I AM SO SORRY PLEASE DON'T HATE AND DISOWN ME I JUST HAD A LOT OF SHIT TO DO LIKE GO TO WORK AND THEN I HAD ANOTHER BAND REHEARSAL BECAUSE MY TEACHER IS INSANE so I'll try to get these out as fast as I can. I still want you guys to have some quality and my goal is to get all of these to at least 1k!

So for today, here's the really late one from the 7, Peppermint

~.~.~

"I may have a slight obsession with peppermint things," Benny admits at lunch, and nobody takes him seriously.

This turns out to be a huge mistake.

~.~.~

Ethan first notices Benny's supposed problem when Benny shows up to school the next day, holding what seems to be a coffee cup from Tim Hortons. Benny usually never drinks coffee because he has the hyperactivity of a squirrel on acid.

Benny notes his raised eyebrow as he walks up to Ethan and the other three, taking another sip of his coffee, and shakes his head with a swallow. Ethan totally does not follow to motion with his eyes and let out a small noise.

"It's not coffee," Benny says without preamble, jiggling the cup around. Even Ethan, who doesn't have vampire senses in the slightest, can hear the liquid sloshing around and jumping precariously towards the lid. "Peppermint hot chocolate."

Erica's nose wrinkles cutely, and if Ethan weren't afraid of her biting his fingers off, he'd touch it and probably coo at her.

"Benny, Tim Hortons is literally the epitome of the word nasty. Their coffee tastes worse than dirt covered worms."

Pausing from taking another drink, Benny gives Erica a curious and slightly disturbed look over the rim.

"Erica, when have you ever eaten dirt? Or worms? Or both?"

She sniffs delicately, looking irritable. "I was a dork until the beginning of last year, Benny. That didn't just magically go away at summer camp."

Benny nods and takes another sip of his peppermint hot chocolate. The sound he makes when it hits his tongue is inhumanly sensual, and Ethan feels his cheeks prickling with heat.

"This stuff is the best," Benny moans. "I love peppermint."

Sarah rolls her eyes, and finally shuts her locker, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. "Benny, it's hot chocolate, not Ethan. Stop acting like you're going to make out with it and then shove it into a nearby closet."

Ethan makes another noise at the back of his throat, and without another word, turns and flees to his first hour. He's ultimately done with this entire conversation.

~.~.~

But, it appears that Benny is not, because when he comes over for a homework-athon, there's a candy cane sticking out of his mouth.

Ethan stares at it while Benny enters the house, mumbling words around the striped stick and kicking his shoes off. The taller boy is sucking on the candy at the same time that he's carrying out a conversation, and the knowledge that Benny can multitask those things together makes him incredibly turned on.

Fantasies of cool peppermint and Benny's hot tongue are interrupted when Benny pulls the candy out of his mouth with a loud popping sound; the hook on the candy swings around Benny's long finger, and Ethan swears that his best friend is going to kill him.

"Alright, E, let's get this assignment over with," Benny sighs, and Ethan realizes that Benny is totally unaware of what his obsession with peppermint is doing to him. "Nothing says 'Happy Holidays' quite like making a map of the human respiratory system."

Ethan would agree, but he can't seem to think of words that aren't along the lines of 'Who cares about anatomy, oh my god can you please just blow me instead, I'm going to cry and burst into flames', or any other variation of that.

These thoughts are still going on a loop twenty minutes later, when Benny has unwrapped his third candy cane and is trying to explain the texture of lungs to Ethan. Ethan's starting at the pucker of his lips and the red color the syrup of the candy cane has left behind.

"I mean, they basically look like little baby balloons," Benny rambles, waving his hands around in the air; he's on his back, talking to the ceiling and the bulge of his adam's apple keeps on bobbing up and down like a yo-yo. Ethan kind of really wants to lean forwards and suck and bite on it like a real apple. "Which keep us alive."

"Mhm," Ethan replies, totally and absolutely distracted, much to Benny's oblivion.

"So, we should probably put that in there, Ethan, because that would give a nice visual to the class-"

Benny chooses this moment to crunch down on the end of his candy cane, and when he pulls the mangled stick out of his mouth, Ethan loses all control over his body, and launches himself at Benny.

Before Benny even swallows, he finds himself with an armful of Ethan Morgan, whining about how unfair he is and shoving the candy out of Benny's hand. It lands onto the floor with a sticky crunch.

"E-" Benny breathes, but Ethan shushes him by running a thumb over his sugary mouth.

"Just leave it," Ethan whispers, and then Benny's got Ethan kissing him like they're dying, his lips warm and tongue tracing over the sugar left on his mouth.

They both forget about the assignment in favor of making out for a half an hour instead.

~.~.~

Ethan gets fed up with this entire minty episode when Grandma Weir lets them borrow her car to go on a date.

He's sliding into the car when Benny opens up the door for him, smiling like an idiot, and asking the older boy which movie they should go and see. He doesn't even register the red tube in the cup holder until Benny's in the car as well, turning the radio on softly and reaching for the mysterious tube.

Ethan watches with pursed lips as Benny suggests they go see the new Steven Spielberg movie, before cracking open the red tube and squirting out some of the contents into his hand.

"Benny." Ethan says in a clipped tone. "Is that- is that peppermint scented hand lotion?"

Benny grins at him like Ethan's the best for noticing. "Yeah! Grandma brought me some a few days ago when she got back from shopping with her friends. It's that really nice stuff from Bath & Body Works."

The scent really is very nice- pepperminty with hints of vanilla and some other sort of sweetness. Not overbearingly sweet and not overbearingly minty. It smells down right divine and Ethan is just done.

"Damn it, Benny," Ethan growls, and takes the tube right out of his boyfriend's hand. He sends it into the back of the car with a dull thunk. Benny hardly has time to breathe. "You're going to kill me with all of this pepperminty shit."

Benny's got his mouth open, ready to justify his love for the smell, when Ethan unbuckles his seatbelt, shoves up the middle counsel, and climbs right into Benny's lap like a goddamn cat. Benny's breath catches in his chest when Ethan leans in and traces his neck with the tip of his nose.

"That smell drives me crazy," Ethan breathes out. "I'm sick of wanting to jump you every time you pull out something new to do with it. First that hot chocolate, and then those candy canes, and now the lotion- you are a crime against humanity."

Benny huffs out a laugh and hikes his hands up under Ethan's shirt, already planning to pull it off. "We could always just see a different movie."

"Or we could just not see a movie." Ethan suggests, kissing his throat.

"Or we could just not see a movie," Benny agrees, and that's the end of that.

~.~.~

Sarah gawks at the indisguisable hickie showing on Benny's throat, though he tried his dearest to cover it up.

Benny just sighs, and says:

"I told you- I have a peppermint problem."

~.~.~

Again, so sorry babycakes! I'm trying to get these out when I can! I probably won't be getting another out tomorrow but I'll try and get another out on Thursday! My schedule is suuuuper full this week :(

Here's the question for this chapter: What's your favorite candy?

Mine is Butterfingers all the fuckin' way. I love those things. Also gummy worms of both the regular and sour persuasion.

The next theme: Baking :DDDDD (another fic with all five of them and I'm looking forwards to this one, too!)