Or maybe it’s just normal not to ask about exes. Xander is fiercely monogamous, after all. And it’s not like talking about exes has ever proved beneficial to Ben in the past. Adam swims into his mind, but Ben puts him firmly to one side.
“Okay,” Xander is saying. “I’ll let you have some cave time, and we can do something after I get back. I won’t stay out too late. As for this morning…” Xander searches through the nightstand for something and then brings out a scrap of newspaper. “Perhaps we can deal with this issue.”
It’s torn from the newspaper on which Xander kept scoring Ben’s mistakes. The original fifteen tallies are scribbled out, but there are another twelve or so racked up.
“What are they for?” Ben demands.
“I could tell you each and every one if you like. Or you can just trust me.” He smirks.
“I thought we were having fun from now on,” Ben says weakly.
“This will be fun.” And Xander looks so pleased with himself that it’s impossible not to give in.
“Fine. Cane again?”
“No.”
“Crop?”
“Nope.”
Ben frowns. Xander thumbs at the crease between his eyebrows, smoothing it, and says, “Sometimes I just want to eat you all up. Like this.” Slowly, he drops his head to Ben’s chest and Ben feels Xander’s mouth open wide over his heart; teeth drag over his skin and close together almost gently—almost, except for the sharp nip at the end. “I love it when you yelp like that,” Xander says, his lips moving against what Ben knows will be a small but angry mark later in the day. “I know you have things coming up, but I’ll be careful, so careful for you my Benjamin, and the bruising will disappear in just a few days. Maybe even by the time you hit LAX.”
“Disappear, huh? Like magic?” But Ben smiles, reaches up to run a thumb over Xander’s lips. Xander captures it between his teeth and bites down gently before releasing it.
“Like magic.”
“Alright, then. I trust you.”
“I think you’ll like this,” Xander says happily.
Xander is right. He takes his time biting with wide, tender pressure, and there’s no pain until he pinches a tiny fold of skin between his teeth. It’s almost relaxing, Ben finds, like a massage, if it weren’t for the shooting sting at the very end. Xander moves him around with strong, resolute hands, bringing parts of Ben up to his mouth as he likes, biting into him with deliberation and enjoyment. Ben finds himself half-hanging off the bed, or caught between Xander’s thighs, eyeing his erection, and laughing helplessly in between appreciative gasps.
“That’s twelve,” Xander says, sitting up against the pillow, and Ben groans in frustration. “You want more? I can give you more.”
“Yes, please,” Ben says immediately. Xander hasn’t even gotten around to biting his ass yet, and that, Ben knows from experience, feels amazing. “Yeah,” he sighs, as Xander obligingly pulls him by the hips, turns him on his hands and knees so that he’s positioned over Xander’s body. Xander sinks teeth into his flesh, where his thigh meets his butt, right over what Ben knows is a now-purple bruise from the caning. But it’s as careful as promised, and Xander doesn’t even nip this time. Ben feels the pain as a dull throb, ebbing through him like a tide and making his cock drip with anticipation.
Xander goes slow, biting gently into Ben’s ass again and again like it’s an oversized candy apple, until Ben is pleading for more, for his tongue, for Xander to eat him out. And Xander obliges with a wicked, gluttonous noise, stabbing his tongue insistently into Ben’s hole, and reaching around to pull at his cock. It takes about thirty seconds before Ben comes, almost crying, which embarrasses him after he regains his breath.
“You love that like oxygen,” Xander says.
“What does that even mean?” But Ben laughs. He’s fallen forward, his face smashed into Xander’s calf. Hairs are tickling his nose, but he doesn’t care.
“Are you gonna get up so I can fuck you?”
“No. Comfy.”
“Hey, we’re still in the trial period, you know. You’re supposed to do whatever I tell you.” But Xander is just teasing.
“That’s true. It’s very disobedient of me. You could punish me some more?” Ben suggests, smiling into the sheets.
Xander rolls him off and climbs on top of him. “How do you punish a masochist?” he asks.
“By rimming them, apparently.”
“No, it’s a joke.”
“Oh. I don’t know, Xander, how do you punish a masochist?”
