#i cant believe i write this shit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hauntedjpegcollection · 13 days

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most of freedom and of pleasure

wc: 18,571 au: band au ch: benny, maran

Benny’s alarm wakes him up at 5:35 AM precisely. It’s not hard to get out of bed—maybe he’s always secretly been a morning person. Maybe it’s easy because he’s not that good at sleeping.

Either way, pale, tattooed legs swing out of his bed. Bare feet land on a messy floor and he stands. Yawning, stretching, slapping a hand down on his desk for the phone squawking incessantly. Weak city light, polluted fat with fog, streams in from his cracked window and he blinks at it. The silence feels unearthly, a subtle ringing in his left ear making it worse. It’s early enough even New York City is asleep, it seems. A cooing pigeon rests on his windowsill, fat off the sunflower seeds he sprinkles there.

He has a simple routine, usually. He’s up and into the bathroom to brush his teeth and frown at the yellowing stains from nicotine, the crooked bottom row that make his smile creepy. He showers in a brutally efficient way, double washing his hair and still managing to get angry later when it’s greasy and messy no matter what he does. Then he’s dressing in his bedroom, going down to the bodega on the street corner to get a breakfast sandwich and shoot shit with Rupesh until the sandwich is nothing but crumbs on his fingertips. Finally, Benny will clock in at whatever menial job the security agency has stuck him with between tours.

This morning is different. Instead, Benny’s toiletries are packed. He grimaces and rinses with mouthwash, unable to shake the fuzzy feeling on his teeth. Mentally apologizes for anyone he has to interact with today. He dresses in travel clothes; comfortable sweatpants and an oversized crewneck sweater he’s almost certain he stole from Xavier since he’s not from Boston and he doesn’t give a fuck about the Bruins.

The living room is a lonely bachelor’s disaster. Paperback books sit everywhere, fraying with broken spines and dog eared pages. DVD’s stack up beside a TV that is slightly crooked and if on, would have a little cluster of dead pixels. His clothes are tossed haphazardly because Benny has always been the worst about actually putting them into the hamper, no matter how diligent he was about washing them. The couch sags on one end, overstuffed with pillows and a blanket that’s worn through with use. Sometimes he sleeps there instead of his own bed; not like it matters, no one was ever there to share anyway.

Benny stands in it all for a moment, surveying the scene with an almost odd detachment. He wanders to a shelf on the wall, slowly petting two fingers on a statue of a cat he’d stolen on a date with Isaac. The paint has flaked off completely between the ears, right where he ritualistically pets it every single time he comes or goes. There’s dust on the shelves that he should clean.

Benny shoulders a duffle bag he’d left out the night before, yanks a half broken suitcase out into the hallway with him.

“You were too damn loud last night!” His neighbor screams at him, sitting in a plastic chair out front her unit. She’s an absolute crone, with beady eyes and a hateful expression and probably not a single person in her life who loves her. In her lap is a dying potted plant that must never see any light other than the fluorescents above them in the apartment complex hallway. Benny ruminates that even she has something living with her and finds it in himself to be bitter about it.

His usual retort would be to tell Angelica to go fuck herself, crazy old fucking bat. But, it’s not a usual day. Instead, he waves her off, already tapping a cigarette from his pack and sliding it behind his ear for safe keeping as he avoids the lift that never works. Benny struggles his way down the stairs and into the lobby that always reeks of wet dog. He uses his phone to call a car, routes it for the airport. Fully prepares to expense that to his agency.

It’s time to go back on tour and leave New York behind.

He feels like a ghost lingering there on the sidewalk and indeed he looks like one too. With his pale hair and his pale skin and his pale eyes—even his shadow stretches long and gray on the sidewalk, instead of black.

— THE BEGINNING OF TOUR —

“Benji’s friend is gonna be our temp guitarist.”

Mouse is filthy drunk—which means he has to carry her. For a girl who couldn’t weigh more than one-thirty soaking wet, she’s an awful handful. Looking down at her—at the mop of her brown hair, at the smattering of freckles on her nose, the wetness of past tears on her pinked cheeks—Benny cannot help the desire to bury his face into her, to hold her and squeeze her and keep her safe. He doesn’t, thankfully but he supposes he’s a little drunk himself (she had been buying at the bar after all, and seemed convinced there was no limit on her credit card), but he’d also just done his re-clearance test for the security agency, so he’s also drunk off being the one they let protect these fragile little musicians.

“Benji’s got f-friends?”

“Hah!” Mouse cackles as she squirms. His arm underneath the crux of her knees barely keeps her still, his other clamped tight around her shoulders. She’s monstrous about her wiggling, determined and vicious. He does not budge at all. “Fuck you—put me down—you—you fucking cracker.”

It’s his turn to cackle, stumbling his way back toward the hotel Bunny had sprung for this spoiled crew. If anyone saw them maybe they’d think he was kidnapping a disgruntled teenager; but he doesn’t really care. The night seems endlessly dark and effortlessly long and just for the two of them. Mouse was one of his favorites, next to Matilda. And she’d tucked in early for the night, which was probably translatable to, sorry have to go fuck my exceedingly hot, talented, emo boyfriend in our hotel room.

It was nice to be alone, just the two of them. Mouse wasn’t fully recovered from whatever had happened last tour—or half the tour, since it had ended early. And he didn’t want her alone, alone, as in actually alone and drunk in a bar just by herself. Seemed like trouble—and he was the only security who was actually there yet. Tino would be in tomorrow and Xavier wouldn’t be there until the first show in Massachusetts, opening night. Besides, he liked listening to her ramble.

“Pero, fuck that guy, you know? I swear, I’m off guys forever—no offense.”

“None t-taken, I dunno if I qualify s-sometimes.”

When they make it into the hotel, the night auditor blinks at them. Benny jostles Mouse around in his arms enough to lift a lanyard that says SECURITY on it, which surely doesn’t look too suspicious. The night auditor, who has better things to be doing—like writing a novel or playing Tetris or watching Love Island—does not seem to care at all and swiftly proceeds to ignore them. Benny gets Mouse into the elevator, where he finally drops her onto her unsteady feet.

“Tell me about the friend,” Benny says, mostly to give her a distraction. The come down from a bar crawl is something he is all too familiar with. She sags against the side of the elevator, hiccups and rubs at her eyes. Makeup smears across her light brown skin. She looks as young as she is and sometimes Benny is terrified of the fact that they let a kid like her get famous. Twenty five was such a precarious age, straddling between youth and the sudden realization that life sort of just keeps going and you have to keep up.

Mouse swats at her tangled hair, patting it down in an attempt to sober herself.

“Mm,” she hums. “Plays guitar.”

“Shocking.”

“And he’s hot.” Mouse holds a finger up to the side of her nose, closing one eye, looking devious. The effect is a bit lost because of the streaks of mascara from the healthy crying she’d done on his shoulder in the bar. “He’s like—he’s really hot.”

Benny snorts and wraps an arm around her shoulders as the elevator makes it slow crawl upward. He’s not on the same floor as her, but he’ll steer her into her room, into her bed and then probably smoke through an entire pack of cigarettes sitting outside because the anxiety of being the only security presence is making his bones jittery.

“Shaves his head,” Mouse continues her description as she gets out the elevator. Her gait is no longer as wobbly, so Benny doesn’t prop her up. “Dyes it. So fuzzy.”

“Anyth-thing to report b-besides his looks?”

“What else matters?”

“Romantic.”

“I am not,” she raises a finger immediately, swerving to face him. Her eyes are glossy and furious. “Fucking him again. I told you—no more guys.” Benny stares at the finger and then back to Mouse.

“You fucked Maran?”

“You know Maran?” Her eyes pop innocently. Benny’s never met anyone with actual heterochromia, just people who photo edit themselves on the internet to look prettier. It’s much more subtle in person, but underneath the stark hotel lighting, the hazel is shockingly pale and the green is stunningly clear. He’s about to tell Mouse that Maran had stuck around that last tour, a hanger on with Benji and yes, they’d met. They’d…met. Benny had started a bar fight over him embarrassingly enough.

But he didn’t have two different colored eyes, so he probably was not Maran’s type.

Before he gets a chance to tease her about it, Mouse’s face crumples, tears sliding down her cheeks again. They drip off her chin, black with the makeup.

“Do you think—” She sucks in a breath. “Was that cheating? I wasn’t really dating—I didn’t want to be dating—it was just like, he thought we were dating and he was so—so like, obsessed with me—and Benji too and he was so—so fucking weird because Benji slept with him back before and I didn’t even know that—but—but if I was—that makes me the bad person then doesn’t it—”

He shushes her immediately with a soothing sound and a hand on her cheek. Mouse melts into him, arms around his middle, huffing along a wet sob into his already very ruined shirt. Benny pets down her curly hair, tucking his chin to the top of her head. She smells like the cigarettes he’d shared with her, like honey and jasmine. Something feels uncomfortable inside his chest as he makes continued soft sounds to her, like he’s placating a little sister that had skinned her knee. Something he’s not sure he likes, something that sort of scares him a little.

Benny offers to carry her again to make her laugh, which she thankfully does. But instead, he’s pushed back toward the elevator, her cheeks red once more. Mouse tells him to sleep, as if he’s the one who needs it and rather than insisting, rather than playing the security angle and making her let him help, he steps backward into the open elevator. It closes her morose face from view. He’s taken down a few floors.

The room they’d given him was a double, so one bed would never get used, the ghost of possibility in the room with him. Benny lays down on the other that he plans to sleep in, staring at the ceiling, hands resting on his stomach. He itches for a cigarette. Maybe to jerk off and force himself to sleep. Instead, he rummages his own pockets for his phone, finding himself a little more drunk than he’d initially thought he was. Once he does, he opens a text chain he’s admittedly been paying more attention to than he usually would anything else involving his phone.

[02:04 AM] You’re filling in Ratspits guitar spot?

… … …

[02:05 AM] ｡°(°.◜ᯅ◝°)°｡ nooooo someone ruined the surprise !!

The phone is cool against his cheek as he rests it there, staring at the popcorn beige ceiling above him. The fire alarm isn’t even on. No red light blinks there. Surprise? He thinks, feeling a strange warmth crawl up his neck and to his cheeks. The phone buzzes several more times, but he closes his eyes, thinking, surprise…

—

“I’m gonna toss my lunch.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I am, Ben—I’m gonna hurl.”

Underneath the back stage lights, Maran is paler than usual.

Benny grunts and sets aside the soda he’d pulled from a cooler backstage. Hand properly freezing and a little wet, he slides it around the back of Maran’s neck and squeezes. The younger man all but falls forward onto him, groaning a sound that Benny’s unfortunately never going to forget. He kneads the tight muscle there and Maran lets his forehead thump onto the security guards shoulder, making continued pathetic sounds. His arms dangle at his sides, but Benny imagines them moving. Imagines them slinking around him and holding. He thinks it’d be nice. He thinks Maran would hold him differently than others have before, that he’d have a reserved, gentle touch.

“You d-don’t have big shoes to fill, man.”

“He was tall as fuck?”

“No, I mean—” Benny laughs, smoothing his cold, wet hand across Maran’s shoulder. He squeezes there too, maybe a little harsher than he means to because the new temporary Ratspit guitarist jumps. But Maran is finally grinning, instead of looking like warmed over death. Staring at him, with big, glossy eyes. “I mean, h-he was a shit musician. Hated listening to him.”

