A/N: Stayed up to midnight, so figured I'd update before I went to bed. Here's the new chapter, yay!
Big thank you to the reviewers, always awesome.
And a thank you to Greg for beta-ing.
Read!
XVIII.
When Jimmy awoke, it was to the feel of Ben heavy across him and the strong scent of that other boy mingling with his own. He lay there a moment, breathing it in, relishing in it. He opened his eyes, winced them closed from the first burst of light, and then attempted opening them again. He glanced to Ben sleeping against his shoulder and furrowed his brow in concern; it was unlike the other boy. Typically, Jimmy was the one that passed out after their sexual excursions, napping blissfully for an hour or so as Ben watched over him.
Jimmy sighed and shrugged it off. Ben did run seventy-five miles earlier after all, even for a super-human freak like him that was a lot. Jimmy checked his wristwatch and frowned, he'd slept for about forty-five minutes, and he still had three other houses to loot. He darted another look to Ben, then delicately inspected his own forearm, brow creased with confusion and interest. He prodded the skin with his fingers, wet his lips. The bruised hand-print had still been there earlier that day, a deep set black and purple that threatened weeks of healing. Not even five hours later and there was no trace of the injury.
Maybe it was for the best, Jimmy thought, letting the arm drop across his belly and gazing distantly around the strange bedroom. It would have been difficult to hide the bruise from Ben for days on end, hell, if it hadn't miraculously faded away, it would have been revealed mere moments before.
Jimmy shifted his focus to the room. He'd slept in so many new places that he was growing far too accustomed to the unfamiliar. It helped him, in a way, to try to puzzle together who the former occupant was, as though if he could envision them, then it was like he was sleeping in a friend's room and not that of some faceless, nameless, most likely dead stranger.
This room, from all appearances, once belonged to a young girl, if the Barbie dolls lining a shelf nearby, and the utter lack of boy band posters were any indication, she couldn't have been older than ten at the oldest. Jimmy frowned, closed his eyes a moment, and brought his breath in shakily.
In a way, it felt as though he were sleeping in his own little sister's room, though none of the decor befitted her, their mother had forced Cass to hang posters of cutesy forest scenes, to line her shelves with stuffed animals, filled her toy chest with baby dolls and princess regalia. Cass had been forever stealing Jimmy's toys, the model cars he'd spent tedious hours on end meticulously assembling were far more fun to play with than a plastic caricature of a baby that pissed and demanded food.
At a low murmur from Ben, Jimmy turned his head to the other boy, gazing with a soft smile. Ben had his features scrunched, his brow wrinkled, mouth forming a worried little frown. Jimmy reached out a hand with the sudden urge to stroke Ben's face, maybe, possibly ease the expression, but he hesitated, his heart kicking several times against his ribs, his breath hitched.
The spikes along Ben's spine were lit with a low blue light. All Jimmy could do was stare mesmerized, fear ebbing through his features.
Ben stirred, and the illumination down his backside died out just as suddenly as it had started. His eyes opened, and met Jimmy's stunned expression. He smiled lazily, shifted forward to press a kiss against Jimmy's shoulder, not realizing anything out of the ordinary had occurred.
"Hey," Ben murmured, and then noticing the shocked look on Jimmy's face, he furrowed his brow and wondered, "What's wrong?"
Jimmy turned his face towards the ceiling and blinked a couple times to erase the soft blue afterimage. Maybe the glow wasn't out of the ordinary, maybe Ben's spikes lit up all the time when he slept, and Jimmy just hadn't known because Ben had never really slept around him before. Or maybe Jimmy had been imagining things, maybe he was still stressed about the day before, and Ben's inexplicable roughness and wanting to blame it on the harness, that now he was looking for anything extraordinarily alien going on with the other boy. Jimmy took a couple deep breaths, training his voice into a steady candor before responding.
"Nothing…I was just…nothing," he mumbled.
"You know," Ben teased, his voice low and husky, "If you're going to start watching me sleep, you can't really complain anymore when I do it to you."
"I wasn't watching you sleep," Jimmy gruffly responded, bristling at the inclination, as he stammered, "I just happened to be looking your direction when you woke up. Because you were being loud. You snore, is all."
