Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” Xavier says, voice thin over the following crack of thunder. 

Benji slips into the back of the Mustang, legs tucked up to accommodate the several angle Xavier has to slide back his own seat. He catches Benny’s red sunglassed stare in the rear view mirror, and raises his eyebrows.

“You get the DILF’s n-number, dude?” 

Benji scowls in confusion, Benny just continues staring, and Xavier slips lower in his seat, the volume of music blasting from his earbuds rising to a worrying level.

*

Later that evening, Xavier repays his debt tenfold. 

Well. Benji would never think of it that way. Anything he’s done to ease Xavier’s way a bit has been for just that —not with the end goal of reciprocation in mind.

Letting yourself get used? The mean little voice in the back of his head needles. Typical Benji, isn’t it.

The alcohol doesn’t make these sorts of thoughts louder, but it doesn’t pick at the careful netting that holds them back. And once that little hole in his defenses is made, they tend to spill out. 

He wonders if he looks as pathetic as he feels, wedged into as quiet a corner of the party as he can find, leaning against the wall. He’s got a rapidly warming beer in one hand, half-finished; it’s his third, maybe. Fourth. He hates the taste of this particular brand, but it’d gotten ignorable the more he’d drank, so. He’d kept going. 

And if it doesn’t quiet the sound of his own increasingly critical thoughts, it was least makes the external voices easier to muffle. Matilda throws a good party, and the people around him seem to be having more fun than he is; no one has approached him in a decent spell, not since he’d scowled openly at some poor, pretty blond from Matilda’s glass blowing class, or something. The invitation to dance had died before it could even be punctuated with a question mark. Benji felt a little bad for the twist of embarrassed rejection flashing across the young man’s face, but he was in no mood — and he was no dancer.

He sort of just wanted —

“I need to get out of here.”

Benji swings his head to the side. It’s a bit slower than his thrumming vision betrays. With hooded eyes, he stares up at…Xavier.

“You n’me both.” Benji responds. It’s soft against the steady bam bam bam of whatever top hundred chart song the stereo beats out. Xavier leans down to hear him better, their eyes never straying apart; that consistency makes Benji’s chest twinge. 

“So? Let’s go.”

Benji looks around. “It’s Matilda’s birthday.”

Xavier laughs, chin tilting back to flash pale throat. There’s a flashy rainbow strobe on her mantle, and it licks shades of blue, green, red across the column. Madly — drunkenly — Benji wonders if the skin tastes different under each color.

“She left, like, an hour ago dude.”

“What?”

“Irish departure, or whatever it’s called.” Xavier hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Lark was my ride but he went with her.”

Benji’s turn to laugh at the absurdity of that. Good fodder to tease him about  later. What sort of prick leaves their best friend for a chance to get laid? He imagines asking. And, true to his nature, Benji imagines the chipper, smart-ass response: This kind, bro. 

*

The irony of his internal teasing is lost on him a half hour later, once they’ve miraculously survived the walk back to Xavier’s flat. There aren’t any suspicious sounds coming from either of the other two’s rooms, but they sneak on dramatic tiptoes, jostling each other and trying not to giggle, anyway. Whatever sort of sneakiness they think they have is totally undone by the loud slam of Xavier’s door as they tumble inside, falling against one another in a drunken effort to stay quiet.

The irony continues to elude him, even as Xavier finds a movie and kicks off his shoes and they turn around, room stifling hot for some reason, to change out of uncomfortable party clothes. Benji doesn’t thank him for the borrowed pajama set; a blue gone fishin’ shirt with holes in the ribs and a too-long pair of plaid joggers.

“What are we feeling. Looks like Netflix refreshed so all the good horror—“ 

Xavier breaks off suddenly. Benji gives up on rolling the hems up his ankles to access the silence, half expecting a monster or something equally frightening on the screen. Instead, its just some muted auto play trailer of a shit comedy. Xavier’s staring at a spot next to him, eyes glassy with a remaining alcohol sheen.

“Find something?”

“Yes.” Xavier says immediately. He loads up the movie and tosses the remote aside, diving under the blankets. Benji follows, notes the frame squeaks under their combined weight. Reminds himself to check the screws on the bottom, next time he thinks about it. Next time his fine motor skills aren’t significantly impaired, too.

“Did you have fun?” Benji asks over the jazzy lulling soundtrack of the opening credits.

Xavier tucks into his pillow, hand coming up to slip between his cheek and the soft jersey fabric. Benji watches him settle with heavy eyelids. 

“I’m not gonna lie, the best part of the day for me was getting to listen to music at the store.” Xavier admits with a giggle. “Sometimes that shit is so exhausting there’s no way I can have fun.”

Benji settles too; it takes a bit longer, shifting around on the mattress and ignoring the bump of their legs together. There’s no way to fit without touching, so eventually he gives in and slides his knee between Xavier’s own. 

“The store?” Benji asks sympathetically. 

“The party.” Xavier corrects, to his shock.

“You love parties.” Benji laughs. “You love dancin’ and music and talkin’ to people and crackin’ jokes so forty different drunk fucks piss ‘emselves laughing.”

Xavier casts a quick glance at the television. “Um. That’s a generous crowd estimate—“

“Fifty.”

“Shut up.” He huffs. He goes to kick at Benji, but with the angle and their intoxication, it’s no use. It only serves to tangle them together a bit more. Benji feels the ever-present tingle of a chill slip off him, replaced by a blanket of heat; between their bodies, touching, and the blankets Xavier hadn’t bothered to kick off, he’ll be sweating and over-warm in no time.

He refuses to fucking move.

“To be fair, you did a fair bit of hosting once Til disappeared.” 

“They went for a birthday walk.” Xavier intones like it’s a great secret. “Lark had a special gift for her, or something.”

“Or something.” Benji snorts nastily, his shoulders jumping with the force of a restrained laugh. 

“What—“ 

And its no longer restrained, once Xavier’s face crumples like that. With realization. Abject fucking horror, that look. Benji can only hysterically giggle at how the weight of that knowledge (or something, special gift) ages him in seconds. 

“M’so sorry, mate. Oh, fuck. Oh your face, Xavier, holy — m’sorry. Really.”

“You’re not.” Xavier whines. There’s no heat to his tone, no genuine annoyance or disgust. In fact, at least to Benji’s own ear, he sounds…amused. 

When his humored tear-heavy eyes crack open again, Benji finds himself being observed. 

“Something on my face?”

Xavier shakes his head. The quiet sounds of the movie carry on. Benji’s got no idea what it’s about, the characters, the plot. He feels stuck in place by the pinning green stare across the mattress. 

“Ddi you have fun?”

He deliberates this. Shopping was fine. He liked seeing his students out and about. Liked being recognized, made to feel important. He liked introducing Xavier (my friend), liked that he stood close and twitched to the music Benji provided, that he’d lingered in the kitchen while Benji helped with party prep, that he’d given the earbuds back dead because he enjoyed the playlist enough to listen all the way through. 

He hadn’t liked the party. But he liked leaving it. He liked leaving with Xavier. He liked the idea that people had seen them leave together. That people had also, inevitably, seen Matilda and Lark do the same. Benji liked the idea that maybe similar conclusions would be drawn. 

And he feels bad for that. Feels unfair. Feels — feels…guilty. Dirty. Manipulative. 

He swallows the strange lump in his throat and shifts a bit in bed. Their legs are still tangled; he can’t go far. Instead of answering, Benji dodges. He tells the story of one of Saha’s equally legendary birthday parties, just to draw a thread of connection. To keep his mind off the warm body so close to his, touching him. 

To keep his mind off the fact that Xavier’s eyelashes flutter prettily as he holds onto conscious. That he tries so hard to keep listening, even as sleep takes him. 

Benji keeps his mind off all that, largely; at least until Xavier sighs as he goes under. The second his breathing evens out into something sleepily rhythmic, Benji’s brain fills with nothing but thoughts of Xavier content just like this. Falling asleep this way, movie in the background. A dozen times before this, and if he’s lucky, a dozen times after. 

As tired as he is from the long day, he genuinely isn’t sure if he’s dreaming as he tucks hair behind Xavier’s ear, presses knuckles to a sharp, cheekbone. He hopes so. He doesn’t have permission to touch — to bother.

I had fun. Benji thinks, vision blurring as the exhaustion catches up to him now, too. I feel happy. You were around. How could it be anything else?

#writing #bp #xw #bp x xw #jlb #college au #i just wanted to write something cute im sorry ok it is brainless and boring with no plot but i Needed To

[rain-bowss]

Thomas Kinkade ~ A Winter’s Cottage

#christmas #snow #christmas art #ambient gif #gif #flash #xw

[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

[blues-sevenfold]

#trippy #valentine #christmas #purple #pink #snowflake #cookies #purple food #pink food #christmas food #xw

[unknownjpegs]

as mine

“I think I look rather handsome,” Xavier purrs to himself as he turns this way and that, admiring his form in the gilded mirror. It’s large and ostentatious, bigger than it needs to be—and they’d wedged it close to the end of the bed. For…reasons. The crown sits in his dark red hair, glinting silver when the candlelight hits it. The crown is heavy, sits almost awkwardly, because it’s not meant for Xavier. Yet he loves to toss it on anyway. He flattens a hand down his own chest, runs it over his stomach and down to his unlaced trousers. Slim, pale fingers toy with the strings as he tosses a glance over his shoulder to the man in the bed.