“Oh,” Maran pulls the word out long, bobbing his head. He folds his arms over his chest. Which does something to Benny’s, looking at his biceps. Makes him want a cigarette or four. “Saying it like that implies maybe you like listening to someone else play then, yeah? G’on. Wanna compliment me a little? Could use it, Ben, m’so serious, right at the edge of throwing it up all over the fans—could say something a little nice, tell me I’m good at it, please—”

Benny slaps his hand across Maran’s mouth. His pretty brown eyes go wide, lashes fluttering.

“Shut up.” Benny walks behind him, closing hands around Maran’s shoulders. He begins steering the guitarist toward the rest of his band mates, as they prepare for opening. “You’re good, baby. You’re very good. I’m going to enjoy being security tonight. Alright?”

“Okay.” Maran sounds dazed, even stumbles into Benji—who glares, tired and annoyed but Benny isn’t sure if that’s tired and annoyed default (hot) or tired and annoyed pre-show nerves (where’s Xavier, then?). He doesn’t stick around to find out, because Benny suddenly can’t make eye contact with any of the band. Certainly not with Maran standing beside him looking like he’s been woken from a two hour floor nap, blinking dizzily.

As he leaves, a hurried walk with hands shoved into his pockets, Benny glances back. Maran’s silhouette is bright from the on stage lights as a tech gives him the guitar he’ll be using for the first half of the set. Looks like a proper little angel like that.

***

“I am not dating a fucking cop.”

“Dude.”

“Don’t ‘dude’ me, man.” Isaac throws hands into the air, furious. His handsome features are arranged all wrong, anger sitting incorrectly on his full lips and his big eyes. “You’re the one being stupid as fuck. Soldiers are cops.”

Jonny stares down at the Air Force pamphlet in his pale hands, instead of looking up at his boyfriend. His best friend. He’s seated on Isaac’s bed, while the other boy does circuits around his small room. The windows are thrown open, New York’s wet summer heat pouring in and making this entire conversation worse for it. The pamphlet crinkles as Jonny holds it tighter, tries to gather something coherent he can say that’ll make Isaac understand.

“I can’t stay with my dad,” he lands on lamely.

“Don’t do that,” Isaac replies instantly. He stops pacing. He never likes when JB is mentioned, always makes a tendon in his neck stand out as if he’s suppressing something painful. “Mom said you could move in and she’s good for it. She loves you.”

“Loves me now,” Jonny says, slowly narrowing his ghostly pale eyes. Isaac flinches as if he knows what’s coming. “Until she finds out I’m fucking her son.” They both flick a glance to the shut door that separates them from the rest of the Williams family. The irony isn’t lost on either of them that Isaac’s little sister can’t close her door when her boyfriend is over. This semblance of privacy is afforded only because of a continued lie.

Silence fills the room, neither of them breathing for a long moment, caught in the terror of what would happen to them. The cruel possibilities seem endless—and the kind ones are a fantasy.

“You could go to school,” Isaac mumbles. “You’re fucking smart, J. Like really smart. Don’t waste it.” He’s so close and yet so far away, standing just outside Jonny’s reach. He wants him closer, wants to pull him between his knees and bury his face into his stomach and ask him if everything is going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay, isn’t it? His birthday looms so close that each day feels like a marching death sentence.

“I’m sorry.” He says it and Isaac looks at him and understands that it’s final then because Jonny doesn’t apologize for anything. Isaac makes an audible sound as he swallows, looking at the floor. Hands on his hips for a moment. Then one reaches out and Jonny leans instantly for it, letting it touch his cheek. Letting Isaac brush a hand through his long blond hair, tuck it behind his ear. He closes his eyes and enjoys it. They’ll shave his head in basic training. He wants to hold onto this feeling while he can.

“You’re going somewhere I can’t follow, J. I love you, man. But we’re breaking up.”

“Okay.”

They stay like that, Isaac holding Jonny’s face, Jonny’s hands wrapped around the backs of Isaac’s thighs. In that melancholic moment, he can still clearly remember the day they’d become friends at the playground because an older kid wouldn’t stop stealing Jonny’s basketball.

He yanks them together, falling onto the bed.

“Can we be boyfriends for the rest of the night?” Jonny asks, smiling as wide as he possibly can while he’s still seventeen and everything is still alright. Isaac laughs and they kiss, even if it’s quick and even if it’s a little sad. They resolve to break up in the morning instead.

You’re going to be lonely, Jonny. It’s going to be really fucking lonely, man.

But that’s nothing he hasn’t survived before.

***

One night, on a rest day, they do an experiment.

The band is on the first leg of the tour—that means everyone is still in high spirits. No ones gotten the flu from malnutrition, no injuries, no broken equipment, Bunny hasn’t made anyone cry yet. Things are still fun, like the entire band is made of hibernating creatures that come alive during these stints. They run the first half of the tour with another band they get along with; have known for a time now, even before they were in magazine spreads or recognized getting coffee, asked for pictures and cried over autographs.

Benny watches because everyone is anticipating a fail. It seems like an impossible task, to be sure, but Xavier stands at the edge of the stage confidently.

“Feels unfair,” the lead singer of the other band mumbles to Benny. He nudges their elbows together, like they’re in on a secret. Sandy brown hair and narrow grey eyes and he’s tall as Xavier, waif thin though like a reedy cattail sticking up in a pond. Benny figures it’s sort of obvious why he keeps standing so close and talking directly to him. Thinks the singer is lucky Maran is taking a nap on the tour bus—boy’s far more nasty with people hitting on him than Benny had ever anticipated.

Not that he didn’t enjoy it. His heart squeezes when he imagines that sleepy, freckled face waiting for him.

“He’s heard Benji drum more than he’s heard Ryan.”

“We d-don’t hear shit,” Benny replies, pointing to his ear. “Wear muffs the whole show.”

“You watch them practice though, don’t you?”

Of course Xavier does. And Benny too. More so than he ever did before. Still, Benny reacts to the overt friendliness with frosty indifference until the singer wanders away to bother Mouse instead.

The drummer begins, launches into a song that is neither Ratspit nor Basement Mom (or whatever the bands name is). Benny can’t recognize it by tempo alone, but by the way Lark sways beside him and Matilda hums, it’s clear that it’s some sort of staple among their music genre. Xavier stands a distance in front of the drum set, hands flexing at his side. He has a glassy look about his eyes—same kind of look he gets during trivia, when he already knows the answer.

Benji approaches next. To Benny, there is no real difference. The tempo sounds the exact same; nearly hypnotic with how precise it is, hearing it replicated. Makes him wonder which of them is the natural—Ryan or Benji. Certainly, Benji looks more passionate, eyes closed as he enjoys himself. They don’t need to wait for him to finish. Xavier reacts full body. Arms thrown into the air, head back, barking a laugh. He spins around, darting for the drum set and his still drumming boyfriend.

In a rare display of public affection, Xavier wraps arms around Benji’s middle, swinging him onto the ground. They land into a tangled pile as Xavier yells, over and over, “I knew it! I knew it!”

Benny and the lead singer who keeps hitting on him stare in amazement as the entire band rushes in then. As Benji is covered by bodies.

“Wow. That was impressive.”

Xavier’s doggish laughter is the loudest in the whole group. The love can be felt in that sound alone.

***

The community center smells like stale coffee and cigarettes, both of which Benny has already thoroughly indulged in. He’d stolen more than a few of the free (very dry) donuts as well, before throwing himself into the creaky metal folding chair. He’s always early to these things, which is saying something. The military had ingrained in him, ten minutes early or you’re late—and the rest of these sad fucks are military too, so he isn’t sure why they aren’t more on time.

It usually gives him a moment alone with the sponsor of the meetings; handsome woman named Casey who he was pretty sure would sleep with him if she wasn’t running the Veterans Mental Health meetings herself. As it were, it usually just let him ignore the buzzing in the back of his head for a few extra minutes. She’s too busy tonight, trying to help her newest aide figure out how the community center doors stay open.

Benny closes his eyes and crosses his arms over his stomach, legs thrown in front of him as he slouches in the chair and fancies himself a snippet of a nap. The military had also royally fucked his circadian rhythm; so now he sleeps in microdoses. Milliseconds of sleep here and there, nothing substantial. A ringing in his left ear makes it more than a little difficult to sleep at all. Benny shoves a pinky finger into it, knowing that won’t make any difference.

The chair beside him scrapes across the ground. He peers sideways at the sudden appearance of someone new.

“Man, I’m nervous,” the stranger immediately says, staring at him with pretty, green eyes. They’re a sort of mellow, watery sage, set deep in a pale and freckly face.

Benny lets himself look, salacious eyes raking from top to bottom, then top to bottom again. When he finally settles on the mans handsome face once more, Benny is stunned that he hasn’t scared him away with that look alone. He’s not found many friends in these circles; they didn’t like that Benny spoke mostly negative at every chance he got toward the institution that had fucked their brains into being here. They also rarely appreciated his callous flirting, especially with the men in attendance. It had most certainly gotten him punched in the face before, but he’d been getting punched in the face since he was twelve years old so that was nothing new.

Instead of quickly shuffling over a few chairs, the red head is still staring at him.

“Is it normal to be this nervous?” he asks, fidgety hands lacing in front of him. He has classic scar build up on his knuckles. Boxer, then. Maybe he was infantry.

“No.”

“Really?”

Benny sighs and closes his eyes once more. He can’t reach for the anger that’s usually sitting right there easy for the taking, instead just feels a small twinge of guilt. It isn’t true—he’d been just as nervous, sitting there the first time, knowing they were going to make him talk. Make him say something. Maybe more nervous. He wasn’t popular at these things for a reason, after all.

“You’re fine, kid.”

The circle finally gathers. Men and women sit like they’re still in the military, hands cupping coffee, blowing on steam. They have the same sort of hollow stare that greets Benny in the mornings, when he’s brushing his teeth. The kid gets called on to talk and he pops up from his chair as if the request if coming from a drill sergeant. Benny almost expects a parade rest stance, but instead, he’s got his hands in front of him again. Plucking anxiously at the ends of his sleeves to hide his knuckles.

“I’m Xavier. Uh. Wolffe. Xavier Wolffe. Marine. Was—I was a marine. I was honorably discharged for combat injury—Humvee got—” He makes a garish exploding sound with his mouth, sucking on teeth as he smashes his hands together. It lasts for what feels like an entire minute. Then he stands there, staring around at blank faces.

There is nothing but silence until Benny breaks it with high pitched laughter.

—

“Hey.”

Xavier’s puffing and out of breath as he catches up with him on the sidewalk. Benny doesn’t slow down, but one of them has stupidly long legs it seems and it’s not Benny, so Xavier manages to stay caught up with him anyway.

“I liked what you said back there.” He’s less out of breath as he says it, but a hand lingers on his side, as if protecting some weakness there or nursing a pain already embedded.

What Benny had said was a rant about the military being a hydra; no matter how many heads were cut off, there’d only be more, with open maws ready to scoop up unsuspecting teenagers—mostly from poverty stricken neighborhoods—and chew on them until they were nothing but bloody bones and mental illness that sat around in circles on Saturday nights talking to each others echo chamber. Also, he’d gone off on another tirade about how the VA’s office hours kept changing every time he called about his tinnitus.

“Wh-what do you want?”

It’s late at night, so the streets are busy with people who have actual lives. They dodge around the two broken toy soldiers, their laughter loud, their conversations airy and wispy at the edges. The sweetness is diminished by the orange street lamps that make everything too saturated and harsh. Xavier stares at him—though a stranger, Benny feels it far too easy to read the vulnerable sheen to his pond colored eyes. He taps a cigarette from his pack and those eyes go from vulnerably soft to delightfully hungry in a second.

