Archive of Our Own ^beta

He’s hungry.

He knows the familiar empty feeling in his stomach, the pit that feels like it’ll claw right out of him. He knows it from late nights hunched over the computer back in uni and those weeks in the CIA when everything tasted like ash and cardboard in his mouth.

He knows hunger. But he doesn’t know this.

He bites into his hand, concealing a whimper. It aches, every part of him, like a black hole has been created low in his belly and is seeking to draw the rest of him down with it. 

He’s locked himself in the bathroom of the tiny London safe house the CIA put them in, after the bomb, after the cafe, after Atlee’s betrayal.

After Lane.

His teeth sink deeper into his fist. It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough, he thinks dizzily. Sour blood flows into his mouth sluggishly. Like he’s drinking straight aluminium. 

The little sconce by the door lights the room just enough for him to see the edges of the shower, the glint off the porcelain sink. The red tile is rough and cold at his back, and he leans towards it, lets his head bump into the wall to try and make the pain distract from the aching gnaw of the thing inside him.

He’d thought this might happen. Knew this would happen, because Lane had said to him in that slithery rasp of a voice that no matter what occurred that night, no matter if the bomb vest went off or Ilsa shot him or, somehow, he escaped, he wouldn’t have much of a life at all. The sharp stabbing pain of the fangs in his neck. How he’d writhed on the floor until they told him it was time to go, until they gave him a single painkiller so he’d be conscious enough to follow instructions. 

He remembered Lane had looked at him as he was poisoned, as he gasped for breath that wouldn’t come, as the bite mark seared into him so completely it felt for a single splitting moment like there was nothing else in the universe except for it, for it and the pain. How Lane hadn’t even smiled, or laughed, or done any of the typical villain things– just regarded him cooly, as if his suffering was nothing more than a tool. A reassurance. Benji supposed in some ways it was. 

He’d thought this might happen, but he’d prayed that it wouldn’t. That he’d be somehow spared.

But now the evidence is staring right back at him, teeth long enough to cut deep into his hand like the flesh were butter, skin too-pale and heart slow even though he’s panicking out of his mind because he’s hungry and he knows what that means. What it must mean, now that he’s this. Now that he’s a vampire.

He’d splashed his face with cold water in an attempt to snap out of it, but then he was still starving, just also drenched and shivering. But he couldn’t eat. He couldn’t go and do whatever vampires do because Ethan was there, outside, waiting for him, and if Benji vanished into the night to— god forbid— bite someone, Ethan would undoubtedly follow, and Benji couldn’t handle that. 

(His mind knows there’s another scenario that would play out. Ethan knocking down the door, Benji lunging for him like a wild dog. Death. Destruction. But he skirts away from it, because it’s too terrible to bear, to even consider at the moment.)

Couldn’t handle it because he didn’t want Ethan to know. Didn’t want anybody to know, really. But especially not him, Ethan with that eager smile and the reassurances, Ethan who risked it all to save his life. Ethan, who Benji would give up almost everything and anything for. Who needs to not know about this whole… development, because he knows that it’ll crush him. 

He just wanted to be done with it all. Wanted to be able to put Lane in the past now that he was locked up.

Of course he wouldn’t let him. What a classically Lane move, to leave Benji with the twisted souvenir of his new whatever-this-was. 

His teeth scrape against bone. The pain ricochets up his arm, white-hot and blazing like bombs going off with every tiny contact, and he finally manages to get his jaw to creak open, to let go. Fangs slide out of flesh and his nerves decide to finally fire again and he hisses out a sharp breath through his teeth. 

He clutches his hand to his chest and tries to inspect the damage. Puncture wounds, deep, at least four of them, two sandwiched between his first and second knuckle and a shallower pair on his pointer finger just before the first joint.

Little gasps slip through his mouth as he presses himself further into the chilled tile that covers the lower half of the wall. Blood flows down his hand, over his knuckles and down his fingers, in a lazy dark red trail– slow-moving, in time with a fading pulse. 

He supposed it would be any day now where his heart would just stop, plain and simple. He wished almost absurdly that Lane would’ve at least given him some sort of prep course. Before this week, he hadn’t even known vampires were real.

And yet here he was. 

His hand stings now that the wounds are exposed to the air, and he feels even dizzier than before, lightheaded and detached from reality.

Of course. It was stupid to bite himself, create a wound, when he needs all the blood he can get.

He slumps against the wall again, musters up the energy to eventually drag himself to his feet so he can rinse out the bite mark in the sink. He’ll clean it and wrap it and… and figure out everything else later. 

He might not have a later, some part of him insists, if he doesn’t eat now. If he doesn’t– no. He’s not killing anyone for this. He’d rather starve to death than take the life of an innocent. But maybe there’s a way, maybe he can live a sort of half-life, just take what he needs, and god his mouth is salivating and he hates it, he hates this, but what other option does he have– 

A knock at the door. Ethan.

“Everything alright in there?” He sounds genuinely concerned, and that makes it worse, because Benji knows how this whole thing looks. Like maybe he’s having some sort of post-traumatic mental breakdown, or maybe someone’s kidnapped him out of the bathroom and he’ll show up used as ransom again. Ethan checking in on him would be sweet if it weren’t for the circumstances. If Benji wasn’t half-crazed with his hunger for human blood. 

(Again, that thought, clearer and more defined this time, Ethan coming in and Benji can’t stop himself and he can’t stop, can’t stop, and–)

No. No. He won’t let that happen. He won’t. 

The hunger crashes over him in another violent wave, singlehandedly focused on his next meal, wild, aching. Fuck. He’s really got himself into a situation this time, hasn’t he?

Breathe in. Breathe out a long moment later. The porcelain is pleasantly cold and he leans on it to try and support himself as he concentrates on making his head not spin, because he needs to get this situation together, he needs to be in control, he can’t let himself hurt Ethan. He’ll find another way. Another solution. Work the problem, Benji. 

He turns on the faucet, tries to sound like he’s washing up, carefully avoids touching the bloody mess of his hand. Keeps his voice as steady as he can make it. He thinks that thinking about the fact that he needs to drink blood helps somewhat, some sort of hunting instinct to make him less on death’s door, and he feels even more disgusted with himself. With whatever he’s become.

He avoids his reflection in the mirror. He doesn’t know if he still even has one. He doesn’t want to know, though, because it’ll just be another reminder that he’s not a person, not anymore.

But Ethan’s waiting for him. He can break down later.

“Yeah, yeah, all good.” 

He needs to fix this. For him. So that Ethan doesn’t have to worry anymore. So that Benji won’t have to worry about Ethan’s blood on his hands, truthfully. But those goals align, don’t they, so maybe the universe hates him less than he thought. 

He tries to ignore the gaping hole inside him, wraps his hand in a towel, and opens the door. It creaks as it goes, on rusty hinges– same old London, he thinks, old flats and things that go bump in the dark– and Ethan’s there waiting for him like a puppy, and something in his chest twists painfully.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” He repeats it, to try and make it seem more real. To try and convince himself. Plasters on a close-lipped smile in case his teeth are too wrong-looking. 

A pause. Ethan is studying him, he can tell in the way his eyes flick up and down, as if scanning for injuries. “If you’re sure.” There’s a long glance at the side of his neck, and Benji tucks his hand close to his side and brushes past him quickly. Because Ethan can’t fix this, and Benji knows that it’ll destroy him if he finds out about it. So Benji just won’t let him know. Simple.

He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t want to see the pity undoubtedly on Ethan’s face. The familiar expression of poor Benji, or just poor everybody. Because he loves Ethan for how much he cared about others but this time the care is prickling at his skin and making him feel insane, even more insane than he already is, because he needs to get out get out before he hurts him, because that’s what Lane wants, that’s what the terrible thing in him wants, and he refuses to bow to that. He’ll find a way. He’ll keep the whole thing a secret, and do whatever he needs so that he’s not like this ever again, so that he’ll never have to worry about biting Ethan. About killing Ethan. 

“Are you hungry? I’m going to pick something up for dinner.” 

He doesn’t wait for an answer. He has to get out, get out, get out, and if his heart could still hammer it would be, and he’s hungry, hungry, and if Ethan slit his hand open right here he doesn’t think he’d be able to stop himself.

The door slams shut, and he hurries down the stairs with his hands in his pockets and cold dread by his slowing, stilling heart. He has no choice. He’ll do what he has to do, and just that, and that’ll be all. He’ll get by. He has to.

–

He’s not proud of what happened that night. He doesn’t remember most of it, to be frank. A blur of colors and sensations and hunger.

He hadn’t killed anyone, but he’d found a sleeping drunk in an alley and it was like he wasn’t even in control of his body. Like he was some animal watching from above as he bit, as he drank and drank, as the iron flooded his senses and his hunger finally faded into a dull pain rather than an open wound when he finally ripped himself away.

He’d come to as the pulse weakened, as the blood dripped down his chin and almost stained his shirt. He’d wiped his mouth and tried to bandage the holes as best he could and vanished back into the night thoroughly hating himself. 

But he could at least walk in a straight line again, so that was a start. Even if he still felt hollow. But he wouldn’t kill, not a random person, not someone that was innocent from all of this. The IMF and Lane and the Syndicate.

He washes up in a random restaurant’s bathroom, gets a few things to-go so he can pass off the time he was gone as just waiting for the food to be ready. He thanks the cashier and takes the plastic carryout bag gingerly as if it’ll bite him, because now that he can think straight it’s taking all he can to hold it together, because he just bit a man like he was some rabid dog, he could’ve killed him, he could’ve turned into the same sort of monster he hunts down for a living. Killing indiscriminately just for fun. Just for the rush or the thrill. Just like Lane.

But he’s not. He didn’t kill. He can hold it together, just not let it get as bad as this night, just try and feed so that he’s not on a hairpin trigger. He’ll– he’ll find places. Rob blood banks. See if animal blood does the same job. Whatever it takes.

He returns to the safehouse, waits outside the sunshine yellow door for Ethan to let him in. He unloads the cartons of noodles and rice onto the table and scoops some onto his plate because he doesn’t know if vampires still need normal food and they turn on the TV and eat in silence.

“Are you…” Ethan starts, and Benji thinks that if his heart were still capable of going above forty beats per minute it would be racing in his chest, because he’s filling in the words already– mentally sane (no), a killer (not yet, not outside the job), a vampire (yes). But Ethan just finishes it with “is everything okay?” And Benji hums and says yep, everything’s fine, and takes a bite of noodles to end the conversation. 

The TV is blaring some detective show, and it’s dead quiet save for the sound of the characters discussing their case and the hissing buzz of the electricity in the walls and the car horns outside. And it’s not enough, his skin is still itching like it’s three sizes too small, and he still aches and hurts but it has to be enough. It has to be because he’s not going to kill anyone. He won’t. He can’t. 

He’ll just do what he did tonight but better, take a little bit here and there so nobody’s the wiser. He can do this. He can do this, because it’s just like any other mission, isn’t it? He just needs to not break his cover. Benji Dunn, still doing fine, happy that Lane’s in prison and glad that he’s not at the CIA. Benji Dunn, who is the same as he ever was. Benji Dunn, who nobody needs to worry about.

He can do it. He will do it. There’s no other option.

–

And it works. For a while.

He leaves the safe house two days after the incident to go back to his shoddy little apartment in Virginia, and he keeps his head down and focuses on his job, on acting the exact same way. On pretending nothing was different.

