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Benny felt anger burn him up from the inside out, fueled by fodder made of protectiveness and a feeling of violation. He wants to do things, do so many cruel but perfectly just things to this man. He wants to melt his skin from the bone or turn him inside out, something poetically horrifying. He’s pulled from the room before he can think of anything, before he can form the words in his throat, in his mouth. The hand guiding him with worry and panic was all too familiar. A hand he’s been well acquainted with for every second of his life he could remember. Ethan. It wasn’t fair. “She’s the one you want to protect the most.” His grandma didn’t know what she was talking about.
Benny could easily guide himself through every turn and dip in Ethan’s thinking, and Sarah hasn’t been here even a fraction as long as he has. Benny doesn’t even think he’s a jealous person, he’s never had much of an issue with a girl he’s liked dating someone else in any way except the slight bruising of his ego. Ethan is different. If anyone deserves to be who Ethan wants to protect the most, it’s Benny. Too many birthdays and sleepovers and movie marathons and 100% completed games have been spent together for it to be anyone but him. He looks down at Ethan, and at one look at the panic on his face, his stomach turned over.
They were going to die. There was never a way for them to get out of this. Ethan had to have known that. He stops running despite his best friend’s frantic pulling on his hoodie. He won’t die without telling Ethan how badly, how deeply he needs - needed - to be the most important thing in his life. He refuses to stop without having allowed himself to start anything meaningful. But there’s not enough time for that, not nearly enough time for those words. Not even for half of them. He can feel the magic starting to come at them, so instead, he boils them down to their very purest form. The essential message hidden behind the pretty words he would have fumbled his way through anyways.
“I love you, Ethan.”
And he kisses him. With all the grace and elegance expected of a 15-year-old boy in mortal terror. The best part is, he won’t even have to face Ethan’s answer. They’ll both be dead before Ethan would have been able to even process what he said. The last thing he feels is equal pressure on his lips, and a hand on his arm.