No more words are exchanged—or needed, in that moment anyway—as Benny lights his own and then passes the pack and Zippo to the younger man. His big, scarred hands are shaky with excitement to get one lit.

“Really got to y-you, huh?”

“My sister said it would make me feel better,” Xavier explains, exhaling a long stream of smoke into the air. They naturally tuck themselves closer to the street, so people can avoid them easier. Parked cars separate them from the terrible downtown traffic. Benny takes a risk leaning on one, pleased when an alarm doesn’t go off. “But it felt—Dunno. It felt fake, right? It felt…weird.”

“Sure.” Benny takes a long drag on his own cigarette, bobbing his head like a hungry bird. “It’s because it is. The military t-takes us and puts us all in th-this little family, right? And th-they say that these are your brothers and sisters and th-there’s no one in the whole wo-world that’s going to get you like them. And then y-you go off and something terrible happens and you come h-home and so you try and f-find that family again that the military made you think was the most im-imp-important thing in the world—and you find it here, in these sh-shit groups and realize, wait, fuuuuuck—” Benny slaps his forehead in an exaggerated gesture that makes Xavier laugh.

“I don’t even like these people!” They’re both laughing then, grinning at each other. “Wait, fuck, I never actually g-got along with them—I never believed these—these fucking ideologies they worship, I never fit in at all—and just compromised m-my integrity for what? My values for what?” Benny finishes the cigarette and tosses the butt out into the street. Xavier is staring at him like an intensely curious dog, head tilted endearingly.

“All I got was a broken ear drum a-and—well, I’m good at handjobs now.”

Xavier sputters into an bewildered burst of laughter, dropping his half finished cigarette and stamping it out.

“Jesus, you’re—you’re kind of weird, you know that?”

“No,” Benny steps back up onto the sidewalk, slinging an arm around Xavier like they’ve known each other for years. “Never heard it before. Want to get shitty p-pub nachos with me?”

***

“Wanna know how I knew?”

It’s just them, sitting in the back of the bar together. Close enough that Benny can smell the almost sea like tint of Xavier’s cologne or whatever makes him smell like sun and the ocean and the color of summer. He’s grinning, ear to ear, and drunker than he probably should be when they have to be up early in the morning.

Xavier’s still nursing his last beer, both paws around it like the pint might wander off. Benny sucks foam off the top of his own, trying hard not to think about the sleeping boy on the tour bus and how bad he wants to be there. To wake him up with a gentle kiss to his jawline and hear him mumble ‘Ben?’ like its natural to just wake up saying his name.

But Benny is interested. How did Xavier know the difference between Ryan and Benji’s drumming? Plus, it feels like sometimes it’s hard to get Xavier alone. Hard to just be two guys, two friends, at a pub together, eating very shit food on their per diems when there’s a whole circus going on around them that they’re tangentially part of. He feels steadier somehow, even toasted as he is. Xavier radiates an undeniable feeling of safety—not just because he’s gotten Benny out of more than a few bar fights. Xavier is…well, he’s Xavier.

The giant red head unfolds, going slack against the bar booth and looking up at the ceiling with an even wider smile. The chip in his tooth doesn’t diminish his looks, handsome asshole.

“Benji does this thing, before he starts drumming.” Xavier pantomimes holding sticks, closing his eyes as he does. Seems to sink into a memory, or maybe multiple. Of watching Benji play, hours of it on repeat. His smile softens, but goes no less goofy and crooked. “He slides the drumstick across the edge of the drum before he starts.” Xavier’s hand follows an imaginary path, slow and dream like. “And it feels like he does it just for me. It feels like he’s doing it, and knows I can feel it.”

Xavier must realize how silly that is—likely Benji picked up the habit young when he was still learning to drum. That it’s just some ingrained muscle memory and yet, in that moment, Xavier looks to be glowing with the idea of it. That this small, simple touch, this routine, Benji’s ritual of sorts, is something that he’s part of now. Simply for remembering, simply for imagining that Benji is running a finger along him instead of a drumstick along his kit. Benny believes the entire thing is true, that Benji does it every single time just for Xavier now, because it’s magical.

Because sometimes, when he watches Maran practice, he envisions those brown hands on him instead. Every time Maran plucks a string, tunes the guitar and goes again, to test it—Benny is thinking of those fingertips brushing along his lips, dipping and touching his tongue. Every time Maran adjusts the strap of his guitar, pats a pedal with the tip of a dirty converse, Benny is hawk eyed and watching and without realizing, he’s memorizing. Someday, Maran wont be up there, someday they’ll find a permanent replacement.

And Benny wants to have what Xavier has now. He wants to be able to close his eyes and confidently say, yes, that’s Maran. That’s my Maran.

—

He waits for the third song because it has a guitar solo.

Nothing big, Benny’s not even sure if he should call it that (he’s shit at the industry terms, he is not a musician and would never care to be one—looks miserable, genuinely). But it’s not necessarily how the band works, either. Their music loops within itself, a sort of beast that only makes sense with all legs present and functioning. Benny—who is a strict listener of mostly R&B and old hip hop—can actually appreciate the puzzle piece nature of Ratspit. They ultimately always form a better picture when they’re together; even fractured as they are now, with a substitute piece haphazardly slung in.

Benny thinks they look even better with that substitute piece.

They play music like a group of friends, not like the professionals vying for fan attention. No one seems too highlighted, nor left behind; they crash into each other sometimes, Lark’s wild energy like waves over them all. Yet there is a moment in this particular song where Maran gets to shine—where he gets to show Ratspit’s cut throat audience that there’s a reason he’s filling in and it’s not just because he’s pretty—and that’s what Benny cares about.

He stands at the front, arms crossed but prepared. It’s become one of his favorite places to be posted; he took joy in getting to shove back the fans, who he did not like in the first place and found little respect for. The band got to see them at their best. Worshipping at their feet with posters to sign, crying into hugs, faces bright and flushed with excitement. Benny, Xavier and Tino saw them at their worst, at their nastiest, at their pushiest and ugliest. Tossing them back into the masses, where they writhe together like drunken worms, while the musicians stay safe just up there on the stage, that was when Benny felt his most useful.

He knows the part is coming because of the lighting change from a garish pink to a soft yellow. The color makes sense for Maran. His energy feels similar to the sun on a lazy summer day, warming skin and feeding plants. Not too bright, but just enough to see even with your eyes closed, through thin lids, popping day time constellations. Benny can hear through the protective gear—he’s too close not to hear—but it’s as though he’s underwater at the same time. It’s hazy, waterlogged, nothing distinct or clear. Benny lifts a hand and subtly shoves the ear muff to the side.

Then the noise explodes. Even just his one ear uncovered makes everything sharp and brutal. Lark’s voice, Matilda’s keys, Benji’s drumming, Mouse’s low bass notes strumming everything together. Then the distinct opening notes of a guitar that will carry the song through to the end. Benny closes his eyes, not something he’d usually ever do while working, and tries to imagine what Xavier had said; that Maran’s hands are instead around him, not the neck of a guitar.

He thinks of Maran’s calloused fingers finger walking down his chest, touching the spider beneath his belly button, smoothing over his skin. He thinks of hands cupping his ribs, of Maran’s lips brushing his own while they both breathe the same air. The playful hint of a kiss. He can sort of feel it then, the connection of music and pleasure. Music, Maran, touching, sensation, just for him.

The guitar squawks, notes going painfully high—then cutting into something pitchy and strained that makes Benny’s ear sting.

A discordant jumble follows and then what Benny hears mostly over the ringing, is stomping feet on the stage. Lark’s awkward attempt to keep the song moving with lyrics, Matilda’s laughter of all things (as he is right underneath where she stands most nights). The ear muff snaps back into place, a suction cupped sound slurping away the remaining music and Benny, bewildered, can do nothing but glance behind him. Right into Maran’s glowering face.

It’s an expression he’s never actually seen on him. Maran, who smiles almost all the time, whether those smiles are real or not. Maran, whose grin is so permanent that Benny has the curve of his lips memorized and could see them with his eyes closed. Beautiful, smiling Maran, staring at him with slitted, furious eyes. They stay like that for half a second—then the guitarist is dancing back into place, readjusting the guitar around his shoulder and slamming into the next note.

The song continues in a hurried rush. The audience roars to life with it, content to see the music continue after a little side show.

And Benny is left standing there like a tornado victim; eyes widened, hair messy, hands slack at his sides. When he looks left, Tino is grinning underneath his twitching mustache with hands on his hips.

—

“What were you thinkin’?”

“Uh?”

The hallway Benny has been roughly tugged down is humid and moderately dark, with lights flickering on and off in a morse code that maybe only the ghosts understand. It’s the end of a food run to a shitty two grill kitchen, where bar food gets concocted to feed the audience tumbling out of the main stage venue. The atmosphere is seemingly perfect for their first ever couples argument (because that is undeniably what it is). It smells like badly burnt fries and day old hamburger and even worse, Maran looks atrociously handsome with his face screwed up into a mixture of confusion and pure fury.

Benny is fairly sure whatever emotion he’s meant to be having at Maran man handling him away from the rest of the crew, it’s not this odd sense of giddiness. He can’t tamp down the smile on his face, the way it keeps twitching back to life, even as Maran glares at it and him. His pretty, dark eyes keep flickering up and down, up and down. As if assessing that smile and how much Benny was worth yelling at.

“Baby, c’mon,” Ben finally says and is rewarded with an indignant sound.

“Don’t do that,” Maran seethes, hands fisting into Benny’s black security shirt. The guitar, the offending instrument that is taking all of Maran’s attention, all of his touch, is still strapped to his back. It swings loosely with every animated gesture. Benny has an incredibly stupid impulse to take it and smash it against the wall. Instead he sags backward against the concrete instead, chin tilted down, but eyes still forward.

“You’re this close to an amp,” Maran pinches fingers together, hissing his words. “And you go and do that? And think I’m not goin’ to catch you either, Ben? Like I’m not up there watchin’ you.”

“Watching me?”

“Watching you! Course!” The guitarist blows out an exasperated breath through clenched teeth, eyes rolling. “Course I am and you’re distractin’ as hell sometimes. Bob your head along to the drumming—makes me stupid jealous Benji gets that out of you—” Benny’s bubbled up laughter stops Maran. His face goes blank and then, if at all possible, even angrier. And hurt. His brown eyes are shiny with it. Benny springs forward quickly, cupping Maran’s cheeks, feeling the tension in his jawline.

“Mar—”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m not—”

“Y’just did.”

“No,” Benny says firmly, pulling them closer. That god damn guitar bumps around on Maran’s back. His brows twist upward, the hurt bleeding into vulnerability to be comforted. Benny is there for that, he wants nothing more than to do just that. He’ll take getting yelled at; he might even like Maran yelling at him a little bit. Worrying about him. But he doesn’t want this—Maran sad. Never that.

“I’m—I m-mean I laughed at—Mar, I am not—Jesus. Trust m-me, I’m not listening to Benji drumming. Alright? I don’t g-give a fuck about drumming.”

“Well,” Maran’s cheeks puff with attitude. He rolls his eyes. “Don’t go that far, he’s a good drummer.”

“I’m practically playing Su-Sudoku in my head the whole set, Mar. You know I do-don’t listen to this kind of music.” They’d spent a whole night actually, passing Maran’s phone back and forth, filling a playlist with music they both liked. And none of it was Deftones or…whatever else was inspiring Benji and Lark at fourteen years old. “I w-wa-wanted to hear you, that’s all.” He soothes thumbs back and forth across Maran’s cheeks, touching freckles. “And I’m sorry I fucked up your part. I didn’t know you w-were going to catch me.”