“Cover them in bubble wrap.”
“That’s a terrible joke.”
“Yeah,” Xander agrees. “The community can be pretty corny. Come on, move your ass so I can fuck it.”
“Romance is dead,” Ben sighs, but moves into position. In the back of his mind, though, he wonders about Xander and his community, the people who taught him, trained him, the people he was friends with before he stopped going to clubs. Wonders if he misses it, if he misses the people in that community, who tell unfunny jokes and teach each other how to hurt people safely.
“We should go to a club sometime,” he says, as Xander steadies himself between Ben’s legs.
“What? Why?”
“I’d like to meet them. The people you knew. And maybe…I could talk to some of them. People who are like me.”
Xander frowns. “I don’t know. If we got photographed—” He sinks inside Ben with a stifled curse. “You weren’t wrong the other night, Benjamin, this does feel like heaven. If we got photographed, it would cause problems. Besides, you have me to talk to.”
But you are not like me, Ben wants to say, but he lets it go. There’s no point arguing about it, not when Xander is fucking him so expertly that he feels his own spent cock responding. Xander shoots quickly, but afterwards he pulls Ben tightly into his arms and takes his time working him to a second orgasm, smiling in pleasure, telling him how good he is.
Chapter Eleven
When Ben arrives at Elijah’s place for lunch, he takes a moment to steel himself before he hits the buzzer. But before he even has a chance to start a mental pep-talk, there’s a crackle on the communicator.
“Hey, man! Dean saw your Uber pull up. Come on in.” There’s a long buzz, and Ben pushes open the door.
The apartment is only on the first floor, but he takes his time walking up. By the time he gets there, Elijah is waiting for him with the door open, waving him frantically inside.
“Get a move on, or Dean will eat all the pizza. I got it from this great place down on—” Elijah disappears inside, still talking, and Ben follows.
It’s fine, Ben discovers. Once he realizes that this is just another social occasion, rather than an intensive two-on-one grilling by Xander’s best friends, he tries to relax more. But he finds it difficult not to search each phrase for double meaning, and struggles to keep track of the conversation when Dean and Elijah slip into discussions about people he doesn’t know. They have several beers each, which doesn’t help Ben’s concentration. Eventually, Elijah reaches out a lazy foot and kicks him under the coffee table.
“Dude, you’re so twitchy. What’s the deal?”
Ben starts. “Sorry, what?”
Elijah smiles. “We boring you?”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Cause you know, we’re well aware that Xander is much more interesting.” Ben watches him for signs of irony or maybe even jealousy, but it’s just teasing. They’re just trying to include you, he tells himself. Stop being so suspicious.
“Well, yeah,” he says. “But I’m making do. You’re mildly entertaining. Dean is better.”
Elijah pretends outrage while Dean chokes on his drink from laughing too hard. “A man of wisdom,” he manages to wheeze.
“Fuck you both,” Elijah says, grinning. “And here’s to a boyfriend we can actually get along with.” They all clink bottles, and then Ben can’t stop himself.
“What does that even mean?”
/> “Don’t,” Dean says immediately to Elijah. “Come on, man. We agreed. Sacred head slapping and all.”
“We’ll have to show you that,” Elijah tells Ben. “It’s our thing. A binding code.”
“A painfully binding code,” Dean agrees.
Ben wonders idly if that’s what Xander likes about it. “So initiate me. Now.”
Elijah and Dean look at each other seriously, and stand up. “Is he really ready for it?” Dean asks.
“I think so.”
They turn in tandem and slam the heels of their hands into Ben’s forehead. “Fuck!” Ben snaps, but laughs.
“Took it like a man,” Elijah says approvingly. “Better than Xander ever does, anyway. Alright. We’ll spill. But you have to promise, on pain of repeated head slappings, never to tell Xander that we told you this, because he’d have an epic sulk. Also, you should probably know up front, we hardly have any dirt on him. Well, except for some college stories involving too much black sambuca, but really, who doesn’t have a similar tale to tell?”
“You gave me a concussion for the bare minimum?” Dean and Elijah shout in triumph, and Ben backtracks. “Not concussion! Hardly even a tap!”
