Work Text:
Unfortunately enough, as it turned out, one can only run on the heady cocktail of pure adrenaline that is IMF field work for so long. This adrenaline ever so conveniently disguised a mélange of messy laryngeal fractures, vascular trauma, and enough purple-black bruising circling Benji Dunn’s neck that, from a distance, it almost could be mistaken for some sort of morbid tattoo. Benji had pointed this out to the rather dour looking nurse as soon as he’d awoken from passing out cold only minutes after their victorious impromptu team meeting. She looked about one more witty quip away from turning off his morphine drip, especially after dealing with the rightfully crowned king of witty quips: Ethan Hunt. So, he decided silence was probably the better option. That, and his voice now sounded like it was currently submerged under fifty feet of sharp-edged gravel, and was attempting to (painfully) dig its way out.
Brilliant. Why go on T when you could just get almost hanged by a megalomaniacal sociopath to bring that voice down there into the lower registers? Really expedites the process, he thought, before hearing the distant, familiar sounds of Luther’s worried murmurings to one of the field doctors as he faded off into unconsciousness once again.
Days later, and the lot of them were home safe. Well, along with the better part of a week allotted for both Ethan and Benji’s stay in a much more generously equipped London hospital as soon as they touched down on English soil. It never failed to feel odd, being somewhere post-mission that didn’t involve being shot at, crashed into, or otherwise put into harm’s way. That, along with the fact that the doctors had informed him that he’d been no more than a second or two away from snapping his own neck, had he not been cut down. He’d stared as they told him, unfocused, at the comically large bouquet of lilacs on the table opposite his hospital bed. The note in Ilsa’s signature no-nonsense doctor’s scrawl read: “Don’t lose your head! –I ☺” Ethan had a similar note in his bouquet a few rooms over, one with an equally terrible medical pun. It turns out that he wasn’t the only member of Team Hunt that coped via morbid humor. Luther, meanwhile, spent the majority of that time pacing down the hospital corridor enough that he could’ve worn a track in the floor.
* * *
“There we go, lovely,” Benji hummed as he set down a bowl of fresh wet food in front of his very needy cat, before wincing visibly at the sound of his own voice. “Don’t like that. Nope. Not one bit.”
It had progressed past the gravel stage, and now just sounded like he was going through hormone-induced second puberty for the second time in his life. It cracked in the middle of the worst possible words at the worst possible times like bloody clockwork. Plus, although missing a couple doses while they were on mission wouldn’t irrevocably reverse any transition, it didn’t help on the tiredness or self-confidence fronts either. He’d barely been able to get through forking over crumpled pound notes to the kindly granny who usually looked after his cat while he was away. Not even a solid minute of pleasantries before he slammed the door behind him. And before she could ask inconvenient questions like, “now just where do you work again, my dear?”
Sighing, and after Satine looped grateful figure eights about his legs in thanks for the food, he flopped back down into the Benji-shaped couch indent in which he’d been glued to his PS4 for the last day and a half. Time off was a rare luxury in his field of work, and only doled out when something that terrible had just been averted. Judging by the barely averted nuclear crisis, many dead, and purpling hue of the ring of bruises around his neck, it had been internally deemed That Terrible. He would’ve been more than content reveling in that time off too, playing somewhere that wasn’t on his ridiculously large monitor setup at work. Letting the blue-tinged hue of his TV screen and the clicking of a controller fill the hours among strewn boxes of Chinese takeaway. A familiar pattern of knocks echoed from the entrance corridor.
Benji froze as if attempting to fall out of sight of some unseen, horrifying monster. He clumsily combat scrambled below the windows for the nearest reflective surface in order to assess his current state of hot mess. He settled on the glass of the framed map of the Outer Rim on a nearby wall and grimaced. So, Benji answered the knock in beer-stained pajamas to a runway-perfect, bemused Ethan. The man was leaning against the doorframe, as usual, looking like he’d shipped in from some factory where they mass-manufactured model specimens. It used to be slightly off-putting, and more than slightly jealousy-inducing, but now it was just endearing. But not when he, in comparison at the moment, looked a lot like he’d finally decided to make himself a hermit hut out of ancient computer keyboards.