“What?” Maran’s face crinkles in adorable confusion again. He curls a lip, shakes his head. “Nah—Ben, please. I don’t care about the part. I’ll just do it again in a week, right?”

“Maybe you can do it for me,” Benny murmurs, leaning in. His hands have moved from Maran’s face to his throat. His touch is gentle, a thumb rubbing the hollow of his neck, another finger touching his wildly beating pulse. “Just for me? Private show for your bad boyfriend?”

Maran twists away at first.

Then he leans greedily into the affection, huffing about it and melting for it all the same. His arms wind around Benny’s midsection; strong, warm arms that Benny dreams about and imagines placing bites across from forearm to deltoid, possessive markings joining freckles so everyone knows Maran belongs to the sun and to Benny and nothing and no one else. Maran’s face angles down, brows still crinkled, cheeks still puffed with his dwindling annoyance. Benny skates lips across his brow, buries a kiss into his temple and then to his neck where he bites softly.

“Don’t do that at a show again.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean it!”

“Mmmhm.”

Maran interrupts the heavy mouthing Benny’s placing to his neck to grab onto his face. He yanks them closer and inexplicably places several kisses to each of Benny’s ears, messy, playful, uncoordinated. Benny can feel the blush creeping from his cheeks all the way to the tips of those half deaf ears.

***

“Dating you is like dating a fucking mannequin sometimes.”

“I can find a w-way to make that sexy,” Benny declares lazily from the bed, hands tucked behind his head. Cael stands at the foot of it, looking violent with their anger. They’re actually strikingly beautiful when mad; Benny thinks it’s probably a bad thing, but he likes it about them so much. That the tug of arousal in his stomach outweighs any fear toward that anger—or maybe it doesn’t and that’s what makes it so much better. They have fierce features, an aquiline nose that demands attention and high, piercing eyes. They’d dyed their hair the sort of yellow that made valley girls jealous a few days ago and wisps cling to their sweaty skin.

Benny and Cael seem to argue more in the summer, in the unbearable heat of their apartment. Benny’s last paycheck went to new tires and Cael’s last paycheck went entirely to the car insurance (that didn’t cover tires?) and so no paychecks went to window units to cool down their hellish NYC shoebox.

“It’s not fucking sexy,” Cael snaps, hands clawed and furious in front of them. “I could get more emotional depth out of a fucking boxers dummy.” And it’d be your new emotional punching bag too, Benny thinks, eyes rolling toward the ceiling. Mold grows in the corner—he briefly wonders if it’s black mold causing them both to go slowly insane. Or if this is just the inevitable decline of his first major relationship after discharge. It feels poetic that everything after that moment would be tainted, something predicted by his first major relationship years and years ago.

It’s going to be lonely.

“What do you w-want me to say?” Benny finally asks, standing from the bed.

“That you feel real human emotions sometimes—and then you express them!” Cael’s voice rises to what could be considered a scream. When they step toward him, Benny flinches. An old muscle memory he never forgets to feel ashamed of. Cael either doesn’t notice, or in that moment doesn’t care. A part of Benny is thankful for either; it means he wont have to explain the twitch on the examiners table with them. They wont have to dissect through the bloody emotions at all. Benny can fake this for them, he can figure it out, so long as they never find the actual root.

He takes them by the wrists, holding them up and staring them down. Cael’s only a few inches shorter than him. It makes them lift their nose in a defiant pose, bump their chest into Benny’s in challenge. He can see it in their eyes, though, how badly they need something from him. Something.

“You piss me off. That’s an emotion.”

“You’re such an ass,” Cael mumbles, but the tilt of their head becomes less vicious and more welcoming, like their throat is now open for Benny if he decides to want it. The touch of their chests is no longer a spark for an argument, and more of a suggestion. It was inevitable to come to this conclusion rather than the one Cael might have wanted—if that was truly their intention at all. Sometimes Benny wasn’t sure, sometimes it felt like they started arguments so they could end up here after all. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure if this was the only intimacy he was capable of at all.

So he kisses them. They kiss him back. It’s immediately hungry and a little mean; he likes that about them. Cael is a collection of sharp edges and a slightly wicked tongue and it almost feels comfortable being around someone like that. Caring about someone like that. He grabs them hard by the hips, swings them down onto the bed. They’re already in the act of tugging off their tank top to reveal olive skin that’s easy to bruise with his teeth. Benny feels somewhat in auto pilot as he goes to his knees and yanks them closer, so his mouth can please them.

They’re a rough connection in the bed, sheets ripped off corners, pillows and blankets shoved aside. They nearly dent the wall with the harsh bang, bang, bang of the head board—thankful they’re a corner unit with no neighbors. They even manage to laugh at that, together, after when they’re sweaty and stuck together and Cael is forgiving Benny for whatever it was he did wrong. Not feel enough or know what to say or not say anything, or maybe they were just tired from their double at the diner and it didn’t really matter. The sex sort of made up for everything else.

So they don’t break up that night, but rather three weeks later.

And it’s shockingly amicable. As amicable as a break up with Benny can be. It’s Cael talking mostly, in the end. Explaining, apologizing, getting angry just to deflate from the emotions and apologize again. They even touch one last time, a soft gentle slide of their hands together as Cael gives Benny the keys—this break up had been in the making on their end for longer than they’re willing to admit, since Cael has a new place already. The dishonesty stings something deep beneath the layer of ice Benny has managed to cave himself in, but he says nothing.

He’s left to sit there on the couch alone, to stare at the out dated TV as it plays reruns of some show he doesn’t even like. Left sitting there thinking, what is it? What is it anyone wants from me? Why can’t he find it in himself to give? Was he born without it, or did it get stolen from him, or was it lost along the way?

Benny decides not to care. He opens a beer and sits lower on the couch and stares at the ceiling, at the spotted black here and there, and he thinks, this is lonely.

***

Maran sprints into the hotel room and is on the bed, jumping like a kid, before Benny even has the door closed behind him. He locks it with the deadbolt, because he doesn’t trust anyone, let alone underpaid workers that can make keys to any room at any time. A duffle bag slings off his shoulder, filled with his own clothes and some of Maran’s they’d stuffed in on the tour bus once they all realized they’d be treated to lodging tonight.

This was meant to be a room he’d share with Tino, hence two beds, but Tino—being a man of both God and also insane empathy—had decided to give Benny a little privacy. By that, he really meant, the Ratspit stand in guitarist was welcome to the second bed (Tino knew the second bed was not where Maran would be sleeping, of course).

“This is fucking ace, Ben,” Maran says, his voice hopping around as much as he is. Arms spread open wide, surveying the mid tier hotel room. To Benny, it was a room and a bed (or two) and nothing to be impressed by. These sort of places had stopped feeling liminal and strange and exciting to him. But for Maran, this was an adventure, something new to experience and gawk at happily. Benny gets to the end of the bed and stands there, unable to stop smiling up at him.

“Got shoes on th-the bed.”

“Oops!” Maran drops onto his ass, simple as. Before he can kick them off himself, Benny stoops and catches his ankle. He pulls himself closer, resting the heel of Maran’s converse on his thigh. His fingers touch lazily, brushing across ankle and calf and feeling his short, fuzzy body hair. Maran’s cheeks darken a bit pink, his smile going lopsided and almost shy—but still, there’s a hint of something bemused.

“What?”

“Bit weird for this one is all,” Maran says, wiggling brows, looking from his foot to Benny. The security guard huffs and begins unlacing the shoe slowly, enjoying himself. Benny tugs the shoe away and tosses it, lingering a hand on the arch of Maran’s foot. He gives a suggestive squeeze that elicits a giggle. “C’mon—probably got dirt in this bed. Let’s—wanna move to the other one?”

His voice lilts hopefully, nervously. Benny pauses in the act of unlacing the second shoe. He yanks it free and tosses it aside the same time as he glances over. Maran uses that small moment to spring back up. Their bodies bump together, either because Maran doesn’t realize they’re so close, or wanted them that close to begin with. Benny steadies himself with hands around Maran’s biceps, appreciating the feel of them as he always does. He’s surprised when Maran leans forward and kisses him, hands tucking behind his neck and pulling them closer.

And Maran is a good kisser, too. Not gentle, but not hard, the pressure of his mouth just perfect; his tongue isn’t a darting, anxious thing, but a soft rolling, sensual touch. He moves against Benny in a way that a well practiced lover would, pushing their hips together, hands running appreciatively over his shoulders, the tops of his arms, the front of his chest. Sometimes Benny finds himself stunned that his often shy, relatively carefree boyfriend kisses like this. Experienced and enthusiastic. It melts a part of Benny, makes him ease into it.

Has them falling onto the bed, parts of them twisting together. One of his legs shoved Between Maran’s, one of his hands spreading up underneath his shirt to touch his stomach, his side, scratch up along his back to cause a moan. Kissing is something Maran can do for a while, Benny has pleasantly found out. Kissing, for Maran, is never just foreplay, but rather an act itself. One where he usually comes up for air, happily panting and asking if they want to sneak away to a gas station together for snacks.

Except now the kissing becomes a little more urgent. And Maran’s hands move with intention. First, down Benny’s chest. Then to the front of his jeans, were fingers pop open a button and begin unzipping. A surge of warmth makes Benny groan, shiver and then pull away. He blinks blurry eyes at Maran.

“I thought,” Maran starts, finger tracing the teeth of Benny’s zipper and making it very hard to concentrate. “Well, y’know…Since, we’re alone? Like, actually alone. And there’s a bed.” He raises his eyebrows a few times, cheeks delightfully red, lips spread into a hopeful and shy smile. Benny’s heart convulses, sending a twitch down his arm. His hand grips Maran’s hip so hard he feels unmoored for a second.

Then nervousness descends.

He could mean other things; things they’ve already done. But the way Maran says it, breathy and excited. How fast he moves, the way Maran always moves when he’s nervous about something and trying to conquer it. Like he was forcing excitement into his veins alongside the anxiety, combining in something shivery and too quick. Benny chews the inside of his lip—right on a little tattoo of a bunny he’d gotten in his early twenties—and looks down at him.

Maran, post show, tired, a smudge of make up at the corner of his eyes. Sweaty and still exhilarated, glowing and pretty. Benny’s thought of fucking Maran in every single way a person can fuck imaginable; bent over something, up against a wall, spooning on the floor in a tangle of blankets, he’s imagined every single scenario possible, touched himself to the thought of it, imagined it even when they were touching each other in the new ways Maran got to be touched. He thought of it with every hand job, with every private moment, sometimes in a way that felt a little obsessive.

And yet…

“Uh,” Benny sits up on the bed, rubbing the back of his neck. There’s prickling all over him, uncomfortable and familiar in it’s terror. “Not tonight.”

Silence. And then, “Oh.”

Benny tries to turn toward him, but is surprised at Maran rising as well, sitting up with an embarrassed sheen to his eyes. The clear hurt makes him withdraw, a coldness radiating from him. Everything begins spinning for Benny then, the anxiety between his lungs like a pole wedging itself inside him and pushing, pushing, pushing until his chest hurts. Feels like bursting into splinters.

“Is there like, a reason then? That you don’t wanna have sex with me?”

“No, but—”

“You’re makin’ me feel like I’m—” Maran gestures to himself, the fatigue from the show incredibly apparent then in the dark smudges beneath his big, brown eyes. They’re wounded and dark. “Like I’m bein’—I’m askin’ for something and I’m being pushy—”

“You’re not—”

“All the other things we do, yeah? Right? Like the signs are pointing toward it—you want me, right?”

