Chapter Sixteen
Benji
Everything was quiet.
Everything was peaceful.
He wasn’t cold. He wasn’t sick. He didn’t hurt.
Benji was just existing, watching the sunset on a hill.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was dreaming because it was a familiar spot to him that he hadn’t seen in decades.
He used to sit on that hill with Andi when they were kids, making up stories of what their lives would be.
That was before they knew about the family business.
Andi said she was going to be a doctor and Benji would change his weekly. There was never a repeat.
He was alone on that peaceful hill for quite some time until someone spoke up. “What are we doing?”
Benji turned his head and there sat Sawyer.
Where he came from, he didn’t know. But he felt a soft breeze hit him as he sat.
He wasn’t upset he was there. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
He was quite content that he was. The setting sun brought out the myriad of freckles that painted the guy's cheeks. It almost looked like he was shining with them. Benji didn’t quite know how but it was something to marvel at.
“We’re just sitting here,” he finally answered.
Sawyer nodded. “It’s nice.”
“It is.”
They were silent for a bit longer before the man spoke up again. “I like sitting here with you.”
“I like it too,” Benji admitted, pulling his knees up to his chest and placing his chin on his knee. “Maybe we can do it more often.”
Sawyer smiled softly and nodded. “Yeah, maybe we can.”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe. If we get out of here.”
“Out of where?” He didn’t answer that question. Sawyer just scooted closer and closer to Benji. So close, their arms were touching and his knee was resting against the others. “Sawyer?” Benji asked, reaching one of his hands out to rest on the knee that was touching him.
But Sawyer got there first.
His hand reached behind him and he dragged it up his spine.
It was a bizarre touch. It didn’t really feel like Sawyer’s and Benji wasn’t quite sure if he liked it at that moment.
Where he touched him began to leave a burn in its wake.
He tried to move, but his body wouldn’t budge.
It felt like he was glued to the ground.
He turned to look at Sawyer once again but the man wasn’t there anymore.
He was replaced with a grotesque figure that he had never seen before.
It was gangly with spindly arms and legs.
Its fingers were sharpened. Its eyes were pools of black.
Sawyer had been replaced with a creature from someone’s nightmare.
His nightmare.
Benji tried to wake himself up from it. But he just couldn’t break it. His body was frozen. The figure continued to loom in on him and he felt nothing but despair and dread looking at it. He was unable to look away until he forced himself to open his eyes…
The first sight he saw was an unexpected one.
Sawyer was holding onto that little guy, Clay, by his shirt and pinned against a support beam, with his fist clenched tightly, ready to strike him.
Benji thought his eyes were betraying him because what the fuck was going on?
He brought his hand up to his forehead and he felt how incredibly sweaty he was.
His body felt like it weighed ten thousand pounds.
He was so hot and yet a chill still wracked through him.
“You have some nerve coming down here,” Sawyer seethed.
“And you have some nerve leaving the door unlocked,” Clay countered.
Sawyer’s eyes twitched before he narrowed them. “People are sleeping. You,” he emphasized the word by slamming his back against the beam, “Should be sleeping.”
“But you left him unattended and unbound. It’s a good thing I came down. He could have escaped.”
“Look at him!” Sawyer shouted. “He’s sick as a fucking dog from your bullshit. Do you think he’s going anywhere?”
“Actually, I didn’t do much.” Unfortunately, Clay wasn’t wrong. He was mostly just observing. Except with the waterboarding. He was involved with that. “I just wanted to see how he was doing.”
“You weren’t just seeing how he was doing, you goddamn creep.”
Clay grinned and that feeling of dread shocked Benji’s system again. He really fucking hated that guy. “Well, that was how the plan started–”
Before he could finish his sentence, Sawyer sent his fist flying directly into the guy’s face and he tossed him aside by his shirt. “Touch him again like that and I’ll kill you, Clay, you hear me?”
That familiar cackle filled the room again. “Testy, testy, Sawyer.” The man wiped a trickle of blood from his lip and moved towards the stairs. “Milo surely won’t like to hear about this arrangement. It could have been our little secret too if you just butted out…”
“I’ll tell him myself,” Sawyer spat, “And I’ll tell him about all the shit you’ve done over the years to people just like him,” he pointed at Benji. “You think he’s going to want to keep you as his little stooge when he hears about it?”
Clay’s face fell. “Y-You wouldn’t. That’s suicide.”
“Try me, Clay.” Benji’s gaze stayed steadily upon Sawyer. There wasn’t a hint of deception in his voice or in his eyes. He was willing to put himself in harms way to fuck over Clay? “Keep this,” he motioned at the situation, “To yourself and you’ll keep your job for another day.”
He watched as the man looked back and forth between the two of them before he ran up the stairs.
Sawyer followed after him and he heard the lock of the door again.
A few moments later, he was back down the stairs and picking up all the supplies he had brought down off the floor and knelt down before Benji.