To the King in the bed.

The quarters are lavish, luxurious in their opulence. Something Xavier has no doubt Benji will find a way to change in time. Get rid of the massive, imposing armoire and the hideous rugs. The heavy curtains that weigh enough to require two hands to pull apart and admire sunlight. Vases stack up across furniture, other ornate finery that he will likely sell and the gold will be put into something more important than the old King’s priorities.

That was who Benji was—who he was going to be as King. Xavier could tell. He knew things—knew Benji. He’d seen visions of this room before he was ever in it; he’d slept in that very bed, dream sick with it, before he ever knew what it really looked like. And soon after, another dream came along that replaced the bed with something Benji found more suitable.

Still large, because he had a tall lover who liked to spread out across comforting blankets. But, less silks. No more pillows than one actually requires.

“I think,” Benji says, from his position on that very bed, half up on his elbows, chin tucked down to his chest, “that you should come here now.”

The dark, suggestive tone makes Xavier step forward immediately. His hand still teases at the string of his trousers, but as his knees meet the bed, he crawls onto it, hands first. The crown slides a little bit, so he pauses to rise up on his knees and fix it. He’d gotten to Benji’s shins and he pauses there to admire the King in front of him. This is, truthfully, the first time they’ve really been alone since the coronation. Weeks of planning, of ceremonies, of preparing for rule. Advisers fluttering around him, just to be replaced with different advisers who could be more trusted.

There’s a tiredness about Benji that dims Xavier’s smile just a bit. Marks underneath his eyes from not sleeping a full night, a new wrinkle forming between his brow. Xavier’s hands smooth up over legging clad thighs, his bodyweight pressing forward to add pressure to the touch. A slight massage that makes Benji groan, hands cupping Xavier’s forearms and squeezing.

“My King,” he jokes in a playful, sensual voice. “You’re wearing far too much clothes for bed.” There’s a peek of dark chest hair underneath his slightly opened white linen shirt. The hollow of his throat is beautiful, bare, asking to be kissed. But Xavier wants more of him. Wants to see all that dark beautiful skin, the softness in tandem with his hard swells of muscle. Wants to kiss along his sternum, across pectorals.

Finally alone, for the first time in so long.

“Xavier,” Benji says, in a way that immediately makes him slink forward further. He nestles knees on either side of Benji’s hips, his hands playing with the hem of the white shirt. His dark green eyes watch Benji’s face turn softer. “It’s just us—call me Benji.” The please is not there, but Xavier feels wounded to still sense it. He dives forward, captures Benji into a kiss. It’s not the usual hard, messy, hungriness. It’s a press, with weight, just their lips together until Xavier moves his mouth lower.

“Well, Benji,” Xavier says, his teeth touching the shirt that obscures him from all that gorgeous body he wants so badly. “Statement stands. Think you should get properly undressed for bed.”

Benji makes a soft, pleased sound when Xavier’s bare hands slide up under the shirt. His skin dances, muscles flexing with every brush of his lovers warm palms. He shucks it higher and higher, eyes devouring the sight of him. Then Benji laughs, lifts a hand to correct the crown as it nearly slides free of Xavier’s wild, tangled, red hair.

“Leave this on,” Benji says, in a rough, low voice.

—

Xavier has dreamed this before.

That murky remembrance can’t compare to the reality of it; but it mingles in a way that makes it heightened, makes it feverishly hot. He remembers in the dream, he’d twisted his body this way—that way. Up, down. Authentically experienced, in a way he actually isn’t. He remembers in the dream, he’d leaned back, hands to Benji’s thighs—but in the here, now, he’s hunched forward. Xavier keeps his hands to Benji’s chest, to brace himself. Primarily, because the dream had not prepared him for this punched feeling, all the way through his body. This filled sensation that makes it hard to drag in ragged gasps.

He’s blinking through teary eye lashes, his mouth dropped open to draw in another rough breath. Xavier uses the leverage of his hands on Benji’s chest to shove himself further down. The crown slides on top his head, silver beautiful against the messy strands of auburn.

“Xavier,” Benji moans it just as breathlessly. His hands aren’t where they had been in the dream. They’d been tucked around his waist, thumbs digging in a way that made him shiver, tremble, close. Now he has hands fisted into his own inky, curly hair, his face a mask of pleasure that Xavier is becoming addicted to seeing. Brows pinched, lips bitten. His chest moves rapidly with breath. Xavier’s hands slide, cup Benji’s ribs as he rolls his hips forward. Every inch makes him whimper more.

“Ohfuck—you feel—you’re—”

“Me?” Xavier finds his ability to laugh, as pitched and hitching as it is. His long torso straightens, his weight leaning backward. The crown slips again. His long red hair sticks to his shoulders, his collarbone, his chest. Xavier gasps once more and one of his hands reflexively touches his abdomen. Filled. “You,” he groans. “Not a single fucking dream prepared me for—you.”

He finds his rhythm, his inexperience not dulling his enthusiasm. One of Benji’s hands leaves his hair to grab Xavier’s thigh, squeezing hard as he lifts himself—thrusts down and falls forward. Makes Benji strangle out a loud noise of lusty satisfaction. Xavier’s roaming hands scramble over Benji as he pants and moans. Hips thrusting back and forth with frantic passion. He blinks sweat and tears from his eyes, looks down at Benji beneath him.

He oddly remembers their first kiss, in that exact moment; but Xavier’s memory has always been like that. Fading in and out with dreams mingling between. His stomach burns with a sweet, delicious heat, his cock aching and begging for attention that he doesn’t give it. Xavier ruts forward, thinks of that kiss, shared in the grass. Thinks of the sunburn on the tops of his shoulders, of Benji’s hands sliding medicine across them. Xavier buries himself forward, his slick chest to Benji’s. Remembers the smell of nature, the pouring of honey warm yellow sunlight.

Benji’s palms ground him, suddenly holding his cheeks. His head is turned, brought forward for a kiss. The crown fully falls, rolls off the bed, clatters to the floor. Forgotten. His mouth drops open in a noisy moan, tongue out to taste the other man. They kiss hungry and desperate, with loud panting breaths between each. His arms bury around Benji’s shoulders, his body grinding forward. His cock becomes trapped between their bodies, their sweat and his precum making them slick together.

Xavier tears away from the kiss to slap his palms to the wall behind the bed. He makes sharp, loud noises as Benji’s hips thrust harder up into him. He shakes his head viciously, side to side. Not yet, he thinks, dizzy and light headed. Not yet, I want more, I just want more, please, I want more. Benji’s hand wraps around him, tugging him in rhythm to the way his hips buck upward. Xavier practically claws at the wall before he falls. His hands grasp at the bending on either side of Benji’s thighs.

His hips are taken then, Benji half sat up and pulling him toward him.

They look to each other then, Xavier’s eyes wet with tears that slip from the corners of his eyes—and Benji’s dark brown, endless pools. His entire body feels thrumming and hot, warm in a way he almost can’t bear. The continued thrusting of Benji into him makes his body bounce back and forth, his jaw dropped to moan and whimper and beg.

“Keep going—like that—Benji—” The name gets caught on his lips and then it’s only Benji’s name after that, his head tossed back. He loses control of his own movements, this impossibly desperate writhe as Benji keeps hold of his waist. His hands dig just like in the dream, the press of his thumbs on his stomach making Xavier go insane.

“I want to,” Benji manages to pant between gasps. “Inside.”

“Fuck—like you have to ask?” Xavier whimpers out, slapping at Benji’s thigh. He laughs wildly at that movement, and so does Xavier until that laugh becomes something higher pitched and loud. A cry sort of sound when Benji drives so hard into him, he sees white. Warmth pools inside him, this lightning feeling zipping up and down his body. Xavier collapses against the feeling, his upper half between Benji’s strong legs. His hands have nowhere to go but himself, one clutched behind his neck, the other squeezing harshly, painfully at his chest.

His orgasm is bone deep, sweeping his body in fucking waves, making him squirm there for a moment. He’s loud about it, open in his pleasure, warm release pooling over his stomach.

Then the only sound is either of them breathing hard—labored gasping as Benji leans forward. His hands sweep up Xavier’s sides, making him twitch and shiver from the sensitivity. He loops a hand around Benji’s wrist, wet eyes blinking and finding his farm hand. There’s an odd halo around his wild, black hair, from the candlelight sconce on the wall. Xavier’s weak hand pets softly over Benji’s collarbone.

He remembers a dream in another room. Smaller. And looking at Benji, just like this. He’d had gray in his hair in that dream. Odd, that it comes to him right then, because Benji shouldn’t gray for a few more years at least. And that room had been so cozy and warm, but small, modest. Not a king’s luxurious bedroom.

The memory slips him then as Benji’s palm spreads across his release and over his stomach.

“I’m goin’ t’pay a sorcerer,” Benji pants, drawing in deep gasps, his lips parted in a warm, subdued smile. “To fuckin’ bottle the sounds you make.”

“Touch my stomach like that, still inside me, and I’ll be making them all over again—ah! I didn’t mean do it!”

—

Breakfast is brought for the King, but he isn’t in his chambers. The lavish plate of food gets left in the room; is picked up by a servant who brings it to their quarters to eat off of instead. Kings orders, he swears, with big pale eyes as the boys set upon it.

