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"Oh, this is fucking bad," Benny says, which is always reassuring. They're fighting vampire off shoots from Anastasia's supposedly civilized vampire board of directors, or whatever they're calling themselves this century- Ethan found some old journals from his however many greats grandfather, the one that Jesse had mentioned, and had found out from Grandma that the Tribunal he was referring to were very much the same vampires that Ethan has to deal with today. So completely not the point.
"You alright, Ben?" Ethan asks, his voice gruff, but he's shoving a vampire off of him by way of swinging a UV light like a bat, so he can be given a little grace for not exactly sounding as normal. The last of the vamps goes down with Benny throwing out one of his vampire hex bags, new and improved from their early days on the hunt. They're better now. They're supposed to be, anyway.
"E, I think I swallowed some," Benny says, his fear so heavy in the air it's almost like a vision, almost like it's gonna take him under. Ethan stays above the waves. It's Benny's turn to be scared. Ethan'll get his turn later.
"Some of what, Ben? Tell me what's going on and I can help," he coaxes, the lifelong job of managing his best friend's fear clicking in like a familiar programming routine, and he crosses to Benny with no thought of the bodies he steps over. A body is just a body. We all do what we have to do.
"The blood, E. I don't think you're going to be able to help," Benny says, his fingers coming to his mouth dirty with the bloody spoils of the battle (they haven't even graduated high school yet, they're not even grown), pressing against his lips. Ethan pulls his hand away from there, his fingers wrapped loosely around Benny's wrist.
"Why would the blood matter, dude? The blood doesn't matter unless you've been bitten," he reminds Benny, sure that Benny is just being Benny, sure that the worry is misplaced. The incident of Benny's zombification is absolutely hitting him over the head right now. Ethan's eyes dart over Benny rapidly, checking him for wounds, checking him for anything, and-
Benny shrugs his shoulder upwards. His shoulder has the imprint of perfect canines pressing through his stupid striped shirt. A full set of teeth, really- it's still bleeding, though sluggishly.
"Whoops?" Benny says, his voice going a little pitchy with his panic. Ethan holds in a sob, and pulls himself together.
"It's. Okay. It's okay. You're gonna be okay, Ben. We'll take you home and-"
"You can't take me home, E. Not to Grandma. Dude, what if I hurt her?" Benny asks, panic mixing with overt disdain. Ethan cuts a grin sharp enough to scar glass.
"What if you hurt me?" he asks, knowing well enough it'll just make Benny laugh. The other boy delivers, raised eyebrow included as he presses his hand over his wound.
"You don't think you can handle me?" Benny asks, his eyebrows all shameless flirtation but his stance still riddled with fear and pain. Ethan rolls his eyes, playing up his exasperation a little for the bit.
"Alright, pack it up, vampire boy. Let's take you down to the shop then, yeah?" he suggests, already holding onto Benny's wrist and dragging him toward the exit. Hell of a lot to explain to whoever finds this den; he would usually bury the bodies himself, or Benny would disintegrate them in a potion with ingredients Ethan doesn't even wanna think about. Neither of those are an option right now- thank the Gods Horace Black owes him about a million favors. He sends the vampire a text with his free hand, quick and probably short enough that Jesse is gonna call him to bitch about it later, but that's a later him problem.
Ethan works out of one of the kitschiest little shops in town, sitting down for palm readings and tarot cards at a rate of way too much an hour with a regular clientele of suckers who believe him just enough to keep coming back. They think the "trick" where he rolls his eyes back white is real neat, like how he always knows where they're going after their appointments with him. It's independent contractor work at seventeen. It's selling the only real thing about him. At least he has his own key.
He pushes Benny into the car, indelicate with his best friend's overlong limbs and distracted by the math running circles in his head. How long does it take someone to turn? How long does he have until Benny is losing it in his passenger seat? Will he even make it to the shop?
"Hey, no, I'm the one panicking right now, you get out of your head, mister," Benny says once Ethan is settled in the driver's seat, hands frozen on the wheel. Ethan shakes his head, rapid and doglike, and rakes his fingers through his hair.
"It's cool, I'm cool. The shop. How are you feeling? Keep talking, Ben," he instructs, equal parts order and request, equal parts command and desperation. Benny starts chattering about something completely unrelated to the open wound in his shoulder, but Ethan allows it. The distraction is nice. The route to the shop is familiar. If it wasn't 1:32 in the morning according to the clock embedded in the dashboard of his shitty car (which actually means it's 1:35 in the morning, but he digresses), it might even feel normal. But he knows better. Nothing ever really feels normal anymore.
He doesn't say much to reply to Benny's rambling on the way, but he holds out his hand over the gearshift. Benny laces their fingers.