"Oh," Ben grinned, slinking an arm across Jimmy's waist and nuzzling his neck, "Is that all?"
"Cut it out," Jimmy complained, his face reddening. He put up a half-hearted struggle as Ben placed a few light kisses along his jawline, then relaxed once more as Ben settled against him, his heart running rampant in his chest, eyes leering out at the room.
They lay like that a few moments, quiet and unmoving, Ben like a warm blanket strewn across Jimmy's body.
"I wonder what she was like," Jimmy murmured. He felt Ben's features crinkle at the seemingly random statement.
"Who?"
"The girl that used to live here," Jimmy clarified.
"Don't do that," Ben whispered harshly. Jimmy perked a brow.
"Do what?" he returned, genuinely confused. Ben lifted himself up, meeting Jimmy's questioning eyes.
"We're having a good moment," Ben said, insistent, "Don't ruin it thinking about the war and people we can't get back."
"What am I supposed to think about, Ben, we're in a stranger's room?" Jimmy argued, glaring at the far wall painted in the corner with a vine of flowers crawling to the ceiling, "It's kind of hard not to wonder about who she might have been when I'm feeling guilty about having been jerked off in her bed."
"Eloquent," Ben muttered sarcastically, then shifting himself to a more comfortable position, he decided, "Then…I don't know…don't think about it like that. Don't think about it as a stranger's room…think about it as…well; pretend that it's our room."
"What?" Jimmy demanded, turning back to fix the other boy with a dubious expression.
Ben shrugged, grinning and meeting Jimmy's eyes, repeated, "Pretend it's our room," he propped himself up on an elbow and expanded further, "Like…our place. Pretend the aliens never invaded, and we're just lying in our bed in our home that we share."
Jimmy quirked a brow at the other boy, finding himself skeptical of Ben's sanity at that moment.
"Come on, just go with it," Ben pressed.
Jimmy rolled his eyes, and sighed.
"Okay, and would the My Little Pony poster be yours or mine?" he questioned derisively, gesturing the pastel colored pinup on the wall across from them.
Ben barely glanced at it, before smirking and teasing, "Oh, definitely yours. I'm more of a Care Bears man myself, but, you know, we compromised on décor. You got the ponies, and I got the tiara on the bookshelf."
Jimmy laughed, bringing his hand up to cover his face and Ben grinned proudly at him.
"Fine, so we're living together in a non-alien invaded world," Jimmy murmured, when his mirth had died out, peeking at Ben around his hand, "So then…how did we meet? I mean, without the world ending and everything…"
"Well…" Ben mused, relaxing an arm across Jimmy's chest and resting his chin atop it, "If we're living together we would have to be older, right? Over eighteen at least."
"I guess," Jimmy agreed.
"Then we met…at college," Ben decided, a distant smile warming his features as he continued, "We shared a class. One of the core classes…Classical Literature."
Jimmy winced, "I hate that class."
"You've never actually taken it," Ben pointed out.
"I hate the sound of it," Jimmy hedged.
"Yeah, well, okay…that's why you sat in the back. And I sat in the same row, a few desks in front of you," Ben went on, starting to really get into his story of their alternate lives, and in a weird way, Jimmy felt himself being pulled in as well by the bright, eager expression on Ben's face, "That's how we met. I was in your way; you couldn't see the board around me."
"Because you have a fat head," Jimmy casually noted, and Ben wrinkled his brow, made a face of mock hurt.
"My head is proportionate to my body, thank you very much," Ben mumbled protest, then returning to his story, said, "But that's exactly what you told me when you confronted me about it, that I needed to move my…fat…head. So the next class, I moved a desk back, so that you could see even less of the board."
"Because you're an asshole in every reality?" Jimmy quipped.
Ben smirked, "Every class I moved a desk back, until I was sitting right in front of you, and you couldn't see anything but the back of my head. Of course, you confronted me about it again after class, yelling and throwing a tantrum…"
"I don't throw tantrums…"
"…and wanting to know why I couldn't just move a desk over or something…"
"Seems reasonable."
"…and I said…" Ben moved his mouth close to Jimmy's, eyes intent on shimmering blue, "Maybe because I want to be the only thing you see."
Jimmy heart thumped hard against his chest, he drew his breath in a tad sharply, his cheeks flooded with a sudden heat.