“Jesus,” Benny blows out air hotly, threading fingers into his own messy mop of hair. “Maran, yes. I do, I f-fucking really do.”

“Well then it’s something else, innit?” Maran tosses his legs over the edge of the bed, staring down at the shitty hotel floor carpeting. The room had felt magical to him only a few moments ago; one of those firsts he was getting to experience with this tour. Being here, with the band, with his best friend. Benny’s heart thuds painfully against his rib cage, working up to his throat. He’s light headed with a nervous energy he wasn’t expecting.

“You’re making me feel like I’m—yunno. Childish. Like you’re patronizing me, sometimes. Treating me like I dunno what I’m doing. I know some fucking things, Ben, alright.”

Benny says nothing. He lets the statements fall and expand and swell into the room and fill up everything with pressure. His hands drop into his lap and he doesn’t know how to tell Maran, in that moment, that he is so fucking thankful for him. The bluntness of what he’s saying, the directness, even if it cuts into him like a hot knife.

Everything before Maran had felt like some fight he was navigating half blind (or half deaf, if he wanted to be funny about it). People never said what they really meant, they fought and laughed and snapped and always left Benny to struggle to figure out what was actually wrong; what he was actually doing wrong. Maran says it. He always says what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling. Benny never has to dig, and he’s so tired of digging. He sucks in a wet sounding breath, not realizing how hard his throat has closed up for a moment.

He realizes, awkwardly, that he’d not even removed his combat boots. So Benny takes a moment to tug them off and toss them into the corner of the room. Then he turns and kneels at the foot of the bed, so he can stare up at Maran.

“I d-don’t think you’re childish.” Maran levels a flat stare at him that conveys what he thinks of that statement. Benny squeezes Maran’s thighs, harsh in a way that gets his attention and snaps him from his petulance. Maran’s warm, calloused hands wrap around Benny’s forearms and it soothes a part of Benny’s animalistic anxiety. “I’m being an asshole. I sh-should say what I’m thinking. It;s just—it’s hard fo-for me to do that sometimes.”

It’s Maran’s turn to stay silent, though Benny can see that’s difficult. Words puff up his cheeks, as though he’s holding them back. Benny loves him so much for it, for giving him a moment to breathe and talk, when it is so hard to speak at all.

“I want to. I just don’t want t-to do it here.”

“In The Marriott?”

“No. Mar,” Benny laughs and hangs his head for a moment. “On tour.”

“Oh.” Maran pauses and adjusts slightly. He slopes, so that his legs spread further, allow Benny room between them more. He leans back on the bed, on his elbows. He looks devastating. The length of his torso, the small definition of his chest seen underneath the way his oversized shirt drapes on him. He tilts his head, smiling just slightly, cautiously and clearly with some annoyance still. “Trying to make it special? Ben. I’m not a virgin, you know that, right?”

Benny groans and immediately buries his face into Maran’s lap, pushing his cheek into the younger mans hip. A hand falls into his hair. He shudders at the affection, gripping hands around Maran that much tighter.

“D-Don’t say that. When I th-think of you fucking other people it makes me jealous and angry.”

“Maybe I wanna make you a little angry too, huh?”

“I don’t want to fuck you,” Benny says, into Maran’s skin. “And then share you with everyone else.” There’s a long pause. The body underneath him shifts. Their breathing seems louder. The room around them smaller. Benny squeezes his eyes shut. Forces somewhere inside himself to come up with words. “It would d-drive me fucking insane, if we slept together and then everyone else g-got more of you tomorrow. The band or fans, or the crew.” Some selfish part of him rises up like a creature, hungry for blood, snuffling at the vein on Maran’s hip.

“I want yo-you so bad and I want—really want—this to be something.” And they hadn’t defined that something in words yet. And those words catch on his teeth brutally, but Benny still lifts his head, chin resting on Maran’s torso, staring at him. Because for once, Benny thinks, he doesn’t want to stumble into sex like it’s something casual, something easy, something to remedy things. The only intimacy he’s able. “Like. Boyfriends, alright? I’m asking you to be my fucking boyfriend.”

Maran’s sudden smile is dazzling. The sort of smile that people take pictures of. That stop people dead in their tracks and wonder how a smile like that exists. The sort of smile that makes Benny feel light headed and unworthy. He swallows, eyes flickering self consciously away until his face is snatched—he’s pulled closer. Stumbling, he goes, onto the bed, chest to chest with Maran.

“Now we’re fighting as boyfriends,” Maran declares, grinning lopsidedly. Benny sneers, rolling his eyes, but slips arms around the other man, tightening until he gets a groan out of him. “Still a bit peeved, just lettin’ y’know.”

“That’s pa-part of being my boyfriend. Make it up to you when I bring breakfast up tomorrow.” Benny pulls away to turn and find the remote to the fancy TV in the corner. It flickers to life with a click; nicer definition than anything he’d probably ever own. Benny stands up, groaning and stretching tired arms above his head, as Maran looks at the TV with confused upturned brows.

“There’s always c-cartoons on in America at this t-time of night.” He gestures and walks toward the other end of the room. “Gonna take a shower. P-Pretty sure some fan spit on me at some point.”

And predictably, it’s only a few minutes into the shower, before Maran is creeping in. Is stripping down, sliding into the hotel shower, underneath the burning hot spray of water. They’re kissing, bodies notched together in a way that makes everything warmer and sensual.

And it feels more intimate than anything Benny has ever done when Maran grabs the soap and laughs as he runs it across Benny’s chest.

— THE END OF TOUR —

“I’m not even jet lagged,” Maran lies, boldly, as the elevator slowly rises. It’s miraculously working, the one week out of a month when it does and it’s the very week Benny’s taking Maran home.

Not Maran’s home. Naturally. But, Benny’s. When he’d proposed New York City to Maran, as an after treat from the tour, he’d had to brace as one-hundred-eighty pounds of pink haired boy was suddenly in his arms. He’d not stopped his excited chatter about it since—not on the bus ride to the air port, the plane from Los Angeles to New York. Not even the baggage claim, where he’d stood behind Benny, hugging him with his chin to his shoulder, peppering odd facts he’d learned about NYC in some article he’d read online.

Maran bounces on his heels, dirty white converses squeaking on the equally scuffed tile floor. Benny—who is jet lagged—hums and slips a hand around the back of Maran’s neck. The guitarist sags into the gesture, draping forward against Benny. The backpack he holds knocks against Benny’s tattooed hip a few times until it’s ultimately dropped to the floor. He wasn’t necessarily prepped for the length of trip Benny had planned, but it wasn’t as though Maran couldn’t get the authentic New York experience and go to a laundry mat with him.

Not like Benny wouldn’t mind letting him borrow some clothes, either. In fact, a little spark of hot arousal swirls in his lower abdomen imagining Maran in one of his ratty t-shirts and nothing else.

He shoves the feeling down as they make it to his floor. Then Benny’s scooping the bags up and leading Maran out.

“Who’s that?” Angelica screams as they get closer to Benny’s door. She sits as iron clad as usual, unmoving and uncaring, thin and gangly in her nightgown. A light flickers at the end of the hallway where someone keeps the stairwell door propped open to chat with a shadowy figure within.

“That’s a snake plant,” Maran comments, his voice suddenly effervescent, charming and light. He points to the dying plant on the old womans lap. It’s yellowing, curling and looking drearier than when Benny had left. “You should really water that, love.” Benny’s mean old neighbor blinks as though hypnotized by Maran, clutching the potted plant with her gnarled hands. He isn’t sure if it’s the voice or the accent or if it’s been long enough since anyone’s said anything other than ‘shut up, Angelica’ but it manages to silence her far better than anything else.

He gives her a small, polite wave as Benny struggles with his door and then yanks him inside.

—

There’s a pause, naturally, for them to kiss.

Benny traps Maran in the entryway, two hands to his face as their mouths press together. It’s warm and breathy, their heads tilting back and forth to capture new angles. Benny can feel his boy’s smile, can taste the happiness on his tongue as it touches his own. He gets shoved back against the door for that blatant pleasure, pinned to be kissed harder and deeper. When they pull away, Maran looks dizzy with it, panting happily, arms draped over Benny’s shoulders. His eyes shine delightfully, crinkled at the edges, where crows feet might one day stamp with old age.

“Great start to the tour,” he chirps, pressing forward.

“Not m-much to tour,” Benny replies, with a lame cringe as he steps back and gestures.

He’d been thinking of this part for most of the plane ride, where he was largely alone with his thoughts between Maran passing out (near immediately) and then waking up to chat happily (and bribe the flight attendant for more than one packet of cookies). The part where Maran steps into his apartment and sees the way he lives. Benny isn’t stupid, he knows that too much can be gleaned from a persons home and finds it easy to be embarrassed by his own. He lives in a cramped apartment, six stories high in an apartment complex stacked between more housing. It gets too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, he pays too much for it and it’s never particularly clean.

Still, Maran turns himself in a circle in the kitchen. He pokes through everything he wants to see—cabinets, the fridge, drawers. Benny lets him, a silent hovering presence as Maran touches everything, nerves prickling along his pale skin, an energy similar to right before lightning cracks. Maran pauses to pet the cat statue, his fingers touching where Benny’s have a thousand times. He wanders into the living room, where he takes a great pause and then points to the couch. Benny stares at it nervously, wondering what’s wrong with it besides the obvious; heaped with a blanket and pillows, it looks like a makeshift bed.

“Ben, that looks so fucking comfortable,” Maran declares and then throws himself onto the couch. A pillow jumps from it and lands on the floor—he quickly scoops it back up and to himself, wiggling further onto it, sighing happily. “No shot. Ah.” He smiles, eyes closed.

“What?”

“Smells like you, s’all.”

Benny’s face warms almost painfully. He treks back for the bags and starts hefting them. As he gets to his bedroom door, Maran sprints off the couch, tumbling beside him. They share a look—Maran, excited, Benny, humored—and then he opens the door.

He’s surprised Maran doesn’t launch at the bed immediately and spread out and seduce him right then and there. Instead, he steps inside and spins around like he had in the kitchen and the living room. He walks to a wall and touches a poster that’s fraying and curling around the thumb tacks at the edges. He stops in front of a dresser, piled with things, a baseball bat leaned against it. He opens the closet and looks inside, finds the mess that Benny puts there instead of clothes. He makes his way over to the small excuse for a desk where magazines are spread out, a journal that he doesn’t poke through, but instead closes respectfully.

Maran pauses at the window and stares at the pigeon hooting there.

“Th-There’s sunflower seeds,” Benny says, pointing to his desk. “In the drawer.” Instead of feeding the bird, Maran turns around and walks back to Benny. His eyes are shiny at the edges, even though he’s smiling. Benny scratches the back of his neck awkwardly and then flicks the light switch off and points to the ceiling. Milky white stars explode across the ceiling from wall to wall.

“Oh?” Maran says it like theres something caught in his throat.

“Yeah, I—uh, I tried to m-map some of my favorite constellations. I know it’s l-lame, but I didn’t want you to be surprised when—” Benny squawks when he’s suddenly scooped up into an embrace. It’s so hard and swift for a moment, all he can do is blink until he feels Maran’s chest shaking against him. “Mar, are you fucking crying?”

“No!” Maran laughs, but it does sound notably wet. His face is buried into Benny’s neck, his arms squeezing a little harder. His breath is warming, tickling. Benny has to laugh just to keep himself sane, cupping the back of Maran’s head, soothing it down his neck, over his shoulder. “No—s’just the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, Ben. The cutest, I’m serious. I love it. I want you to tell me them. Alright? Tell me which is which. Tell me their names.”