Dean finishes coughing beer and nods. “Okay, fair trade. We just meant that Xander’s previous interests have been…” He looks to Elijah for help as they both slump back into their seats.
“Annoying.”
“Or boring.”
“Or fucking embarrassing, man, remember—”
“No,” Dean says decisively. “I do not remember that. I drank enough afterwards to blot out all memories.” Ben raises an inquiring eyebrow, and Elijah snorts.
“Don’t believe his lies for a second, Ballard. He loves telling this story.”
Dean leans forward in his seat immediately, his face alight with glee. “This was years ago now, but it was the most excruciating fucking dinner of my entire life. So, picture it. We’re meeting for dinner, me, Elijah, Xander and the newest boyfriend. Xander always does this thing where he takes the new kid to see us, like a test or something.”
“You passed, by the way, Ballard,” Elijah interjects.
“We have no idea why he does it, still don’t,” Dean says. “Like we have better taste in men than he does?”
“Well, I do,” Elijah, the only straight guy in the room, assures them. “I’m an objective connoisseur. Appreciative, but uninvolved.”
“Fuck you,” Dean tells Elijah offhandedly. “It’s my opinion that counts. So, we’re meeting for dinner, in some godawful restaurant in LA that Xander is excited about.”
“They were serving kangaroo carpaccio. It was really—”
“Dude, will you shut up? So Xander comes in, looking exhausted. Like he hasn’t slept for three days. I mean, so fucking exhausted, his eyebrows are growing together, and you better believe he keeps those motherfuckers under control.” Elijah opens his mouth and Dean glares. “So,” he continues pointedly, “his new twonk—”
“Twink,” Ben and Elijah say in unison.
“Twonk, twink, whatever.”
“How do I know gay slang when you don’t?” snorts Elijah.
Dean speaks loudly over him. “His new boyfriend is this scrawny kid. Xander told us later he was older than him, but I don’t know, he looked…”
“Not like you,” Elijah says helpfully to Ben. “Not that I’m hitting on you.” Ben flips him the bird, and Elijah laughs uproariously.
“He looks like some rich kid trying to look homeless, wearing this fucking dog collar around his neck,” Dean says loudly over the noise. “And we’re thinking, you know, whatever. It’s Xander. He has terrible taste in men, so this kid isn’t even the worst. But, oh, God.” Dean closes his eyes, remembering, and Elijah snickers. “The kid hands his menu to Xander and says, ‘What am I allowed to have, Xander?’ And we’re all, come on, now. The hell? And then the kid asks Xander what he’s allowed to drink, and then whether Xander wants to feed him, and Elijah and I are sending Shut him up, shut him up! vibes at Xander, but he won’t even look at us.”
Ben feels his heart freeze in his chest, but keeps smiling, laughing.
“X-man likes his kink,” Elijah says affectionately. “But he keeps it on the downlow, usually. Or thinks he does.”
“And Xander, Christ, I thought he was going to stab someone with a fork. And then—” Dean pauses dramatically. Ben struggles to keep his smile a smile and not a grimace, and wonders what’s coming. “Then, the bastard mutters something and takes off for the bathroom and leaves us there. With this kid. Who blinks at us, and we try to talk to him and—”
“He says, ‘I shouldn’t talk when Xander’s not here,’” Elijah giggles. “It was awful. Xander’s fucking around in the bathroom—”
“Not literally.”
“That we know, anyway. And we’re staring at each other, wondering whether to laugh or cry, and the kid’s staring at his hands, and goddamn. It was like that all night.”
“Worst Xander boyfriend ever,” Dean says decisively.
“I don’t know. Adam sure sucked balls,” Elijah sighs.
“Yeah, and probably very well, which is why Xander was so crazy about him.”
“You’re much better.” Elijah tips his beer towards Ben. “I mean, not at ball-sucking. I have no idea about that.” He grins. “I’m just fucking with you man, don’t have any desire to know what you and Xander do. So you can stop looking so freaked.”
“I’m not freaked. Okay, maybe I am. Just—”
“We made a classic mistake, ’Lij,” Dean drawls. “Never bring up the exes with the newbie. And definitely don’t bring up ball-sucking.”