Ethan had looked crestfallen when he said that he was leaving, and that thing twists in his chest again, but he has no choice. He has to leave. He has to keep him at a distance, because if he ever hurt a member of the team– well. That won’t happen. He won’t let that happen. Which is why he’s going back to the IMF base, to the tech floor, to his office all alone.

He’s falling apart at the seams, but he manages. He scrounges off of the deer he finds when he drives deep into the Virginia woods and the occasional goon whenever he goes back in the field– which seems to be rarer and rarer these days, with Ethan off chasing the remnants of the Syndicate and everyone waiting with bated breath for him to come back.

Benji misses him. Of course he misses him. Everybody does, Luther and Brandt and maybe even Ilsa, wherever she is. Without him, the job is just more monotony, huddled at his desk and clicking away at whatever system they need to break into. 

But it’s better this way. Really, it is. Because if Ethan’s not here, then Ethan can’t find out about his… undead-ness, which means it’s a net positive.

Nothing about this feels very positive. But he tries to keep his head up, because if he doesn’t he’ll probably go some form of crazy, and he can’t afford to be crazy if he has the capacity to kill someone in an instant.

Which he hasn’t. Yet. 

He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to keep doing this, truthfully. He comes home each day and tosses his keys on the table by the door, feeds his fish (Master Chief, like Halo, purchased back when he thought the CIA was going to be the death of him) and then locks himself in the bedroom trying to think about nothing until it’s dark outside and he’s hungry enough to actually do something about it. Until his teeth are prodding at his lips and he feels not quite as bad as in London but dangerously close. This doesn’t happen every day, of course, but when he’s not feeding he’s thinking about it, hating himself over it, whipping himself into a frenzy he can’t stop. So he does the same routine, locking himself up for the good of the public, no friends at work and no things he does after hours for fun, no trivia nights or pub crawls or friendly discussions. Because this is for the better. Because he won’t do what he did in London again, he won’t let himself hurt another innocent person. 

He feels a little better, not as feral, like he’s settling into his skin. And on one hand he’s grateful, because that means maybe he can hide it better, maybe he can work around it better, but on the other hand he hates it because it just reminds him that he can’t rip this part out. He can take out the contacts and the earpieces but he can’t rip out his own still dead heart, and he hates it, but hate is too weak of a word. Despises, maybe. 

It’s been three weeks. Three long weeks since the bomb. Since everything.

He’d tried to go online, see what he could gather. Went snooping in the CIA’s archives. No dice. Nothing on vampirism or what he could do to try and stop it.

Lane is being tossed between prisons, for ‘enhanced questioning,’ and Benji almost wishes he could ask him, except he knows that he wouldn’t get any answers. Because Lane didn’t think he’d live. Lane just wanted him to suffer, and now he has to deal with the consequences.

The door slams a little harder than he’d like on his way back into the sad little thing he calls a home. Gray walls and cheap IKEA furniture and dated linoleum in the kitchen.

He hangs his coat on the peg, kicks off his shoes. Takes a slow, deep breath– just one, he doesn’t need any more than that– and tries to shake all the tension out through his hands. Another bad day at work. Another Apostles sighting, another dangerous weapon that could, and did, fall into the wrong hands.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

He tangles his hands in his hair and tugs, just for a moment, just to feel something. He allows himself a second, then two, and lets go. He can handle this. He can handle this because he’s faced far worse things before, hasn’t he. He’s just hungry, and he’s just annoyed, and that is infinitely better than being strapped in a bomb vest or cuffed to a chair at the end of a long table while Lane prowls around him. Yes. Yes. He’s fine like this. He has to be fine.

He’ll… do something fun tonight. A little treat. Watch all of his favorite episodes of Star Trek, order in Indian from the place down the street for his singular human meal of the day. He flops down on his couch and looks over at Master Chief doing loops in his tank happily. Breathes in, to remember breathing, to remember simpler times.

It’ll turn out alright. Everything does, eventually.

Eventually. Can he live forever? God, he hopes not. He’d rather jump off a thousand cliffs than have that be the truth. 

He scrubs a hand across his face. He needs to do something productive. Something to make him feel more like a person again. 

But it’s useless, isn’t he? He’s not a person. His heart stopped nineteen days ago. He’s a walking corpse that just hasn’t started decaying yet.

Not helping, brain, he scolds himself. He looks up at the water-stained ceiling and forces his hands into his pockets so they can’t perform his latest nervous tic, feeling for a pulse he no longer has.

This isn’t productive. This isn’t productive, and he needs to be productive, so that Ethan doesn’t die out in the field wherever he is trying to track down the last dregs of Lane’s minions. He has to pull it together.

He clicks on the TV, pulls up Star Trek. Watches Spock and Kirk go through the motions as he calls up the Indian place and orders samosas and tiki masala for delivery, please. Because if he goes outside and has to interact with people he’s afraid of what will happen.

It’s unreasonable. He knows that. He’s not that hungry, not any more so than usual, and he fed four days ago on three bucks out in the woods. He can be normal. He can be safe. And yet, his mind keeps showing him scenario after scenario, him losing control and being unable to stop. Unable to pull away. Draining people dry until they’re nothing.

He tries to distract himself by drowning in the show, in the lights of the television screen, the familiar sets and props and costumes. He gets his food when it arrives after waiting for the delivery driver to leave the building, just in case, and eats it on the couch. A bit of his old routine. Takeout containers and the TV on and post-work misery because of the polygraphs and whatever else. 

He doesn’t miss it. Not quite. He just wishes that– well. There was really no other way any of this could’ve played out, was there? Lane planned everything twelve steps ahead of them, and they walked right into it.

But Benji lived. He lived. That’s something Lane wasn’t expecting. Something he can use, maybe. He can be useful, can’t he? He can help. He’ll do whatever’s necessary to make sure all of the team ends up safe. Whatever it takes. 

But that’s not necessary right now. Not yet. Because Ethan might be holed up somewhere across the world, but his life isn’t in any more danger than usual, and Brandt and Luther are both trying to piece the IMF back together and Ilsa is doing whatever she wants without MI6. So he’s not particularly helpful, not now, and he doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. 

He manages to drag himself up when the episode finishes and tosses the containers, tidies up the kitchen a little. Switches off the lights– he doesn’t really need them to see, anymore, but he enjoys them– and retreats to his bedroom. Gets into sleep clothes, brushes his teeth briefly, avoiding his own gaze in the hazy thing of his reflection. Checks his phone for any new messages from Ethan (none, as per usual) and sighs before settling into his bed and waiting the long hours for sleep to take him.

And life continues in little jumps and leaps, slow and then fast all at once. He goes to the office, now allowing Brandt and Luther to at least come close to him, because he needs to keep it together for Ethan, because he’s the one that’ll be hurt if Benji can’t be professional. He starts to memorize the long winding way he gets out of the city and into the middle of nowhere, starts to memorize the way that doe eyes gleam in the dark. 

He kills them, sometimes. He doesn’t mean to. But he does, and then he lets the tears prick his eyes just a little, and he drags the carcass somewhere so the predators can get at it. He washes his hands in the creeks in the woods and waits a long time in his car before starting the engine again to head home.

He tries to logic it that better them dying than people. Better this overburdened, too-large population of deer than the public. But it feels worse, sometimes, because they look at him with those innocent eyes and he catches a glimpse of his twisted reflection and he hates it, makes him feel even more like a monster, even worse than before.

But at least he’s still in control. At least he knows he won’t snap. So he drives out every week on Tuesday or Thursday nights, ten p.m. or so, keeps the radio on because the silence drives him mad even though it feels like some sort of sacrilege. 

Go home, get ready for bed. No new messages from Ethan. Take a shower to get the blood out from under his nails. Avoid his reflection because it makes his mind scream wrong. Slide under the sheets and watch the ceiling fan do lazy circles. Wake up the next morning and go to work.

He can do this. Has to do this. This is how he can help, isn’t it? This is how he’s saving him. Saving Ethan. 

–

So he manages. He manages, in that sort of half-life, for eight months. Until Ethan calls again.

Plutonium cores. Terrorism. Nuclear bomb threats. Practically their specialty, isn’t it? He says as much when he’s boarding the plane with Luther, going to meet Ethan in Europe– in Berlin, specifically– to intercept the trade. 

He tries to not think about what happened the last time he was in Europe. The bite marks have long since scabbed over and healed, leaving just four pinprick scars on the side of his neck, but the pain sparks to life again as if they can tell he’s nearing where it all took place. 

The plane ride is quiet. Small mercies. He hadn’t had much notice before, well, everything, and the hunger is starting to creep back in and make him fray around the edges. He fidgets with his hands, leans back in the leather seat. The whole thing is stupidly expensive and he hates it almost because it makes him feel even more out of place. 

He’d shaved last night, after Brandt had called him and told him that he was requested back in action. He’d neatened the edges of his beard– easier said than done when his reflection is a blur of colors and shapes that make his brain scream wrong, wrong– scraped together a bag to bring with him, thrown in shirts and suits and ties because he didn’t know what he’d need. Because he wanted to overprepare, just in case. As if silk and linen could change anything.

So he cleaned himself up, tried to make him feel like the Benji of old who liked colorful shirts and fun ties and didn’t have a set of fangs in his mouth. But it still wasn’t enough, wasn’t enough because now here he is on a private jet flying across the world to intercept an arms sale that could cause the deaths of millions, and all he can think about is seeing Ethan again.

Not in a weird way, of course. Just in a way that’s causing dread to ricochet through every limb, bile to rise at the back of his throat. 

Because he knows that they didn’t leave on the best of terms. He’d vanished off with barely a word, and they hadn’t been in contact since. He’d left Ethan to fight the beast all on his own.

But he had a good reason, didn’t he? He didn’t want to hurt him. In those first days, when his body felt like a stranger, when he felt wild and crazy and dangerous, he wanted nothing more than to push everyone away. To keep everyone safe from him. 

He still thinks that. He just thinks that the Apostles are a bigger threat than he is.

He and Luther don’t talk. There’s nothing to talk about. A sort of joint agreement that it’s Lane’s kidnapping that’s messed Benji up, and not the long months without human contact, without Ethan or a team or even a real mission. He stares at the window and watches as they chase the sun across the Atlantic.

And then they land. They land, and it feels almost worse, because he knows that Ethan is waiting and his mind is flashing through potential scenarios, potential reactions, horror or shock or sadness. 

When he stands up, his head feels light and a little dizzy, and he knows he’ll have to find something soon. Someone soon. Because he doesn’t think he’ll have a whole lot of luck finding deer in Berlin. 

But that’s a problem for future Benji, because the plane doors open and he clambers down the stairs to the tarmac and there he is. Ethan. In a leather jacket, hair cut short, sunglasses on and smiling at him and Luther as if there’s nothing wrong at all. It’s so– so him that it almost hurts, gets a vice grip around his cold still heart and twists. 

Ethan wraps Luther up in a hug when he sees him, and they pat each others’ backs, doing those small signals of friendship of two men who have known each other going on twenty years. Benji hangs back closer to the metal stairs with his duffel slung over his shoulder and waits. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for. Or why. But it feels wrong to intrude on this, feels wrong to stand out here in the sun like nothing's changed at all. 