Benji breakfasts with Xavier instead, out by the pond. It’s not the Kings breakfast they had prepared (several kinds of exotic fruits, hard cheese and soft cheese and three different sorts of breads, and spiced wine, warmed perfectly).

“He fell, and the rope was wrapped around his ankle, so it caught him, but his tunic—” Xavier gestures and Benji nearly spits out the apple he’d just bitten into. He laughs, full bodied with it as he falls onto his back, the core tossed off somewhere. Xavier leans over him, his own apple wedged between his teeth. He snaps off a piece of the fruit, chews at it thoughtfully. “Don’t tell Matilda that story. Lark will kill me.”

“I wouldn’t let him,” Benji says, his warm palm cupping Xavier’s cheek.

“Oh, you’ll protect me then?”

The memory of the oath fills him then, warms his cheeks as he glances away to the pond. Benji’s thumb brushes his lower lip, pushes it softly. Xavier opens his mouth to the feeling.

“As mine,” Benji repeats, just as he had, as a farm hand, years ago, in a barn.

#writing #hj #2023 #fantasy au #xw #bp #bp x xw

[sugarpkts]

FOOLSERRAND Hopeless task OOZE Turtles discover it's secret FHQWHGADS Come on ____ I said ____ IMNOTWEARINGHOCKEYPADS Bruce's response to "What gives you the right? What's the difference between you and me?" (2008) AGAKAKSKAGESH Violent animated nodding react SPIRITOMB Reward for speaking to 32 trainers underground LUIGI Came into possession of a mansion in 2001 DUKENUKEM He's got balls of steel POPPYSEED Pretty good bagel EXPIRE What shampoo doesn't do GOLDENEYE Brosnan's debut OMOCHAO Robotic menu attendant on GCN FUNKOTRON Toe-jam and Earl planet, but it sounds like the name of a dancing robot FINGERS Helpful in a pinch ASTROLOUNGE Album featuring When The Morning Comes, and All Star OBJECTION Phoenix's cry EGADD Inventor of the Poltergust NEPTR Ceaseless pastry tossing automaton GATESMCFADDEN Paging Dr. Crusher KRAID Corpulent, three-eyed green reptilian boss BOSSNASS Leader of the Gungan High Council, if meesa recall CROMULENT Acceptable or adequate, perfectly so DONCHEADLE Boogie Nights actor born November 29, 1964. ABANDONED What Daniel Plainview did to his boy SHAGADELIC Great word for a groovy carpet or parody spy MISTERROGERS Ultimate showdown victor NEN Gon has plenty of it SIXMONTHS Time served for stealing half a calendar NOOKSCRANNY A different sort of Uncle Tom's cabin JENOVA Source of Sephiroth's mommy issues JOCRYSTAL It gives him (38, houston) confidence at work, home, social situations, etc. TANUKI Cousin of dogs legendary for their shapeshifting (and hint for the cabin clue!) TURKISHDELIGHT Starch confection and temptation of Edmund Pevensie REVACHOL BABYPARK Mario Kart stage with extra laps ALMONDS If a Hershey's bar has these it can fuck off LANKYKONG He posseses neither style nor grace, but may handstand if required SHEHULK Alter-ego of Jennifer Walters MONSTERRANCHER Mostly forgotten anime franchise featuring an eyeball, a golem, and a kickboxing rabbit ESPRITDECORPS A feeling of loyalty between fellow soldiers, or officers of the Revachol Citizens Militia CARMELA Mother to Meadow and AJ HALF Type of A press BANSHEE Flying counterpart to a ghost or wraith ROFLCOPTER ASCII transport NUMANUMA Common name for Dragostea Din Tei

DRACULAS Vampires

THESEDAYS Useful sentence fragment for when ‘now’ is a little quick on the draw

MONEYPENNY M’s secretary

KOKOPELLI flute-playing Native American fertility deity and purveyor of fine television sets

MCNAMARA SecDef to Kennedy and Johnson, playable Nazi zombie character

HARVEST Type of moon

CLYDE Rounds out Inky, Pinky, and Blinky

SUE Clyde’s female replacement

WILBUR Caretaker for Mr. Ed

PUDDYTAT I tawt I taw one..

TONGA Polynesian kingdom with over 170 islands

REQUISITE Must have

GRIMOIRE A tome of spells

LAPITUP What racecar drivers and thirsty cats do

CHUMBAWUMBATUBTHUMPING Artist and title of that 1997 hit that can’t be kept down

BOUVIER Marge’s maiden name

#xw

[hauntedjpeg]

he is the whole world to me.....

#my sweet boy paladin #my little rotten soldier #xw

[unseenentropy]

Wagon

#xw #ford #falcon #crcc

[gizkasparadise]

the way xie wei has like 12 jobs and 2 identities and 95 plots going on in addition to a hobby instrument studio but by god he will be there looming in the background anytime ning'er and zhang zhe lock eyes from 100ft away

#cdrama #story of kunning palace #xw: yes im stuck in the second lead pan out phase and yes i will be a dick about it

[march-hare01]

#falcon gt #falcon #xw #xw falcon #GTHO #gt #ho #ford gt #bathurst #muscle car #muscle cars #musclecar #musclecars #muscle #australian muscle #classic #classic car #classic cars #classic muscle #kustom kulture #kustom #custom #custom car #car #cars #touring car #racecar #dream car #XWGTHO #phase 2

[heavenlyrainbow]

#valentine #pink #rose #cupcakes #pink food #xw

[knownangels]

maslow's hierarchy

wc: 6.8k

Benji drags himself out of bed a moment before the alarm kicks off. 

By now, he’s developed somewhat of a sixth sense for certain happenings around base. It’s a sense that might, were the more superstitious recruits given a crack at describing it, be called preternatural. 

Lately those murmurs have picked up both in popularity and frequency; Benji likes that. It could be any number of things to thank for the increasing number of terrified soldiers bumbling out of his path, avoiding trips to medical. It could be Benson has resumed his charming habit of fabricated ghost stories about the resident medic. It could be Benji’s own doing, really: his recent predilection for hanging around the terrifyingly unpredictable corporal hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Whatever it is, Benji’s thankful. Any time another set of eyes pops wide and snaps away from his face, it’s like a needle has split his vein and shot something straight to his heart. Something that makes his head swim, something that blows his pupils wide, something that makes his mouth twist with pleased adrenaline. 

Something wicked nice, as the corporal might put it. 

*

 He takes his time meandering down to the clinic, where his on-call alarm had been directing him. Benji hadn’t been fortunate enough to be on the mission from which all the trembling, blood-soaked soldiers return. But his luck is good enough that there are a fat number of them, wet with fear’s sweat and stinking of that post-fight metallic tinge. 

He likes being there when it happens. Not just because a body will open in any number of interesting and memorable ways. Not just because they cry and scream out of fear and pain alike. Nah. Benji likes being there when it happens because inevitably, once the fog of sleepy shock passes, once they realize the predicament they’ve gotten themselves into with whatever nasty, painful misfortunate — 

They look at Benji. They know he’s there. Know why. Know that he holds, in eager glove-clad hands, the tools to fix them. To make it stop hurting.

(Whether he will or not is another story entirely.)

Benji likes watching the injured take that journey. It always plays out so obviously on their face as the path winds, tugs them along. This hurts, turns into someone help me, turns into oh fuck, not him, not him. Benji might not have their friendship. He might not have their trust. He certainly doesn’t have their loyalty. 

But he does have their reliance. Their need. To stop the bleeding, to close the wound, to make the pain stop. They fear him, but they need him — and Benji likes looking at a face and seeing need swiped across it like splatter. He likes it almost more than the fear.

*

The first injured mercenary he attends to is green. New enough that he doesn’t know any better. As Benji approaches the door, light gleaming through the cracks of the frame, he hears the soldier’s dismay. 

“Not him,” the mercenary is chanting, over and over. Pleading, really. He must have seen Benji’s name on his chart. New enough that he dodesn’t know better, but been here long enough to be warned. Maybe to hear a story or two. 

“Please, please. Not him. You can do it— right, Dr. Toussa—doctor? You can, can’t you? Please, man.”

“Mais no,” Nick responds, his familiar and even tone carrying through the crack in the door. He sounds amused. It’s nearly a laugh. “What a preposterous assumption, private. I will be retiring for the evening. Perhaps — oui. A nice glass of chardonnay awaits, I think. Une récompense, you see, pour mon travail acharné.“

Benji waits beyond the door, listening to the near-tearful begging of the injured soldier. The quiet shuffle of fabric as Nick undoubtedly removes his stark white coat, lays it carefully on the coat rack he keeps by the door. 

Which swings open. The arc throws just shy of the tip of Benji’s nose — only a few centimeters.

He doesn’t move.

“Ah.” Nick says, as congenially as he seems capable. “Bonsoir, Benji.” 

“Evenin’, Nick.” Benji tilts an imaginary hat. He feels his mouth already pulling into a grin. “Leave some for me?”

“And otherwise?” Nick chuckles. “Do labor of myself when you are so happy to help? Non.”

Despite the congeniality, despite Nick’s seemingly high spirits, despite Benji’s grin — the hallway is tense. Benji stands in front of him, short but broad. Unmoving. Arms tucked behind his back. 

Nick doesn’t move an inch, despite leaving medical with hastened steps. He doesn’t look to be in a hurry home any longer. He looks frozen. He looks careful.

