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At this point, Kel didn’t need to look at the phone to know who was calling. Ariel was at the gym with Adrian, Benny was in class, and Jude only ever texted, which left—
“Dante, hi,” they said. Home alone with no one to tease them, they poured as much sweetness into the greeting as they could manage.
“Hey babe, did I leave my hoodie at your place?”
“Uh…” Kel looked into the mirror across the room at themself, sitting on the bed, phone in one hand. They tried not to sound guilty as they asked, “Which one?” Because, of course, Kel knew exactly where the hoodie was.
“The black one.”
“You have, what, four black hoodies? You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“The new one. I think it’s on the couch?”
“It’s not on the couch.” That wasn’t a lie, Kel thought. It wasn’t on the couch. It was on the bed—or rather, on Kel’s torso, which was then on the bed.
“Huh. I really thought I left it there. Shit, that was a good one.”
“It is a nice jacket,” Kel smirked at their reflection. “I’m sure it’ll turn up.”
It really was the perfect hoodie—solid black with a nice and big pocket and soft enough that Kel could wear it all day. Paired with their hair in a messy bun and pink athletic shorts that definitely weren’t from Ariel’s closet, it made the perfect outfit for Kel to stay home and actually get some school work done for once. It was comfortable, and not just because it was soft inside, but because Kel could feel like themself in it.
It was so comfortable, in fact, that by the time Dante showed up that night to watch a movie, Kel had completely forgotten they were wearing it when they opened the door.
“Hey you— you motherfucker.” Dante’s smile quickly turned a faux sour.
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t know where my jacket is.” Dante rolled his eyes as he let himself into the apartment. “Yeah sure.”
“Oh yeah.” Kel glanced down at their chest and smiled to themself. “Forgot I was wearing it.”
“Oh, you forgot?” Dante teased. “Did you forget while we were on the phone, too?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Dante leaned in to give them a quick kiss as he made a beeline for the kitchen. “If you wanted to borrow it, you could have just asked.”
“Oh, I’m not borrowing it. It’s mine now.” Kel followed behind, leaning against the counter as Dante grabbed a soda from the fridge.
“Kel, it’s new,” they whined. “Come on, I’ve seen your closet, I know you have plenty of sweatshirts.”
“But none of them feel like this one.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I feel safe in here. It smells like you,” they admitted, knowing they were blushing.
“Well, I can’t argue with that.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to their temple. “I want you to feel safe.”
“You know, what really makes me feel safe is knowing that you’re okay and not throwing yourself into danger recklessly.” They meant the words to be teasing, but they felt more emotion than they wanted to bleed into their voice.
“I don’t do that!”
“Dante.” Kel narrowed their eyes at him. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Like you’re not fond of danger yourself,” he deflected.
“No, I’m not fond of it! And I get that it’s part of the gig, but I wish it didn’t have to be.”
Dante stared at them for a moment, dark eyes unreadable. Then he sighed, running a hand over his dreads. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry.”
“Yes, I do. Clearly, this has been bugging you, and I haven’t been there to help, so—” They took a deep breath. “I can’t change the fact that we’re in a war. But I know I could stand to be a little more defensive and a little less offensive.”
“Thank you,” Kel said, leaning their head on his shoulder.
“And when you’re feeling this way, please, Kel, tell me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not hurting me, I promise. I just like you. And I want you to be around for a long time.”
“Aww, you like me?” he teased, elbowing at their side.
“Shut up,” they said, face far more pink than it should be. “Come on, you promised I could pick the movie this week.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Dante grabbed their free hand and started towards the couch. “So, I assume I’m not getting that hoodie back.”
Kel hummed. “I reserve the right to trade this one in for another one. But yeah, probably not,” they grinned.
The fact that Dante had a routine now for sneaking into corporate offices was, yeah, a little wild to think about, even by his standards. But the fact was that the internship interview routine got results, and why change a method if it wasn’t broken? He had the whole thing down now: the emails, the wardrobe, what to say to the receptionist.
Which was why it was so frustrating that Benny was insisting they change the routine now:
“Come on, you gotta wear a tie.”
“No I don’t.” Dante crossed his arms. He was already dressed, ready to go in slacks and a clean white button up. He adjusted his collar, using the reflection of one of the computer monitors he’d brought on board.
“Don’t you want them to take you seriously?”