“Hey there, buddy. Hanging in there okay—“ Ethan began with a look of gentle concern, before his expression went frozen in abject horror. “Shit, that was— Wow. My bad.”
“Ah, you seem to have caught some of my foot-in-mouth disease, Mr. Hunt,” Benji grinned, hands in pajama pant pockets and swaying a little on his feet, before gesturing him inside. “Hope it’s not too much trouble, on top of your shattered xylophone of a ribcage.”
“Oof. I think I deserved that one.”
Benji chuckled as he attempted to quietly kick an empty ramen noodle container into hiding under one of the hall tables, “You did, but welcome to my humble abode anyways.”
Most of the members of Team Hunt had been round to his place before, so Benji was now quite used to the presence of guests, even if they all had to skirt around mountains of clutter. He’d spent a large majority of his life without much of a social life to speak of; Ethan had changed all that. One of his many bad habits. Benji brushed the crumbs off his sofa as best he could before inviting his guest to sit.
“Really though, Benj,” Ethan started fresh with an arm thrown casually over the back of the couch cushions. “How’re you feeling? Luther said you seemed decent when he came over for one of your poker nights, but I prefer verifying intel myself.”
He laughed at that, one of his snide guffaws, before it accidentally slid into a croak that made Ethan sympathy wince.
“So you’re spying on me through Luther now?” Benji asked after clearing his throat as best he could. “Damn it, I knew that bastard looked shiftier than usual. And he offered to cover the cost of our takeaway! He never does that. Never!”
“Alright, ‘spying’ sounds worse than it actually is. I just don’t want to seem like a—“
“Mother hen? Because it’s too late for that, mate,” Benji supplied with a grin. “About seven years too late.”
Ethan produced one of his shark-like, almost inhumanly white toothed grins that made Benji wonder if it was really the pain meds making him feel glad to be sitting down.
“I haven’t regretted a minute of it,” the smug bastard replied as he matched that grin with one of his trademark-worthy sincere looks. “You’re family, Benj.”
A fervent debate raged in Benji’s head over whether he wanted to punch him or hug him. Probably both. Definitely both. In any case, he’d deal with those emotions when the man in question wasn’t currently sinking into his ancient, quicksand-esque and ramen stained sofa. His mouth hung open a bit before managing to eek out a coherent reply.
“I— Uh. I don’t even know what to say to that, so we’re gonna ignore it. My motto, really. Always been monumentally helpful. Moving on,” Benji stuttered with a gaping sort of expression. “I’m, as you so astutely observed, ‘hanging in there.’ All the doctors seem to think I’m healing up nicely. Not that Lane didn’t give Beat Up the Benj 2: Electric Boogaloo the old college try.”
Ethan let out an unabashedly dorky snort-laugh. Benji filed that particular sound byte in his head under “You Are So Incredibly Fucked for Anyone Else, Dunn.”
“I’m perfectly content to use all the time off to muck about doing nothing much in particular. Oh, and I’m creating a dragon-worthy hoard of pillows with which to prop up my neck. My bed kind of looks like a padded room at this point? It’s a bit impressive,” Benji finished with a faux-casual shrug.
A visible wash of happy relief fell over Ethan’s face as he listened intently, before replying with: “Here I thought your dragon hoard would be something like… I dunno. Ancient, broken routers to scrap for parts and a zillion terabyte external hard drives.”
“Oh, that’s my separate hoard. The pillows are a more recent, need-based development.”
The ability to be his usual quirky self must’ve been reassurance enough that Lane hadn’t broken him beyond repair, if Ethan’s continuing smile was anything to go by. The nightmares were another beast, but one that felt trivial compared to the rest of their problems. But there was something else there too. It roiled beneath the stone surface of Ethan’s stupidly chiseled features. There was no plucking it out either. Not like code, where with enough time and enough troubleshooting via annoyed 2 AM rants about if-else statements at his rubber duck, he’d push through eventually. Ethan Hunt wasn’t someone that cracked easily.