Benji’s smile widens. After a beat, he moves to the left with a single sidestep. The hall now open to him, Nick moves as well. But like always, he rotates the parallel to Benji’s shoulders. Keeping them facing each other, eyes locked to his, grey-dotted jaw soft but shut. 

“Well, y’know how it is.” Benji tilts his head, showing teeth now. “You have to be real passionate in the healthcare industry, yeah.”

“Thankless work.” Nick agrees. He has begun to walk backwards, towards the exit at its far end. The stark red letters of the sign blink in a halo around his pale hair.

Benji clicks his tongue sorrowfully. He folds both hands over his heart. “Well, gosh. Thanks an awful much, doctor.” 

The moment hangs just one long, delightful silence longer. Then Nick tilts his chin (head tipping only enough to dip his nose, his eyes staying locked to Benji) and tips an invisible brim of his own. 

“Certainement. And, merci à toi, of course.” Nick takes another step. “Goodnight.” 

Benji smiles wider. For a split second, Nick begins to turn as if he intends on giving Benji his back. His steps stutter only that second, though. Benji has the pleasure of watching him twitch and still. Briefly. Almost impercitbly; Nick is more than that. Better than. 

But Benji notices. 

So Benji waits until Nick is halfway down the hall, halfway to putting Benji and the base in his rear view, to call out.

“Nicky.” He says, lifting his voice only slightly over the distance. “Is that what Margot used to call you?”

Nick stops walking abruptly.

He can’t tell if Nick swallows. If he has any sort of response to what is, as they both well understand, a cruel jeer despite Benji’s friendly tone. He doesn’t know if Nick fears him. He sort of doubts it. But what he does get, what he sees plain as day: 

Need. 

I need you to stop talking. Nick’s eyes say, boring into his like drills. I need to be away from you. I need a glass of wine. 

Benji’s wide smile twitches, as if it wants to pull wider. He likes the need.

“Oui.” Nick admits evenly. Barely three breathes have passed between them. “Sometimes.” 

“Well. Not anymore, anyway.” 

Benji waits a few breaths, too. Then he nods, smile tilting into an intrigued upside-down frown, and happily ducks into medical for his emergency shift. 

*

The blubbering private nearly pisses himself when Benji steps into his “room”. In reality, the curtain-separated cubbies are barely more than a gurney and what little equipment can be crammed into the space. For this unlucky bastard, it’s just Benji and his kit and his eager hands. 

Benji snaps gloves onto them as the new merc watches. His tan hands are white-knuckled on the edge of the gurney, fingers tight between the rungs as if he’s holding on to avoid being washed out to sea.

“I heard you talking to Dr. Toussaint about me.” Benji says, retrieving his suture kit and gauze. He holds the paper wrapped square up to the light, pretending to assess it for unsterile tears or rips. 

The soldier before him says nothing, but his breathing picks up. Any quicker, and the monitor’ll start going off. If he’s expecting Benji to lash out, or to hurt him, or do something worse like any number of the vile acts he’s committed in stories…he’s probably surprised by Benji’s careful, expert treatment. 

The wound on his leg is thoroughly cleaned, sterilized, and adequately closed up. Benji isn’t cruel for a second of it, although the desire to touch two centimeters deep in the split of red-weeping tissue sits fresh at the front of his brain. 

“I heard rumors.” The private brushes fingers against his thigh. He doesn’t sound terrified anymore. Maybe just a bit wary. 

“Most of you have.” Benji says. He turns with a shrug to pluck the gloves off and wash his hands. He closes the lid on the empty numbing syringe, tucks it dutifully into the sharps container, and does everything quick, correct, and by the book.

If not…uncharacteristically kind.

“Guess they’re wrong?” 

Benji turns and props himself against the sink, arms crossed over his chest. When the private’s eyes stray down, Benji corrects the expression on his face by making it softer. 

“Are you asking, or telling.” 

His nearly-silent words make the other soldier smile slightly. He leans forward, wound in his leg forgotten, fear put out back. 

“I guess I’m telling.”

Benji ducks his head, as if shy. “I’m not like that.” He asserts. He sounds how he ought to — kindly assertive, but not defensive; humbled, but hurt. He sounds like it bothers him, what people think. That it wounds him. 

“At least not that I’ve seen.”

Benji takes a step closer. The private doesn’t seem concerned by the fact that the door — his one escape — is now on the other side of the medic. 

“I just,” Benji says, dragging from the end of the gurney to close his palm lightly around the soldier’s gauzed thigh. “Really am fulfilled making people feel better again. Like…making them feel good.” 

The private smiles at him, eyelashes fluttering. 

Benji smiles back. Then he squeezes.

Hard.

*

But he goes back to his quarters alone. Worse, he goes back to his quarters unsatisfied. There was no nice throb in his gut, no half-hard tightness to his trousers, no telling flush or sweaty neck or arousal of any fucking sort. Usually, he wouldn’t be alone. The private was exactly the sort who accompanied him — scared but intrigued, confused about the source of their need. 

And yet Benji had sent him off practically with a lollipop. Sure, the reopening of the gash in his legs had hurt — if his soulful shriek of pain was anything to go by — but that’s where the evening had found its end. Not in more pain, or a kiss to along with it, or more on top. 

He could have added threats. Another welt to go with the seatbelt criss-crossing his chest. The wounds: blade to the thigh, stripe of red along his sternum; Benji’s teeth printing his neck. 

Except.

Benji goes back to his quarters alone. Nothing lingers with him about that night, about the treatments. Not even that sad little sound that he’d rung out as if from a rag. Benji’s usually all about those sounds. Pain or pleasure, they meant a job well done, that he’d accomplished either. It was do no harm, after all, not do no pain. 

As for pleasure?

*

Midnight creeps by. Then one, then two. He lays still, for the most part, the length of those hours before his patience (thin, already, the mood he’s in) snaps entirely.

Benji sits up with a snarl, legs hanging over the side of the bed. He scrubs at his eyes. He’s getting —he’s remembering — and there aren’t any lovely sounds or flashy colors or sticky, wet insides to dance in front of those memories. He’s stuck with them for the moment, faint and blurry but there nonetheless, fuck. 

And then— 

He hears a laugh resound the length of the hall. It’s peppy but full, a winding sort of off-key at the end. For each second that it echoes on, that sort from the sort of humor that shocked, Benji’s foot taps quicker. 

What’s so funny, corporal? He thinks. Benji is no stranger to venomous thoughts, but the bitterness layered in that surprises him. Who’s making you laugh? Tell them they’re late on their physical, hey? Send them down. I wanna hear the joke, too. 

Benji tosses himself back on the bed. His thoughts bump around together: collide, bounce away, overlap, muddy up. One of the only consistents is a mess of red hair. That laugh lingering. He imagines it as a creature attached inside his ear. 

Benji slips his hand down his chest. Rests it there, finger pressed into the divot of an old bullet graze across his pectoral. It presses slightly. On that particular spot of tough scar tissue, the touch causes a strange sensation he’s never found a similar feeling. It’s almost like an ache. Almost like a nerve was reattached wrong in the healing process. Pressing down there makes something tug slightly beneath the skin, an almost hurt. 

Benji swallows and huffs out his air. Then he keeps the touch moving down. The slope of his stomach; hipbone; thigh. 

He’s quick about it. Or…it’s quick. He has a laugh stuck to the interior of his skull. The more he loses himself in the easy rhythm of his hand, eyes pinched shut so he can better connect to memory, the fainter that laugh gets. It turns instead to certain noises he’s heard before. Recently, in fact. The yelp from the soldier, he imagines as Xavier’s own higher whine. A little cry of pain, a swear or snarl with that messy accent. 

Benji imagines the heave of these noises in a warm chest. Skin under his palm. He imagines pressing down with his weight. Holding down. The stutter of the chest, a noise turned into a pitiful gasp for air.

In his mind, he lets up. The cruel — potentially lethal — fantasy lingers in the pricks of tears to green eyes, pinched-angry red nipples, a plummy bruise of incisors to his shoulder. But Benji feels the body beneath his pulls in a breath from that brief imagined mercy — 

Then he imagines it laughing. 

Holy shit, Xavier says in his head. That one kind of hurt. 

Benji’s — well. It’s quick, after that. 

*

The following week, Benji lingers after a briefing. The remainder of the company flow around him, trickling from the room like shadowy fish on a current. The number of soldiers at the base dwindles by day; they’re all aware of the ones who don’t come back from missions, who disappear after a meltdown by the commando, or leave in the middle of the night. Benji’d caught Tanaka at the far side just that Friday evening, shuffling some big-eyed redhead out a breach in the perimeter. He’d nudged her slightly behind him in some last-ditch show of heroics, but Benji had only shrugged and tapped his nose. 

His silence was another favor to collect on. Tanaka was smart enough to know it. 

Tanaka is also smart enough to pay little attention to Benji’s behavior. Their eyes briefly amongst the crowd, two pairs of dark pools magnetizing together before one bounces away. Always observing, that one. Benji was glad to have a pair of eyes when he’d need them, and even happier to know that Tanaka respected threats when they were given in earnest. Or implied. 

Benji gives him a cheeky little nod anyway. The other man disappears around the corner, a tail-end of the crowd of black uniformed bodies. And once everyone has gone, Benji goes back into the room. 

