Ben struggles with asking his dad for permission to go to New York with his girlfriend. Ben/Denny. 3rd Person POV. Set in the AU of Strange Brew in Season 3.

Disclaimer: I do not own Falling Skies.


Chapter 2

Denny turned around as Ben made his way across the room, her face and neck spotted with dried paint and her glasses sitting beside her wet brushes. "So?" she said as Ben fell back into her bed. He closed his eyes and ignored the looming figure of his girlfriend before he spoke.

"He'll talk to my mom, but he's not comfortable with us going alone." He felt her legs straddle him on the bed and opened his eyes with a smile.

Denny laughed, "He's smart not to consider my dad a proper chaperon."

"True," Ben agreed, dragging his hand up one of her legs, "but it's still annoying."

"Oh?" Denny said, "Why's that?"

The grin decorating her face told him she knew why, "because Hal was a lot wilder at my age and he got to go away with friends and make out with Rita till like 2am." Ben narrowed his eyes as he thought about it.

Denny leaned down to kiss him lightly, "I doubt your parents would have let him spend a weekend with her."

Ben slid his hand higher until his fingers were curled into her hair. She brought her hands up to his face and pulled his glasses off to set them over to the side.

"True," Ben murmured against her lips, "But I'm not Hal. I've never had sex with you on the couch." Denny kissed him again, sliding her tongue over his lips until they parted.

"We could fix that," she bit her lips as she drew up a little bit. Ben arched an eyebrow and Denny pursed her lips to keep from laughing.

Ben pulled her back down to kiss her again, their mouths molding together in practiced rhythm. Her hands pushed up at his shirt till her fingers were gliding against the smooth skin of his stomach. He kept one of his hands threaded in her curls, pressing her closer to him as his other hand moved over south. Fingers dipping into her black jeans to draw circles over the base of her spine.

She broke their kiss, breathless as she asked "is this going to be one of those stubborn rebellious things they always have in crappy teen dramas?"

He grinned, "What do you think?" Denny eyed him as she moved her mouth to his neck, kissing and suckling up to his jawline. Ben swallowed hard, his mouth dry as he stuttered through, "I should bug Jimmy, he's an expert at the rebellious phase."

Denny moved her fingers between their connected pelvises, "I won't argue with anything that benefits me and/or our trip."

Ben got out a mangled laugh as he threw his head back, her fingers tantalizing with just fabric between them. Denny smirked triumphantly to herself as she grasped his erection through his jeans.

"You are an evil, evil woman," Ben said as his hands moved up and down her sides beneath her shirt. He quite enjoyed her habit of taking off her bra when she painted.

"Do you want me to stop?" Denny asked against his neck as she pressed her lips feather-like in a trail up his adam's apple.

Ben tried to scoff, "About as much as you do." Denny smiled as Ben moved his head to look her in the eye again. He kissed her, drawing her tongue from her mouth with ease and exchanging it with his own.

"Hey," Rebecca greeted her husband as he walked in the kitchen door, "Hal won his game, scored three goals." Tom smiled as he set his bag on the table.

"That's great." Tom gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before moving to the sink to wash his hands, "The boys here?"

"No," she said, not looking up from the cutting board full of vegetables, "Hal's with Rita, Matt went to Cody's house, and I haven't seen Ben yet."

"Not surprised," Tom sighed as he pulled the second cutting board from beneath the sink, "he came to see me after school today."

"Ben?" Rebecca looked over at him as he set himself up next to her, "why?"

"He wants to spend New Years' Eve with Denny in New York."

Rebecca raised an eyebrow as she handed him a tomato, "Ben? Are you serious?"

"Yeah," he said as he began to dice the red fruit as Rebecca had to its two compatriots, "I said we'd talk about it, but I wasn't comfortable with the idea."

"Of course not, he's only 17," she scoffed and with a decisive swing of her knife she added, "And I don't plan on being a grandmother before Matt finishes high school."

Tom chuckled, grabbing a skinned cucumber next, "Let's not get carried away, it is Ben after all. Not Hal."

"Seventeen is seventeen," Rebecca eyed him sideways, thinking of the time they caught Hal on the couch with a blond the time Rita broke up with him, "And seventeen year old boys like sex."

