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“Here,” Dante says, giving Benny one of the three mugs he’s carefully carrying into the room.
“Managed not to burn the coffee?” Benny teases.
Dante huffs, “It was touch and go for a moment but I’m happy to announce that nothing was set on fire during the making of this coffee.”
“Proud of you, Darling,” Kel says, taking the offered chipped green mug and holding it up to their face, breathing deeply.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dante says, dipping to kiss Kel’s forehead and stretching to kiss Benny on the cheek, “I exploded toast and lost kitchen privileges, very funny.”
“I’ll make pancakes?” Benny offers.
“Fuck yeah, let’s go.”
---
“You’re bleeding,” Dante says, face creased with concern.
Benny scrubs at the side of his face, smearing the blood down his jaw before wiping his hand on his jeans.
“I didn’t notice,” He says, in a way that sounds dangerously detached.
“Come on,” Dante says, placing a hand at the base of Benny’s back and guiding him under the deck. Distantly, he can hear the rest of the team following behind them. Thankfully sound alright overall.
Benny isn’t alright.
Dante guides Benny to the bathroom and pauses while they wait for Benny to hoist himself on the vanity. Dante pulls the faucet up as he moves to grab a towel from the cabinet, water warm by the time he’s returned.
Dante doesn’t have much practice with this. He knows how to take care of his friends. He can steal money and throw his body in front of danger to protect them, but this is a different type of affection he’s less familiar with. It’s quieter, more hands-on.
Dante wouldn’t do this for anyone, but for Benny? For Kel? He’d wade into these uncertain waters every fucking day if he had to.
“Can I touch?” Dante asks.
Benny blinks like he had forgotten what was going on. “Yeah, yeah.”
Dante wipes off Benny’s face, removing the gore and viscera acquired throughout the night. Most of his injuries are sealed over, save for a slice that cuts down Benny’s jaw. It’ll disappear with his next morph, but that takes energy they lack tonight.
There’s a hole in Benny’s shirt bigger than a CD, the edges soaked black. The skin underneath is pink and new.
They aren’t talking about it.
“Can we take this off?” Dante says, hands hovering above the trashed fabric.
Benny tugs the fragile fabric over his head. It’s reassuring, seeing him all in one piece. Dante rewets the washcloth and removes the evidence of a Benny dissolving.
“We’re going to kill each other,” Benny says.
Dante’s hand stills. Constance, a distraction. Benny with a Hork Bajir claw through his chest. Dante feeling like he’s drowning on land as he sees Benny crumple.
“I love you,” Dante says because there’s nothing else to say, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” Benny says, “Me too.”
There’s a knock on the bathroom door and Dante tugs the knob. Kel’s there like they’re still telepathically linked, with a pile of clothes tossed over their shoulder. Dante spots three of his hoodies, four of Kel’s softest pairs of pajama pants, and six of Benny’s tee shirts.
“Thought you two might want some fresh clothes, so I brought choices,” They say, and Dante adds this to the mile-long list of reasons why he loves them, “Can I come in?”
Benny reaches out and Kel is there, carefully boosting themself up on the counter and hooking their ankle around Benny’s calve.
“Hey Darling,” They say, “What else can we do?”
---
“What are you doing on the floor?” Adrien asks, confused.
“Kel passed out,” Dante says nonchalantly, looking up from his Blackberry. His other hand is loosely holding Kel’s, comfort instead of constraint.
“Kel passed out?” Adrien asks, obviously concerned, “Are they okay?”
“They’re good,” Benny says, back leaned up against the wall and hoodie folded under Kel’s neck, “They’ll be up again in a second.”
Adrien carefully sits down on the floor. “Does this happen often?” He asks.
Dante shrugs.
“Okay,” Adrien says slowly, “Should I get Ariel?”
Adrien shifts his weight like he’s going to get up and get her, but Kel groggily opens their eyes before he can stand.
“Fuck,” Kel says.
“Yeah,” Benny says, “You want a hand up?”
---
“I brought food,” Dante says, holding up a big brown paper bag,
“Awesome,” Benny says, taking the bag from Dante’s hands and setting it down on the counter. Instead of opening the bag, he dips down to kiss Dante.
Dante’s not short, but Benny’s tall. It’s nice, being able to loop their arms around his shoulders.
“It’s just takeout,” Dante huffs against Benny’s lips, feeling irrationally happy.
“You know this isn’t about takeout,” Benny says.
It’s a little bit about the takeout, but only because the takeout is designed to make Kel happy. The food smells just as good as it did the first time they’d been in the family-owned restaurant on their first date with Kel. Dante thinks of their other surprise, an order of New Orléans’ Big Shot Soda from an independent grocer shoved under their bunk, a childhood favorite that Benny had named as his drink of choice. It’s about a night off and a celebration of them, of assumed safety and feeling at home with the people holding you.