“It’s not a real job interview!”
“But you need to look the part.” Benny pointed at him and started down the hall of the boat. “I think I have one here. You’re wearing it.”
Dante openly groaned, rolling their eyes as Benny walked away. He wished he’d saved his reaction, though, when Benny returned with a fucking checkerboard bowtie .
“Absolutely not. Do I look like a fucking nerd to you?”
Benny raised an eyebrow. “Dante, if I opened your bottom desk drawer right now, how many Magic decks would I find in there?”
“Magic tournaments are a perfectly legitimate source of income.”
“Uh huh.” God, the things Dante would do sometimes to wipe the smirk off Benny’s face. “At least try it on.”
He sighed. “Fine. You’re gonna have to put it on though, I have no idea how to tie one of those.”
“Sure,” Benny said, smirk slipping into a genuine smile. “Here.” He stepped forward, lifting the stiff collar of the shirt to put the tie underneath.
With Benny standing so close now, there was nowhere to look but up at him. He pursed his lips as he worked, strands of long red hair falling in his face. His fingers fumbled with the tie, and he didn’t have his usual stoic demeanor. He seemed… nervous, maybe?
Dante didn’t have a clue why Benny would be nervous about this. Dante had plenty to be nervous about, obviously; those piercing eyes would do a number on anyone, and now he had to worry about how he would look in a tie. And he wasn’t used to standing this close to Benny, especially not for this long.
“I thought you knew how to do this,” Dante said, trying to put the usual bite of snark in his voice.
“Yeah, well I— I usually do it from the other side.”
“Then do it from the other side.”
Benny hesitated for a moment, then forced a smile. “Right. Okay.”
He spun Dante around and fuck, he had not thought this through at all . Benny’s arms wrapped around them, and his head tucked over their shoulder. From this angle, his long fingers made quick work of the knot, but Dante felt every second like an eternity, praying that Benny couldn’t hear his heart pounding.
“There,” Benny said, voice low as he finished adjusting the edges, resting his hands on Dante’s shoulders. He looked up to meet Dante’s eyes, using the monitor screen like a mirror. “What do you think?”
Dante sighed. “I look like an asshole.”
“No, you don’t! You look… you know. Nice.”
“You think so?”
Benny broke the eye contact in the reflection, looking down to adjust the tie again. “I mean, you don’t have to wear it if you really don’t want to.”
“No, I’ll wear it. That way you’ll owe me one.”
“Dante,” he said, almost sounding dismissive. “If you ever need something from me, all you have to do is ask.”
“Hey, you too.” They swallowed the lump in their throat. He and Benny didn’t usually talk like this, and he didn’t know what to say. But, looking at Benny smiling back at him, maybe he didn’t have to. Benny always understood him, always got him. “But it’s more fun if you owe me a favor,” they joked, bringing back the levity in their voice.
Benny laughed at him and rolled his eyes. “Sure,” he said, squeezing Dante’s shoulders as he stepped away. “I’ll owe you one.” A small part of Dante missed his touch as soon at it was gone, a part of himself that Dante willed to shut the fuck up and focus, please.
“I still can’t believe you have a checkered bow tie.”
“Okay, first of all, that’s gingham. And second of all…”
The recon mission had been a success: they’d had gotten good information, and no one had been seen. There had only been one casualty—Benny’s good jean jacket. It had caught on a broken piece of glass as he’d slipped into a window and torn a huge gash under his left arm.
“Lucky it only caught the shirt and not you,” Kel remarked, the two of them the only ones left after the gang had debriefed on the boat.
“Yeah, I know,” Benny said with a frown. “But it was such a nice jacket. I don’t want to get rid of it.”
They considered the rip for a moment. “I mean, I can sew. I could probably help.”
“Really?”
“I don’t really know how to, you know, repair clothes. Usually I just cover it up with a band patch or something and call it good.”
Benny frowned at the jacket for a moment, then looked back up at Kel. “I’ll take that.”
“Okay. You got a patch?”
“...No.”
Kel laughed at him. “Your dad would be ashamed,” they said, face bright for a moment. He watched the light fall from their eyes as they remembered what those words meant these days. “Fuck. Benny. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, too quickly.
“No, it’s not,” they responded, looking up at him with big, dark eyes.
“I think you’re the only one who’s allowed to make that mistake.”
