Benji lifts from his body, eyes shuttering like they always do, and bursts into motion.
He drops to a knee as he spins out of grasp, shrugging away the shoulder pawed by a stranger’s hand. And then in a series of movements, he has the unlucky bastard’s knee knocked to the side, spun off-balance. It gets Benji in range. Benji’s awful in range. Up-close.
But in the back of his mind, he’s prompted into harsh movements by something even worse than in-range training.
Betrayed, a little voice hisses. Compromised.
It’s that special rage that pushes Benji back to his feet, the body of his attacker in tow. It’s that rage that spins it by the shoulders to face him, momentum throwing the person into rapid, desperate stumbles as Benji walks them both forward. Directly, and without much care for gentleness, further into the depths of the alley. Towards the brick.
As his back hits the wall, Xavier makes a cartoonish sort of ack! sound. It’s so absurd Benji immediately snaps from wherever his head had gone. Not knowing whether it’s unintentional or intentional (but, knowing this one: with a desperate need for Benji to agree with his humor).
That thought, really, is what snaps him out of it. That it’s Xavier trying to make him laugh, even with a forearm to his throat.
“Dude,” Xavier wheezes, grinning even as his breath cuts short. It makes him sound funny, and he must agree, because he’s grinning like a lunatic while he says it. “I just wanted to hang out.”
*
They do. A not-so-carefully organized rendezvous whose coordinates were delivered in code over an agreed frequency. How Xavier manages to get this deep behind lines, Benji isn’t sure — but he figures it has something to do with the arsenal of networking and connections Xavier has established for himself amongst his group. Or so he assumes, based on how much the bastard yaps.
For twenty minutes. For twenty minutes, they converse. They joke. For twenty minutes, (Benji counts as discretely as he can with glances at his watch) they circle the outer path of the city. It’s mostly an entertainment and commercial distract; these days, it houses a quickly dwindling array of shops and venues.
“It used to be cool.”
“It’s still pretty cool,” Xavier says. He can’t stop looking above them, through the great glass dome encapsulating the city. “I mean, we don’t have anything like this —oh fuck! Is that a whale?”
Benji nods, but he doesn’t have the attention for it. Xavier’s darted down a path, eyes wide with childish excitement as he watches the great, dark shape in the far distance traverse the ocean floor like a hawk in the sky. Slowly, inch by inch, it fades the same mottled black-blue of the horizon until its gone, swallowed up by the dark water beyond.
Maran hates this place. He’d been here exactly once, to the comic store around the corner from where Benji leads them now. And then he had sworn, as typical, to never ever fucking come back.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?”
Benji snaps out of his thoughts. He’d been walking with Xavier close behind, the enemy soldier at his back —
The enemy soldier, Benji thinks, grounding himself. At his back.
He slows until Xavier passes him. His brow furrows. He feels no apprehension or fear or adrenaline; he should have. Xavier is armed. And Xavier is — Xavier. Benji’s seen him in the midst of it.
“Yes,” Benji confirms. He steps up to the shopfront, shoulder to chest with the other man. “You said you liked music.”
Xavier tilts to smile at him. “Fuck, dude. I meant like — I go to the club and like music.” He gestures broadly at the store. “Not, like, actual real music. Or making it.”
Benji shrugs. “Club music’s still music, mate. Got a decent beat.”
“Tell me about it.” Xavier adopts a strange stance, then lifts both arms in the air and drops his chin as he bounces in place, unce-unce-unce of his own bad synth impression serving as tempo. When he stops, his hair’s a bit of a mess and his cheeks are flushed.
Benji clears his throat. “Ah, well. My bad. Can’t really recommend you clubs. Y’know. Considering. I, uh. Like this place,”
“Yeah? Can I guess?”
“Guess?” Benji asks, flustered.
Xavier laughs. “Yeah, dude. What you play.” At Benjis surprised expression, his laughter bursts forth again. “Benji, come on. You’re totally obvious.”
“Alright, then, if I’m obvious. What?”
“Hm.” Xavier says, eons of philosophers providing wisdom to that single, brief noise. “Saxophone.”
“Fuck yourself!” Benji splutters. He shoves Xavier, who stumbles a bit into the brick behind him. “Dickhead.”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Xavier leans back into Benji’s space, as if forced by gravity. “Um. Bass?”
“Drums.” Benji holds up his hands, flexes them. “Couldn’t tell?”
Xavier swallows. His eyes dart between Benji’s raised fingers, green finding brown in the gaps. “I was wondering.”
“Used shit sticks as a kid.” Benji says. He taps a finger against the window. “Like those.”
Xavier looks to where he points. “What’s that brand?”
“Why, you lookin’ to upstage me?”
Xavier smile stays turned toward him a split second longer than Benji thinks it ought to. Only after that lingering beat does his pale, freckled chin turn towards the store display. Brass and cherry-red candy paint acrylic guitars gleaming new behind an already glossy window. It looks like its cared after regularly and maybe even obsessively. There’s a bright yellow sale sticker in the bottom left, shaped like a star: voted best manufacturer by DRUM! four years in a row.
“Never heard of this one. Don’t have it.” Xavier sways forward and taps the glass. “Amazon Basics. You can get, like, everything.” He frowns. “Uh, mostly because they like. Own...everything.”