He knows Tanaka’s probably still waiting around that corner, protective but wary. 

I’m not gonna kick your dog, mate. Benji thinks as he strides across the room. Don’t you worry. 

His footfalls are quiet, but not silent. It doesn’t shock him to discover that the corporal is otherwise occupied, when he wrenches open the door to the meeting room’s supply attaché, as Nick calls them. Fucking supply closet, the rest.  

In the blurry darkness, Benji can make out the corporal’s tall form tucked into a corner. His back is to the door (sloppy), shoulders curled and head hung between them. Benji opens the door further;  light spills in near his boot. It does a wonderful job of illuminating, like a work of shadow art, the frantic movements of his wrist. But it also alerts Xavier to the fact that someone has discovered him in an incredibly compromising position.

Wouldn’t be the first time, Benji knows from rumor. It’ll have to be memorable. 

“Oh God,” Xavier whimpers, dropping his chin. He sees the yellow sliver of outside light and lets out a shocked yelp. “Don’t—“

Benji shuts the door behind him, casting them in pitch-black. Xavier stumbles, whirls around, shoots an arm out that nearly catches Benji in the face. He dodges it and then makes a guess whereabouts — 

“Jesus!” Xavier squeaks, making something fuzzy and predatory pound between Benji’s eyes. “I’m — I thought—“ 

“Relax.” Benji says, pulling himself towards Xavier with the grip he’s caught on his sleeve. His fingers trace up a slim wrist, find Xavier’s own palm. It’s slick and warm from arousal, the heat of his own body. 

“Just me.” 

Xavier goes quiet and then makes a similar sort of noise to just a moment prior. Except — hungrier. Weak. His big body sways towards Benji, an arm slinging around his shoulders. Xavier tucks his face almost immediately down, knocking their foreheads together. 

“In that case, I think it’s please don’t charge me with public indecency and more w-ooow you have such good timing.” 

Benji holds onto his forearm while Xavier leans back into the corner, his feet bracketing Benji’s boots and barely keeping himself upright. They knock together, one of the only indicators Benji has of their proximity. 

“You know people keep talking about the closet masturbator?”

Xavier freezes. His arm halts the lazy tug he’d taken back up. “They have?” 

“No.” Benji huffs after a beat. “But you fuckin’ believed me, huh. Nah, Xavier. Just saw you duck in here last week.” He leans in until he finds the coarse material of Xavier’s shirt. He tugs at the fabric with his teeth, then readjusts and catches skin with the next bite. Xavier squeaks again, then moans. 

“Oh. I—“

“Was doing this, huh?” Benji reaches between them to cover Xavier’s hand with his own. He squeezes. 

Hard.

 “Fuck.”

“Not quite. That what this is about, huh? You thinkin’ about it?”

“Yes.” Xavier admits. “I mean, no — it’s not what—“

“The sitrep, then?” Benji’s laugh is incredulously mean. “You get off going to boring ass meetings, Xavier — that’s fuckin’ pitiful.” 

He can’t see Xavier’s angry blush, his pinched expression of contrite, prissy annoyance. He wishes he could. But he can only feel the little throb in his hands, the way Xavier shuffles and tries to get closer even as he sounds angry.

“No, I am not fucking jacking it to the meeting, you asshole. God. You’ve done a lot of shit to me, but that insult might be..like, it.”

Benji squeezes him again, drags the touch along with Xavier’s hand upwards, trying to get his rhythm back. “You not feeling fulfilled, Xavier? Gotta come look for it among this lot? Two weeks in a row you come take care of it alone. That’s what you were doing last week, yeah? Not snortin’ blow or fucking around. You were alone.”

Xavier swallows audibly. His weak thrashes, his attempts at getting away — they halt. He makes a soft noise, and then those attempts redouble. Benji holds him still throughout the squirming. Benji allows it for a moment longer before switching both hands to Xavier’s biceps and firmly pinning him to the wall. 

He steps close enough that he knows the front of his shirt brushes up against very vulnerable skin. On cue, Xavier gasps and throws his head back with a resounding clang to the metal shelf behind him.

“Ah, fuck. You’re — you are awful close.” Xavier says nervously. He tries to move again. “I’m freaking out a little, here. I don’t like — it’s dark, this is a small —“ 

“Are you alone right now?” 

He imagines Xavier’s big, sweet eyes plink-plink together. 

“No.” The corporal breathes. He arches closer to Benji; his eyes haven’t adjusted to the light fully, but now he can make out Xavier’s towering silhouette before him.With his free hand, he reaches up to touch where Xavier’s mouth ought to be. Instead, they brush against a chin.

Benji adjusts and slips them inside, pressing and pulling down on Xavier’s tongue. 

“Were you last week?”

It sounds vitriolic. Angry. But Xavier doesn’t seem to mind the rough interrogation. 

“Yeah,” he admits. His own voice is shot through and rough with arousal. He sounds as though he’d been breathing hard right before Benji discovered him. He wonders how close the poor bastard is. How close he can get him, before he starts making more noises.

“You gonna be alone tonight?” 

Here, Xavier hesitates. Benji can tell there are eyes searching for his, even in the dark. 

“I don’t need to be.” Xavier finally settles on, the words hot around Benji’s fingers. He pulls them from Xavier’s mouth and curls a fist in his shirt. 

“Then you won’t.” He says. With a hard yank, Benji pulls their faces together. Expectedly, they collide off-course. He feels his gums split in his mouth, the taste of copper as his lip connects with Xavier’s jaw. 

From there, though, it’s not a difficult adjustment. Their mouths fit together, Xavier’s breathy noises intoxicating him from the inside out as he swallows them down with each kiss. 

When Benji thrusts a hand into his hair, Xavier’s chest heaves out of sync. 

“I’m going to —“

“No.”

Xavier’s mouth drops open against his cheek. He wails a little, clearly trying to keep his voice down. Benji dares anyone to come investigate those noises; he assumes that is what Xavier’s scared of, but he’d sooner kill than share those noises with another soul. 

“Not until you come see me tonight.” Benji purrs against his throat. He bites down, front teeth digging in to a sharp collarbone, and Xavier hiccups a telling sob. “No pun intended.” 

*

He makes it quick for Xavier. Or — it’s quick. 

He’s barely got his hand around that pale cock before Xavier’s breath hitches. The noises he lets loose are uncharacteristically quiet, few and far between. Benji gets a strange, crushing disappointment in his chest before he realizes why. 

When the orgasm passes, Xavier’s eyes flutter back from his skull and settle wetly on Benji. His hand strokes up and down Benji’s forearm, where a tendon is still taut from the firm grip he maintains. His breathing returns to normal, the heave of his chest all that remains of the particularly strong orgasm.

“Your hand felt too good,” Xavier whines this explanation, his tone sweet and sleepy and shy. Benji thinks back to the prior month, where he’d watch Xavier pummel a man to death. Until his teeth were stuck with blood, until the creature that lived in him shone out through his eyes. His stomach flips, but it’s an alien sensation he can’t compare to anything else — like the press of his thumb into that divoted scar.

*

Xavier is eager. He likes to play games when they’re fun and when they’re dangerous. It’s barely any work at all to get him to agree to the little wager Benji sets out, once they’ve both cum another time and have melded together sticky. Xavier agrees to his dare with an adorable, competitive snicker. 

“That’ll be easy,” he says, crossing an X over the left side of his chest with a finger. “With that reward? Pft. Not even a challenge.” 

But he doesn’t sound sure; Benji has been a first-hand witness to the ways that the corporal approaches sex: ready, willing, happy to be there and find attention lavished upon him. Even if however brief. Even despite Benji’s teasing of his appetite, his proclivities, his lack of will power when it came to getting himself off…Xavier simply smiles at him, head cocked and eyes glinting. 

Can touch yourself ‘til we see each other again, but not finish. I’ll handle it for you, if you can —but I bet not. 

“How long will you be gone” is only a question Xavier thinks to ask after he’s agreed to the terms of the dare. And when he sees the smug, victorious look on Benji’s face — well. He seems a little fearful, a little needy. 

*

It’s a week Benji’s away. A mission he gets assigned to, rather than waiting duty back on base. He knows it’s only because their numbers have dropped so low. He knows he’s a liability out here, as likely to hurt an ally as a foe if the mood struck. He knows that’s why every soul up to the commander avoid him, try to keep him off rosters. 

“Spooky fucker,” one of the bomb-unit boys mutters as he passes by. Benji is in a good mood. Instead of whirling with the knife tucked in his belt, opening up the other soldier’s throat, Benji simply smiles. 

“Boo,” he says, widening his eyes. He has, as Nick would say, une récompense waiting. All he’s gotta do is behave.

*

Lately, Benji’s been real good at behaving. 

Except when he returns to base, he’s faced with a bit of a problem. Tanaka finds him in the equipment space, storing his dusty pack for the next time they need a butcher on-field. 

He knows immediately something is wrong. 

“While you were all gone, there was a breach — not my spot, don’t fucking look at me like that. Someone tried to get to the commander, and Xavier—he’s asking for you.”

“Aw.” Benji pouts. “He needs a little home visit?” 

As he goes to leave, Tanaka’s hand closes around his wrist. Benji could turn that touch immediately, break his fingers, break his wrist — maybe keep going up the arm. He coldly turns back to the other soldier, instead. 