In any case, Benji abruptly decided on another convenient heel-turn of topic as a distant church bell rang out the time: “Anyways, I’m not the one who crashed a helicopter into a cliff, got into a fight with the human equivalent of a brick wall, and nearly got a hook through the cranium. Should be the one asking after your wellbeing here.”
A “meh” sort of gesture was all that he got in return for the question, as Ethan toyed idly with a nearby PS4 controller.
“Well, I’m able to sleep at night now, knowing that those monsters won’t touch anyone ever again. And, in regards to the—“ he gestured at his entire torso. “I’m from the Midwest. My mom used to give me ginger ale when I wasn’t doing so hot, and I popped back up like a weed within a week. I can tough out anything, broken ribs included.” He shrugged, as if it was the most natural response to major physical trauma in the world.
Benji blinked. Americans.
“I feel like I’ve… um. Gained access just now to more about how you operate than anyone else should know,” he replied, slightly stunned. “Should I inform the world of this miracle healing serum? Call the Times and set up an interview?”
“Shh,” Ethan laughed as he put a finger to his lips with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Want everyone to hear you?”
They laughed together for a good minute, until Ethan got a pillow to the face and a twinge in his tender ribs that forced them to bring down the mood once again. This was nice. This was comfortable, familial— like when Luther lorded over how many timed he’d smoked him at poker, or when Ilsa joined him in target practice using Lane’s mugshot. Ethan was right. They really were a little island of misfit toys. But, in their line of work, admitting that aloud was tantamount to asking for it all to be ripped away, so Benji tried not to make a habit of it. The intelligence business wasn’t kind to emotional attachments.
A good half-hour of comfortable conversation followed, in which Benji lounged further into the couch cushions and made a new sport of flicking cupcake crumbs from his pant legs and into a nearby beer can. Ethan then produced something from what seemed like midair. A perfectly folded chemist’s paper bag of prescriptions was pressed into his hands. Pain medication. But Ethan’s continued... something from below the surface was now quickly beginning to see the light. His throat audibly clicked with a dry swallow.
“Shit, I forgot to pick that up today. Thank—“ Benji began, before remembering part of the reason he’d felt that twinge of guilt about his lazy day at home. Stapled alongside the details and dosage for his pain meds: TRANSITION THERAPY USAGE ONLY. Testosterone enanthate, 200 mg.
All the color drained from Benji’s face at once.
A hand that seemed disconnected from his brain’s signals snatched at the bag as if it was full of hot coals. His legs too made off moving of their own accord, before he faintly felt a strong grip about his wrist.
“Let go, Ethan,” Benji managed after a long moment in a cold, raspy voice that didn’t sound like his own.
“Benji, listen—“ Ethan began at the same time, almost pleading.
“Let go of me.”
“If you think I think any less of you, or—“
“Save it,” he replied angrily, rounding on the seated man with fire blazing behind his eyes. The coals he’d been suppressing down, down, down into his belly for years now were blazing strong, now that he didn’t have a chance of explaining this away. “Fucking spare me the diatribe. I’d rather march into Lane’s cell myself with nothing to defend myself with other than a shitting paperclip. You haven’t the faintest idea of what it’s like having to get by an in an organization that’s practically founded around out… macho-ing everyone and anyone. You’re Mister Good Looks, Great Teeth. The whole package. Something out of a goddamn le Carré novel. Meanwhile, I’m—“
He mirrored Ethan’s general gesture at his own torso, except this time, his hands shook.
“I’m this. And I’ve taken a very long time to be okay with this. It was my choice to not tell you. Got top surgery a couple years back, when I could finally afford it post-Morocco, and when everyone thought I was off helping get new IMF safehouses online in Belize. Luther helped me scrub any trace of my transition from every record, even before I met you. I get enough shit from our colleagues as it is. I’d never live it down if they knew just how deep my weirdness goes,” Benji continued with a voice crossing dangerously into manic at its edges.