Eventually, of course, Ethan pulls away and looks at him. Because nothing comes that easily as to be ignored, as to be able to dodge the awkward conversation of sorry I abandoned you for ten months without a word. Although he’s not sure who would say it first. 

Ethan strolls up to him, long easy strides, but there’s something tense in his shoulders. Something tight in his smile. “Hey, Benji.” 

He thinks he can taste the other man’s heartbeat. Can feel it in those little bones inside his ears, ricocheting through him. “Hey, Ethan. Long time no see.” Maybe that was a little too on the nose, but Ethan just chuckles and takes another step closer, and then another, so they’re a foot apart. He can see the way his collar’s popped every so slightly, as if Ethan forgot to press it down. Can see the hint of a bruise and a scrape peeking out from his jacket sleeve. Can see the way his pulse jumps at his neck. 

“We’ve both seen better times, yeah?” Ethan’s grin is loosening, a bit of that old ease coming back, San Francisco and Casablanca. And Benji knows he shouldn’t, knows that it’ll just be worse for them both if they get close again, but all those months alone are catching up to him and here is Ethan alive and one piece and smiling, and he can’t seem to resist. “You can say that again.”

Ethan seems to spend a long time looking at him before pulling him close. A hug, nothing more. Brief little touches on his upper arms, hands on his back. The first human contact he’s had for a long time. A contact he can’t afford. They’re here for the plutonium, and that’s it. Then it’ll be back to business as usual. Alone.

One last pat on the shoulder, and then all three of them walking towards the black car waiting for them, the silence almost as heavy as the crushing roar of the plane engines. But Benji straightens, he holds his head high, hopes that Ethan hasn’t noticed the lack of the rise and fall of his chest. Because this is what they do, isn’t it? Live and die in the shadows. They’ll complete whatever task they’re sent for, and then maybe Ethan will wish him goodbye and Benji’ll have the strength to do the same, and there will be silence still but at least a comfortable one at that.

—

Of course the mission doesn’t go well. When do they ever? 

The attack on the van, the gun to Luther’s head, and Benji knows what Ethan will do. What Ethan will always do, if his friends’ lives are ever at stake.

They don’t get the plutonium.

At least Benji made use of one of his suits, he supposes. But it feels hollow. All of it does. Even as Luther’s driving them home and Ethan says that they’ll figure it out. But they’re here, aren’t they? The plutonium might have gotten away, but not for long. They have other leads. They’ve done harder things than this. They’ll find a way. 

Yeah. Yeah. He tries to convince himself of that, of the fact that it’ll turn out okay. Rakes a hand through his hair in the backseat and leans forward just a little for the reassurance of those twin pulses, jumping in steady rhythm. His friends. Safe. They might’ve failed this time, but they’re all still alive, which means there can be a next time, another chance.

The roads blur past in smudges of concrete brutalism and brick. Yellow streetlamps seem entirely too cheerful for the moment as Ethan and Luther talk quietly about the Apostles, about old missions, about Hunley. Sharp corners and tiny intersections. 

He doesn’t try to start a conversation, or to say anything at all, really. He doesn’t know what he would even talk about. His pet fish? The amount of shitty TV he’s consumed since he ran out of Star Trek to rewatch? How he’s too-pale and lifeless, how the four little scars on his neck are electrifying, how he can hear the way the blood pumps through their bodies and how he hungers? No. Best to just stay silent. Let them think that he’s pondering something, some way out of here. 

The car jolts to a stop in an alleyway. The door to the safe house opens easily once Ethan lets the doorbell scan his retina, and they’re greeted by an apartment that looks like it hasn’t been touched since the fall of the Berlin Wall. And not a moment too soon because now that the terror of the gunshots and the bomb threats and Luther’s potential doom is gone the hunger is back to gnawing at him, and being trapped in a car with two people for the past half hour certainly hasn’t helped. 

He hates this. Hates that he’s resigned to it, now, like a normal fact of life. Hates that the apartment is so small he finds himself thinking up scenarios of opening the doors at night, he’d be so quiet, take just a little— no. 

No. He’d starve a million times over before he ever did that to his friends. Before he ever did that to Ethan. 

He starts up the stairs with his duffel bag hanging from his hand and an empty excuse about the jet lag catching up to him. He’ll crawl out through a window later, catch rats or find some other way to scrape by. For the mission.

He hovers over the doorknob to his room for a long time, debating if he should lock it. If he should keep everyone else safe, at the cost of them worrying about him, because he knows how this whole thing looks. Benji Dunn, traumatized, receding further into himself by the day. Pathetic. No. No, he can control himself. He can do this. He will do this.

His hand slips off the brass, and he retreats to the other side of the dim room, switches on the old-fashioned lamp with the frilly shade so he can— well, he could see without it, but it makes him feel a little better. Rich buttery yellow floods the room and chases out all the shadows. Makes him feel a little more alive.

He opens his duffel bag and rifles through it just to give himself something to do. There’s green floral wallpaper that’s faded and peeling in the corners and an iron bedframe with a mattress that seems practically ancient but there’s a window with roof access, and he’ll take that.

He’ll wait until everyone else is asleep, he decides. He won’t bother them. He won’t make them worry about him. Not when they’re all nervous already, not with the Acolytes looming behind them. The last thing Ethan needs on his mind is Benji’s safety.

The vest, suffocating him. Begging Ethan to not hand over the bank info. Half out of his mind, bite mark still not even scabbed over. Lane whispering in his ear: “No matter what happens, you’re not going to have much of a life left, Benjamin Dunn.”

But Lane’s in prison. Lane’s in prison, and so they’re safe, safe as they can be on this job. Breathe in. Breathe out. Feel unused lungs hitch and still at the action, air whistling right through him, completely untouched. 

He’s sitting on the bed, folding a dress shirt into a sort-of square, when there’s another knock at the door. Slow and steady. Three taps. Not Ethan. He doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed. 

“Come in,” he calls, because the guilt is coming back— the guilt over all the quiet months, avoiding Luther at the office, not going to any of their happy hours or trivia nights. The door creaks awfully as it opens on rusty hinges, and then Luther is standing there in his blue and white striped pajamas, as cautious as if approaching a wild animal. Maybe he is. 

“Just wanted to see if everything’s okay in here.” Luther’s voice is low and deep, that familiar rumble, and Benji shifts to face him better even though he shouldn’t. Even though he should be pushing him away. Even though his fangs prick at his lips and he rasps a little when he says “yeah, yeah,” he can’t force himself to turn back again. Because he’s selfish. Because he hungers, for blood but also for the contact, for the conversation he wouldn’t allow himself before– the contact he shouldn’t be allowing himself now. 

Luther takes another step in so he’s not hovering in the doorway. Whistles out an exhale. Benji can hear his heartbeat pounding from here, but he can’t. He won’t. He’s better now, he can control himself, he’ll go hunt later. 

“I know things have been pretty strange lately, what with Ethan not around and all… this.” Luther gestures at the peeling wallpaper, at the water stains on the ceiling, at Benji’s duffel bag spilling out silk shirts and graphic tees and sweatpants. “But we’re here, if you ever want to talk, okay?” 

He can’t tell them. They can’t know. But something about the statement is at least a little reassuring, makes him feel a little less ridiculously alone. Even thought it shouldn’t. Because he’s still hiding— this, whatever he is, his vampirism, and because his mind is racing with thoughts of springing off the bed and pushing Luther to the wall and biting him, and the hunger is gnawing at his stomach and Lane’s face still haunts his dreams but maybe, just maybe, if he believes in Luther’s words enough, they’ll come true. 

“Thanks, Luther.” And he looks up at him and he finds that he means it. Even though it’s impossible. Even if he can’t have it, can’t have any of it. 

The other man turns back after one last glance, gives the doorframe a pat as if it’s a replacement for Benji himself. “Well, we’re gonna turn the TV on downstairs, if you’d like to join us.” An olive branch. An invitation. 

His fangs dig into his lip, draw blood. 

“Maybe some other time.”

Luther sighs, quietly, so quietly that if he were anyone else he wouldn’t be able to hear it at all. The electricity is buzzing in the walls and his skin prickles and his mouth tastes like iron and rust. 

“Alright.”

The door closes, softer, hinges squealing just a little. The knob turns with a definitive thud and then he’s alone again. 

But it’s better this way. It is. 

He pulls himself up into a standing position, leaning on the wrought-iron bedframe until a door slams downstairs and he knows that they’re all asleep. Or as close to asleep as Ethan ever gets, as close to relaxing as anyone in this field of work can ever get. Velvet night and the TV on and the company of a close friend. 

The window creaks open with a firm shove of his shoulder, and then he’s standing on the roof, carefully balancing on the ledge before the gutter. The wind whips by his ears and sirens wail in the night and he knows what he has to do. For them. To keep them safe. 

He’s not proud of it. He’s not proud of anything. Scrabbling hands and knife-sharp teeth. 

He doesn’t kill anyone. 

The house is dark and quiet when he comes back, having scrambled up a fire escape to get through his bedroom window. There is dried blood on his hands and an ease to his movements that comes with a meal and he hates it. 

He stoops through the window, swings on inside. His boots make soft thuds on the old wooden planks and he bites back a curse. Ethan should be asleep. Ethan would be asleep, if he weren’t— himself, all afraid. For good reason, isn’t it? Because look where this job got Benji, crawling out of windows at night, cuts in his lips, feeling utterly inhuman in Berlin at one in the morning.

The only good thing about him tearing through his duffel bag earlier is that his pajamas are waiting for him, clean and somehow still folded and smelling of the laundry detergent he keeps in his apartment. He closes the window and picks them up carefully, not wanting to stain this thing, too. Not wanting to ruin it.

At least the blood on his hands is already dry, flaking off his cuticles. Small mercies.

The apartment is silent in the night as he pads out to the bathroom in the hallway, as he turns the doorknob, as he brushes his teeth and dons his clean clothes. There’s a sort of sacred hush in the air— late nights on missions like these, when the world itself seems to be holding its breath, waiting to see what will remain unbroken in the morning.

He doesn’t know how long he stays in there. It feels safer, the confines of it all, the lack of windows. Makes him feel like he could be anywhere. Could be anyone. Like there’s still some sort of chance.

He supposes it’s been longer than he thought, because then there’s the creak of a floorboard outside and an unsteady knock at the door. Just one, soft, Ethan. 

His head snaps up, and he pushes away from the sink, gathers his clothes in his arms, button up shirt, slacks, thankfully still rather neat, and coughs out a “one second, please,” while he risks a glance at the thing in the mirror to make sure there’s no blood on his lips, no iron on his teeth. 

Ethan’s waiting for him when he opens the door, leaning against the wall with his own change of clothes in hand and the same black toiletries bag he’s had for as long as Benji’s known him. That same easy smile, that same look in his eyes, something that comes dangerously close to understanding but not quite. Not quite because nobody can know. Because he knows that Ethan’ll try to protect him, but he can’t, nobody can, because the real dangerous thing here is himself– fangs and all.

“Late night?” Ethan says, and it’s so tender it hurts, it hurts, and he plasters on a smile and nods and tries to just brush by like he did in London, because he’ll be out of here in a week, won’t he, and then they’ll be back to that same old nothing. The quiet and the distance and the guilt that lives in his chest next to his still dead heart. But better than the alternative. Anything is.

“Yeah. Yeah, something like that.” 