“If anything, I’m the one who should remember.” Kel looked down, fidgeting with the grip on their cane. He sat in the awkward silence for a moment, unsure of how to break it or if he even should break it. They hadn’t talked about his dad since the two of them had gone back to investigate. (They hadn’t talked about the bit where Kel had morphed into Benny, and hypothetically could at any time forever now, but he really didn’t know how to bring that part up.)
Benny cleared his throat. “So yeah, uh, no patches.”
Kel smiled softly at him. “I have a stash back at the apartment. You can come by and pick one out, then I’ll show you how to fix it up.”
“Oh.” He felt himself return the smile instinctively, a little surprised, and then guilty about feeling surprised about receiving that kindness. “That would be great.”
“Wow. You’ve got an impressive collection.” Kel had brought a box to the coffee table in their apartment filled with patches in every color of the rainbow. They sat next to each other on the couch, thighs pressed together as they both leaned over the box. Some seemed like scraps of fabric saved from other projects. Others had band names stitched or painted on, some Benny recognized and a bunch he’d never heard of.
“Oh, you know. At one point I had a plan for where I was going to put each one of these. And then they just all end up in here,” Kel laughed.
“Well, if you teach me how to sew, I’ll help you put some of these to use.”
“Eh. We’ll see how you do,” they said with a smirk.
“What’s this one? It looks cool.” Benny picked up a black patch with white jagged lettering that had clearly been made by hand. The letters bled together and the paint was peeling off, hardly readable, but they were surrounded by a crude drawing of a snake.
“Oh, can’t have that one,” they said, trying to snatch it out of his hand. “Absolutely not.”
Benny leaned away, dodging their grabbing hands. “Why not?”
“That’s just... not a patch you need to wear.”
“Oh?” Benny raised an eyebrow, just a bit teasing.
“It’s… It’s my band from secondary school.”
“Oh!” His expression morphed to a full-on shit-eating grin. “And how come I’ve never heard about this band?”
“Because we were rubbish, obviously.” Kel leaned over again to grab it, succeeding this time.
“Aw, I don’t believe that.”
“You should. A bunch of sixteen-year-olds pretending they were the only ones who understood how the world really worked—it was a mess. Plus, I’d like to think I’ve gotten better at playing since then.”
“Okay, that I do believe.” He smiled, and dove into the box again. “What’s this one?”
Kel let out a quiet “oh!” that drew Benny’s eyes to their face. A small smile with a distant gaze met him, like they were remembering something. They held the scrap in their hands. This one was an irregular shape with ragged edges, but the fabric itself was a gorgeous red with a floral pattern outlined in black and gold. Benny sat quietly, watching their reaction and very aware of the pounding in his chest, until Kel came back to the present.
“This is from a shirt I used to have when I came to the States. My first day on campus, I tripped and fell into a bush.” They laughed at their past self. “It completely tore up my shirt, it was a nightmare. I had to sit in lecture with a shirt in pieces, trying to cover it up with my bags.” Kel sighed. “It used to be one of my favorites.”
“I can see why. The pattern’s really nice.”
“Thanks.” Kel smiled and offered the scrap back to him. “Do you want this one?”
“Oh, no, it’s okay.” Benny rubbed the back of his neck. “If it’s sentimental, I don’t want to take it—”
“No, please, take it. I’d rather you use it than it continue to sit in this box.”
“All right,” he agreed, knowing his cheeks had to be bright red. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. Let me go grab my needles and show you how this works.”
Kel was a good teacher—patient and clear, kind when Benny stuck the needle into his thumb. With a bit of practice, he felt more confident. They worked, huddled together on the couch, until the patch was sewn over the slash in his jacket. It stood out, bright red against the faded denim, and you could totally tell which stitches were Kel’s and which were Benny’s, but he was proud of it all the same.
Days later, when Benny swung himself into his truck and caught a flash of red in the side mirror, he stopped and smiled, thinking about Kel. And when he pushed the sleeves up and his arm brushed against the soft fabric, he thought about them again— about their kindness, their ingenuity, all their best parts, the ways he wanted to be like them. He didn’t think he’d ever admit it to them, but the patch made him feel like he could carry a piece of Kel with him. It was a constant reminder that someone thought he was worth taking care of, that someone could know all the things he’d done and still want him around. He started wearing that jacket everywhere. Maybe with the reminder, the feeling would stick.