“Whatever the fuck you’re doing to him, it’s gotta stop.” Tanaka hisses. “I had to convince him to let somebody look at him. Got fucked up in that fight, protecting everybody. And he just kept saying you’d take care of him. That you’d do it.”

Benji allows himself to be shaken. His face remains neutral. 

“Whatever you’re doing,” Tanaka growls. “It’s gotta end soon. Do you hear me, man? I will kill you.”

Benji smiles at him instead of responding. The big ones are all bark. The little ones go for a bite — then return for seconds. He 

*

Benji finds him exactly where Tanaka told him he could be found; sat atop one of the exam stations in medical, close to Benji’s usual haunt. Xavier has an arm in a wrapped bandage, tattoos peeking out from the top of the blood-pinked gauze. There’s a knot developing on his temple, his lip has managed to split again, and a bruise develops like a blossom on his jaw.

Benji whistles as he enters the clinic. The corporal’s smiling before his eyes even rise fully from the ground. 

Then it drops into a glare. 

“You fucker. You didn’t say a week.”

“Had it handed to you, huh Wolffe?” Benji sing-songs, ignoring him. “Look more roughed up than usual. Problems focusing will do that.”

“I’m not having trouble focusing—“

Benji fits his tongue to the side of his cheek, gesturing lewdly in the air between them. He tops it off by frowning and miming flaccidity with his finger. 

“Fuck you.” Xavier grumbles, cheeks heating. 

“Ooh,” Benji cooes. “Proper grumpy, huh?”

After a perfunctory wash of his hands, he turns to the supply cabinet and retrieves a new roll of gauze and some other tools. The box of gloves he debates on — then tucks surreptitiously under his arm. “You know, you didn’t have to wait.” 

Xavier’s cool, intelligent eyes follow him as he moves; its not the same wariness as Nick, or the hateful fear-touched ice of Tanaka. Specific to Xavier, specific to Xavier’s eyes on him. 

“You asked.” 

Benji drops his armful of goodies on the rolling tray beside the gurney and pulls it closer. He steps between Xavier’s knees. They widen slightly to offer space — Benji feels saliva pool in his mouth at how quick and habitual it seems. 

You asked. The implication: I obeyed.  

“I said.” Benji corrects evenly. “Seems like you just interpreted it as a request, hey?” His head tilts coyly so he can peer up at Xavier while still unwrapping everything. Surprise, surprise: ruddy splotches of color have flooded the corporal’s cheeks. “Or— or a command? Xavier. Nasty. You wanted that?”

Xavier scoots forward. His long legs tuck around the back of Benji’s thighs, ankles locked. He glares at Benji, regardless of the warm contact of their bodies or sneaky climb of a broad hand up Benji’s side. 

“I wanted you,” Xavier says. The clarification drops a hot weight of arousal into Benji’s stomach, even if he knows that snide half-grin and fluttering lashes are purposeful. 

Benji takes his jaw roughly, without warning. His fingers dig in to softly stubbled skin. This touch earns a gasp — and then the other hand Benji fits over his thigh earns another. 

“Bullshit,” Benji purrs, bringing their faces together as if he’s going to grant a benevolent kiss. “You just wanted to cum. Sick fuckin’ dog. Couldn’t even wait a week, huh?” He shakes Xavier’s head, squeezing those adorable freckled cheeks before letting go. “Oughta be ashamed.”

Xavier’s face floods with more color, but those big excited eyes don’t stray from Benji. He’s too earnest when he speaks: “I’m not.” 

Another flip of his stomach, alien in sensation only because of the context — intimate, truthful, soft. Benji already lets Xavier hold him, when he’s given the opportunity to linger after one of the explosive times they slip away together. Benji already lets him do so many things he shouldn’t; make enough allowances and something will go soft. Spoil. Not in the good sort of rotting way. 

Benji ignores that gentle admission, the hand tucked beseechingly into his waistband to touch skin. He wipes sterile his supplies and is meticulous about setting them out, ready and available for whatever wounds Xavier’s been hiding. Maimed creature under the porch sort. 

“Fuckin’ stupid for not letting anybody look at you.” Benji notes, gesturing to the half-hearted gauze wrapped around his arm. “You do that?” 

Xavier glances down at it. “Yeah. Learned watching you.” 

Benji snorts. “That so? Well you’ll be ready for the big leagues soon, right?” He starts a slow unwind of the wrapping, fingers electrified whenever they brush skin. “Nick’s the surgery guy. Bet he’ll let you sit in, watch ‘em fish some shrapnel out of guts— if that’s so interesting.” 

His wrist is suddenly enclosed in a tight grip. When he peeks up at Xavier’s face, its stony and disgusted. “Stop fucking with me.”

“Stop showin’ up and making yourself a target,” Benji sing-songs back. When he gets at the wound along Xavier’s forearm, he pouts; it’s nearly all healed. The edges of the laceration — from a serrated blade, just a light enough swipe not to tear — aren’t even pink with inflammation. 

“Boring.” 

Xavier laughs at his yawn. “Man, can you be normal even for a second? You can just get me some Tylenol, an ice pack for my head maybe. Call it a day.” 

Benji leans forward and spreads his hands on either side of Xavier’s hips. The taller man sits upright a little more, eyes widening. Every possible point of contact between them drifts closer, but Benji is careful about keeping them separate. Just close enough. Just almost there. Hasn’t that been the whole point? 

“Would that make you feel better, corporal? Gettin’ taken care of?” He asks, voice dropped low enough Xavier needs to sway forward to hear each word. “Wanna bandaid for your booboos? Want me to kiss it better?” 

Xavier lets out a shaky breath. “I want—”

The snap of a glove fills the room. It’s loud and unexpected enough a noise  that Xavier jumps. His whole form twitches between Benji’s arms, shoulders pulling up to his ears before relaxing. 

“Jumpy bastard.” Benji notes, a fond note unfolding alongside the mean tease. “How’d you even manage it, a fight? All scared and…” he glances down to Xavier’s lap. “On edge.” 

“I’m very good at what I do.” Xavier mumbles defensively. 

“Hm.” Benji tsks. That hiss between his teeth nearly covering the soft snap! the button on Xavier’s black trousers offers. “Me too.” 

Before he’s even snuck a hand down that split fabric, knuckles grazing the zipper, Xavier falls back on his elbows. He nearly careens over the opposite side of the gurney, and Benji has to swallow a laugh at the shocked yelp that escapes him. The legs stuck around his waist tighten as Xavier adjusts for balance, shuffling closer. Benji shoves his shirt up his stomach to watch how it ripples with breath, abdomen taut with the long stretch of his body. 

“Oh. Thought I was gettin’ medical attention.” Xavier finds his voice to snark. “Guess this isn’t as professional an establishment as I thought.” 

Benji leans forward to drag teeth over his hipbone, tugging the fabric down until it bunches at the thighs. He’s unwilling to move further away to take them off entirely, but Xavier doesn’t seem to mind either; he kicks his long legs, finds them mostly trapped, and then whimpers pathetically. 

“How often?” 

This doesn’t receive a response right away: Benji’s pulling on the nitrile exam gloves. Each careful movement as his hands are covered is carefully monitored by Xavier. Green eyes darkened, lids heavy, lips parted.

“Are you going to jack me off with those.” He says intelligently. 

Benji can’t help the amused snort. “I’m unprofessional?”

“It’s been a week.” 

Even without prior knowledge, even if that had been an admission — Benji can tell. He can tell because when he wraps his hand around the half-hard cock between Xavier’s legs, they kick. 

“Oh fuck—“ Xavier goes, in that tell-tale way. Benji snorts again, mean and judgmental, and tightens his fist around the base. 

“Naw, mate. Really. That’s just embarrassing, isn’t it?” Despite this, Benji strokes once. Just once. But firmly enough Xavier throws his head back.

“Seven days!” He squeaks. His hand shoots up to wrap around Benji’s wrist, tugging at him pathetically. Trying to get more — trying to get enough. 

“Benji —come on, man.” 

“Dunno,” Benji hesitates. His free hand lifts to Xavier’s thigh. He digs fingernails in to the muscle. Hard, hard — until Xavier whines and tries to twist away from that grip. “How’d I know you kept your word?”

“I did,” the corporal promises weakly. He’s already close to begging; his head’s tossed back again. Pretty auburn hair frames in a loose sweaty curl around the shell of his ear. Benji fixates there for a moment, at the bruise near his temple. His fingernails dig into Xavier’s thigh more, other fist squeezing around Xavier’s rapidly filling erection. 

“I promise. Not a — I didn’t — the whole time—”

“Hm.” Benji murmurs. He goes for thoughtful. He goes for benevolent. “You sayin’ you deserve it, Wolffe? You deserve one real good one? You been good, s’what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” Xavier whines. He’s barely been touched, but when his chin drops to his chest Benji can see tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. 

“You’re not sayin’ it.” 

The poor bastard’s face goes so red Benji imagines him exploding in a shower of viscera. He nods desperately, then swallows to find his voice. 

“I’m —I’ve been good.” 

“Again.” Benji starts a slow rhythm. “You’re what?” 

“I’ve — I’m good.” Xavier whisper-whines, his eyes fluttering quickly as Benji’s wrist picks up speed. “Oh, fuck. M’good.” 

One, two, three— at four pumps, Benji slows. At five, he stops entirely. 

