Chapter Four: The Cat's Out of the Bag

"Benny!" Ethan exclaimed as he saw his handsome dark haired boyfriend packing up his locker and shuffling through his backpack to decide what to shove in there and not be seen until next year. Most of his locker was filled with crumpled papers that were not longer needed and sloppily written notes that he never bothered to look back to. School was important sure, but came easy for him. The less time he worried about next weeks test, the more time he got to have Dungeons and Dragons with Ethan. Tests weren't that difficult to begin with, especially when he had magic on occasion to rescue him.

Benny was almost positive that he had found the reversal spell, leading him to not be as easily annoyed with Ethan now that there was a chance he'd be free soon. His grandmother wouldn't chew him out for "messing with the pendulum" again and Sarah wouldn't kick his butt for just being stupid. Hopefully Rory wouldn't be a blabbermouth and mention the accident to her or he might actually have a problem on his hand. When the cries of Ethan from across the hallway rang into his ears, he simply finished packing away and turned to face his nutcase.

"You didn't meet me after English," Ethan said, marching up to him with his arms crossed and looking as if he were to pounce on Benny like a vampire's next meal. Benny would never be scared of Ethan, except for right now this wasn't Ethan. This was a human under a spell with unknown intentions that he didn't want to find out. It was better to calm him down and probably safer too. Playing along seemed to be the only logical explanation to contain whatever evil lied within.

"I'm sorry E. I forgot. How can I make it up to you?" Benny almost didn't want to know the answer. It could either be extremely cringey or extremely devious, both sounded completely unappealing to him. Ethan was acting much clingier than he had thought though. It was almost as if he wasn't under a love spell, but some attachment spell. But love and attachment had nothing to do with each other, leaving Benny with the thought that he must just be really clingy when it comes to dating even if that seemed uncharacteristic.

"Hmph. I'm beginning to think you aren't taking us seriously. It's like you don't even care," Ethan was now more saddened than angry, which almost alarmed Benny more. Maybe this was a 'PMS' spell. He turned his back to the frustrated teen and huffed at the wall like a toddler not getting candy.

Benny was perplexed. Something nipped at the back of his mind that it was best to suck it up and embrace the relationship that he would have to endure for the next few hours or so. It'd all be over once they got to his house, meaning there wasn't a need to be to uptight. The problem was it was hard to convince himself that he was comfortable flirting with Ethan. Live action role play with someone who wasn't role playing was not fun. Ethan needed him though. And if Ethan wasn't tranquil then there'd be too much at risk. Benny had to think about other people and not selfishly for once.

"Of course I care," he started softly, placing a hand on his shoulder in attempts to comfort the upset male. "I shouldn't have been insensitive. Please let me prove that to you and take you home after school," He hoped this would work. It's not like he's had much dating experience. The lack of girls swooning for him was not helping the current situation.

"Fine, I'll only accept if I get a kiss," Ethan turned back around and indignantly turned his nose up at Benny, who lack of for better words was mortified. He didn't mean kiss on the lips, right? Even a kiss on the cheek didn't suit well, but anything was better than the lips. Well, almost anything...

"A kiss? Uh...okay..." he leaned down and very lightly kissed his cheek, swiftly pulling away after immediate contact. To his own surprise, he didn't remonstrate to the request. Giving him a huge grin, Ethan hugged Benny happily and nuzzled the crook of his neck. Benny was about to say something when he was interrupted by a quizzical friend.

"Wow, I knew you two were close but not that close," Sarah, who didn't know whether to be amused or weirded out, said to them with an almost smug expression on her face. Benny ruminated his options of explaining the situation or not. Perhaps withholding information was the best idea. Being slapped in the face for a temporary problem wasn't too enticing.

"Well how close do you expect soulmates to be?" Ethan sassed, protective of someone who appeared to be undermining their beautiful relationship. What a witch!