Sawyer’s face had a soft shade of a pink to it, probably from his sheer frustration, and it made his freckles really stand out. How cute. “Are you okay?”
“What happened?”
Sawyer shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does.” He had no idea what happened besides the fact that it was bad enough to get Sawyer so up and arms. It seemed pretty worthy of him knowing. “What were you talking about? What has he done?”
Sawyer brought his hand up and gently placed the back of it against his forehead.
His cold hand felt so nice against his hot and clammy skin.
“You’re still burning up,” he sighed and grabbed a medicine bottle.
“This should work for infections of some sort. I think. I don’t know, but it’s better than nothing.
” Sawyer grabbed the bottle of water that was still hanging around and popped open the other bottle to drop a capsule into his hand.
Benji could barely move to assist him with drinking the water but they both managed.
He dropped his head back down onto the mattress once he swallowed the medicine down and closed his eyes.
He was still exhausted. Benji imagined he would be for a while.
He didn’t move again until the cold air in the basement suddenly hit his skin.
Benji noted his shirt was pushed up and for the first time in a couple days, he looked at the wound on his side that was causing all the issues.
It looked horrendous. It was completely inflamed.
Pus was oozing out of it. It was caked with some fresh and dry blood.
Benji couldn’t help but groan at the sight. “Fuck me,” he groaned.
“Not like this,” Sawyer deadpanned and their eyes met.
And for the first time in days, Benji laughed.
It fucking hurt to do it but it still felt so nice.
It was such a foreign sound to him at that point, but it was so unexpected.
Sawyer tried to hide the smirk that was gracing his lips but it wasn’t working out very well. “Joking, of course,” he added.
“Of course…”
With a shake of his head, he poured some of the water onto the wound and as gently as he could, began to clean it with some gauze he had brought down. Benji hissed softly. “Sorry,” Sawyer muttered.
“It’s fine,” he said through his gritted teeth. “You can tell me about what just happened to make up for it.”
Sawyer huffed. “You’re not going to like it.”
“I haven’t liked much of anything since I’ve been here,” Benji offered. He did like Sawyer. It was just hard to like him that much considering the situation. If they had met another way, things would have been much different… “You were rather upset.”
Sawyer didn’t react much. He just continued to patch up the wound while he spoke.
“I came down here and he was laying next to you. Practically on you. Touching you. And he does that shit all the time to other people in your situation. And I should have done something about it sooner, with the others. But I just…saw it with you and I couldn’t stand it. No one deserves that.”
“Oh,” Benji said softly. He didn’t really know how the psyche worked and he didn’t have much time to find out, but if that was true, then it made sense why his dream had shifted in such a way.
It had started so soft and honestly sweet.
His mind was so upset with what Clay was doing, it shifted everything.
Benji was a heavy sleeper, there was no doubt about that, but he was pretty sure he’d notice someone touching him normally.
But he was so damn exhausted and sick… He just couldn’t force himself awake.
“Yeah,” Sawyer sighed, “I’m sorry. I should have locked the door but I just…didn’t think about it. Didn’t think anyone would come down here. I should have known better. That’s my fault.”
“It’s…it’s fine. I mean, I don’t think he did anything.”
“He wanted to though. He would have. He doesn't care.”
Benji’s face crumpled up at that thought. “I hate that guy.”
“Me too.”
A few moments later, Sawyer had finished cleaning and dressing his wound. Benji glanced down at it briefly before he laid his head back down on the mattress. “You’re going to have to tie me back up, aren’t you?”
Sawyer swallowed. “N-Not yet, no.”
He hummed softly. “That doesn’t sound very confident.”
The other male placed a hand against his forehead once again. “You’re still burning up. I can’t in good conscience do it.”
“But you could the other times?” Benji deadpanned. Sawyer’s mouth fell ajar as he clearly thought about what to say to that. “It’s fine. I get it.”
“Do you?”
“No,” he answered honestly, “I don’t. But I’m sure you have your reasons. I don’t expect to hear them.”
Sawyer frowned a bit. Benji could tell that he was wanting to say more but perhaps he just couldn’t.
That was understandable. He was still, technically, working.
And really, Sawyer didn’t owe him anything.
But after the past twenty four hours, it seemed like maybe the guy was turning over a new leaf of sorts. Perhaps he was wrong.
“I’m tired,” Benji eventually said after a few moments of silence. He had woken up not too long ago, but his body was going through the ringer. It made sense.
“Okay,”
“Are you going to…sleep next to me again?”
“I uh–”
“You can,” he quickly added.
Sawyer just nodded his head and crawled back onto the mattress behind Benji. “Get some sleep. We’ll figure out things in the morning.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Things were quiet between them for a couple more minutes before Benji spoke up again. “Thank you, Sawyer.”
The man beside him sighed, “You’re welcome.”