“Mm,” Dante hums, “Okay.”
---
They’re getting more vicious. Kel doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
When they were really little, their parents had taken them to the Dublin Zoo. They’d liked the meerkats and the flamingos and green tree pythons. They were beautiful and wild and seemed very smart in Kel’s mind.
They had not liked the lions.
The lions were bigger than Kel, with teeth the size of their fingers and claws like knives. Even though the lions were on the other side of a glass wall, being in their presence made Kel feel like they were in danger. They’d been scary, the scariest thing that Kel had ever seen.
That’s funny now.
Kel is more dangerous than any zoo-raised lion. They are simultaneously invincible and vulnerable, sharp and soft. They know what it’s like to fly and what it feels like to watch somebody die. They’ve been standing on the edge of a cliff for months now, and they’re not afraid of pushing those in their way down onto the rocks.
“Hold up,” Benny says, “You’ve got—”
He brushes something grey and viscous out of Kel’s hair.
Kel looks at it, the remains of this Yeerk, and does not regret their actions, does not regret razing the pool in which it was feeding. It’s revolting, both because the corpse of an alien fascist has been sitting on Kel’s shoulder for the past twenty minutes and because they aren’t surprised to see it.
Benny throws the Yeerk overboard without a second thought. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to touch it without retching. Kel grabs his hand, gripping it tightly.
“Benny,” They say urgently, “What do you want to do when this is over?”
“I don’t know,” Benny says, squeezing Kel’s hand lightly, “Don’t worry about it.”
“No,” Kel says, “I’m going to worry about it. What do you want? Max and Jude are going to travel, and Adrien has been looking at dog training, of all things. Ariel’s going to become a fucking astrophysicist. They have plans. Do you want to take over the fishing business, run the books? Do you want to start over somewhere new?”
If they’re going to make it through to the other side, they have to want things. Kel needs him to want things.
“I want you and Dante,” Benny says simply, “I want for us to be safe.”
Kel hugs him. They don’t even hesitate before tossing the cane aside, because hugging Benny is a two-armed task and he’d never let them fall.
“Yeah,” Kel says, “Me too.”
---
“Lay back down,” Kel says quietly, their hand clasped around Dante’s wrist.
“I’ve got to do a thing. I’ll be right back; it’s fine,” He whispers, shifting his wrist so that he can squeeze their hand, “Sorry for waking you.”
“It’s alright,” Kel says, voice still at the same low level as to not wake the other human in the bed, “Just stay.”
They tug lightly on Dante’s hand and there’s no way for him to resist. He shuffles under the sheets and moves to tuck his arm underneath Kel’s pillow. Benny’s hand is there, tucked close to his face, and Dante carefully entwines their fingers together.
They’re close, very close. close enough that Dante can rest his chin on Kel’s head and curl a leg across to bump against Benny’s foot, a quiet reassurance that he’s still there. Kel smells like clean, neutral soap and the tea they were drinking before bed and Benny is warm.
“There’s a world to save,” Dante says quietly.
“I’m aware,” Kel says, “You can’t save it all on your own at four in the morning.”
“I can try,” Dante says.
Kel gives Dante a firm look. “If you want to be an idiot, sure. It would work better with your friends.”
“My friends are tired,” Dante says. “You were sleeping.”
“I know you’re tired, maybe you should sleep too.”
Dante doesn’t love to sleep. He used to have nightmares when he was little, but they got less and less frequent as he grew.
Needless to say, he has new nightmares now.
“I’m fine,” Dante says.
“You’re not, but okay,” Kel says, “You’re going on forty-eight hours awake already and I’m a little concerned that if you tried to hack into any menacing government agencies you would get your ass caught.”
“That would be a problem,” Dante says, “You like my ass.”
Kel rolls their eyes before laying their head on Dante’s chest, “Then stay.”
Something in Dante softens. He feels like his heart is melting as he reaches his free arm around Kel’s waist. They’re warm and they’re safe .
“This comfortable?” He asks, “I don’t want to push anything out.”
“You’re good,” Kel says, “Sweet of you though.”
Dante hums. “Do you want me to turn the lamp off?”
“Absolutely not,” Kel says.
Yeah, Dante gets that.
“I might not sleep,” Dante warns.
“I know,” Kel says, “Thanks for staying anyways.”
This is for Kel as much as it is for Dante. The togetherness in the face of something awful. The security of being protected and knowing you’re surrounded by people who are fighting the same battles you are.
Dante kisses Kel and closes his eyes. Despite himself, he feels himself drifting.
He doesn’t dream.