"Soulmates? Is this some new geek term I don't know about?" Sarah was seriously confused. Yesterday these two were buddies and today they were acting like a couple. Ethan was acting like one anyway. Wait...

"Benny, what's going on?" Sarah demanded, now concluding this had to be a failed attempt at magic once again. Benny would be a horrendous Houdini. Thank goodness he was more into video games than wizardry.

"Nothing...I just might have accidentally put Ethan under a spell to fall in love with me. But I can fix it!" Benny wanted to assure Sarah that this entire disaster can be dealt with before she became a volcano right in his face. He knew she wouldn't care that much about Ethan, more like the fate of the town. Beating monsters and being a vampire were tiring enough without having to fix Benny's magic flukes on top of it.

"You better! Didn't you dweebs learn anything?"

Sarah gave Ethan a sympathetic look, knowing that he presumably wasn't a culprit to this crime. Ethan was a quick learner. It was rare that he repeated a mistake, especially when the results were catastrophic, and liked to stick to the safe side of things. Sure he was adventurous and brave, regardless he aired on the side of caution. His mind continuously was rolling and analyzing his surroundings. This resulted in a conflicted guy mostly. While he enjoyed monster hunting with Benny, he also hated it. The anxiety he had from it left him sleepless some nights. Often he wished that he'd never been brought into the supernatural world. Ignorance is bliss.

Benny was the complete opposite. When there were danger signs, that egged him on to do it more. He was a thrill chaser and loved to be the tough crazy guy he believed to be. In actuality he was frightened easily, no matter how well he played off that he wasn't. Casting spells to ward off ghosts, weeding evil plants and making out with a hot babe after fighting off vampires was just the life Benny lived for. As soon as he found out the supernatural existed, his entire life changed. No longer was he playing the same video games and defeating the same monsters on screen, now he was preoccupied with real life evil that he had to ward off. He was like batman, a hero of the night longed to never be unmasked, and forever saving the world! Recognition would be nice though.

"I can, well, at least I think I can. I'm pretty confident I found the reversal spell. All that's left is for Ethan to be uncrushed," Benny said, looking down at Ethan who had not let go of him for the entirety of their conversation.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you love me?" Ethan asked, too enamored with his sexy lover to be bothered with whatever boring conversation he was having with this Sarah chick. Sarah seemed more like a threat, like she could steal Benny away from him. Benny always did have a thing for big...that wasn't the point! He needed to give Benny something worth keeping. "Cuz I can prove how much I love you in other ways than just the numerical scale," he whispered huskily in his ear.

A chill ran down Benny's back, naturally because that's how sensory nerves worked, and his face turned to the color of Erica's fangs after sinking into her latest meal.

Benny's feelings for Ethan had not budged since the spell had been casted, yet his body occasionally was betraying his heart and surrendering to its primitive tendencies of reaction. It was embarrassing and perplexing Benny why he was reacting this way. Puberty could cause many strange occurrences though, and he figured that his abnormal behavior was due to the fluctuating changes of his body and hormones. Hormones were a major player, he determined.

"Oookay, that's enough Benny time for you," and again Benny attempted to pull Ethan apart from him. They were failing efforts, but efforts nonetheless. "Sarah, meet me at Ethan's after school. I'm going to fix this once and for all,"

"Why do you need me there?" Sarah asked, cocking an eyebrow and giving him a not amused look.

"I'm almost positive I have the reversal spell. But just in case things go south, I'll need backup," Benny stated more so than asked Sarah for this.

Sarah really didn't want to spend her time after school helping some idiot nerds reverse a spell. Commonly, she was cleaning up messes that she had nothing to do with initially. Her powers were an essential backbone for their failures. Listening to music while she took a long bath was much more her speed. Sadly, her morals got the best of her, and conceded that Benny would need her if worst came to worst.

"Okay, but hurry up. I don't want to spend more time on this than I have to," Sarah announced.

"Yes ma'am,"