The rasp of his breath, the sound of his heart. Steady thrum like a drumline, dulled now that he’s eaten but still there. They’re close. Too close. 

A pause. A hitch in Ethan’s chest, a twitch of his hand, as if he were going to reach out but stopped himself. “We’ll figure this situation out, alright? We’ll fix it.” 

The plutonium. The Apostles, Lane, the imminent destruction of the world. Yes. That’s what’s important. Not this, not his feelings or the ache in his stomach or the fresh blood on his tongue. Flash a grin, try and make it look convincing. “Yep, we will.” 

He shifts a little to edge past him in the tiny hallway, scraping his spine against the wallpaper. The tiredness is setting in and making his limbs feel like lead, making the seconds stretch further and further. 

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t leave when he should. Maybe that’s why he stays when Ethan takes his hand, that’s why he stays as they’re pressed together in that tiny hallway in front of the open bathroom door. Why he stays even though he can’t afford to. Can’t afford to mess this up.

“Look, if you ever need anything…” Oh. That’s what this is. Another intervention. He doesn’t know if he’s disappointed, doesn’t know what he wanted this to be, but not this. Not all the worry over him. He’s fine, he’ll always be fine, he has to be. He’ll make it work. He always does.

Ethan’s hand is warm in his, too warm, with a pulse at the wrist. Alive. Alive, and he needs to keep it that way, so he lets go, turns away. 

“Goodnight, Ethan.” 

The door to his bedroom locks behind him. Solid thud of metal in the half-rotting wood frame, the reassurance of space, of distance.

He doesn’t look back. He should, he knows he should, before he breaks something irreparable between them. That delicate feeling, that tenderness. But he doesn’t. He can’t. 

It’s better this way. Better this way, because if Ethan is far from him then Benji won’t ever be a danger to him, won’t have to worry about hurting him. He repeats that to himself over and over until it starts to feel true.

–

The mission continues, because of course it does, because everything does, no matter how much he wishes it would all just stop. They track down the nuclear weapons maker, get him to reveal the plans with the fake broadcast. There’s a blur of different cities, different occasions, as the whole thing grows deeper and wider until it feels like it’ll swallow them all up.

And then. And then.

Ethan, in front of him, eyes pleading, voice rasping, telling him that the only way they can get the plutonium is to let Lane go. To break him out.

And his heart would stop if it hadn’t already a year before, his breath would catch if he had any left to give, because he knows what is necessary and yet he hates it. Hates it because Lane being out means that there’s some other scheme, some other way for him to worm into society, to set everything up to collapse. Because he knows enough about how his brain works to know that he’s willing to do anything in order to make Ethan suffer. 

“We’ll find another way,” he says, frantic, pacing. “We’ll make another way.” His words are rushing over each other and he’s desperate because he knows how this must end. He knows how this will end because he knows Lane, he knows that there’s some sick trick up his sleeve, knows that there’s something inevitable in all of this that he can’t stop. 

But Ethan just shakes his head, stands there with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, shoulders slumped. “There’s no other way, Benji. This is it.” Cold determination in his voice. The mission comes first. 

The catacombs are dark and damp and too close on all sides, boxing him in. Incandescent bulbs and rusted iron bars and the steady drip of water from some crack somewhere here in the tunnels below Paris. The cold nips at his fingertips even though it’s summer outside and he should be focused on the mission, on doing what they have to, on prepping the escape plan and getting the boat, but he can’t. He can’t because all he can see is Lane , all he can think of is London, all those nights afterwards with the deer in the woods and broken necks and his empty apartment. 

“He— we can’t let him out.” Fangs in his throat, that rasp, the assurance that his life was no longer a life at all. Those cold eyes, completely dead as Lane hooked him up to the bomb vest, as the trap fell into place. That out of control feeling has gripped him again, the same raw terror of a cornered animal, and he shies away from Ethan’s hands, from his invitation at an embrace.

“Hey, hey. It’s alright. I won’t let him hurt you.” An impossibility. Because he’s not worried about getting hurt, he’s worried about the other possibility, about Ethan dead in his arms with a bloody wound through his neck, of the nuclear bombs detonating all at once, of Lane being finally, viciously victorious.

“You can’t promise that.” It’s feeble and sounds terrible to him as soon as he says it. A petulant child putting his own wants over the needs of everyone in the world. 

Ethan takes a step closer, cautious, slow and smooth movements. “You’re right. I can’t.” And he’s so earnest it hurts, even after all these years, same old Ethan Hunt with that drive to do whatever it takes to save the most amount of people possible. Ethan, who would sacrifice himself a thousand times over for him. Ethan, who Benji can’t let die.

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

It's not enough. He knows it’s not enough, not after the months and months of distance, of brushing him off at every turn. 

“We’re all nervous. I get it. But we’ll make it through, yeah? We’ll figure it out.” Figure it out. Work the problem, Benji. He won’t let Lane win. He’s here, and he’s alive, and he’ll do whatever he can to make sure Ethan and Luther get out unscathed. Whatever it takes.

“Yeah. Yeah.” He straightens a little, tries to appear more confident than he is. Smooths back his hair, nervous habit, shoves his hands in his pockets. “Tell me what you need me to do.” 

–

The speedboat, the armored trucks, the sack he’d shoved Lane’s head into with entirely too much pleasure. The cold terror in his veins because he’s still frightened that at any moment it will all come crashing down like the fake walls in the hospital room and they’ll find themselves in an unescapable situation. Chasing after Walker, Ethan’s realization of what the plutonium has all been for, that Julia’s there.

They still haven’t really talked. Things have been busy. And Benji’s trying to play everything off as just mission nerves, which at the moment is too reasonable for anyone to second-guess, so even though the world is collapsing around their ears at least his friends haven’t staged another ‘we care about you’ party.

He appreciates the effort. He does. He just… can’t do what they want him to. Can’t tell them what’s wrong. Because then they’ll try to help, and he’d rather starve to death on the streets than bite any of his friends even just once. 

So he tries to put on the perfect veneer again, the veneer of stressed-but-not-insane, tries to throw himself wholeheartedly into the mission. Figuring out how to disarm the bombs, acquiring clothes for the cold weather in Kashmir. Doing what he can.

Ilsa’s joined them again, and he would be glad for it if she didn’t keep shooting him awkward glances, pointed things that make him wonder if she knew what Lane was– if she knows what he is, now. He could drive himself half-mad with it, and he would, but he has a job to do and so he bottles it all up for later. If there is a later. If any of them survive.

The jeep bumps down the mountain roads, jostling them with each stone or rut they drive over. He hangs on to the handle by the door desperately as Ethan tries his best to navigate them through the valley, the sweep of the medical camp before them approaching closer and closer, white tents stretching for what seems like forever. The nuclear bomb plans glare up at him from the computer screen, promising destruction, promising the deaths of a third of the world's population. The greater the suffering, the greater the peace. Benji would like to dispute that— he’s suffered plenty in the last year, and gotten no closer to peace because of it.

There’s a sort of nervous energy to him, something that makes him frantic that slots its way into his chest next to the ever-present cold dread. It makes him want to run. To hunt. 

His hands shake as he clicks over to view the disarming mechanism, the detonator and the synced sensors in both bombs. How they’ll need to time it just right. See, that’s what he needs to focus on. The mission. Stopping Lane.

The thought of Lane makes his blood run cold, but he bites his tongue and grits his teeth, pushes through it. They did what they had to do, and they’ll do it again. They’ll stop him.

The jeep’s tires spin on the gravel as they pull up to the compound, as they pile out. Benji closes his computer more forcefully than is strictly necessary and tries to focus on the moment, on the chill biting at his fingers, at the aching gnaw of the ever-present hunger in his stomach. It never truly goes away, and he knows that what he’s eating isn’t enough— but he won’t bite one of his friends. He won’t ask Ethan to offer his wrist, because he knows that he would, and that makes it worse.

The Geiger counter is heavy in his pocket, gun stowed at his waist. Ready.

They spill out of the car, Ethan and Ilsa and him and Luther. There is a sort of solid set to each of their shoulders, a jut to their chins, the knowledge that they need to do this or else there will be no world to return home to after. 

After.

He doesn’t even let himself have that thought. They’ll beat Lane, and if Benji’s lucky he’ll get to strangle him with his bare hands— no. No, he won’t let himself be like him. He won’t stoop that low. He can’t, because then he fears he won’t know how to stop.

The grass crunches under his feet, dry or maybe half-frozen, albeit (thankfully) it’s not so cold on the mountain as for the rest of the teams’ breaths to be billowing from their mouths, because then Benji would have a lot of explaining to do.

And he can’t do that. He can’t, he can’t give them that closeness, can’t allow themselves to see his still heart because he knows how it’ll end. He knows how it’ll end, and he’d rather die a thousand deaths than see Ethan looking up at him and telling him that it’s alright. That they’ll figure it out. Because they can’t, they can’t get through this one, they can’t fix this and he knows that they’ll try. 

There’s the harsh, biting sound of helicopter blades, and Ethan gravitates towards it immediately. The detonator.

Benji nods at him, and then he’s racing out towards the helicopter, vanishing between the white tents. It’s an odd sort of relief, because on one hand Ethan out of his sight means he could— and will, most likely— get horrifically injured in some way or another. However, on the other hand, it means that Benji can’t hurt him. Lane can’t make him hurt him. 

“Time to find those bombs,” Luther says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Yup. Sure thing.” Benji says, and tries to make it sound real, that familiar sort of anxious-but-witty banter. Everything A-OK.

Ilsa comes up beside him, and she lingers, casts him a glance out of the corner of her eyes. “Benji and I will look for one of the bombs together,” she says, and maybe there’s a threat in the words but it sounds more like a promise. A reassurance.

Luther shrugs. “Just keep an eye on that Geiger counter. Who knows what Lane’s tryin’ to get us into.”

They part, and Benji strides into the first medical tent he finds, Ilsa at his side. She doesn’t mention why she’s here, and Benji doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know if she knows, frankly. If she knows what he is. What he’s become.

The Geiger counter beeps frantically in his hand, and he glances down at it, motions that they need to make a left. And then a right. And then another left, working through the maze of tents, increasingly frantic with Luther in both of their ears we need to find that bomb now— 

They brush through another layer of clear plastic, and then another, ribbons trailing over their shoulders as if to try and hold them back. The tent is full of cases and cases of medical equipment, sealed metal boxes that make the Geiger go crazy, a high-pitched whine.

“We should check them.” Benji says, grip tightening around the radiation detector. “Lane would put it here, wouldn’t he? Try to slow us down.”

Ilsa shakes her head. “It’s too obvious. He wouldn’t do it.” If Benji still had a heartbeat, it would be racing. But he doesn’t, so he settles for starting on fiddling with the combination locks on the first nuclear-bomb-sized-case he can find. “And I suppose you would know.” The words come out more bitter than he’d like, because it’s Lane, because of course he’s always at least ten steps ahead. Of course this whole thing is useless, but Benji still has to try, doesn’t he, he has to hope even in the face of the hopeless. A third of the world, dead.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ilsa’s still standing in the doorway, body language all harsh lines and angles. He knows that he’ll regret this later. But the dread is boiling in him, seeping up his throat and coming up as poison. “You worked with him for two years, didn’t you? You know him. You know how he thinks. And he knows that, too. It has— it has to be here.”