Benji thinks back to his main supply pack, propped against the bottom of his cot on base. There’s a pair of worn and oil-darkened sticks tucked inside for luck.
He frowns, staring at the laser-etched logo. “Mad.” He notes, drawing the vowel long.
“What?”
“We’ve got a few — brands, I mean. Myself, m’kinda sentimental. Only used Yamaha growin’ up ‘cause they were cheap.” He looks up at Xavier. “Never heard of Amazon. Instrument company?”
“Dude.”
Benji’s turn. “What?”
“Dude.” Xavier repeats, answering absolutely nothing. He takes Benji by the shoulders and shakes him. “You don’t have Amazon over there? Oh, fuck, that’s like…wicked inconvenient.”
Benji blinks at him.
Xavier smiles wider. “Imagine overnight shipping. Same hour shipping. You guys got that?”
Benji blinks at him again, then scoffs. “Mate, we’re lucky to get three weeks. You lot keep comin’ and pinchin’ the majority of our power source, remember?”
Xavier’s laugh is slightly delayed. Once it comes, it’s a big, bark of a sound.
Then he sobers. Benji’s smile dies a bit, too. Suddenly the moment is too visceral, the conflict around them closing in less backdrop.
It feels so different with you, Benji thinks. It feels slower. I forget. The fondness rolls his stomach with a knife-twist sharp like anxiety, serrated like fear.
“Do you want me to break in and steal you the cool multidimensional drum sticks?” Xavier whispers. His voice is dead serious, pitched low. But there’s a little slippery twist to the words that lets Benji know he’s being…teased?
He snorts.
“Aw, you’re a right evil bastard, aren’t you?” Benji grins, spurned on by the shamed flush on Xavier’s face. “The family owned shop? I’d judge you.”
“I don’t want you judging me,” Xavier sing-songs. He tucks his hands in his pants pockets, swaying. “I just want you to like me.”
Benji rolls his eyes. “You’re alright.”
Xavier takes a step. Benji has to tilt his chin up to keep their eyes level.
“Just alright?”
He lifts a gloved hand, pinches index and thumb together. “Fine. Bit better than alright.”
Xavier must mean for his next look to be silly; outrageously flirty. But without trying, mostly because of how his eyes slip half-closed, he manages to land between coy and sultry. It, Benji thinks, is a dangerous place for him to be.
“You gonna give it up any time soon?”
Xavier’s brows waggle. “Literally the second you say flip, I am fucking flipping.”
“Can you?”
“Fuck off.” Xavier laughs. His hands finally slip from Benji’s shoulders, although they don’t go without a friendly (friendly?) squeeze. “Maybe not, actually. Haven’t tried.”
“I meant,” Benji laughs. “I meant if you’re gonna give up the act, Xavier.”
“The act.”
“The act.” Benji says.
“The…act.”
He throws his hands up in the air, laughing. “Fuckin’ hell. Got myself a shadow and a damn echo.”
But every light moment seems to catch wrong on the edges; when Benji tosses his head back, he sees not just the deep, sun-mottled blue of the ocean above, but each explosive orange burst of the battle outside the domed city’s safety.
He remembers, suddenly, that he stands in one of the most secure bastions of that — safety — left. Because of the man in front of him, smiling with his fingers tucked a millimeter beneath his sleeve. Benji glances down at that, and tries a hundred different ways not to romanticize the touch’s softness in direct comparison to the literal war being raged above.
He tries, anyway.
“When I found you in that alleyway,” Xavier starts, his fingers drawing circles on Benji’s skin, “I was going to kill you and loot you and sneak back home in your uniform.”
Benji wonders if he’ll ever tire of the up-downs of being around Xavier, the constant shifts in energy and tone — without the sensation of being yanked about, Benji likes being kept on his toes.
“Now there’s a thing to admit,” Benji says wryly. “And of your own free will n’volition, too.”
Xavier moves again. Another step. The smallest he seems capable of taking; he’s in Benji’s space, barely, and touching, but only just. Benji can’t figure out which side of the other soldier this is: purposeful or natural.
“Shut up, I’m not done.” His hand trails up Benji’s forearm, squeezes. “When I got closer I was like, well no fucking shot. Right? You’re just —”
“Got a bit on you, hey?” Benji teases. His eyes feel heavy, but without exhaustion. “And you on me, suppose?”
Xavier blinks sluggishly at him. His mouth, lips slightly parted, splits into another wild grin.
“Hah. That’s what she said.”
Benji gives him a quizzical look. “What?”
“Wot?” Xavier shakes his head. “You don’t have The Office either? Man. This universe sucks.” He winks. “At least it has you.”
“Awful,” Benji amends, ducking his head slightly. “Amended to awful, not alright.”
“Benji.”
He glances up. Xavier cradles the side of his face like that means something.
“We’re — I have to —” his eyes dart between Benji’s own. There’s an unreadable expression on his face. Xavier is not smiling. “I want — fuck. Can we kiss again?”
Benji nods, tongue glued thick to the roof of his mouth. As Xavier leans forward, ducking down in the grim blue light, he catches one last glimpse of the fiery battle above.