"And then what…I punch you?" he demanded.
"Yeah," Ben conceded, unfazed by the fervor in Jimmy's voice. He placed a soft kiss to Jimmy's cheek, trailing kisses along the jaw, before settling back down across Jimmy's chest, "You punched me and left. So the next class, I sat on the other side of the room," instantly the image ached in Jimmy of a collegiate Ben sulking from his rejection in a desk far away, a sea of students between them, "But by then, I had already gotten to you…and even though I wasn't in front of you anymore…"
"You were still all I could see," Jimmy whispered realization, Ben met his gaze, and he looked hastily away, embarrassed, stammering, "So then…who…how…?"
"A couple classes later you approached me," Ben eagerly answered the question Jimmy couldn't form, "And I didn't know what to expect, of course, I'm thinking you might hit me again but you completely blow me away, and ask – no – tell me we're going to get coffee together in that shy frustrated way that you get when you don't want anyone to know how much you really care about something."
"What the fuck are you talking about, man? I don't get any way…like shy…frustrated…whatever," Jimmy grumbled, twitching his gaze to everything in the room but Ben, because he didn't want to see that arrogant told-you-so expression.
"Right…what was I thinking," Ben muttered, with a low chuckle, he slipped his arms around Jimmy, placing a kiss on Jimmy's collar and burying his face in Jimmy's neck, "And that…is…how we met…"
"That's it?" Jimmy persisted, "That's stupid. We went and got coffee, end of story?"
Ben pulled back and fixed him with a quizzical look, "Well of course that's not it. I mean, obviously we fought that whole coffee date."
"Obviously," Jimmy repeated, unconvinced.
"Yeah, we argued about everything; which coffee shop to go to, how to get there – I wanted to drive, you thought we should walk, about how to order the coffee – you take yours black so you made fun of my mocha latte, we couldn't even agree on which table to sit at, and then we couldn't agree on anything to talk about," Ben continued, smiling wryly, "You thought it went horribly, that I would never want to speak, let alone see you again…"
"What makes you think I wanted to speak to you again?" Jimmy protested.
"Okay, you didn't think either of us wanted to speak to each other again," Ben relented, "So you left thinking you'd never hear from me and you get partway down the street and you get a phone call."
Jimmy perked a brow, but remained silent.
"You don't recognize the number, but you answer, and it's me," Ben concluded, shrugging, "I'm just calling to tell you you're cute when you're mad. Of course, I had to wait to tell you until you were far enough away so you couldn't hit me."
"Asshole…in every…reality," Jimmy whispered, as though struck with epiphany, he wriggled deeper under the blankets, adjusting himself so that he was more comfortably and more fully situated beneath Ben, he eyed Ben warily, "You've thought a lot about this."
"No, actually I'm just making it up as I go," Ben candidly replied.
"Oh," Jimmy murmured, "It's pretty good. How'd you know I take my coffee black? And more importantly, what the fuck is a mocha latte?"
"Figuring out how you take your coffee is way too easy, and a mocha latte is delicious," Ben explained lightly, and then smirked, "Our second date went better."
"Wait, coffee was our first date?" Jimmy interjected, "That's not a date, Ben, that's coffee." Then he flushed and murmured, "Not that it makes any difference…"
"Okay, fine, our first date went well," Ben persisted, "We got hotdogs and walked around the park, we argued less and actually managed to find things to talk about. We both connected on how much we hate Classical Literature."
"Hotdogs at the park?" Jimmy wrinkled his nose, "That sounds lame…"
"That's what you said when I suggested it," Ben easily explained, "But it was my choice, because coffee was yours. And for your information, it ended up being way more fun then you thought it was going to be and at the end of the night we kissed-"
"Nope. I don't kiss on first dates," Jimmy cut in.
"Really? Because you kissed me on our first date," Ben teased and Jimmy scowled, glaring out at the far wall.
"We haven't actually had a first date," he pointed out in a low stammer.
Ben was silent a moment and Jimmy darted a quick look to him. His eyes were fixed on a spot on Jimmy's collar, his fingers tracing shapes across pale bare skin.
Jimmy cleared his throat and looked up to the ceiling.
"When did we start living together?" he asked, pushing the conversation because it seemed to make Ben happy, even though it inexplicably made him feel more somber.