It needs to be here, or else they’re out of time. Or else he’s messed this up, too, yet another thing to add to the list. Him and Luther’s relationship. Him and Ethan’s relationship. His sense of self. His sense of humanity. His reasoning, when it comes to anything to do with Lane. Any hope of him having any sort of life again. The list continues.

His hands are shaking too much to deal with the lock, and he pulls his gun and shoots. The sound echoes through the room and he can see the way that the vein in Ilsa’s forehead jumps. “It’s not here,” she says firmly. “Come find me when you realize that.”

Benji shoots another lock off. And then another. His knuckles are white and he has both hands on the gun, to steady himself, to ensure he doesn’t do anything more stupid than he has already.

Another lock. Another gunshot. The lid lifts, and nothing. No bomb.

He does that for what seems like forever, until he’s running low on bullets and Luther’s voice is crackling in his ear, Ilsa, come in, and Benji realizes that this is exactly what Lane wants, isn’t it? Them, separated.

He’s racing outside before he knows it, panic, panic because he recognizes this feeling, of knowing he’s trapped. Lane’s fangs in his throat. The weight of the bomb vest, constricting his already-stilling lungs. The voice in his ear, the knowledge that his words— no, his life— was not his own.

He bolts away from the hospital tents, leaving the sterile world behind. The sky is slate gray and the mountains look like teeth, ready to swallow him whole. The wind whips against his face and steals his voice as he shouts her name. He can’t let her die. He can’t let her die, not because of him, not because of his stupid insistence on where the bomb was.

The doors of the houses bang open, again and again, but no Ilsa. Just darkness, emptiness. All those nights in his apartment, dead quiet and alone, coming back to haunt him.

Another door. Another. Yelling her name until his throat is raw and his voice is gone, until— there. A muffled scream, the screech of chair legs on the floorboards. She’s here. She’s here, which means—

“I‘ve been waiting for your arrival, Agent Dunn.” That voice. That rasp, that sort of snakelike slither, echoing through the cramped rooms, so that it’s impossible to tell where it’s coming from. The man he’s had nightmares about ever since London. Before that, even. It sends a spike of terror through him, animalistic fear, but he doesn’t stop walking, because he can’t leave Ilsa alone with him. Can’t doom someone to the same fate he has.

His hand doesn’t shake as he reaches for his gun, as he carefully pulls it from its holster. This is the moment he’s been waiting for. To ensure that Lane can’t hurt him, can’t make him hurt anyone else. He flicks the safety off.

The shadows jump at him, every piece of furniture a looming man, Ilsa’s body strung up, already dead or worse— bitten, those marks on her neck, bleeding out. All of those visions of what-ifs swirling through his head.

Maybe that’s why he misses it. The noise, behind him. The creak of a floorboard. Ilsa’s protest from even behind her gag as Lane breaks a bottle over his head.

Pain explodes through his skull, and he drops his gun, watching stars fizz out in front of his eyes. He gasps, a tiny, useless breath, and Lane doesn’t even merit him with a chuckle, with a grin. Just drags him to the waiting noose. 

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” he whispers, and Benji’s helpless as Lane kicks the stool out from under him, as he dangles. Ilsa screams and the chair she’s tied to bangs against the wall once, twice.

It hurts. Of course it does. His head’s at an awkward angle and he tries to catch the stool, bring it back under him, relieve the strain on his neck. It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. But he’s not gasping for breath– there’s no need for that, not anymore. 

Lane picks up Benji’s gun from the floor, points it at her head, and she stops— chest heaving, eyes hateful, burning with a deeper sort of rage than just personal scorn. “Oh, he’ll live.” Lane says with a flick of the gun, a gesture for her to sit back down, but she doesn’t, stares down the gun as she backs up to the wall again, prepares to crack the chair against the wall again, to break free.

And Lane… stops, considers her, glances back at Benji as if they’re having a friendly conversation. “She doesn’t know?”

If his heart hadn’t already stopped, eleven months ago in his apartment in DC, it certainly would now. Because if Ilsa truly doesn’t know, then Lane will tell her, and then the entire facade he’s spent the last year building will have been for nothing because she’ll undoubtedly tell Ethan, and Ethan will want to help, and Benji can’t let him do that. Can’t let him offer himself up as a sacrifice. 

His hands claw at the rope around his neck, but it’s useless, hopeless, the stool too far out of reach and the weight of his own body pulling him deeper into the knot, cutting out more of his nonexistent airflow.

Ilsa’s chair shatters against the wall, but then the cold muzzle of the gun is pressed to Benji’s temple, and she stills. Benji tries to shake his head no, it doesn’t matter, Lane can shoot him and it won’t matter– he’s not sure if he means that it’ll heal, because he doesn’t know if it will, or if it’ll be okay if he dies as long as she defuses the bomb, as long as they succeed. But Ilsa’s gaze flicks between Lane and Benji, as if debating something, doing calculations in her head.

“I didn’t think you would survive, truthfully.” The words are poison dripping from Lane’s mouth, said quietly so that only Benji can hear. “But I’m glad that you did.” No. No. He knows what Lane’s going to do, he knows but he can’t stop it, because he’s weak and left as dead weight dangling by his neck as Lane reaches, pries one of his hands away from the rope at his neck, takes a shard of glass from the bottle he’d broken over his head earlier and slices open the artery at his wrist. It hurts. Of course it does. He thinks that Ilsa might be screaming again. The world is fading, blurry and dark, blood leaching out of him through the cut, slow at first but then faster and faster. 

The hunger hits him almost immediately. He’s bleeding out onto the floorboards, and the ache in his stomach becomes a pain, becomes a sharp cutting thing that seems like it’ll rip him in half at any moment. 

“Consider this insurance,” Lane rasps, and there’s a vial in his hand, dark red and glinting in the light, and Benji knows what it is. Knows what this means, his slit wrist and the promise of fresh blood. Like he’s some sort of hunting dog. “Type O-negative, male, 51 years old at time of donation.” The medical tone just makes Benji struggle feebly against his bonds, but he knows it’s not enough— his body is sluggish and uncoordinated, blood loss and the lingering ache from the bottle to the head, leaving him dizzy.

“Ethan Hunt will die, one way or another, Benji Dunn. At my hands… or yours.” The words are quiet. Solid. As filled with as much determination, as much self-confidence, as someone stating simple fact. 

Lane twists the cap off the vial— the vial of Ethan’s blood— and Benji’s mouth waters and he hates himself for it. The hunger is eating him alive. The world has shrunk to just this moment, the burn of the rope on his neck, the sharp sting of the cut on his wrist against the cold air, Lane’s voice in his ear, the smell of blood thick and heavy. He hungers for it, it’s so close, he could—

No. He’s not doing this willingly. He won’t beg for it. Ethan Hunt will die, one way or another. His fangs dig into his lip, long and terrible, a promise. The vial is closer, closer, Lane’s hand is on his chin tilting back his head, and the taste of metal floods his mouth and he wishes he could say that he bit, that he shattered the glass between his teeth, that he drew Lane’s blood, that he made him hurt. But he doesn’t. He can’t stop it. He wants to claw out his tongue, and he can’t stop it, he can’t stop it, but some part of him is glad to have some blood, any blood at all. It trickles down his throat, slow and sticky, and he wonders how long Lane has been saving this for, whether he’d always known that they would end up in a situation like this, Benji stuck and helpless and being turned into a weapon.

He swallows, and the world brightens and he finally lashes out, kicks madly, feels the metal muzzle of the gun leave his temple and Ilsa takes that as her signal. The chair shatters against the wall and Benji sags. He’s done his part.

Lane points the gun up, but it’s too slow, shaky. Not enough. 

Ilsa is a blur of motion in the corner of his vision and she cracks Lane’s head against the floor once, twice, three times. He can hear her heartbeat, pounding, the only heartbeat in this whole house but no. He won’t. He can’t. Cloying rust coats the back of his mouth, a tease, just a taste. Too much/not enough. Ethan Hunt will die. At my hands… or yours. 

His fangs cut his tongue open and he swallows his own blood, bitter, not what he needs. This is worse than London, worse than that bathroom and biting into his hand, this is worse because he knows what Lane wants from him. What Lane’s going to force him to do.

He won’t let it happen.

The rest of the fight is a blur. Ilsa, graceful, a thing of rage. Her cutting him down. The feeling of relief as the pressure vanishes from his neck, and then horror because she’s close, too close, and his teeth are too sharp in his mouth. Her, tying Lane’s hands together, making sure he can’t move– can’t do anything, not anymore, and yet. Those blue eyes bore into him, and he hates it, he thinks he’ll see them in his nightmares forever. He slumps to the floor, body just dead weight, stars dancing in his vision. 

He rips his gaze away and guides Ilsa through how to defuse the bomb with tremors in his voice, teeth scraping his lips as the world spins around him, but he has to stay here, has to stay conscious, because the bomb’s still counting down.

He staggers to his feet, drags himself towards her, towards the twisted metal form of the bomb itself. He waves her off when she gives him a questioning look, when her eyes flick to his wrist as if to say why isn’t he dead yet. He can’t let her get any closer, because he’s hungry. He’s so, so hungry, and she’s so close, her pulse thundering in his ears he could he could–

No. He won’t. He won’t, even as his vision grows hazy, even as he knows what will happen, here in this cabin next to Ilsa, Lane’s body spread out on the floor. “Cut the green wire,” he rasps, and she does as he says, hands steady even as he can hear her pulse jump, feel her heartbeat between his teeth. “Wait until—“ eyes the clock, debates if Ethan’s got the detonator yet, waits for a wave of dizziness to pass. It doesn’t. Squeeze his eyes shut, pant shallowly even though it’s useless, unnecessary. “Wait until it says three seconds to cut the red one.” 

The little vial of blood he got– Ethan’s blood, some part of him insists, and it makes his heart twist and his stomach turn– is no longer enough, and he can tell that he’s nearing the end. The end of what, he’s not sure. His life, maybe. If vampires can die like this. Bleeding out in Kashmir next to an atomic bomb.

Consider this insurance. 

Lane says nothing. Doesn’t even struggle against his bonds, doesn’t cry out as his plan dissolves. Just watches. 

He can feel his gaze boring into him. Can feel the itch of eyes even as he tries to focus on anything else, the red numbers on the bomb, the countdown. 

“Ilsa,” he rasps, and she turns to look at him, something wild in her eyes. “No,” she says, sharp, but he continues— because he has to, because he thinks this might be the end, because he won’t bite her, he won’t do what Lane wants, he won’t stoop that low. “Tell Ethan and Luther I’m sorry.” 

She takes his hand, the one without the cut at the wrist, squeezes. Says, hushed, careful, “I will.”

T-minus forty seconds. Thirty. Twenty. Ten.

He doesn’t know if they succeed, because he blacks out just before it hits one.

—

He doesn’t die. 

At least, he doesn’t think he does. He wakes up slowly, feeling like hell, mouth dry and bones aching— but he wakes up, doesn’t he, and that’s all that matters. They did it. The bomb didn’t go off.

His body relaxes just at the thought of it, sagging into the hospital bed— because that is what it is, isn’t it, cheap mattress and scratchy sheets and an IV taped into his arm— and he would sigh, but his throat feels raw and awful, and so he settles for just a quiet noise. 

Something rustles in the corner, and his eyes flit over, terrified for a single moment that Lane will appear and it’ll all have been for nothing, just like the cafe, wired up and sent out with another earpiece. But it’s not. It’s not, and they won. It’s over.