"Ben and Denny have been dating for almost a year, and they were friends before." Tom reasoned, unsure what he was trying to convince her off, "And he blushes if she so much as holds his hands when we're around."

"That's Ben, not Denny," Rebecca turned around, heading for the fridge. Tom turned as well, looking at the back of her head as she spoke, "And no one will be watching in New York."

Tom shifted back and forth, "I suppose her dad would technically be watching."

She outright snorted as she turned back around with a head of lettuce in her hand, "That man watches his daughter about as much as you do Hal's games."

Tom leveled his eyes on her, his lips forming a straight line, "If they wanted to have sex they have more than enough opportunity to do it here in Boston, they don't need to go to New York for that."

Rebecca moved to the sink, her back to him again, "I just don't like it. Maybe next year, when he's a little older and we know Denny a little better."

He let himself lean against the counter, cutting board ignored, "He won't need our permission next year. He'll be eighteen."

Her hands stopped pulling layers off of the lettuce under the water. Ben's age seemed to just slip her mind sometimes. It was easy to think of him as the nervous ten year old with new glasses all the time. He wasn't like Hal, constantly showing them how much he wasn't a child anymore with over-the-top displays of affection.

"Let me think about it for a while," Rebecca said, her hands beginning to move again, "Can you pick up Matt? It's nearly six." Tom grabbed his keys and headed out the door, unsure when exactly he'd switched sides on the whole Ben debate.

When Tom came back Hal was sitting on the floor of the living room in front of the coffee table, grumbling about Rita being unreasonable and working on some essay for his English class. Matt took up immediate residency on the couch, an anime on before Tom could pass the stairs and enter the kitchen.

"Ben back yet?" he asked as he watched Rebecca toss the salad, shredded chicken hiding beneath layers of greens. She shook her head, eyes focused on the counter in front of her.

"Maybe we could make it conditional?" Rebecca thought aloud as Tom leaned over the counter next to her.

Tom scratched at his neck, "Maybe." He heard the front door open.

"Nice hickey there, Benny," Hal's teasing carried through the hallway.

"We can talk about it later," Tom pushed up from the counter. Rebecca nodded as he went to break up the fight they knew would be starting.

The boys managed to get through an entire dinner with only a few rude remarks to each other. Tom always marveled at the new and inventive ways his sons found to mock one another. Matt, at least, found it entertaining.

After dinner the boys all went their separate ways, to bedrooms and computers. Once Hal had left to go make nice with Rita, Tom knocked on Ben's open door. His middle son lay on his stomach on the bed, leaning on his elbows with a book propped up in his hands.

"Got a minute?" Tom spoke when Ben raised his eyes, the boy nodded, "Nice bruise you got there." Ben blushed and his hand instinctively went to rub at his neck where the darkening mark resided.

"It wasn't –…We were…" Ben stuttered over a few words before Tom held up his hand.

Tom smiled, "I'm just teasing. I thought I'd let you know your mom and I are stilling talking about the whole New York thing."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Tom watched his son's eyes turn calculating and thoughtful.

Ben wasn't necessarily the most talkative of people, preferring his books to most social events, but his eyes spoke volumes. Especially when he was thinking.

That was half his motivation for standing in the doorway. He hadn't thought to look at Ben's eyes that afternoon in his office, but he wanted to see them. There was a spark of rebellion that he usually saw in Matt, some stubbornness all the boys had inherited from him, and desire.

Desire for what he wasn't sure. It wasn't the same look he had when he looked at Denny or the one he got when he found an original copy of his favorite novel. But it was clearly desire, a want of some kind that Tom couldn't figure out.

Rebecca plopped on the bed beside her husband and he slowly set down the paper he was grading. She turned to him, "I'm still leaning towards no."

Tom chuckled, knowing exactly what she had changed the topic to, "I'm not a huge supporter of it either."

"So why are we still discussing it?" Rebecca sighed, leaning her head against the headboard.

"Because we said we would," Tom said, leaning forward a bit, "And neither of us are fully convinced either way. We owe it to Ben to be absolutely sure in our decision."

She laughed, "Or he'll talk us out of it, just like you would." Tom smiled and leaned over to kiss her.

"Exactly."


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