The shop is familiar in a way only somewhere you are paid to be can be. It's really not a bad job, but he's been turned a little cynical by a few years of this, maybe, a few years of vampires and magic and seeing the future, because working for money is just so petty. He's built a little nest in his alcove room in the shop, something about the ambience, how it makes him seem more mysterious, more occult. Like he doesn't notice how many questions everyone actually wants to ask him, like he doesn't notice how reticent he's actually become, the glances people send his way. He's becoming the freak of this town he never wanted to be. He's just starting to realize that it doesn't really matter. They climb out of the car and Ethan grabs Benny's hand again even while he's unlocking the door. It's like he can hardly help it. The fear is beating a pulse behind his sternum. Benny's quiet now, his face pressed between Ethan's shoulder blades for a moment.
Ethan pushes the door open and pushes Benny directly into his working nest. It's got enough pillows to keep him comfortable even on the linoleum. Knowing the sensitivity that Sarah dealt with when she came into her fledgling abilities, he doesn't bother with flipping on the main lights, only grabbing the switch on the lamp in his own alcove, and grabbing the first aid kit from under his table. You never know in this industry. He climbs into the nest with Benny to clean him up, uncaring of their closeness. No matter how close they get, it'll always feel like they've been closer. Once someone has tethered their magic in you, he imagines it'll always feel that way.
Benny's quiet while Ethan is cleaning him up. He doesn't pry the other boy to talk again, doesn't want to press him when he's gonna have to rationalize this in whatever way Benny gets through these situations. They talk about almost everything, they always have, but the idea of one of them getting turned was always a burden too hard to bear. Even then, if one of them got turned, Ethan always thought it was going to be him. He's the weakest of the bunch. The runt of the litter. He didn't expect Benny to have to do this.
"E, I don't wanna be a vampire," Benny says, voice so small it's hard to hear even in the big, black and dark emptiness lit only by the lamp, the silence they've carved out together. Ethan folds at the waist, his forehead resting against Benny's good shoulder.
"We don't always get what we want, I think," he says, voice breaking just a bit. He doesn't mean for it to. Benny's chuckle sounds strangled out of him.
"You're really bad at this reassuring thing, you know," the spellcaster says, and is he even going to be that anymore? They've never known anyone who was something else before they were bitten. Magic means so much to Benny. Ethan pushes down the instinct, heavy as it is, to cry. He gestures to the building they're in.
"That's not really what they pay me for," he says, the facsimile of his smile a little brighter when Benny actually laughs this time.
"They don't pay you to break in, either, dude."
"Oh, I do that for free," Ethan returns, flashing a shadow of his usual smile. Benny bumps him a little, jostling him as if they aren't already halfway in each other's laps.
"It's gonna be okay, you know. Most of our friends are vampires. It's not what I want, but I'll be able to handle it. You'll help, right?" Benny asks, as if there was another option in the world, as if there was a universe where Ethan wouldn't be right by his side. I'm his best friend, Benny had said when they were fifteen and dumber than hell, when Ethan still thought he was halfway in love with Sarah and all the way straight, when Ethan couldn't see what was right in front of him despite it being there his whole life. Ethan grabs Benny's hand again, lacing their fingers, squeezing Benny's hand just a little bit too hard. His face is still pressed into Benny's good shoulder. He wants to bite Benny himself, like the blunt of his human teeth will make any difference in the gambit of what's already happening to them, what's already coming to pass.
"I'll always be here, Ben. I'll always be yours," he says, so tired he can barely stand it, not tired to sleep but tired to never move again, tired to be done. Benny's fingers unlace from Ethan's own, knots untied, knots tied now in Ethan's stomach, and those fingers come to tilt his chin up, forcing him to look at Benny's eyes in the dim of the lamplight. He's always had pretty eyes.
"My best friend? Or Mine?" Benny asks, a difference that Ethan was hoping he wouldn't ask for, but one that Ethan cannot deny. He gives Benny a smile.
"Whatever I can, B. Whichever you want." It's a cop out and he knows it, relishes in the ambiguity, really, because the ambiguity is where people like him have always stayed safe. Historically best friends. Lifelong roommates. They exchanged letters. Benny looks down at Ethan's mouth.
"What- uh- what do you mean by mine?" There's no ambiguous way to answer that. Ethan looks down at Benny's mouth, the smears of blood cleared from it now. He wonders how it will look with fangs.
"Yours, Ben," he says, and he falls into Benny like he has nowhere else to go, because if a boy could be a home, he would look like Benny Weir. If a home could have a mouth, it would kiss him like this, the press desperate but careful, Benny's fingers near bruising as he grabs Ethan by the hips, if a home could have hands they would hold him like Benny. If home was a knobby kneed teenager, those knees open to allow him to lean against Benny's chest, one of his hands moving to Ethan's hair, and if home was a touch felt, it would be Benny's smile as he pulls away, the barely there touch of his laughter.
"Your type vampires, E?" Benny asks.
"You're not a vampire yet," he reminds Benny, not really wanting to get into compulsory heterosexuality with his newly vampirized best friend who he might be able to kiss whenever he wants now. Benny grins.
"I noticed that wasn't an answer," the other boy teases, his smile almost enough to distract from how pale his skin is beginning to look. They'll have to get him some blood, or some blood substitute, depending on what route he wants to take. They'll take it together. Ethan laces their fingers.
"My type is you, idiot. My type is you."