There’s a distant memory that threatens the edge of Benny’s vision; a grown man kicking a stolen textbook from a little boys hands, drunk laughter, boot stomping on illustrations of space nebulae, galaxies, stars, crying. Who gives a shit? Who? You think you’re so smart? And above that, Maran’s callused fingers brushing the space between Benny’s shirt and the edge of his jeans, a touch so gentle it feels like it has to be misguided. So soft and tender, while his head stays tilted back, staring at the stick on, glow in the dark stars. Benny clears his throat and takes Maran’s hand and leaves his room.

—

“Coney Island is a tourist trap,” Benny explains while the subway car sways around them. “You’re going to love it.”

Maran sits with a map on his lap. He studies it with a pinched, concentrated expression. Turns it this way and that, freckles crinkled prettily across his wrinkled nose. Benny stands. Deliberately. He stands in front of Maran, a hand holding the top rail. Feet slightly spread, other hand lingering lightly in his bomber jacket, wrapped around his keys. An elbow could easily become a weapon, a sharp bone to the point of someone’s nose—quick too, if anyone were to approach them from behind. Maran is shrouded safely by the curve of Benny’s body in front of him, nearly closing him off from everyone else. He’d objected at first (“I have taken public transport, y’know.”) but given up when he realized there were some things Benny simply did not budge on.

Maran’s knees brush his own occasionally as the subway map is perused, a cute pink tongue tucked between teeth.

“Wish Xavier were here,” he sighs. Cold jealousy fills Benny up to the brim for a moment, before Maran exhales once more and begins to shove the map into his back pocket. He has to lift his hips to get to it, drawing Benny’s eyes to a sliver of exposed brown skin. “He’s just better at those, yeah? Crazy good memory. Does Boston have subways like this, then?” The jealousy drains as quickly as it had come on, a feeling of intense affection replacing.

“Nothing compares to the NYC su-subway.”

“Smells a bit.” Maran’s grin is wicked and sly. He crosses his arms over his chest, legs kicked out between Benny’s shins. “Any part of New York smell good?”

“Y-You’re gonna eat your fucking words, Mar.” Benny leans down, half menacing, half affectionately. And despite the rather full train they ride, he gives Maran a gentle kiss to the corner of his lips and when he withdraws, is pleased to find that sly grin turned bashful and soft.

—

Coney Island is, as promised, a place for tourists. Benny never planned on taking Maran anywhere that would appear on a ‘Fifteen Must Sees in NYC!’ article online. He’d planned the pizza place he’d gone to his entire life growing up, the library that had been his safe haven, the small parts that made New York big for Benny; but Coney is different. Times Square could burn for all Benny cared, but an amusement park would come alive under Maran’s eyes. And it does.

There is something near magical about the experience of watching someone else experience something for the first time. Maran’s excitement begins in his hands, which raise involuntarily into the air in front of him. Continues to his eyes, that are bright and starry under the neon park lighting. His shoulders bunch, his mouth slackens and then—he turns to Benny and grabs him by the biceps, asking; what first, I want to try a corn dog, can we play that punching game, look at the size of the fucking drink, Ben, I love this place.

And as he enjoys it—as he eats a greasy plate of funnel cake and finishes it off with a slurp from a fizzy drink—as Maran plays a GUESS YOUR WEIGHT game and comes off looking sheepish—as he dodges around authentic New Yorkers that don’t move out of the way for anyone—and as he slings his arm around Benny’s waist and tucks himself closer and smells like sugar and the sea directly beside them and looks at him with those big, beautiful brown eyes and steals a kiss, all Benny is thinking is; I love you.

So Coney Island is worth it.

“And you!” A man in front of a game yells into his bedazzled microphone, pointing directly at Maran. “And do you think you have what it takes to conquer the Kong?”

“Conquer the what?” Maran sputters, laughing, near drunk off the food and the energy. The sun’s dwindled to absolutely nothing, painting the sky black with not a single star. It’s gotten cold enough that Benny’s jacket has switched to Maran and it hangs off slightly loose around his shoulders. He tosses the empty soda (his third) into a nearby overstuffed waste bin. Benny catches him by the elbow.

“It’s a s-scam, Mar.”

“Aw, sounds like someones been bested by the Kong before and can’t handle the embarrassment of it all!”

“You throw b-baseballs at King Kong as he climbs the Empire State Building,” Benny explains, even as he’s tugged closer to the game. It’s lit up dramatically, prizes hung around the foundation. The game master sits on a stool, looking smug about his antics; he’d managed to mark Maran fairly easily. Benny has grudging respect for con artists. It was a living. “Except, you’re n-never gonna knock Kong off.”

“A sore loser and a liar!” The man announces into his microphone, voice bellowing eagerly. A gaggle of college aged girls laugh behind them, stumbling together. They hoot encouragement as Maran picks up a baseball and he flushes under their attention. Benny doesn’t have it in him to be bitter; the flush makes him look sweet and youthful.

“Hey, hey! Money first, man.”

Benny slaps a ten dollar bill onto the counter, leaning against it. He levels a flat, arctic gaze on the owner, who clears his throat and looks to Maran. As he does, Benny notices the oversized, floppy eared rabbit stuffed animal, hanging haphazardly by the top of the game. As anything rabbit theme tends to do, it makes Benny smile. Just an upturn of the corner of his mouth. But Maran notices Benny noticing and Benny then realizes that nothing will stop Maran from attempting to win the damn thing. It tilts something in him for a moment, a strange off balanced feeling.

It’s a slim role reversal for the night; Maran’s chivalrous side, his charming side, his boyfriend side. Benny has to hide his smile into his shoulder, sunglasses nearly falling from the top of his head.

It does not stop Maran from losing.

“What the fuck?” he throws hands into the air, as the last baseball disappears. Kong remains on the skyscraper, red eyes blinking, a guttural laugh track playing behind the electronic music pumping from the tinny speakers. “Mad. I hit it like four times!”

“Scam,” Benny reminds him, winding arms around Maran’s waist. The girls had disappeared after realizing that Maran and Benny were not friends prowling the amusement park together. They’d been cute, though; offering encouragement, complimenting Maran’s accent, rambling on the sidelines and one had even inquired on Benny’s tattoos.

“Bastard,” Maran mumbles. He pauses, rocking on his heels, giving Benny a brief look from under his lashes. “Why don’t you try?”

“Scam,” Benny repeats.

“Right, well.” A warm brown hand slowly brushes up and down Benny’s arm. There’s a gentle squeeze to his bicep (and that squeeze feels transplanted straight to Benny’s cock when Maran is looking at him the way he is). “Wouldn’t mind watching you throw a baseball for a bit, even if we can’t win.” There’s actually no world where Benny would deny that stroke to his ego, so he slaps another bill onto the counter right away.

Of course there’s no winning. But Benny supposes it isn’t about winning.

He’d played baseball as a kid, in his neighborhood borough. As kids did. He was never that good at it, but it wasn’t about being good, just like the game isn’t really about winning. It was, for him, at that tender age, about not being home. It was about being with friends and feeling alive for a brief moment of time between the spaces where he wanted to die as a child. The grit of the baseball feels nice under his fingers. He realizes, in that moment, it’s been a very long time since he woke up wishing he hadn’t.

It would be a startling enough thought if Maran wasn’t already making him jump—his hand lashing out to snatch the rabbit off the clip and run.

“Hey! Hey—you fucker! You get back here, you fucking British fuck!”

“Oh fuck! Oh! Fuck!” Maran’s collapsing on himself laughing, scrambling through the crowd as Benny follows and they’re not too far a distance away to realize the game master hadn’t actually run after them. One rabbit was not worth abandoning his entire stall. They collide together, the laughter cackling in the air around them, hands grabbing at each other. They bump against a storefront, giggling and jostling the prize between them. Benny feels like a kid again, for a moment, a kid in the soft space of safety and excitement, an immortal feeling that stretches out endless.

“You f-fucking thief,” Benny squeaks between a laugh, grabbing the rabbit from Maran and holding it aloft. “Oh, yo-you’re getting kicked back to Liverpool, baby. The police are on their way.”

“Take me,” Maran intones dramatically, hands lifted, wrists together. “A crime of passion, officer. I needed that rabbit. See how happy it’s made my boyfriend?” His lips slip into a dizzied smile at the word, freckles bunching around his cheeks. Makes himself happy just to say it and Benny feels floored by that. He tucks the rabbit under his arm and cups a hand behind Maran’s neck, pulling them close. He doesn’t know the time, it’s slipped away entirely. Could be midnight, could be four AM.

“Only place I’m taking you is home.”

— TWO DAYS BEFORE THE END OF TOUR —

“Hey.”

“J!”

Isaac’s voice cuts through the chatter of the bar. The noise dies entirely as Benny manages to get outside, shouldering through a group of men who give him nasty stares but don’t actually start anything.

The tour bus sits at an awkward angle, propped up on the strangest (and probably strongest) looking jack he’s ever seen. The tire had blown in a dramatic way, but since there were so many other tires, no accidents had actually happened. They’d limped to the side, the entire beast of the tour derailed. Xavier sits with a group of specialized mechanics as they peruse the line of back tires—he’s utterly comfortable with them. Benny can hear his loud laughter, even as Happy stands at the back looking like a blot of misery with a credit card.

At least they’d landed at a place with alcohol so half the crew could wet their tongues while the other half entertained themselves in the parking lot. Maran was part of that entertainment, skateboard out, teaching Mouse tricks. He holds her by the waist as she attempts to stabilize, the board slipping out from under her endlessly. Nomi’s laugh is distinct, a loud snort that echoes and makes Maran puffed up with importance.

For Benny, this was a long time coming conversation that seemed as perfect as any other time to have.

“How’s th-the play?”

“Oh shut up, you hate theater.” Isaac’s voice is soothing in it’s familiarity, in the way it’s rooted to Benny’s very childhood. Some of the first memories he has and doesn’t hate, include a child like version of that voice. And while, once upon a time, hearing Isaac had only made him end the phone call in tears, now his steps are light and excited as he gets behind the bar. A lonely, flickering flood light is his only company as he leans against the brick wall. A dumpster manages to make everything smell acrid and sour. His heart still races.

“Dunno. Midsummer is gay. I like th-the gay ones.”

“All theater is gay. It’s theater,” Isaac drawls. Benny can hear his cast mates in the background, just as loud as the bar had been. There’s a rustling noise and then it’s silent over the line except for Isaac clearing his throat. “Stop stalling. Tell me about him.”

Most would describe Benny as quiet, if they were strangers. He often elected not to talk in front of groups; half out of fear and half out of shame. Fear that everything would go wrong, shame for the fear itself. Shame again, for the stutter he could never go more than a few sentences without. And even those that knew Benny, were aware of how easy it was for him to let conversation roll around him instead. But faced with Isaac, it’s easy to talk. It’s easy to suddenly spill everything he’s thinking.

“Isaac, I’m—I’m fucking doomed, man.”

“Oh, fuck?”

Benny laughs, sliding a hand across his forehead, letting the back of his head hit the wall. His breath catches in the air, dissipating into the night. He closes his eyes.

“He’s s-so good. He’s so sweet and—and just fucking kind. God, you’d fucking love him, Isaac. He’s funny, he’s hilarious.”

“Exact opposite of you.”