Ilsa comes to stand by his bedside, quiet, and for a second he fears the worst. “Everything’s alright,” she says, mouth tilting upwards. “We did it.” 

“We did?” he asks, and the words fight out of his throat, over his tongue. He wants to hear it again. To know he wasn’t just hallucinating the first time. “Yeah, we did.”

She smiles, and he smiles back, easier than he’d thought. He runs a tongue over his teeth— sharp, but no sharper than usual. “Did I—“ did I bite, he wants to ask, did I kill. 

“They gave you a blood transfusion,” she says instead, gaze sliding off his face as if recognizing that this conversation is easier without eye contact. “I put the IV in. And nobody was asking too many questions, with the whole nuclear near-miss.” He glances up, sees the almost-empty blood bag hanging from its pole, stamped B POSITIVE. It’s not his blood type. But he guesses that doesn’t matter, anymore.

“You’ll have to tell them eventually.” The words cut through the silence, sharp even though he can tell Ilsa’s trying to soften the blow. If his lungs still moved, he’d suck in a harsh breath, but they don’t and so he doesn’t.

The walls of the medical tent billow slightly in the wind, make it seem like he’s inside the belly of some sort of underwater creature. He’s surprised that he got his own room. Then again, he assumed that Ilsa wanted to have this in private, and she can be quite persuasive when needed— especially when armed. 

“I can’t.”  

She looks at him, eyes softer than he thought they’d be. “You can’t keep hiding forever, Benji.” He attempts a smile, even though he can tell it’s not the time. “What gave it away?”

“Well, you survived your wrist being cut open, for starters.” Her words are choppy, but there’s an edge of a grin to her mouth, and he knows he’s spared, at least for now. 

“Maybe I’m just in exceptionally good health.” 

“Don’t make me start listing evidence, because there’s plenty.” He stills at that, and she seems to tell, because she reaches for his hand and he lets her take it. There’s a thin silvery scar at the inside of his wrist, over the vein. The cut. At least it’s healed, now, and Ilsa already knows, so no use in hiding it.

“D‘you think they know?” 

“That’s not my place to say.” Benji grimaces, but maybe it’s better if they already know, because then he doesn’t have to tell them himself. 

Ilsa seems to notice how he’s staring at the now-healed wound and changes the subject. “Lane’s gone.” She says, and there’s a finality to it that makes him not want to ask what else happened in that house, after he passed out, after she cut the wires. “Ethan’s out of surgery, few broken ribs and some cuts needing sutures, but he’ll be alright. Luther and Julia are with him. He’s been asking about you.” 

He’s been asking about you. 

It frightens him. Of course it does. He’s spent the past year building a careful distance, afraid of getting too close, afraid of the possibilities, what he could do given an opportunity and enough hunger. But it hasn’t happened yet, has it? And they’ve won, and Ethan’s just had surgery, and Benji can’t bring himself to stay away. Call him selfish the way his heart jumps, the way he shifts forward.

He knows he can’t have it. Knows he shouldn’t even try.

But it’d be worse to leave him, wouldn’t it? Worse to leave Ethan alone, when he’d been asking about him, when he’d been wondering— presumably— about whatever odd distance Benji had put between them? 

“When can I see him?” 

—

He knows as soon as he steps into the room

that something’s wrong. There’s an edge to the air, a sort of distant alarm bell ringing in the back of his

mind. But Ethan needs him, at least that’s what he tells himself, so he stays.

“Hey, Benji.” Ethan smiles when he sees him, and Benji takes a hesitant step further into the room, and then another. “Hey, Ethan.” He finds himself smiling back, and his fangs don’t prick his lip but come closer than he’d like, and he thinks back to Ilsa’s comment about how there was plenty of evidence, wonders if it’s been obvious, if he’ll try to tell them and they’ll already know. 

But no, he decides, they don’t. Because if Ethan knew— if he had any idea at all— he’d have asked Benji if he could help him, and he hadn’t done that, at least not yet. So he’s safe. It’s less of a relief than he’d thought it would be. 

“It’s good to see you again, Benji.” Julia offers from beside Ethan, and he tries to make his grin look natural, because it’s nice to see her even if it’s here, even if it’s because of Lane. “Yeah, it is. Sorry that it had to be like this.” 

She chuckles at that and stands with one last pat to Ethan’s shoulder. He remembers meeting her— that ring on her finger, Ethan’s wife. But there’s none of that, now. They’ve all moved on. They’ve had to.

“Take care of him for me, alright?” She murmurs into his ear when she passes him, and he offers her a tiny nod, a promise. Even though the sense of wrongness is growing, eating him up, leaving his skin buzzing and his hands twitching and he’s not sure why. 

Luther leaves soon after, saying that he’s going to see if there’s anything he can do to help out around the medical compound before the CIA arrives, and then it’s just him and Ethan.

Him and Ethan, alone.

Ethan Hunt will die.

“Are you okay?” 

Benji jumps a little, zoning back in. There’s that familiar crease in Ethan’s brow, the one from Paris and Berlin and London and all the times before those, too. “Ilsa told me what happened. I’m—“ Ethan’s throat bobs as he swallows. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you.” 

Benji takes a step closer, almost subconsciously. Ethan looks so small in the bed. Fragile. And yet he’s still worried about Benji, worried about Benji’s safety instead of his own, worried about how Benji saw Lane rather than how Ethan himself is apparently fresh out of surgery.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to protect me, Ethan. I’m fine.” He tries to make it sound soft, tries to convey everything he can’t in just the words— don’t worry about me, please don’t worry about me— even though it feels like everything he says is a lie. He’s not fine. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be fine again, not with the way Lane made him, with his dead heart and dead lungs and the hunger, a constant ache, ever-present at the pit of his stomach.

He can feel Ethan’s gaze on him, can practically hear the are you sure on his lips. But he’s fine. He is. He’ll be fine, for him. So Ethan doesn’t have to worry. 

“C’mere,” Ethan says after a moment, words soft around the edges— not quite slurring, but close to it. Benji obliges, because he always will. Because he’s selfish, he wants his warmth, wants the reassurance of him here, alive, telling him that it's okay, they’ll find a way, they’ll fix it. Even if it’s false. Even if they can’t. 

He sits down in what was Julia’s chair, right next to his bedside. Ethan smiles up at him in that way that he does only when they’re alone. That hallway in Berlin, Ethan taking his hand, we’ll figure it out. This time, it’s Benji who reaches first, Benji who tangles their fingers together. 

“I’m here,” he says, and the sense of wrongness hasn’t abated yet but he pushes past it firmly. Ethan needs him, and so he stays.

(There are more reasons than that, of course. His selfish want for Ethan to say something like that again, c’mere in the softest voice he seems capable of. His want for Ethan, who’d apparently been asking for him ever since he woke up, to want him. His want to finally be able to not run away.)

Ethan sighs, as if satisfied. Now that he’s closer, Benji can see the lines etched into his face, the scrapes and bruises from getting the detonator. “I’m here,” he repeats again. Broken record. The monitors hooked up to Ethan, blood oxygen and his heart rate and everything else, beep quietly in a steady rhythm, soothing. He guesses that Ethan agrees, because his breathing slows and his eyes slip shut. 

Normally, this is the time when he’d leave. When he’d exit the hospital room, go back to whatever hotel they’re staying at, lock himself in his room and start to pace. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t, because the thought of being alone terrifies him, because the thought of staying is too alluring to walk away from.

He stays. He knows that he shouldn’t, but he stays.

—

He wakes a long time later with crust in his eyes and a stale taste in his mouth, skin buzzing as if electrified. He’s disoriented for a moment in the shifting walls of the medical tent, in the now-dim lighting due to the twilight falling outside, before he looks over and sees Ethan and remembers. The bombs. Lane. The house, and everything that came with it— consider this insurance, Lane rasps as if inside his mind, but Benji pushes him away. Waking up. Ilsa. Ethan. 

Something’s wrong. That creeping feeling is back, but worse than before, and he swipes his tongue across his teeth to clear the sourness from a too-long nap to find them too sharp again, like shards of glass, little knives jutting out from his gums. He’s— he shouldn’t be hungry. Not this soon. Not this close to the blood bag, to feeding. He shouldn’t be like this. And yet he is.

He shifts in the chair, and it creaks, but Ethan doesn’t wake. Maybe it’s the morphine. 

He’ll handle this, just like all the other times. Sneak out and find a yak or something. Slip back in, leave no one the wiser. Scrub the blood from his face in a bathroom or something and blame the odd time for a stroll on post-mission stress. Yes. That’s what he’ll do. He’s just convinced himself to rise from his chair, to leave, when—

Ethan twists ever-so-slightly in his sleep, pulling at the IV in his arm, and Benji stops dead in his tracks. 

The scent of blood seems to fill his mouth, cloying, too-rich. A tiny bead of it wells up on Ethan’s forearm and he watches it in the low light, ruby red, transfixed on the droplet as it rolls down over his muscles, off onto the sheets. 

His teeth prod insistently at his lower lip, digging in but not quite splitting the skin, and he tries to tear his gaze away from the crook of Ethan’s arm as another drop rises. 

It’s like he’s sent straight back there, to the dark room with the sunlight slanting in as Lane slices through the vein at his wrist, as Lane empties the vial onto his tongue. 

Ethan Hunt will die, one way or another. At my hands… or yours.

Hunger rips open his stomach and his vision blurs. He can’t be here. He knows it suddenly and awfully, crystal clear. He can’t be here because he’ll— 

“Benj?” Ethan’s voice is soft as he drops the i from his name, as he uses the nickname reserved just for the two of them. He supposes he must’ve made some sort of sound, some sort of indication to wake him. Guilt flits across his mind before it’s pushed aside by his hunger, by his worry. He needs to get out or else he’ll do something he regrets. He’ll kill him.

This is what Lane wanted, he realizes. Him, turned into a ticking time bomb, about to blow the team apart. 

Ethan’s mouth moves, but he can’t make out the words. All he can hear is Ethan’s heartbeat, clear and rushing in his ears, the promise of a pulse. He’s just a few feet away, it’d be so easy, so simple. Just lean in and sink his teeth in. He’d understand, wouldn’t he? He’d want to help. Benji just has to—

No. No, he can't. He won’t.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “Everything’s fine. Just go back to sleep.” He tries to keep his voice low and even, soothing. Tries to lean away from Ethan even though it feels like he’s being pulled towards him with some sort of giant, unstoppable magnet just behind his heart. 

“You’re hurt.” Ethan frowns at him, words soft and sleepy but cutting all the same, and he knows he’s not getting out of this one, and some part of him thrills at it, the idea that he can’t leave— that he has to stay, here, with him, wait for the chance to lean in and bite. 

“The doctors patched me up. I’m fine.” His voice hitches on ‘fine.’ The hunger is bottomless and vast and going to swallow him completely until that’s all he is, not Benji but rather some hollow-eyed hollow-cheeked gaunt thing, more animal than human.

“You’re hurting,” Ethan repeats. “Like in London. After the mission.”

“No, I’m not.” He knows immediately it’s the wrong thing to say. Because he should have said I don’t know what you’re talking about, but he didn’t, and now he knows that Ethan knows and vice versa. 

