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Benji is used to being needed. Needed for his intelligence, needed for his skills, needed for what he can do for his country (or someone’s country, anyway), needed for what he can do for the world. It isn’t a bad feeling, necessarily – it’s nice to be needed, really. It’s nice to be of value.
What he’s far less used to, however, is being wanted.
He isn’t trying to throw himself a pity party, or anything like that; he isn’t crying about how no one loves him, or has ever loved him. His parents had loved him, he knows, when they’d still been around. He’d had friends at university and anywhere he’s worked. He’s dated. It’s just that what people need from him has always outweighed the wanting. When he can’t provide what they need—when he can’t conjure up the appropriate emotional responses for the situation, when he gets absorbed in his work, when he’s tense and anxious and snappish—they no longer believe he’s what they want.
There have been exceptions, of course. Even if Ethan and Luther need Benji, he has no doubt that they also want him around. And Will–
Will is different, too.
Will listens to him talk, listens even when it’s high-intensity anxious rambling. He lets Benji introduce him to the things he loves, and starts sharing a few of his own. He understands Benji’s drive to work, to learn, to know as much as he can, to be the best that he can – and he pushes Benji to be better (apologizes, later, when he thinks he’s pushed too hard, but there’s nothing much to apologize for when Benji is pushing Will just as hard, forever and always trying to drag him out of his comfort zone). When Benji misses cues, misses dates, when they argue—and they do—Will never leaves him out in the cold – not once.
It isn’t quite what Benji had imagined when he’d thought about dating Will (and he had thought about it, enough that he’d wanted to put the work in to make it a reality). It’s wonderful, of course—he wouldn’t dare say otherwise—but it’s different.
Perhaps he’d been more taken in by the face Will presents to the world than he’d thought. Perhaps he’d still been expecting someone sharp and exacting, wound tight and seeking perfection.
What he’s gotten instead is the deep well of caring buried beneath those things, something that seems to pour endlessly into Benji whenever they’re together. What he’s gotten is need, yes, but also desire, and above all, want.
Will can’t hide it – not from someone he cares about. It comes out in the way he gravitates towards Benji, in the way he looks after him, in the way he lets his guard down, in little touches and significant ones, in the kisses he gives: full-body affairs that involve Will’s arms around him, legs pressed together, noses brushing, fingers tangled in his shirt or in his hair, always, always trying to pull Benji closer.
It’s almost comical, really, how far from reality Benji’s initial expectations had been.
“Are you laughing?” Will asks, pulling back from their kiss.
“I’m not laughing,” Benji says – and he’s not. “I’m smiling.”
“Seems like you’re laughing,” Will protests, but there’s a tiny smile ticking at the corners of his mouth. “You could give a guy a complex, laughing while he’s trying to kiss you.”
“I’m not laughing,” Benji insists, leaning in for another kiss, one that Will grants him, even if it’s a little difficult to manage while he’s smiling.
“Fine. What are you smiling about, then?” Will asks.
“I like kissing you,” Benji says, leaning in to do just that, once more. “I like you.”
“You damn well better,” Will grumbles, tone entirely belied by the smile that’s fully growing across his face now.
Both smiling like loons, kissing becomes a little more difficult, but they manage.
“I like you, too,” Will murmurs somewhere in between, lips still brushing Benji’s.
“Yeah,” Benji says, and like hell if he’s ever going to be able to wipe the grin off his face now. “I had a feeling.”