"We hadn't been dating long," Ben decided quietly, "Maybe less than a year. You needed a roommate."
"We started living together out of necessity?" Jimmy noted with a pang in his chest, and then winced, not that he really cared why they started living together, and it was all a silly fantasy anyhow, so none of it actually mattered, and he was most certainly not getting drawn in to the stupid story of alternate him and Ben.
"That's just how you pitched it to me," Ben murmured, sounding as though it should be obvious, pressing a kiss to Jimmy's sternum that tickled slightly and made him squirm a bit, "I knew you didn't really want to just come out and say that you wanted to live with me, so I let you get away with it, said it was perfect timing because I wanted to move out of my folks' house anyway. Fucking Hal was driving me up the wall."
Jimmy smirked, thinking of an older Hal and Ben still at each other's throats, and said nothing a moment, turning the story over in his mind, finding himself wondering if he ever would've known Ben had the aliens not invaded. Would there have been a time when they could've crossed paths? Would it have been the way Ben described, or something similar? Would they have wanted to know one another? Would they have formed any sort of bond? He sighed, traced along the contours of Ben's spine and around those metal rods.
Maybe they never would've known one another. Never would have crossed paths, would have lived their entire lives without ever knowing the other existed.
Jimmy hated thinking that he had any reason to be grateful of the aliens, but in a weird way they gave him Ben, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that.
"We should go on vacation," Ben murmured and Jimmy quirked a brow.
"Well, shit, we're long overdue for one…"
"No, I mean…" Ben fidgeted a bit, and then relaxed, resting his head on Jimmy's shoulder and mumbling, "It would be summer, classes would be out," he shrugged and repeated, "I was just thinking, we would go on a vacation, right?"
"I don't know," Jimmy mumbled, turning his face away to hide the color, although he had given up long ago on fighting the rush of heat to his face at the beginning of this conversation, "I guess…"
"I'm thinking Disneyworld," Ben decided.
"I hate Disneyworld," Jimmy muttered. Ben fixed him with a look of astonishment.
"What? How do you hate Disneyworld?" he demanded.
"My family went there when I was seven," Jimmy explained, darting his gaze away from Ben as he spoke in a low, forced voice, "My mom spent the day in Germany drinking and pushing my little sister around in a stroller. I wandered the park with my dad. Most of the rollercoasters he wanted to go on I was too short for, pissed him off, he even got in a fight with one of the staff about it. So we went on the Teacups like five times because I didn't want to go in the Haunted Mansion and I got sick and my dad yelled at me about it and then my mom wanted me and my sister to take a picture with Mickey Mouse but as soon as I saw the guy in the costume with the giant head…" Jimmy trailed off and, closing his eyes, he quietly admitted, "I started crying and my dad yelled at me about that, and then it started raining…"
"Wow," Ben remarked, "And I thought my family vacations sucked."
"Thanks, man," Jimmy grumbled, rolling his eyes but smirking despite his attempts to look disgruntled.
"So it's settled. We're going to Disneyworld," Ben declared.
Jimmy turned on him, bewildered, "After I just told you I hate the place. Really? Do I even have to say it…?"
"Well, yeah, that's why it has to be Disneyworld," Ben explained, catching hold of Jimmy's hand and twining their fingers as he brushed a kiss to Jimmy's cheek, "So I can replace all your bad memories with good ones."
Jimmy closed his eyes, a distinct pain jabbing clear through his heart.
"Why do you do that?" he whispered, though his voice was barely audible, "Why do you say things like that?"
Ben shrugged, nonchalant, murmured, "Because it's how I feel, because it's what I want…to make you forget your past," he lifted himself up and pushed the hair from Jimmy's forehead and pressed a kiss to his mouth, then challenged, "Got a problem with that?"
Jimmy closed his eyes and shook his head, too exhausted by the thought to argue it. Ben gave him another firm kiss and settled again.
"Okay. Fine. We'll go to Disneyworld," Jimmy relented. Ben grinned.
"Great! How do we get there?" Ben wondered.
"Fly," Jimmy suggested.
"No," Ben shook his head and decided, "Road-trip. I'll drive."
"What? No way," Jimmy argued, "Why do you get to drive?"