Ethan shifts, making the sheets crinkle, but the IV stays in his arm this time, doesn’t make any more tiny droplets bead up like water on wax paper. Benji doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed.

His gaze is sharp, but not in a threat, just concern. Worry. “I’d let you, you know. Whatever you need.” His voice is quieter than it normally is, words a little slower, still waking up from the drug-induced sleep— painkillers and the last dregs of the anesthesia. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, Ethan.” He tries to make it sound forceful. A line in the sand. He won’t bite him, he won’t, this is what Lane wants and he can’t let it happen.

“But you’re hurting yourself if you don’t.” Ethan sits up in bed, so that they’re eye-to-eye. “I want to help you,” he says, soft, so soft, softer than Benji deserves. “Please.”

He should leave. He should leave, like every other time, make this whole delicate thing come crashing down but at least Ethan would be safe. He should leave, but he doesn’t, and he knows he’ll hate himself for it later— but Ethan wants to help, doesn’t he? Here he is, asking Benji to take from him, to bite. 

Ethan turns his neck, offering it to him, pale skin gleaming in the low light of the dimming sun and artificial glow that filters in through the tent walls, and Benji makes a little cut-off sound in the back of his throat. “Please,” Ethan repeats, a little more insistent now. “Let me help you.” Let me do this much, unsaid words. 

He’s leaned closer to him subconsciously, drawn into his orbit. His eyes flicker to Ethan’s face, pleading eyes and the hint of a smile.

“I’ll bite you,” he says, voice low, words a struggle when he’s like this, starving and so close. 

“I know.” Ethan stays soft, voice hushed but firm, determined. Benji needs to get out, needs to leave, before he does something he regrets— because he will regret this, he knows he will, and yet. He licks his teeth, feels the points of them. The hunger is a spiky thing low in his belly.

”I’ll hurt you.” 

“It’s alright,” Ethan says, sensing Benji’s hesitation.  “I can handle it.”

In any other moment, he would stop. Drag himself away through sheer force of will until he could collapse quietly, bite someone in a back alley, dig his fangs into his own fist. But he’s so hungry, and Ethan’s right here offering himself to him with that softness Benji was worried he’d destroyed for good back in Berlin, and he should stop, but— 

“Benj,” that same nickname from before, made just for them. “Do it, okay? I want this. I want you.” 

His teeth sink into Ethan’s neck, into the junction between throat and shoulder. Those words loop in his mind, earnest and genuine, drowning out his guilt and his hunger even if just for a moment. I want you. Fangs slice through flesh like butter. Blood hits his tongue, salty and metallic, coats the back of his mouth, and he can feel the tension in his muscles unwinding, can feel the way the hunger eases its steel jaws from his stomach. 

Ethan makes a quiet noise, and he almost pulls back, but his hand tangles in his hair, not pushing or pulling but just there, a reassurance. Stay. The world has narrowed to just the two of them, to Ethan’s pulse at his mouth and his hand in his hair, to the bite marks and the flood of red. He doesn’t taste like anything special, not like the movies where the vampire says something cheesy about how delicious the love interest smells, but it’s him and they’re here, which is enough— no, more than enough. Too much. 

I want you. It pounds in his head like Ethan’s heart. Like his own did, a long time ago. Before he was what he is now. 

“I’m sorry,” Ethan says after a long while. His eyes are almost closed, eyelashes kissing his cheeks. “That I couldn’t save you from him.” 

Benji breaks away, then, teeth sliding easily out from his flesh. Ethan’s fingers slip out of his hair and he misses them, but he needs to see his face for this conversation, needs to be able to look him in the eye. Now that he’s full, instincts and hunger sated, the panic starts to creep in, if he has blood on his face, if this whole thing was a mistake, but he shoves it away. Ethan needs him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he rasps, blood coating the inside of his throat, gluing his vocal cords together. He wonders if— no. No, he’s not thinking about Lane now. They won. It’s over. 

A trickle of blood trails down Ethan’s neck from one of the punctures, and he wipes it away with his thumb, just smearing it across his skin rather than cleaning it. “Sorry,” he murmurs, and Ethan chuckles. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” This time, it’s Ethan’s turn to console him. “But I—“ 

“I told you to do it, didn’t I? I want to help.” Ethan’s breath hitches, face pale, and Benji worries if he took too much, too greedy, too selfish, just what Lane wanted. “I’m fine,” he says, as if he knows the thoughts racing through Benji’s mind. “Let me do this, Benji. Please.”

He takes a moment to compose his thoughts, still half-drunk on his blood, on the thrill of it. Ethan’s lips are parted, as if about to say something, but no more words come. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Benji repeats, like before, before Ethan said I want you and he couldn’t stop himself. 

“You didn’t.” He can tell it’s a lie. Ethan’s sagged back into his bed, and he’s quieter now, less forceful with his words, the exhaustion of blood loss catching up to him. Benji pulls back from him, feels the chill from outside sneak into the space where he used to be.

“But I will, someday.” He knows that it’ll happen, one way or another. Coming home from a mission, delirious and starving, and seeing him and— 

“No, you won’t. I know you won’t. You’re a good person, Benji.” He looks up at Ethan, meets his gaze. A hint of a smile, eyes half-lidded and soft, still soft, even after everything. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” he murmurs, trying to keep his eyes open but failing. Maybe the morphine drip has started again, or something about the bite is affecting him in some way. Benji wouldn’t know— he’s never exactly stuck around to find out what happens to people after he drinks from them. Now he’s feeling guilty about it, because he has no clue what will happen to Ethan, if he’ll still be alright in the morning.

He shifts in his chair, and Ethan makes a noise of complaint low in his throat like a wounded animal. “Stay,” he says. “Please.”

He stays. He stays, even though he shouldn’t, even though the Benji of a week ago would have run a long time ago. But there’s nothing left to hide, isn’t there? Ethan knows. He bit him, for chrissakes. So he stays.

Eventually, Ethan’s breathing deepens and evens out for the second time that night, and Benji watches as his eyes close, as his chest moves up-down-up-down almost imperceptibly. Stay. It’s dark in the room, but he can see everything as clear as if there were incandescent bulbs right above them, the lines around Ethan’s eyes and the crease of his mouth and the way his face smooths out all at once as soon as he enters that sort of dreamless state. The heart monitor drones on. Nobody’s stopped by— he wouldn’t be surprised if they wake the next morning to find Ilsa on vigil outside the door. 

Time seems to be getting away from him, twisting and blurring. Was it really today where Lane cut him open; really today when they defused the bombs? It seems both like it’s been ages, and that no time has passed at all. 

He watches for Lane in the shadows, of course. Even though he’s unarmed. Even though he has nothing but his teeth to keep him and Ethan safe. But the room remains empty, and the shadows are just that, tricks of the light, and he’s half-sure that Ilsa killed Lane, anyway, so they’re fine. Nothing to worry about. It’s not very reassuring, but he tries to make it be, here with Ethan’s breathing and his steady pulse and the quiet nighttime outside. 

He thinks he falls asleep again, but he’s not sure. A blink, and his watch reads two in the morning, and his mouth is dry and his joints ache from staying in the visitor’s chair so long.

Ethan’s still sleeping, and Benji watches the bite marks on his neck, feels a pang of guilt in the post-feeding clarity. He’ll… go somewhere. Get some water. Collect his thoughts, and come back later. When he’s not torn between a sick sort of elation and terror, and panic, because what if when Ethan wakes he’ll rescind it all and they’ll be left right back where Benji put them, distant and awkward and fraying at the edges— no. No, he’s not thinking about that. He’s going to get some water, and maybe some trail mix to snack on, and that’ll make him feel better. 

He brushes through the tent flap that serves as a door to Ethan’s room, rubbing at his eyes as he does so to adjust to the harsh light of the hallway. Somehow, the CIA still hasn’t arrived, or maybe Luther’s holding them back from bothering them all about the mission details and Walker and the rest of it. Whatever reason it is, Benji’s grateful, because it means he can stroll through the corridors without having to worry about being forced into an interview or arrested or any of the other annoyances they’ve had to deal with over the years. 

He’s barely made it halfway to the next tent-door when there’s a hand on his shoulder. Ilsa. 

“You should be sleeping,” he says, turning to face her, and she smirks in a little half-quirk of her mouth. “I could say the same for you.” Her hand leaves his shoulder, and she tilts her head as she looks him up and down, gaze scrutinizing but not unpleasant. “Did you tell him?”

Did he tell him? Maybe. Kind of. When he said that he would bite, and Ethan said that he could handle it. Does that count? 

“Sort of,” he settles on. The hospital lighting casts shadows off of Ilsa’s face, her brow, the line of her nose. 

She quirks an eyebrow at him. “Sort of?” 

“Well, I think he knows now.” He doesn’t know why he’s talking about this so openly. Maybe because Ilsa knows already. Maybe because there’s nothing left to hide, so might as well spill it all. Or maybe because it’s two in the morning and Ilsa seems like the only one who can come anywhere close to understanding and he just needs to say it, say something, anything. 

“You didn’t.” She says, almost incredulous, and Benji looks away. “He asked me to.” 

She steps to the side, so she’s back in his field of vision. “He’s Ethan Hunt. Of course he’d ask.” He searches for fear, for disgust, in her expression but finds none. Then again, he’s always been not-the-greatest at reading people in general, doubly so when he’s just woken up and when it’s Ilsa Faust in front of him. 

“I didn’t want to,” he says, quieter. “Lane—“ the blood on his tongue, ache in his wrist, noose digging into his neck. 

“I figured that was what it was. The vial.” A moment of silence where they both think about it, lost in the past. Ilsa clears her throat a little, and Benji’s gaze snaps back to her. “He’s alright, though?” It’s said like a question, like she’s not quite sure. 

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s okay.” At least, Benji thinks he is. For a second he spirals, thinking of returning to find Ethan still and cold, life drained out of him, but no. No, it’s been hours and he’s still here. He’s fine. He’ll be fine.

“Are you—“ He can’t bring himself to say the words, like me, like Lane. 

Ilsa laughs, a short harsh thing. “No.” Her teeth flash and he catches a glimpse of dull canines and incisors. Human. “He didn’t trust me enough for that.” 

He doesn’t ask if the he is Lane or Atlee. Maybe both. Ilsa’s gaze softens as she meets his eyes again, and she reaches up to place a hand on his shoulder— the same one she’d touched earlier to let him know she was there. “Sorry,” she says. “That’s not very helpful, is it?” A smile, cautious, as if she’s not sure if Benji’ll— for lack of a better word— bite. 

“No, it’s fine. I didn’t think there was anyone else, to be honest.” 

“Be glad you don’t know them. You’re better than they all are, Benji.” 

Ethan’s words— you’re a good person, Benji. Ilsa holds his gaze, a challenge in her eyes, a dare to tell her that she’s wrong, that he’s not a good person at all.

He swallows and his throat bobs. “Alright. If you insist.” She rolls her eyes at him and he smiles despite himself.

Ilsa squeezes his arm gently, face becoming more serious. “You do need to work out a plan, though. Can’t feed on Ethan forever.” He shudders at the thought, Ethan with more bite marks in his neck, wasting away, heart slowing, stopping, either dead or the same as him in this twisted half-life.

“I won’t,” he says. “I’ll never bite him again.” I’d rather die than bite him again. 