Elijah, surprisingly, looks perturbed. “Sorry, Ballard,” he says. “Probably went too far for the first date, huh?”
Ben raises his eyebrows. “First date?”
Elijah and Dean grin sheepishly at each other, and—is that embarrassment in their eyes? Ben wonders.
“We like you,” Dean says, shrugging. “You’re the first guy Xander’s dated for a long time that we’ve found tolerable.”
“More than tolerable,” Elijah says accusingly.
“Definitely more than tolerable,” Dean concedes. “You have our seal of approval.”
“Thanks, I guess?” Ben snorts.
After the pizzas are finished, Ben helps Elijah take myriad empty beer bottles out to the recycling in the alley, while Dean dozes contentedly on the couch.
“See, now I like you even more—helping take out the trash, that’s what real friends do. Not eat more than their share of pizza and then drool all over the sofa.” Elijah dusts off his hands and looks up at the hazy sky, shading his eyes against the weak sunlight. “It’s gonna be cold this winter. I think I’ll try to head back to LA for it. We should catch up there if I do.”
“Yeah.” Ben smiles. “We should.”
“Sooo,” Elijah drawls, looking nervous, and Ben thinks, Oh, shit. Here it comes. And you thought you were safe. “Tell me to butt out, but I was just wondering how Xander’s doing. He’s busy all the time, you know how it is, so I don’t get to see him as much as I’d like. Is he…happy?”
“Sure. He’s happy.”
“And you guys are tight?”
Ben tipsily considers making a vulgar joke about just how tight Xander felt the other night, but decides it’s probably inappropriate at this juncture. “We’re good,” he says instead. “Xander’s happy. I mean, we’re still figuring out some stuff, finding what we’re comfortable with.” He stops, wondering if he’s said too much, but Elijah nods.
“Yeah, I get that. Must be hard, when he’s getting so famous.”
Is that what it is? Ben wonders. Are the fame and the stress contributing to Xander’s balance problems? “You ask how we’re doing a lot,” he says to Elijah.
Elijah laughs. “Can’t mind my own fucking business. But seriously, I just wanna make sure things are smooth for you both. You’re—you’re really good for him,” he says awkwardly. “He
’s never really had a long term thing before, except for Adam I guess, so Dean and I are hoping it’ll last. Xander can be difficult sometimes. The guy’s incredible, and funny, and smart, and hardworking, and loyal as hell, but I want to drown him sometimes when he gets in those moods. We just worry about him, I guess.”
“So do I,” Ben admits. “Sometimes, he’s…I don’t know.”
“Dangerous?” Elijah isn’t joking for once, and his eyes are kind.
“It’s a little bit like loving a shark,” Ben agrees.
“Just don’t cut yourself in the water, I guess.” Elijah grins.
I’m not allowed to, Ben wants to say, but he thinks about Xander’s collared twink, and Elijah and Dean’s reactions, and smiles faintly instead.
Elijah stretches his arms up, cracking his shoulder joints, and says casually, “Since we’re pretty much braiding each other’s hair now, can I ask a favor?” Ben nods. “If things go bad, like you hit a rough patch or something, give us a heads up? Because Xander does this thing where he retreats like an animal to lick his wounds and it just gets all…He never tells us. And he does better if he’s around people when he gets like that.”
“Uh,” Ben says.
“I know. I’m stretching the friendship.”
“It’s cool.” It’s not, not really. But what else can he say? Besides, things aren’t going to go bad. “I’ll let you guys know.”
Xander arrives back relatively early that night, but Ben is already in bed, studying his direction notes for Blood Bond so far. He has an early start for his journey home tomorrow, although he’s resigned to not getting much sleep anyway. His bag is packed and ready to go, and Xander stops to look at it sadly.
“You got everything from the hotel?”
“Yeah, I dropped by this afternoon. Checked out. Got papped one last time, to make it up to Ramona.”
“How was lunch?”
“Good. I had fun. Found out that Dean snores really loudly when he naps. Elijah wanted to put Cheetos up his nose, but I stopped him.”
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