"Because you would get us lost and because you're so stubborn, you would never admit it and just pull over for directions. We'd end up in Canada..." Ben pointed out.
"Dumbass, that's why I'll drive, you'll be navigator," Jimmy retorted, "And if we end up lost, it'll be because you couldn't read the fucking map."
"Okay, okay," Ben soothed, "Calm down, I didn't know it was that important to you. You can drive."
Jimmy wrinkled his brow and pouted at the far wall, disentangling their hands and folding his arms over his stomach.
"It's not that important to me," he muttered.
Ben smirked, shaking his head and lining kisses along Jimmy's exposed neck, whispering against the skin, "You're so…"
"So…what?" Jimmy challenged, flinching slightly at all the possible intended meanings in that unfinished allegation.
"Nothing," Ben grinned, playfully biting Jimmy's shoulder and then kissing the spot, as he went back to the fantasy, "We should take two days driving to Disneyworld."
"It's not that far," Jimmy commented, "We could probably make it in one."
"Maybe," Ben agreed, "But then we couldn't stop at a seedy motel and-"
"No fucking way am I stopping at a motel," Jimmy cut in heatedly, "They're disgusting places…do you know how often they change the blankets in those rooms, and people get murdered in them and have you any idea what people do…"
"Alright, no motel," Ben cried, "Jeez, you're picky."
Jimmy flushed and argued petulantly, "I am not. I just don't like…it's gross is all."
"You do realize you have gone weeks without bathing, trekked through sewers, crawled through mud and dung, been covered in blood and vomit, and Skitter goo…and through all of that, you still can't sleep in a motel room?" Ben demanded.
Jimmy shrugged, shook his head and reaffirmed, "Not staying in a motel."
"What…did you have a bad experience when you were a kid, or something? Is there another Boland family vacation horror story attached to this?" Ben prodded, half-teasing.
Jimmy rolled his eyes.
"My family never stayed in motels. Mom would only book five star hotels, because motels are gross and people die in them," he murmured explanation, his cheeks deepening in color, and voice becoming increasingly stuttered as he listened to his own words. He closed his eyes and chewed his inner cheek, admitting, "I know how it sounds…"
"Like you're a snob," Ben quipped, propping himself up on his elbow and looking incredulous, "I mean shit, Jimmy, my family could barely afford a single night in most five-star hotels, and that's if we didn't want to do anything on our vacations, and you're telling me your family only stayed in five-star hotels?"
"No…" Jimmy mumbled nervously, looking away in embarrassment, "Usually we stayed at vacation houses…"
"Wait, wait, wait, back up," Ben grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face as he tried to piece together the hidden meaning behind Jimmy's words, "Was your family rich?"
"We were…well off…I guess," Jimmy shrugged, feeling very awkward, "Does it…matter?"
"No. Why did I not know this about you?" Ben pressed.
"Well, I usually wait until the second date to confess my financial status, but since we haven't even had the first one yet…" Jimmy muttered sarcastically. Really, it wasn't important how 'well off' his family had been, it didn't do them a whole hell of a lot of good when the aliens invaded and money didn't actually mean anything in the world anymore.
Ben was quiet a long time and, after a few seconds ticked by; Jimmy peeked up, feeling a rush of heat in his cheeks, the other boy studying his features intently with a drawn expression.
"Is this actually a problem?" Jimmy wondered, wincing at the way his voice quivered.
"No," Ben breathed, shaking his head and blinking a moment, "It's just…you didn't seem like…" he smirked humorously and noted, "It's kind of like a paradigm shift, you know."
"A what?"
"What I mean is…I kind of had this image of you from before…from what you told me about before…and now that I know your family was upper class that image is sort of shattered and now I have this completely different image," Ben confessed.
"What the fuck kind of image did you have of me from before," Jimmy demanded, suddenly alarmed, and feeling even more perturbed, "And what the fuck does the new image look like?"
"It doesn't matter," Ben said, smiling as he acknowledged, "All that matters is who you are now, right?"
Jimmy shrugged, "I guess."
Ben sighed, amused, and leaned down to kiss Jimmy, soft, sweet, his tongue swept into Jimmy's mouth momentarily, and it drew out the air from Jimmy's lungs when it departed.