“Never say never,” Ilsa says drily. Benji gives her a deadpan look, and she pats his arm as if in apology. “I trust that you can handle yourself. Just be careful out there, alright? Especially with him.”

She pats his arm one last time, and then lets go. “I’ll be careful,” Benji promises, and she nods. “Good.” 

Then they’re left just staring at each other, alone in the hospital hallway, under the buzzing lights. He’s reminded of why he got up in the first place, his sour-tasting mouth from sleep and the want for a break, perhaps a snack, time to collect himself. 

“Why are you out here, anyway?” Ilsa breaks the silence first, not because she’s uncomfortable with it but just because she wants to converse. To have the comfort of shared words. “I was thirsty.” 

She raises an eyebrow at him, and he rolls his eyes. “For water.” She laughs, full-throated and normal, even after this, after everything. Maybe they do have a chance. All of them, living normal-ish lives, not like before Lane but maybe close to it. He tries to dream about it, but draws a blank as to what that even looks like, anymore. “Guess I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” 

She shakes her head fondly, and he grins on instinct. There's not quite anything left to say, but it’s not unpleasant. A sort of soft familiarity, made softer by how she knows, now, how he doesn’t have to hide it anymore. 

“Take care,” Ilsa says, and then grimaces playfully as if she can’t believe she’s saying ‘take care’ to someone. Benji echoes it back, and she disappears into the depths of the hospital with one last wave and a glance over her shoulder.

A clock ticks somewhere, and machines hum and whirr, and there is no Geiger counter in his hand. They won. 

He finds the water fountain, and then a stack of MREs that he doesn’t take, because now that he remembers that they’re in a nonprofit hospital and then feels bad that they’re taking up space in it. But they did just save a third of the world, so maybe that makes up for it. 

There’s nobody else around, which he’s grateful for, because now that he thinks about it he almost definitely has blood on his face and in between his teeth.  

Some large part of him still shrinks away from anyone seeing him like this, at a low point, clearly struggling, blood smeared over his mouth and staining everything rust-red, half-out of his mind. And Ethan might know, hell he might have let Benji bite him, but he still doesn’t want him to see all of this, his vulnerable insides, the creature lurking under the shell. The water in the bathroom is lukewarm and he scrubs until there’s not even a fleck of Ethan’s blood left on his skin, scrubs until he feels raw and fresh and new, and only then does he return to the room. 

The plastic flap brushes over his shoulders, and for a second he’s reminded of back in the equipment room, shooting the locks off, desperate. But they won. It’s over. There’s no more noose around his neck, no gun at his head, no cut in his wrist. He checked when he washed his face– the bruises on his throat are already fading. Nothing more than a distant memory. He tries to convince himself of that. They won. It’s over, Lane most likely left discarded in a ditch or in some sort of even-higher-security prison. It’s over. 

He tries to make his footsteps as quiet as possible as he returns to his chair by Ethan’s bed, tries to channel some of that stealth he’s had to learn over the past year. But maybe that’s nice, sneaking not to bite but to keep Ethan from waking, to return to his side instead of leave it. Because he wants to stay. He wants to, and for a second he dares to let himself hope, to wonder if maybe they could do it even though he doesn’t know how. 

The metal frame creaks as he settles, as he shifts to be a little more comfortable on the vinyl cushions. Ethan shifts a little, a hint of a smile on his face.  He cracks open one eye, mumbles something that sounds like a “benj?”

“I’m here, Ethan. I’m here.”

His eyes slip closed again with a soft sigh, settling back into the lull of sleep, and Benji watches the rise and fall of his chest, the jump of his pulse at his neck. Remembers his fangs sinking into his throat. I want this. I want you.

He thinks back to Berlin, to Ethan’s quiet reassurance in that cramped little hallway, their hands brushing. Thinks back to Casablanca and that quiet night by the poolside, Ethan practicing his swimming. Thinks back even before then, to San Francisco and the Burj Khalifa. I want you.

It makes his mouth dry, would make his heart quicken. He wants, and that’s what scares him, the wanting, the urge to finally close the distance, to stay. Fangs and all. 

It seems too good to be true. Probably because it is. Because people like him– if he can count himself as a person, anymore– don’t get happy endings, especially not an ending like that, where he bit Ethan but is wanted anyway. Where Ethan has seen his teeth and his dead heart and still accepts him wholeheartedly, still wants him by his side, still calls him ‘Benj’ even after all of it. 

Ethan’s lungs work steadily, deep and even breaths. How strange it is to hear breathing, to allow himself to be this close. But Ethan wants him here, doesn’t he? Ethan wants him, period. 

He lets the low beeping of the monitors and the machines lull him, lets the rasp of Ethan’s breath reassure him. I want you. 

Maybe it can work. Maybe they’ll find a way, weekly blood transfusions and keeping his fangs filed down. You’re a good person. He’d do it, for him. Whatever it takes.

—

“Benji?” 

He jolts awake, utterly disoriented for a moment before he makes out the billowing white walls of the hospital, the IV bag hanging above him, the cold metal arm of the chair digging into his side. Midmorning sunshine filters in and makes everything too-bright and cheery. He thinks he makes a startled sound, because then the person chuffs a laugh, and he rubs at his eyes to get them to focus on the figure beside him. Ethan, sitting up in bed, his hand on Benji’s left shoulder. He blinks, as if to ensure that it’s not some trick of the light, his sleep-addled brain. 

“The CIA’s flying in for the cleanup. I figured you would want to be awake when they came.” Ethan’s hair is mussed and he’s still wearing his clothes from yesterday, but he’s here. 

He’s still here, Benji thinks dizzily. He stayed. He’s unsure why it’s so much of a surprise— Ethan’s the one who wanted him to stay, so of course he would stay himself, but with the hazy remnants of his dreams hanging over him, that house and the dark and the stench of iron, it’s almost a shock to see him still in the hospital bed. 

“Hey, we’ll figure it out, alright? Whatever you need.” Ethan’s voice is softer as he says it, and Benji startles back into the present. His hand is warm on his shoulder, and his eyes are hopeful, and Benji wants, wants the closeness more than anything else, wants the casual contact and the luxury of having someone to come home to. At some point in the night, he’d shifted in the chair, angled to be closer to him. The armrest digs into his stomach but he ignores the pain of it, because of Ethan’s words, because of this moment. There is something in the air that makes him want to be present, makes him think they’re on the edge of something new.

Whatever you need. A promise Ethan can’t keep. That Benji won’t let him keep. His gaze darts to his neck, and Ethan shifts as if he knows what he’s thinking, reaches up to pull down the collar of his shirt to show the scabbed-over bite marks. “It’s okay, Benji. I’m okay.” That familiar smile, and Benji’s resolve crumbles like an abandoned sandcastle, slowly at first and then all at once. 

“Okay. Yeah. We’ll figure it out.” Ethan beams, and he finds himself grinning back. A sort of old elation, the thrill of the post-mission, the assurance of drinks with the team or movies back at the hotel. They’ll get through this, and for once he smiles and he’s not afraid that his teeth are too sharp, that his fangs are showing.

“We’ll figure it out,” Ethan repeats. “Together.” 

Together. A week ago, he wouldn’t have dreamed of it. Hell, a day ago, he’d be incredulous about the whole thing, about the possibility of it. But here they are, in Ethan’s hospital room, talking about after, about figuring things out, making it work. I want you.

He knows he’s not– healthy, for lack of a better word. They’ve both got their own issues to sort out. The bite and everything before it. The mission. The bomb vest. But they’ll make it through, won’t they? They always do.

“I mean, we don’t have to, if you don’t want to, of course.” and now Ethan’s flushing, glancing past Benji’s head to the wall behind him, sheepish. Benji realizes that he’s said nothing and would flush too if he had enough blood in him. “No, it’s alright. I like that idea.” His throat bobs, vulnerable, and he can’t quite bring himself to meet Ethan’s gaze. The world feels fragile, delicate, breakable just like all those times before, but he’s determined to make it through this. Determined to stay.

“Did you mean it, what you said last night?” He finally asks, because the thought has been racing through his mind ever since and he knows he won’t be able to ever stop replaying that moment unless he gets a direct confirmation, an answer, something to put the what-ifs to rest. I want this. I want you. 

Ethan blinks up at him for a moment as if he can’t comprehend the words. Then his features soften, smile shifting slightly so it’s sweeter, meant just for them. “Of course I did.” But then he falters, doubt resurfacing. “I understand if you don’t feel the same way. I kept trying to reach out, but you kept brushing me off, and I didn’t know if it was just Lane or–”

“I want you too, Ethan. I was just–” and he pauses, unsure of what else to say, words stuck in his throat. I was just afraid, before. Afraid of hurting you. Of doing what I did. He bites his tongue, not harsh enough to draw blood but close. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he settles on. 

“You could never hurt me, Benji.” Ethan’s back to that soft gaze and those puppy dog eyes. His hand is still on Benji’s shoulder, and he removes it only briefly to take his hand instead. It’s awkward because of the railing on the bed, their joined hands balancing on the precipice of the thick plastic, rounded edges still not smooth enough against his wrist. But he stays. He stays. “Nothing you could do would hurt me. Promise.” He can’t bring himself to quite meet Ethan’s gaze, so he focuses on the edge of his cheekbone, his earlobe, the point where his jaw meets his neck. 

“You can’t promise that.” His voice is quiet, quieter than he was intending, as if every word is a grenade he has to cup carefully in his hands lest it go off. Echoes of Paris, the catacombs, I won’t let him hurt you. Ethan squeezes his hand gently, and Benji looks back up at him, at those eyes soft with worry but not just that, something more, something deeper. Some kind of affection he doesn’t want to decipher for fear of deluding himself. But Ethan said that he meant it, didn’t he? I want you. 

“I mean it. I know you would never hurt me, alright? I know you. And I want to be here for you, however you want me to. And if you want to leave, I can. But I trust you. I want to stay, if you’ll let me.” The speech is half-rehearsed, like Ethan’s been thinking of the words to say all morning but can’t get them in the right order. But the meaning is there, the meaning that would make Benji’s breath catch, would make his heart pound. 

He should say no. He should push him away again. The bite marks from his teeth haven’t even healed yet, the evidence of how much harm he can do staring him straight in the face— but Ethan felt that, Ethan saw that, and still he wants him to stay.

Ethan squeezes his hand, gentle, and Benji shifts his thumb to reach for his pulse at his wrist. Alive. Still alive. I know you would never hurt me.

“Okay,” he finds himself saying, for the second time in the conversation, and for a moment he kicks himself about his apparently dismal vocabulary, but then Ethan beams, and all thoughts of his repetition vanish. 

“Want to get out of here?” Ethan says after a long moment, grinning in that way that means he has some sort of plan, and Benji waits before he says yes, because some part of him still insists that this won’t last, that their— whatever-it-is, relationship or not, will dissolve as soon as they return to the world of the living and leave the white tents and linoleum floors behind. But they’ll find a way, won’t they? They’ll stay.

“Sounds perfect.” He smiles, and Ethan lights up as if he’s just served him the world on a platter and hung the sun in the sky, and the bite marks will scab over and scar and heal, and maybe they can make it work, maybe they will be alright. “What’s the plan?”

“We’ll figure it out.” That sort of easy smile, the tiniest bit lopsided. Ethan’s hand is warm in his, and he squeezes it, feels his heartbeat like a reassurance, like a promise.

“Yeah. Yeah, we will.”