Ethan seemed physically incapable of taking his eyes off him and, usually, Benji would’ve noticed the telltale worry dancing across his face. Instead, he drove his mental state directly off the nearest cliff. Seemed perfectly logical.
“And- And, you know, who knows who could’ve used it against me? Any one of the assholes we’ve met over the years. Any of them! Thank fuck I’m fully post-op and wasn’t wearing a bloody binder when Lane decided to take out more of his personal vendetta against me in Kashmir. Wouldn’t have helped my oxygen intake levels much,” he raved with an unhinged laugh and a hand in his wild hair. “You’re gonna drop me from the team now, aren’t you. You’re gonna drop me like the freak I am, a-and— Um.“
Belatedly, and as his vision cleared of the blinding noise of sheer panic, he noticed rock-solid arms gripping his shoulders tight. Ethan had been making repeated attempts to quell the tide of word vomit for the last two minutes, only succeeding when he’d repeated Benji’s name loud enough. His face conveyed something that Benji hadn’t entirely seen before. Maybe Luther had. He didn’t know. It was an expression of the fierce, unstoppable warrior mingling with the kind man who took his job as the rightfully appointed king of their island of misfit toys extremely seriously. His dark, serious eyebrows furrowed and his jaw clenched hard. In the distance, the noise of afternoon traffic passed unnoticed.
“If you seriously believe I don’t respect you that much," Ethan said sternly, as if the mere suggestion otherwise was a slap in the face. "Maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought you did."
Benji had never met someone who looked as physically equipped to fight a friend’s personal demons as he was to take down fifty armed guards at a time.
“And you’re gonna end up actually straining your throat if you keep rambling like that,” Ethan continued matter-of-factly.
Again, sheer disbelief. Benji blinked once, twice, as he realized that tears had been pooling heavy at his waterline for quite some time now. His entire body seemed to slowly untangle itself from a fight-or-flight scenario level of tension. It was fine. Of course it was fine. Because it was Ethan. Ever constant, ever supportive Ethan, who routinely risked his own life for him. He’d just have to throw his brain into a bit of a hard reboot to fully grasp it. A shaky exhale of tension filled the space between them.
“God, why am I the only anxious crier on this team?” Benji complained. His voice, naturally, cracked on every other word.
The outburst made Ethan break into a relieved, sympathetic burst of laughter that Benji found himself blubbering into. And into the hug that followed too. Ethan didn’t skimp on his hugs, even though they fell a bit short of Luther’s wide, welcomingly bear-like embraces. They stood amongst the detritus of the apartment as the sun dimmed low through the windows.
“Everyone has their secrets in our line of work, Benj,” Ethan hummed. “Some are just bigger than others. I get you keeping this one.”
“Oh.”
It was hard to describe the feeling of a crushing weight being lifted off your shoulders in one fell swoop. The thing he’d been agonizing about for so long, the fast approaching question of when Ethan would find out, had passed. So, annoyingly, his brain had settled on the very astute “oh.” Only a step up from babbling incoherence. Lovely.
Then, Ethan’s smiling lips fiercely pressed to his temple in a more than convincing continued insistence that, yes, everything was going to be fine, incoherence or no. More than fine, judging by the feeling that the other man had lit a sparkler somewhere low in his stomach that fluttered and sparked and burned bright-hot. That was… new. He made a mental note to thoroughly question Ilsa on the finer details of Ethan’s apparent courtship rituals. That was also, apparently, enough to make him sag just that little bit more into Ethan’s arms with a buoyant giggle.
“Oh, have I seduced you, Mr. Hunt? Was it the multiple laryngeal fractures that make my voice sound properly deep? Is that it? Thought so. Maybe I should be thanking our terrorist friend instead.”
“Shut up, Benji.”
For once, and for more reasons than one, he was glad to.