"So…it's settled. We stay at a motel on our road trip," Ben continued with his story and Jimmy pulled a face but decided to skip the argument he already knew he had no chance of winning, "And of course, that night, in the gross bed, I…" Ben cleared his throat and mock-annoyed stated, "…jerk you off."
Jimmy slapped a hand over his face to hide the embarrassed smile.
"Please don't ever say that phrase again…" he stammered between muffled snickers, "It just does not sound right..."
"Hey, shut up. As it turns out, you were the rich, well-educated, prep kid and I'm the streetwise, obnoxious, smart ass from the wrong side of the tracks," Ben retorted, "You are the one that can't say that phrase ever again. You have to use dainty euphemisms like…pleasure one another…or…oh…twiddled-"
"Stop, stop, God, please stop," Jimmy cried, struggling against Ben in an effort to muffle the other boy's mortifying ramblings by using his hand like a gag. Ben only laughed, easily knocking away the attempts, until finally he pinned Jimmy's arms overhead and smirked triumphantly down.
"…or made love," Ben finished, and it shot through Jimmy, this feeling like lightening cracking in his veins. His heart quickened its pace, his cheeks flushed.
"Um…Disneyworld…how…how did the…the vacation end?" Jimmy questioned, hurrying to set their conversation back on track, and squirming under Ben's grasp and his leaden form, all at once warm and sensuous.
"How do you think it ended?" Ben returned gently, voice soft and expression curious, if not a little apprehensive.
It almost felt like Ben was actually invested in this fantasy life that the two boys never shared and somehow because of it Jimmy found he hated Ben's question. He hated the way it ached through him, a vague, dull, soreness in his chest and through his limbs, because in a way, he felt the question underlined a very different sort of pondering: how was their present story going to end.
A heartbeat, two, drummed by, and then Jimmy wriggled his hands free of Ben and slowly snaked them up to cup Ben's cheeks, dragging Ben down and fitting their mouths together, shuddering at the trickle of heat, the delicate taste. Jimmy parted their lips and slipped his tongue in, tentatively exploring every bit of those inner gum walls with soft, thoughtful prods until Ben grunted approval. They hesitantly parted, their breath drawing in sharp, and Jimmy met Ben's eyes.
"Does it matter?" Jimmy asked, silent, bleak. He dropped his gaze and slid his fingers up to lace round Ben's neck, through the metal rods there, "How is this less depressing then thinking about who the little girl might have been that used to sleep in this room?"
Ben jerked away at that, as though burned, sitting up and scanning over the bedside for his clothes. Jimmy peered at him, watching curiously the other boy's unexpected yet very deliberate actions.
"Tell me about this assignment Weaver's got you on," Ben stated plainly, slipping out of the blankets and snatching his garments off the floor. He began dressing.
Jimmy started to sit up and follow Ben's example, but felt a sudden lightness in his head and slumped back down, making an effort to look as though he'd simply changed his mind about rising from bed. He closed his eyes, his heart palpitating in his chest.
"What about it?" he snapped, frustrated at the ominous chill washing over him, trying desperately to hide the way his body was trembling, as he wrapped his arms tightly around himself.
"He's got you training the other unharnessed kids," Ben noted bitterly, "Why did you agree to it?"
"Because I felt bad for them," Jimmy lied. He began to relax as the horrible feeling slowly passed; he really needed to get some sleep, and probably should eat something when he got back to camp, although his stomach was threatening not to hold anything down.
Ben muttered something inaudible at Jimmy's words, sounding a little disbelieving, but Jimmy wasn't about to confess to Ben that he was simply grooming the four teenagers to be the 2nd Mass's new favorite punching bags
"No one will train them even though we desperately need more fighters," Jimmy expounded.
"No one?" Ben challenged, dubious, "I'm sure if Weaver ordered it…"
"And force an unwilling fighter to do it? What kind of training do you think they would honestly get from someone who doesn't even want them in camp, let alone holding a gun and marching into battle with the rest of us?" Jimmy interjected, then muttered miserably, "Look, I get that I'm not the best person for the job, I mean, hell, Weaver only asked me to do it because of you, okay? I should just get a fucking t-shirt that says 'I heart razorbacks', shit. I figured, what the hell, it's better than patrol with the rest of the 2nd Mass cannon fodder."