“Fuck you.” Benny pauses, chewing at his lip. “I can tell he’s sort of lonely too. You know? That uh, th-that lonely that’s underneath it all. That you’re trying to hide so no one notices and c-calls you on it.” Isaac hums and doesn’t interrupt even as Benny lingers in silence for a moment. He thinks of Maran, thinks of that big, sweet smile and how it’ll slip infinitesimally if no ones looking directly at him. “It feels crazy t-talking to him, just never running out of shit to say. You’re right, exact opposite. F-Feels like we have nothing in common. Except music.”

“Tupac fan?”

“Shut up,” Benny laughs, but it’s a vulnerable sort of sound, softer than it usually is. “We spent an h-hour reading th-the endings to scary movies he doesn’t want to watch. Fucking adorable. Squeamish. Doesn’t wanna s-see them, but can’t help but wanna know. I think he l-liked scaring himself so I’d sleep in his cot with him. Do I sound stupid right now?”

“No,” Isaac answers quickly and Benny strives to hear any dishonesty. It isn’t there. He settles down onto his haunches, phone crooked in between his ear and shoulders, arms resting on his knees.

“And he’s beautiful.”

“Oh yeah?”

Benny closes his eyes again, shifting a hand through messy blond hair.

“He’s s-so beautiful. He’s got these freckles. On his face and his knuckles. On his fucking knees. And the most amazing arms. I mean, muscular a-and soft—that combination. And his skin is so smooth. He’s so cute, but he’s also so—so fucking sexy.” And his mouth, Benny wants to add. His mouth, the shape of his lips, the warmth of it, the way his tongue tastes, the way he moans into kisses like they’re as good as orgasms. Benny pauses to stare at a drip coming off the dumpster.

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty-six!”

“It’s not that young,” Benny mumbles defensively, voice thick and gravelly. “I was thinking…” He waits for Isaac to make a quip; to tell him ‘thats rare!’ or to laugh, or to stop him. But he doesn’t. There’s an infinite patience on the other end of the line, a love that is eternal and now wholly platonic and entirely too supportive. Benny digs his fist into his eye, loosing a shaky breath.

“W-Would you maybe—if y-you can—save us a seat for your play? He’s gonna be with me for a few weeks.”

There is a swell of silence. The dripping from the garbage seems unfairly loud. Benny’s knuckle presses just a bit harder into his eye.

“You’ve literally never introduced a single person you’re dating to me.”

“I know.”

“Like ever.”

“Well. So-sometimes it’s awkward, because you’re technically someone I dated.”

Isaac sighs and it crackles over the phone. Benny presses it to his forehead. He tries to breathe deeply, but his lungs fill with the scent of refuse from the bar and he coughs a few times to clear it. Isaac is still quiet for a moment longer, before his soft laugh makes every part of Benny relax.

“I’ll get you tickets.”

Benny jumps to a stand when the subject of the conversation rounds the corner. His big eyes searching, face plastered with worry until he sees Benny. And then—like he always does—Maran bursts into an ecstatic smile. The spill becomes an incessant drizzle and they’re both fascinated, watching as an entire bags worth of liquid spills out onto the ground, shiny like an oil patch. Benny dances away from it, slinging an arm around Maran and pulling him back as well.

“J? Hey, man, you there?”

“Yes!” Benny yells into the phone, Maran glancing and—

“Oh, sorry! I was lookin’ for you, Xavier almost got crushed by the tour bus, fuckin’ believe that? So Benji’s proper mad now and—Oh, sorry, right, phone call! Phone call, right!” Maran does a hop around him, further from the spilling unknown substance, his hands still smoothly cupped over Benny’s ribs.

“Oh, wow. Christ. He does sound cute.”

“Thank you!” Benny yelps into the phone. Maran covers his mouth with both hands, eyes innocently wide as he takes a few steps back. He peels away those freckled, beautiful hands and mouths ‘sorry’. He’s grinning so hard it’s almost unreadable. “I’ll—uh, I’ll c-call you back. Later.”

“Much later, probably.”

“Yeah.”

“Love you, J.”

Benny, standing there, feels lighter than he ever has. His world feels bright and strange and beautiful; garbage spill not withstanding. He smiles at Maran, who ducks his head, rocks on his heels and glances around the building to wherever the chaos is. Benny, smiling, says to his best friend, “You too.”

— NOW —

However small the apartment is, it suddenly feels that much smaller now. The red number on the oven blinks rapidly, 3:12 AM. There’s a pot sitting on a barely working eye, clean but never having made it from sink to proper place. The ambient droning sound of the heater, pumping lukewarm air that poorly circulates rumbles in the background. Benny’s hands sweat, tingle at the tips of his fingers. He feels oddly exposed without his jacket, his arms bare of anything but tattoos.

The rabbit gets placed onto the couch amongst the blankets and the pillows. It’s ears are so top heavy that it immediately falls over. Benny can already tell it will become a permanent fixture. That if a fire broke out, he would be saving his extensive paperback collection and that fucking rabbit.

Maran retreats back into the kitchen, where Benny waits for him.

“Are you tired?” he asks, his voice curling at the question underneath his question. Do you want to go to bed? Bed with me, maybe? His eyes are round and bright, not a hint of sleepiness. For a brief second Benny is stunned Maran is really there, in his messy apartment, three in the morning, and asking if Benny wants to fuck him.

“Maran, I…” he trails off, searching for words that don’t come to him. The inside of his head feels similar to Coney Island; too many lights on with nothing of actual substance. It feels like a con artist; he feels like this might have been a mistake. Not this, nothing about Maran, being here, three in the morning, stolen rabbit stuffed animal on the couch, could be a mistake. But this—this waiting. Building it up to something special—but could it be special, like this? Like Maran was a boy he’d smuggled away for one thing and one thing only. There’s a screw in Benny’s chest, tightening, pinning him to the floor.

Maran doesn’t say anything. Blessedly, he doesn’t say anything. He lets things rearrange in Benny’s frantic head space, until it has no choice but to calm.

“I don’t w-want you to think,” Benny starts. He glances around his tiny kitchen. He forces himself to continue. “I didn’t bring you h-here just to have sex.” He leans with a hand on his counter and regrets the mess. The old mail piled up, a science magazine that he’d embarrassingly put sticky notes and tabs in, the numerous take out menus that he cycles through when he’s here alone. Maran stands at the opposite end of the kitchen, which is not a long distance, but he still feels far away.

There’s more silence, and that starts to feel less like Maran is giving him space and more like something is wrong. Until Maran’s fingers start fidgeting with the zipper on his stolen jacket. He’s glancing around, eyes roving the disarray of the apartment he’d already examined. He’s trying to fight a grin on his face, which makes Benny’s heart warm into a new sort of rhythm, something hard. Something that pulses. When Maran finally does get the zipper, he pulls it down in a way that looks agonizingly attractive. The layer peels away, making Benny’s mouth go dry.

“Uh,” Maran starts and then laughs. “What if we did have sex, though?” His smile is so sweet, so inviting and so pretty that the mail under Benny’s hand scatters. He takes the three short steps between them in one single stride and catch’s Maran’s face to kiss him.

—

They crash into the bedroom together in a tangle of limbs and kisses. Clothes getting jerkily discarded, yanked and thrown away. They’re both bare chested, and that cute belt Maran wears has been torn clean off and tossed aside. Benny shoves hard until Maran is back against the wall, a soft sound leaving him as he connects. The lights haven’t been turned on yet, just the dull stars above them and a never ending neon light outside the window illuminating the room. Maran makes sounds that he tries to bite off at the ends, his head thrown back as Benny descends his chest, leaving bites and kisses.

When he makes it to his knees, Maran is gasping, hands threaded into his hair.

“Wait—Ben.”

The pause is so immediate he feels shaky with it. Like driving for hours on end and finally stepping out of a car, body still reeling with the momentum of moving, never stopping. Benny kneels there, hands on Maran’s jean clad thighs, staring up at him. It’s too dark to see his expression, so he slaps at his wall until he finds the switch and the room bursts alight.

Seeing Maran’s smile makes the nervous part of his rabbity heart slow.

“Okay?” Benny checks, hands making soft movements up and down Maran’s thighs.

“Yeah—Oh, no, yeah—better than,” Maran laughs, brushing a free strand of blond hair out of Benny’s face. His fingers curl, touching more, brushing over the bridge of his nose, over a cheekbone, down to his lips. Maran’s face has gone pinkish and sweet. “Just…like, if you do that…feels really good and…” He breaks off his sentence, mouth tilting awkwardly. “I’ll cum too fast, Ben. Don’t wanna end it early, s’all.”

The radiator gurgles in the corner of the room. Benny continues kneeling, staring up at Maran, who has now started petting back those loose strands of blond hair. His smile is curved anxious and sweet and Benny realizes that Maran’s never been with a man before, but he also has never really enjoyed himself before. No, Maran’s had sex and he’s liked it and he’s probably had plenty of fun but it all ended there, didn’t it? That he cums once and everything is wrapped up, neat and tidy. Benny tilts his head, a meanness to his features then.

He slinks a finger into Maran’s waist band, languidly running his finger underneath it. He listens to the sharp inhale it elicits. It makes him smile, narrow his eyes.

“Sex doesn’t end after you cum once, Maran,” he says, voice breathy and low as the boxers are peeled further down. He exposes dark pubic hair, a smattering of freckles on a hip bone that he wants to kiss with tongue. He keeps pulling, revealing the prize his mouth wants. Maran’s hard cock threatens to hypnotize him, to silence whatever he was saying so it can be in his mouth, on his tongue. Benny remains on his knees, looking up as Maran’s eyes dilate further and further. As his hands fight to remain steady, holding Benny’s cheeks. “I’m going to make you cum as many times as I can tonight—might even make it hurt a little.”

He isn’t sure if the whimper is for the statement, or because he punctuates it by wrapping lips around the head of Maran’s cock.

—

For Benny, foreplay had always been some of the most enjoyable parts of sex. There was something about himself he never denied, a pleasure that derived from someone else’s pleasure being center. Benny could leave himself untouched entirely, could simply watch someone else come undone over and over; he’d like there to be tears and writhing and begging. He’d like it to be messy and lengthy and for the shuddering end release to be loud. It’d be enough for him, it’d feel just as good as if it were done to himself.

Maran stumbles through the foreplay, unused to being on the receiving end. He lets Benny direct him, glossy eyed with happiness to be free of decisions. Benny arranges him on the bed, puts him on his stomach, crooks one of Maran’s legs up and fucks him with his tongue. Maran pants and squirms and bites into Benny’s pillow in an attempt to stop the sobbing noises of excitement; lets himself slip a few high whimpered moans when fingers join tongue and he’s cumming hard, for the second time. Once in Benny’s mouth and now again on the bed.

“Sorry about the bed sheets,” he pants, voice shaky.

“I don’t give a fuck about these sheets,” Benny grunts, leaving a trail of kisses from the delicious curve of Maran’s ass to the top of his shoulder. “Get on your back.”

When he does, everything stops. The momentum up until then had been frantic and fast and hungry; there’d likely be little finger print sized bruises on Maran from how hard he’d been pulled around, how his thighs had been parted roughly for Benny’s mouth. The excitement in Benny’s hands had translated to holding hard and watching Maran’s cheeks bloom with color and his eyes brim with pleasure. Now, with Maran under him, everything seems too real. Too present. He’s breathing hard, his chest rising and falling, his pretty lashes wet.

“Good?” Benny asks. He slips hands down Maran’s body, tucking them around his thighs, moving them closer.