Xavier reacts. His whole body shudders, shoulderspulling back as he drops forward. He makes an angry, mournful sort of noise, heels tapping incessantly and mad behind Benji’s back. 

The corporal is not know to be a patient man. Benji has heard stories — and witnessed, on more than one occasion — how he gets when that thread has gone thin. When it snaps. Properly frustrated, Xavier is lethal. Properly mad? Another story entirely. Lethal would be a blessing. 

Benji nudges their foreheads together to find his eyes; they’re seething, burning. And yet he doesn’t move. He doesn’t shove Benji away. He takes a big breath, rubs his nose along Benji’s, lets out a hitching sound from his chest. 

The tears start up properly. 

“Please?” Xavier whines. When Benji doesn’t offer a response, simply observes, the meltdown begins. “Please — please. I was good. I did what you said. You can’t just — that’s cruel, you can’t. I waited. I didn’t — I just need—“ 

Need. Yeah. That’s what it is, the illumination behind the tears and bright green irises under the clinic’s harsh light. It’s need, behind the frustration and genuine anger and (humiliatingly, to Xavier) desperation. 

Benji is, by some force too brutal and big and grotesque to name, dropped to his knees. He pulls Xavier to the end of the gurney, letting go of his thigh for only a moment to find the lever that lowers it. Xavier’s boots thump the ground. Now his lap is a decent height for Benji to press his cheek to skin he’d bruised with fingernails. He rubs his face there, breathing hard as he swipes his tongue over the purpling crescents. He keeps it out, saliva pooling once more, as he tugs Xavier with more purpose and finesse. 

“I’ll blow you next time,” Benji says matter-of-factly. It’s not an offer. Not a promise. He’s going to. He will. No question, no command. “You can cum on me.”

Xavier’s mouth drops open. His eyes pop wide and then squeeze shut and then Benji can’t make out the rest of the expression that follows because his head goes slack on his neck, totally weightless. His bottom half lifts off the gurney entirely, hips punching up just a few times before he lets go — not just of the long-delayed uncoiling of an orgasm, but of a noise. Unlike the random private, it sinks into him; as if his chest is porous, permeable, waiting to be filled. 

It’s not the only sound — Xavier’s slick in his hand, gets messier and downright filthy as he chases more of the touch. He’s not even fully hard when he comes. Benji wonders if it hurts like that. Hopes so. Xavier likes a little of the hurt.

Benji pulls away; he waits until Xavier glances back down at him to drag his tongue between his fingers, along the black material. 

“Jesus?” Xavier pants. His hand lifts — but its the elbow keeping him propped and upright, so he starts to fall backwards. Benji gets an arm around his waist as he rises, stepping between Xavier’s knees again. He pulls the gloves off while Xavier recovers his breath. Those green eyes follow them in the arc towards the trash.

“All better?”

Xavier snaps to him. He looks — Benji doesn’t want to break him open, in that moment. He just wants to watch. His torso is slick with sweat, a decently messy splatter of cum across a pale stomach. Benji reaches out to touch it, spread his hand through it…and stops. 

Always observant, the corporal notices this hesitation. His doped smile slips off to be replaced by a pinched brow. 

“Was that too quick?” He asks, gathering himself up. He yanks his shirt down, shoulders rounding. 

“Certainly wasn’t a long while, was it?” Benji teases. He jerks at the air again, wide motions of his elbow. “Weren’t long enough to gimme a cramp, so. Thanks for that, s’pose.” 

Xavier’s expression doesn’t soften. Or change at all. Benji feels that thread thin; an awareness of the corporal’s mood has engrained in him, embedded like shrapnel beneath the skin. He might ask Nick to dig around, just in case it’s really there. Fuck. 

“Do you even—“ Xavier croaks. He sounds pathetic. “I mean. I know…I know this isn’t normal. It’s…” he takes a shuddering breath. “It’s not good. I know that. I’m not fucking stupid. But do you even —”

Benji’s hands snap up to frame his face. The touch is anything but gentle; his palms fit there, anyway. They’re eye-level with the gurney lowered, with Xavier sat. He seems shy about the sudden intimacy. Or maybe the fact that his pants are still undone, that he’s still vulnerable and exposed in another fashion than this desperate request for clarity. 

“I take care of you,” Benji asserts. “Me, alright.”

He drops one side of Xavier’s burning face to reach for the gauze, some antiseptic. One handed, wrapping a fresh protective layer around the healing gash on Xavier’s arm is a bit of a challenge, even for him. He’s not looking, either. He maintains that prickling eye contact, focus drooping to Xavier’s mouth for only a moment: when he draws in a sharp gasp as the gauze is pulled tight. 

Benji is gentle about it otherwise, even if the fingers of the hand cupping Xavier’s cheek pinch in, dig crescents to match the ones on his thigh. 

“You.” Xavier breathes when he’s done.

“Come see me tonight?”

The corporal nods dreamily. He looks fuzzier in the eyes than a moment before, when pleasure had spaced him out entirely. Because it’s a question, not a command. Come see me— do you even —

What, Benji wonders. Care? Dunno. But I’m satisfied.

#writing #bp #xw #bp x xw #evil au #ok. i have no explanation for this it has just been awhile since i touched this au and its disgusting im SORRY

[rain-bowss]

#easter #christmas #pastel #little twin stars #xw

[hauntedjpegcollection]

elbows off

wc: 2741 au: exorcist au ch: lark, xavier, benji, tino

Gravel crunches underneath the car tires as it pulls into the rest stop diner parking lot—Xavier can tell just from a glance it’s the shitty kind. Sticky floors, tired waitress that refills acid black coffee without needing to be asked, a radio that weakly plays all the country hits and Christian rock exclusives. Back drop for a crime thriller, as abandoned as the surrounding area is. There’s trees on all sides, one road that just keeps going and going and going into a darkness that feels opaque and physical. A solitary flood light winks in the night, more illuminated than the hidden moon behind fat, gray clouds.

“Wicked fuckin’ place,” Xavier whispers, leaning forward with his hands spread over the dashboard. The inside reminds him of a lonesome painting, yellow washed with a faint blinking neon pink sign above it. There is only one other car in the lot and there is only one person inside as well.

“I love that about you,” Lark replies in a quiet voice. He cuts the engine, pockets the keys.

“Boston accent?”

“You appreciate everything like it’s something special.”

There is a pause not altogether awkward, but not nearly as comfortable as silences had once been between the two men. Xavier’s hands slowly slide away from the dashboard and land on his thighs. He’s in denim and a plaid button up that has holes at the elbows. It’s cold outside, but he doesn’t have a jacket yet. He’s tired from the drive even though he’d just been a passenger the entire time. He’s tired from the crying that came before the drive and the phone call to his parents that had made the crying happen in the first place—and he’s tired mostly because he’s not sure he’s doing the right thing anymore.

Or what the right thing even is.

But Lark leans over and slings an arm around his shoulder. His tattooed hand fists into rust colored hair and shakes. The wobbling of Xavier’s head blooms dizziness that makes the world feel momentarily surreal. They’re both smiling then, the only light source the flickering flood light and diner in front of them. The dark pools of Lark’s eyes are so familiar even though they have been absent from Xavier’s life for so long.

He leans across the center console and yanks them closer into a hug.

Then Xavier’s stomach growls loudly and Lark’s laugh is so loud in his ear, it almost hurts. But they don’t stop hugging, even as the laughter turns nearly to crying.

—

A little bell tolls above his head when Xavier walks through the doors. The plastic edges create a popping suction and then scrape across the tiled floor as the glass doors slowly close behind him. The smell of greasy food and coffee is so potent that his nose wrinkles automatically—he suppresses a sneeze, but just barely. The lone waitress behind the counter glances up. Xavier raises a hand and then points to a figure all the way in the corner. He’s used to the good hospitality of New England, meaning Xavier figures she’ll leave him alone.

Instead, she comes out from behind the counter with a laminated menu. Her smile is tired, but welcoming. She has pretty wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and startling white teeth. The beaten up, aged name tag pinned to her chest says DARLA. Xavier asks for a soda, and doesn’t even need the menu for his food order.

“Well, I like a man that knows what he wants right away,” Darla coos, swatting his shoulder with the menu she takes back from him. “Go on, sweetie, I’ll bring it out in a minute.”

Maybe its the friendliness that puts him on edge as he walks down the lonely, empty diner. He isn’t used to friendliness, is he? Xavier’s shoulders curl upward, as if remembering the harsh hand that fed him prior to—well. Prior to Lark coming and saving him, bleached blond white knight with lock picks. Maybe it’s the waitress. Maybe it’s easy to blame her (and it’s certainly easier on his traumatized mind, that doesn’t want to think about the other things easier to blame), but it’s also Benji.

Xavier stands a few feet away, staring at the dark silhouette in the corner booth. Nervousness rises in him; he imagines himself a glass half full. One part all the mixing’s of Xavier Wolffe and the other part this intense, storm like anxiety that mixes poorly. Mint’s in a coke bottle sort of situation. Benji’s back is to him, which might be a blessing. But it also lets Xavier stand there and linger.

His black curly hair looks windswept, as if the short walk from the van to the diner had been a perilous journey. It’s messy in a tousled way that looks undeniably pretty. Strands stick up here and there, like little snakes trying to escape. Benji’s shoulders curve, almost protectively inward as he sits there, staring down at his phone. Xavier unconsciously swipes a paw through his own hair, worried about how he looks. His tongue feels slightly numb.