"You're not cannon fodder," Ben pathetically attempted retort but Jimmy just offered him a look full of spite, as he struggled to sitting and successfully managed to stay upright, pulling a knee up to rest against.
"This according to the 2nd Mass's resident super soldier," Jimmy grumbled, "Don't even bother, Ben. I got my fifteen minutes bringing down that warehouse, and I kind of wish I'd never even done that."
"You and me both," Ben muttered.
Jimmy ran a hand through his hair, frowning and knowing he probably looked more rumpled than usual and that there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't have shower privileges for another night, and unlike most fighters, he actually adhered to the schedule.
Ben stood rigid in the middle of the room, staring intently at the floor.
"Can you tell Weaver you changed your mind?" he asked.
"I don't know. Why would I?" Jimmy muttered.
"Because I want you to," Ben answered sharply, turning to look at Jimmy and commanding in a steady tone, "Tell Weaver you can't train them."
Jimmy quirked a brow and gaped, stammering confusedly, "Uh…no?"
"Jimmy, I don't want you training them," Ben persisted, "So just…could you, please, not."
"You kept saying you wanted to talk about it so this is your idea of talking about it? Telling me what to do? Fuck you," Jimmy snapped, rage brewing in his gut.
Ben's behavior had been erratic lately, to say the least, but this was entirely new. Albeit, they hadn't known one another long, there were still things left to figure out and learn, but they might not be getting to that if this was the kind of person Ben could be. Hot tears lined the edge of Jimmy's eyes, an awful pain cutting through him at the thought, if it came to it, could he really walk away from Ben?
"No, that's not it," Ben protested, unconvincingly, then grumbled, "I just…I don't want you hanging around them…is all."
Jimmy narrowed his eyes to dangerous slits, "Is there something I'm missing? Yesterday it kind of felt like I was watching an old Western stand-off, the way you were all staring at each other. You're telling me to stay away from them, they keep telling me I shouldn't hang out with you-"
"What?" Ben cried, "Shit, Jimmy, why won't you just-"
"Oh, hell, Ben, it's not like I plan on listening to them," Jimmy cut in, pulling himself to his feet and angrily tugging his clothes on, "If I decide to stop hanging out with you, it's going to be my fucking decision, same as it's my decision if I want to train them or not."
"Goddammit, can't you just stop being stubborn for five seconds and do what I say just this once? I don't trust them," Ben argued.
"And I should trust you because…?" Jimmy challenged and Ben gaped, a consortium of pain scrambling across his features. Guilt pounded into Jimmy, and he dropped his gaze a moment to gather his strength, then leered up through lashes at the other boy, stammering demand, "Would you ever lie to me?"
Silence. Jimmy turned away, unable to stand looking at that blank expression on Ben's face, as the knife twisted in his heart and his stomach turned with sickness.
"Forget it," Jimmy murmured, scooping his boots off the ground and striding determinedly past Ben, terse and solemn, he hissed, "Go to hell, Ben."
He slammed the door shut behind him.
.
.
.
A/N: So, I wanted to be like, "Look, this is a real pillow talk scene! Post-coitus snuggling with happy, fluffy chatter without any of that gruesome murder confession stuff, right? Except, then it ends in a fight and yeah...I might have problems when it comes to writing that kind of fluffy stuff...
Oh well.
Let me know what you all thought please!
Reviewers: SassySavanna190, hehe, I'm kind of wondering what you were expecting Roman to do. Lol, I wouldn't torture you with a cliffhanger, would I? Oh wait...nevermind. Haley, yay, you came back with uber "aww" vengeance Glad you liked it, and glad you found a moment to stop in. JDMlvr1, hehe, its nice that the boys finally got a real "bedroom" scene, I think. Facepalmer123, really? Cool! NOxONE, thank you, yeah, anything that ends in O_O is usually good. Checkyourmetrics, it makes me sad when they fight too. IcicleLilly, although I understand the finals dilemma, I have finals all next week myself that I should be prepping for, I'm kind of glad you relapsed and dropped in to read. You still love Roman? You are hardcore; makes me happy. Hope this chapter was worth the wait! Good luck on finals.
I hope that I made sense. I don't know if I did. I need to go to sleep.
See you all...when's the next update?