“Yes,” Maran answers quickly, head bobbing. Benny takes his chin in his hand, holding it. Not roughly, not as hard as before, but firm. He leans in, their faces close. Maran rises, as if for a kiss, but Benny holds him still.

“Good?” he repeats, staring down into gorgeous brown eyes, deeply pooled with lust and happiness and fucking love. It’s too hard to meet Maran’s gaze, to see all that reflected, but he does anyway. He stares and feels Maran’s chest heaving, feels his cock hardening for a third time against his own stomach. The excitement thrumming through Maran feels electric where parts of them touch and there’s few parts of them left not touching.

“So good,” Maran replies in a breathy, throaty voice that makes Benny wish he’d let himself cum at least once. He’s smiling as he’s reaching for his bedside table, barely looking, fingers scrabbling to find the little plastic square he’s looking for. As he does, Maran lifts himself boldly, captures him in a kiss. And it’s a good kiss because Maran’s a good kisser, leaving Benny breathless, making him groan, making him use his other hand to push the boy flat on his back.

When he’s located the condom—finally, after many small interrupting distractions from Maran’s lips—he leans back on his knees.

“Oh.”

“What?” Benny gets the corner between his teeth, ripping.

“Well,” Maran drags the word out, laughing. He rests his hands slightly above his head, displaying the generous curves of his biceps. Benny drinks in the site of him, hungry and angry all at the same time. There’s bruises already forming from hard sucked hickies at his throat and pecs. He works the condom free from the package. “I mean, we don’t have to use one, right?”

Benny pauses then, staring down at him. Maran squirms, hips lifting, their cocks rubbing together for a moment so brief it feels almost painful instead of pleasurable.

“Not like I can get pregnant, Ben.” His following laugh is sweet, his smile pretty and his eyes glassy with mischief. In the space of a second Benny allows himself to recognize what Maran is implying and then imagine it. He thinks of Maran’s knees to his chest, of fucking into him like a mad person, until his thighs are sore with the force of his thrusts. His mind wanders to the delectable vision of filling Maran, to breeding him into the fucking bed like he’s asking.

Benny has to blink a few times to make himself see clearly.

“It’s easier for clean up,” he explains. Then he winds a hand around Maran’s throat, stopping whatever next bratty, seductive thing he’d say before it can drive Benny into a frenzy. Instead, he places the condom in Maran’s hand, grinning ear to ear in a way that makes Benny’s face look like a knife’s edge. “Put it on for me.” He’s rewarded with a deepening blush on Maran’s cheeks, the color dark and red underneath his pretty freckles. Benny stays hovering, hands on either side of him, indenting the bed with his weight.

There’s something deeply erotic about watching Maran fumble a bit with it. Not just that it feels good—hands on his cock, always feel good—but the newness of it. The way Maran’s fingers stumble through rolling the condom down. Benny watches with shark hungry eyes as he lingers, fingers brushing the spider underneath his belly button. And then he’s laying there, ready for it.

And underneath the excitement is a nervousness. His smile flickering, eyebrows tucking upward. Maran’s hands lift, awkward in their movement, almost jerky.

“Dunno where to put these,” he mumbles.

Benny could tell him anywhere because Maran could touch him in any place and it would feel like heaven, like a gift. But Benny knows that Maran isn’t asking where, he’s saying, please. Please, tell me what to do. I want to be told what to do. So Benny takes one of his hands and softly tucks it behind his neck, where fingers will splay across a font tattoo of the word PAIN. He takes Maran’s other hand and guides it to his lower back, feeling fingers pressing lightly.

There’s more lube, generously added.

The press of himself into Maran is almost too much at first. The tight warmth, the body underneath him going tense, a heavy, shaky exhale. A hand at his neck, the other at his back, points of encouraging pressure and then Benny is momentarily absolutely lost in the sensation of penetration. Synapses firing on high, calf muscles bunching, his teeth snapping together. He puts his face into Maran’s neck, groaning with the base pleasure of it all; the relief of it, like being thirsty for so long and finally having a glass of ice water, sweating with condensation.

It’s slow at first, which is good. Is so good. The drag and the warm friction, feeling every inch of Maran. The desire to possess him feels so overwhelming that it becomes a physical need, the thrusting becoming harder at the mere thought of it. Mine, a chanting pulse in his brain. Mine, mine, mine—and his obsessive desire must reflect not just in the way he bites into Maran’s shoulder, but something he says. It makes Maran whimper (“yes”) and roll his body upward.

And then it stops being something slow and starts becoming something searingly passionate and hard. Benny gathers Maran’s legs closer, hooking an arm under one of his knees. Sweat slides down his back as Maran’s hand does the same, digging blunted nails into his skin. His thrusts then are snapping, are almost a mean tempo. It’s obscene, to watch himself, to see the shine of lube on his cock as his body pounds back and forth. Maran’s hands scramble for anything to hold onto. His head tosses to the side, mouth slack and open and wet and inviting and pretty.

“Knew you’d look good like this,” Benny grunts, pulling Maran’s lifted leg closer. “Taking it hard. Good boy.”

Glossy brown eyes swim to meet his own frozen stare. Maran’s flushed across his face, down his neck, sweat gathering in the hollow of his throat like a treat that should be savored, licked. Benny’s hand gropes forward across his chest, squeezing hard around his pec and making Maran whimper. He bites his plush lip, his hand frantic to hold onto Benny’s wrist. Not to move it away, but to keep it there. He’s trembling, cock bouncing on several hard thrusts, cum leaking onto his stomach.

“That’s it,” Benny groans, dropping the leg he’s been clutching, bearing his weight forward. Maran’s voice goes higher then than it has the entire night, a strangled sort of moan, head thrown back on the pillow. The desire to make Maran cum again, to make him cum with his own cock buried in him makes Benny feel maddened. He grits teeth together, concentrated, his hand sliding across Maran’s beautiful brown stomach, feeling the tackiness of cum already there.

Maran gasps at the pressure of Benny’s palm, his legs twitching as they lock around pale hips. His hands scramble and hold onto anything they can find.

“Oh fuck, Ben,” he manages in a raspy voice. “When you touch there, I can feel your—”

“Maran,” Benny moans, frantically shoving fingers into his mouth. He laughs around the digits, a wet, pleasured laugh. His body is shuddering. His eyes are shut, little tears at the corners pretty like gems. “Don’t fucking say that.” Benny’s thrusts become a frenzied, quick thing then, everything driven out of him. He can’t keep any sort of rhythm, his mind blank except for repeating those words over and over, when you touch there, I can feel, when you touch there, I can feel—

And then Maran’s teeth graze Benny’s fingers and he whimpers and his hand shoots down between them. He doesn’t need encouragement, but Benny talks him through it anyway, eyes watching as Maran’s cock twitches and jerks in his grasp. Maran jerks himself to a fast paced finish. His entire body shivering underneath him. He makes whimpering sounds and Benny removes his hand to be able to hear them better, fingers wet with Maran’s spit. He grins as he puts them into his own mouth, watching Maran’s face tremble, slack jaw and beautiful.

Benny’s own end takes him by surprise, punching through his stomach and making him go rigid. He holds Maran by the back of the neck, body arched as he cums. It leaves stars in his visions, like the ones on his ceiling. It makes him feel depleted in every way, drained of energy and everything coherent. He drops onto Maran, their chests sliding together. Sweat and cum makes them messy, but none of it matters. Face tilted, he stares at Maran, who stares back at him.

They stay like that.

Maran cups Benny’s cheek and leans in. It’s not a kiss; they’re both too exhausted for it. But their lips brush regardless, a shared breath between them. He can feel the callus on the tip of Maran’s finger, where it’s built from playing guitar over the last year. Benny closes his eyes, smiling because he knows that touch now, he has it memorized and it will always be his.

—

Ben, are you awake?

Mm.

Sorry, I thought you were.

Hm?

You’re talking in your sleep.

About?

Said somethin’—like scared, maybe. Dunno, sounded worried. Sorry.

Mm.

Are you scared?

Maran, I love you. Go back to sleep.

Oh!

—

There’s a strange, familiar ache in his abdomen and his legs when Benny wakes up. He comes to, blinking, vision obscured by the pillow he’s face down in. It’s cold, his shoulders exposed, blanket low on his back. Benny groans, searching for it, to pull himself underneath it’s warm safety. Instead, his hand lands on skin. Smooth, warm skin.

He sits up, staring down as Maran stares up at him.

“Mornin’,” he says, in a cheery voice. His phone sits on his chest; Maran looks wide awake, as though he has been for hours. And probably has, knowing him. Benny doesn’t know what time it is, won’t know until he finds wherever the fuck he’d left his phone last night, but he can tell it’s early. The sounds of morning traffic are muffled outside his window, someones car alarm already blaring, an ambulance wailing. Two pigeons have gathered now, a tale of sunflower seeds clearly having spread.

“Watching me sleep?” Benny’s voice is raspy and low, rumbling out of him. Maran’s cheeks go pink.

“Was not.” He rolls onto his side as well, phone sliding and getting lost amongst the blanket and the sheets. He doesn’t seem to care as he inches himself closer. He looks tormentingly beautiful in the yellow morning light. There’s a bruise on his collarbone, in the shape of Benny’s mouth. He smells like sex, the tang of it arousing. He’s grinning, bashful and sly as he slinks closer and closer, until they’re up against each other. His hand moves over Benny’s side. Pauses on a tattoo he likes, trailing fingers over it. Benny wants to grab him, wants to tell him how insane he feels.

He wants to scream it; he wants to say I love you so much I would fucking kill someone for you, I would literally do anything for you, do you know how much I love you, you can’t begin to fucking believe how much I love you, you’re mine, mine, mine.

Instead he yawns, tucking a lazy arm around Maran and scooping him close.

They lay together for a while, in the morning light and the cold of his apartment. Everything feels very distant, the idea of touring again, the band, even breakfast. Nothing seems to really matter, their bodies so close that their breathing becomes one inhale and one exhale. Benny can nearly feel himself dozing again, muscles finally relaxed and content.

“So, I was thinking,” Maran begins, nose nuzzling under Benny’s jaw. “I, uh, I’d really like to do that again.”

“Aren’t you f-fucking sore?”

“No.”

Benny’s hand sinks under the blankets, grasping the meat of Maran’s ass and squeezing. His lover gasps, bucking forward against him, ending it with a squeak.

“Right, well, a little sore.”

“You know what cures that?” Benny’s fingers slide, touching, teasing. Maran’s breathing quickens. “A shower.”

“Fuck you? Are you saying I smell?” Maran rears back, grinning, hands on Benny’s chest. In reply, they wrestle, laughing, Benny pinning the guitarist to the bed. He shakes him, puts his mouth to his skin, trails those kisses under Maran’s arm and into the sweet, concentrated smell of him. It makes Maran erupt into giggles, legs kicking the blankets off the bed. And finally they untangle, sufficiently warmed by each other.

It’s hard, watching Maran go, nude as he is.

But as the door to the bathroom closes behind him, Benny finally stands and scoops his phone from the floor. Their clothes are scattered everywhere, but he has a feeling they wont be getting dressed any time soon. Maybe for the entire day. He’d like that; the entire day, naked in his bed, Maran’s body pressed against his own.

Benny lays back down, a nervous energy propelling him forward. His chest feels tight and his breathing a little difficult as he opens the browser on his phone. His tongue sits awkwardly in his mouth, his thumbs pausing before typing into the search bar:

fiancé visa immigration process ??

#writing #band au #jlb #mgc #jlb x mgc #holy shit i cant believe i wrote nearly 19k of this #im fucking out of my mind right now

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