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Benji lay in bed, not sleeping, contemplating how to kick fate’s ass.
Fate, he’d decided, was like a particularly ornery pear that refused to ripen no matter how long you waited and then you turn your back for a second and the damned thing’s gone rotten without ever apparently passing through a stage of edibility. This was a really artful metaphor and he might have shared it with his bedmate, except said bedmate was sound asleep and basically on an opposite continental coast given the size of their shared bed.
Let’s back up a bit.
Benji had jumped at the chance to join Ethan on a solo mission to the south of France, a mission originally described as a ‘milkrun.’ Now, Benji knew better than most that there was no such thing as ‘normal’ or ‘easy’ when Ethan got involved. And the mission had most expectedly gone awry. However, Benji wasn’t worried (or at least, wasn’t hitting much above his usual constant worry-meter) because Ethan had it under control (again, as under-control as Ethan always pretended things were but rarely actually were).
Benji did not mind having to parachute out over the Riviera without warning or, indeed, a proper parachute. He engaged in only the minimal amount of complaining required to keep Ethan humble when the car was exploded (note the purposeful employment of the passive voice there, Agent Hunt) and they had to hoof it on foot. Benji was an absolute prince through the surveillance in a mucky ditch, the being captured, the escaping, the being re-captured except this time on purpose as part of a larger ploy—no, Benji was on his best behavior.
Because there was no one else on this mission and so surely, surely, the fates could toss together a quiet moment to share with Ethan and allow certain unspoken feelings to surface.
Ethan’s feelings, not Benji’s, that is. Hell if Benji was going to say something, Jesus Christ, that was a laugh.
No, this whole mission had been a carefully engineered series of perfect moments wherein Benji had hoped their please-god-let-it-be-mutual romantic chemistry could have sparked off. Cramped in a plane for a long flight with nothing to do, check. High stakes car chase where a rod of shrapnel had pierced the shoulder of Benji’s jacket but just missed his flesh, leaving Ethan with a minor heart attack and a flustered “are you hurt?” pat down. Even a delightful little bit with an illegal gambling casino where Ethan had played arm candy to a T while Benji deftly counted cards and hacked the establishment’s main frame simultaneously. All bust.
And this was the final ignominy.
The mission wrapped and the reports were filed and the flight was booked and the hotel—the hotel had somehow (read: a terrible error that definitely had not been orchestrated by any employee of the IMF) been booked with only one room. With only one bed.
Yet.
The unbeatable plan had been beaten. A classic gambit, executed with style, was dying a quiet death in the mile of sheets between their two bodies.
A whole night and nothing. No accidental octopus-ing, no tantalizing brushes with pajama-clad backsides, no stolen glances at exposed skin. The whole affair was exceedingly, excessively, infuriatingly professional.
A catlike stretch from Ethan’s hemisphere startled Benji. “Bloody hell, you’re early to wake, aren’t you?”
“Look who’s talking,” Ethan yawned, rubbing at his eyes.
Benji relaxed, since it was hard to be properly sullen when alert. “Didn’t really start the whole cycle. One way to beat it, I suppose.”
“You’re saying you didn’t sleep.”
“I’m not neglecting to say that I didn’t quite never reach unconsciousness.”
Ethan comfortably ignored the stream of double negatives. “You know you can talk to me, right? If something’s bothering you, keeping you from sleeping.”
“That’s not it.”
“Well, I assume it wasn’t my snoring…” Ethan joked.
Benji wasn’t in a state of mind to reply appropriately to a joke about an issue very sensitive to him, namely, sharing an intimate sleeping space with Ethan. He didn’t really know what expression his face made, but it inspired a look of surprise and embarrassment from Ethan.
“Oh my god, please tell me I didn’t snore.”
“You didn’t,” Benji promised in a rush.
“Was it something else?” Ethan looked a little pink in the ears, “I didn’t invade your personal space or anything?”
Benji sighed, bitterness spilling over. “No, no, no space invaders. From this planet or any other.”
“That’s…a good thing? Right?”
“Um.”
“Benji?”
“I just remembered.” Benji bolted upright. “I have to pick up my dry cleaning.”
“Your dry cleaners are in a different country.”
“So, you can imagine what a rush I’m in!”
Benji tried to leap from the bed but was hindered first by a recalcitrant tangle of sheets around his ankles and then by the gentle pressure of Ethan’s hand on his arm.
“Benji. I only have one question.”
“Yes. Aha. Okay. And that is? What dry cleaner I use that works such magic on my tweed suit, perhaps?”
Ethan leaned in, which Benji though violated the rules of fair play because it’s not like he could think straight with Ethan all tousled and sleep-warm and his hair in his eyes and barely a foot away.
“This whole mission went off with—well, not without a hitch—but with fewer than the usual number of hitches. But the strangest thing happened at the end. Of all things…the hotel booking got bungled?”
“Hotels. Are like that. You just…hack into them a little bit, and change a few things around, and then things are changed. Funny how that happens.”
“Funny, yes, how a double pair of rooms can suddenly morph into a single room with a single bed.”
“Exactly. You get it.”
Ethan shook his head, amazed. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize. This whole time?”
Benji was deeply, deeply regretting everything that had led to this moment, up to and including his birth. “Please do not drop-kick me to the moon for crushing on you, it’s not like I had any control over it!”
“Benji!” Ethan blinked, appalled. “There will be no drop-kicking. Well, not of you, I can’t promise some random bad guy won’t break in and require his butt to be kicked. However.”
“Yes, off topic,” Benji agreed, “which is great. Other less dangerous topics we could discuss instead of whatever you were getting at include politics and religion.”
“How about we discuss whether you wanted me to…” Ethan didn’t finish his thought, but his hand brushed down Benji’s arm to his waist, a terrifying and yet very welcome development.
“Hhrmph.” Benji thought this was a reasonably articulate response considering Ethan was practically embracing him in bed and while totally conscious to boot.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Benji shrugged hopelessly. “I didn’t know how. Accident seemed easier. Like, if fate chose to smile on us, then I’d take the win. If not…”
“Urgh!” Ethan’s inarticulate noise was handsomely matched by an inarticulate gesture. “Benji. If I’d known, I would have made fate happen.”
“Oh.” Benji’s turn to absorb. “Wait, does this mean you actually reciprocate some of this, or did that header we took out of an airplane the other day damage my grey matter?”
“I reciprocate…a lot,” Ethan said with great passion, if not great specificity.
Specifically enough, though, he moved forward and captured Benji’s mouth in a soft, good-morning kiss. The kiss grew firmer, hotter, and it was definitely more a mid-afternoon thing judging by temperature alone. Whew.
Benji was pressed back into the sheets, Ethan climbing half on top of him, when Benji admitted. OK. This was definitely better than a frustrating night of accidental cuddling.
“Oh,” Benji pulled back just enough to ask, “What time’s check out?”
“I don’t know or care.”
“Good answer.”
Benji let Ethan explore his mouth, his own hands doing some investigation of what Ethan had beneath that soft cotton sleep shirt.
He laughed against Ethan’s mouth and when Ethan asked what was so funny he shook his head and continued the kiss. He didn’t need to say it, what he should have known from the start.
Fate would not be pushed or prodded into action by anyone other than Ethan Hunt.