“Behind you, sweetie.” Darla’s hand touches his lower back, making him launch into the air with a high pitched sound. She pays that no attention as she flutters by and sets a glass wet with condensation down onto the diner table. Xavier tries to get his heart to work properly with a fist rubbing furiously on his sternum, but then Benji glances back over his shoulder. He must have been expecting Lark, because his dark eyes start somewhere in the middle of Xavier’s chest.

Then they slowly, very slowly rise.

 An electric jolt pins him there as Darla scoots around him, once more touching his side and making Xavier feel a sickly, unwanted peal of nerves. His teeth stay glued together so he doesn’t snap like some fucking injured street dog, but he isn’t sure he can handle that once more, so instead he quickly goes for the opposite side of the table. Xavier slides in, knees knocking and nearly sending his drink and Benji’s off.

He looks up to find Benji’s hand steadying both of them. The sleeves of his jacket have pushed up slightly, almost to forearm and Xavier can see little patchwork tattoos here and there. His mouth returns to feeling dry and numb, but he isn’t sure why. Benji retreats just as slowly as his gaze had taken Xavier in, until he’s slouched back in the seat, one hand still cupped around a mug of smoky smelling coffee.

“Lark is outside,” Xavier explains.

“Didn’t ask,” Benji replies, with a bit of a curl to his lip. He looks tired, or maybe that’s just the weighted effort of scowling all the time. Benji has never smiled at Xavier, not a real one anyway (and nothing like that wide open smile he gives Lark sometimes when they think it’s just the two of them, when Xavier is on the outskirts, looking in). There is always a mean sort of glint to him in every interaction—not that they’ve had many. When Lark had shown up, tall red headed stray behind him, Benji had—better not to linger on what Xavier had caught Benji saying to The Priest. It only gave value to Xavier’s own doubts. His fears that Lark was making the wrong choice, that he was making the wrong choice, that something was wrong about all this.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” Xavier mutters under his breath, reaching for his drink. The cool glass feels slimy to the touch. They’d had snacks on the drive. It had felt like a real road trip, with a good mixture of both music they enjoyed, chips and candies. Xavier’s stomach feels unsettled. He isn’t even sure who is paying for their meal here, so he feels even more nervous about the burger he’d ordered. Maybe he shouldn’t have.

“Thrilled, really, mate. Bells and whistles. Cheers.” He leans forward to clink his mug harshly against Xavier’s soda and then drains the rest of the coffee.

“You ever not acting like a stuck up asshole?” Xavier hisses, arms crossing over the table. He immediately takes up too much room and he notices—he can’t not notice—the subtle shift in Benji’s body language. The way he just barely leans back, retracts his arms just slightly. The small attempt to put even more space between them. Xavier’s heart sinks low into his stomach, where it burns the worst.

How much Benji must dislike him, to want even a centimeter extra of space.

“Maybe when you stop lookin’ like a sad abandoned puppy.” Benji’s voice is equally as acidic, but it’s cold toned. Even. Xavier’s lips curl back from his teeth, his eyes narrowed to slits.

“Enunciate,” Xavier draws the word out, making his hand a puppet to speak alongside. “If I have to be around you, talk without marbles so I can understand you.” Benji’s laugh is a surprised, harsh bark.

“’Ave you heard yourself, mate?”

“You—”

“Here we go, boys.”

Darla’s sudden appearance pops the unbelievably hot tension broiling between the two. Xavier practically flings himself backward to give the waitress space to put down the plated food. His heart goes off rhythm in his chest again, battering ram against all of his ribs. He didn’t even notice how sweaty his hands were until he’s rubbing them self consciously across denim clad thighs. The burger looks undeniably good, the kind of food you find at a hidden gem sort of spot.

A plate of fries gets put in front of Benji. He gives Darla a quick mumbled ‘thank you’. Manners, at least for a stranger.

“Y’all let me know if you need anything.” She gives them both a secretive smile and Xavier’s cheeks prickle with heat at the realization that she could probably hear them arguing. Benji seems equally as sour about it, chin tilted down to stare at crispy looking fries. He has dark, heavy brows that pull together the moodiness of his expression and features. His cheekbones are tinted darker with blush, eyes sleepy and annoyed. He is handsome, admittedly. Benji has a defined nose that makes him unique—soft looking facial hair that Xavier imagines would feel nice on the back of his knuckles.

He’s quick about picking up the burger and biting into it. His cheeks continue to burn.

Lark had abandoned him, just like Benji had said. Like a puppy, tossed into this diner with someone who is mostly a stranger. A hostile one, no less. Whatever long conversation he has with the priest outside, in the parking lot, was it worth this amount of awkward tension? Was Xavier being unfair? He bites into the burger with more viciousness and watches Benji’s face turn slowly in further annoyance.

“Don’t you have a coat?”

“What?” Xavier is shocked by the question, mouth half full of burger.

“Whatever,” Benji snaps. He still hasn’t eaten any of his fries. So Xavier leans over, slowly, deliberately. He picks one up and then tosses it into his mouth. He smiles as he does, to further watch Benji’s expression turn. His brows furrow harder, create lines between them. His nose scrunches, his mouth sets in a furious line. Xavier chews harder, feeling strangely victorious in that moment.

Until a booted foot connects with his inner thigh. Xavier’s eyes pop as Benji slouches harder in the booth. He looks wicked and annoyed and pleased to be bothering him. The pressure on his leg widens his knees, the mean touch sends a shiver up and down his spine in a way that crashes across the inside of his skull. He has to clear his throat and take a sip of his soda before he can come up with something nasty or clever or some action to make Benji feel just as—actually, Benji had probably intended for the action to make him feel angry but instead of anger, some sort of hunger sits inside him. Nothing to do with food.

Fuck you sits hot and ready behind his teeth after the carbonation of his drink, until Tino is suddenly sweeping into the side of the booth next to him. Xavier makes a noise that is not at all intentional, slaps a napkin over his mouth and slides even further to the other end of the booth. Benji’s boot knocks against his knee and then swiftly retreats as Lark sits down beside him, looking exhausted.

“Elbows off the table,” Tino chastises in a good natured voice, putting his hat down in front of him. He checks a watch on his wrist, handsome face pulled into a bit of a concerned expression. Lark had told Xavier that he would be debating on continuing the drive home or stopping to get a motel. Xavier didn’t have money for a room, so he was praying they kept driving.

“Yes, sir,” he mumbles in a quiet, respectful voice as he tucks his elbows off and to his side. His eyes flicker to Benji, whose mouth is now set in a deeply satisfied grin. The anger returns in a hot current, straight from his lower stomach and up his sternum, so Xavier kicks his own leg forward. Lets his dirty military boot sit directly next to Benji. He taps his thigh once, twice until a hand snatches around his ankle and shoves it further.

“Are you guys playing footsie under the table?” Lark asks in an incredulously entertained voice, so loud that it feels like it echoes the entire silent diner. Xavier hears Darla laughing somewhere and he immediately removes his foot. It lands on the linoleum floor with a loud smacking sound. Benji’s face turns an even darker shade of red, something that is so gorgeous looking under the harsh white light of the midnight diner. He gently slides the fries toward Lark, who looks instantly intrigued.

Xavier’s burger remains half finished.

—

Outside, there is a bit of a fuss at the van Benji and Tino are driving. Lark jumps in place, his breath fogging outside his mouth. Xavier stands beside him, not necessarily touched by the cold just yet. His plaid shirt is long sleeved, but not the length he usually likes, to tuck over his scarred knuckles. Even though there is a hole in the knee of his jeans, he doesn’t feel the bite of the wind just yet. But he does want to get back into the car. He wants it to just be him and Lark again, so he feels safe once more.

The van door closes with a loud sound, not necessarily a slam but close enough. Tino is grinning when he approaches them—it’s something knowing and soft. Xavier likes Tino. He liked him before he even met him, just from the stories Lark had told alone, but now he really likes Tino. Priests were a comfort for a Catholic, even if that faith was mostly fractured these days.

“Here,” the older man says, holding something out for Xavier.

“Uh,” he replies thoughtlessly as he takes the jacket. It’s a worn in, black denim. When he takes it, Xavier resists putting it under his nose, because he’s curious. His mother had always chastised him for leading life with his nose. There is the faintest tang of nicotine and something else, though, even just holding it. The scent is so oddly familiar. “Thanks—I’m sorry, Tino. I can—I’ll get my own stuff when we—”

“Pah!” He waves a gloved hand, laughing. “Benji never wears that one anymore, don’t worry.” Xavier’s fingers curl harder into the jacket. His eyes slide over Tino’s shoulder and to the van, but it’s too dark to see inside. The floodlight flickers, nearly going out once more, to shroud them all in the night.

“Aw,” Lark wraps an arm around Xavier’s waist, tugging them together. “What the fuck? I’m glad you guys are getting along. I told you Benji is a good guy.” Tino’s face turns to a bemused expression as he and Xavier look at each other once more (like they share a secret in that moment, that will be figured out soon down the road), then he’s waving and turning back to the van.

Xavier doesn’t put the jacket on, but…when he falls asleep on the last leg of the car ride, it’s squished between his cheek and the car window like a pillow.

#writing #exorcist au #lt #xw #bp #tl #xw x bp #this rewrite cured me