Chapter Text
He and Randy had necked (god he was 31 years old fucking kill him) in his car for close to half an hour after their talk. They only stopped after Randy's mother called. Randy had ignored her first 2 calls, and Benson wouldn't lie and say the vibration hadn't been nice, pressed together as they were, with Randy's phone in his front pocket. Randy did not appreciate that when he whispered it in his ear.
Benson had had to sit through the fucking embarrassing experience of listening to Randy apologize to his mother for missing her calls. Cheeks red but for an entirely less pleasant reason than before, Randy hemmed and hawed and shrunk into himself, all sign of the man that had just had Benson pushed against the door, sucking a hickey to the stubbled skin of his neck, gone. Benson wanted to grab him by the scruff of his neck and shake him. Why did he keep doing this? Becoming less than himself to the others around him. Useless fuckers not worth one of Randy?
After several tense minutes of conversation, Randy had promised her that no he hadn't forgotten that he needed to pick Haley up from soccer practice that afternoon and yes he would stop at the grocery store and no he wouldn't let Haley talk him into stopping for ice cream. Christ mommy was a bitch.
Dropping him off with the promise of picking him up again in the morning so that he could get to work and his own car Randy grabbed his hand before he had the chance to open the door and climb out.
"Um-whats your favorite color, Benson?" He asked, thumb rubbing circles on Benson's palm. His lips were still red, and his hair was messier than normal. Unlike himself Benson learned, Randy had no problem with a hand in his hair directing him where to go.
Benson rubbed under his nose, "Oh shit. I don't know. I guess if I had to choose? Probably yellow. Why?"
Sarah had tried to dye her hair blond her junior year but it had come out a bright fried yellow instead. Sitting on the toilet in her bathroom, Benson had nearly pissed himself laughing, his own chunk of recently fried yellow hair falling into his eyes. Why they had thought it would turn out better on her he couldn't remember.
Randy nodded to himself with a small smile.
"I just realized I didn't know and I wanted to know." Benson's stomach hurt and he wanted to drag Randy through his cluttered living room and push him against walls, and counters, and beds, and against shower walls. God, he was just so sweet, so good. Not like Benson.
He needed to get his own place fuck.
"What's your favorite color?" He asked.
"Gold or- or maybe green? My mom has this necklace she wears all the time? It's a gold pendant with a little green stone and I used to sit on her lap and play with it when I was really little. I don't know. Just stuck with me I guess." Randy rubbed the back of his neck, twisting a few of the fine hairs there between two fingers.
Benson didn't know what he was going to do anymore with himself. Randy was going to ruin him. He couldn't wait.
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He could hear the TV inside, Ma watching one of her shows no doubt.
Sitting on his porch, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, Benson was unsure how long he had been staring at his car. Or to be more exact his trunk. It had been early afternoon when he got home from his shift was slipping quickly into dusk. Sunset gave his neighborhood a charm it lacked in the daytime. Its golden light hid a multitude of sins.
Randy had just texted him and asked if he wanted to get dinner together. He had said yes.
He didn't want to take the shotgun from his trunk. It being there meant he always had the choice. His choice no one else's. In its own demented way, it comforted him but he didn't want to have the gun there anymore either. Things were better but they had been good before and Benson had experienced before how quickly it could change. He knew better than most that not wanting to die was not the same as wanting to live. He cracked his neck and took another deep inhale of smoke.
But things were better. He got off with a slap on the wrist for Chris and had a new job he actually enjoyed with genuinely kind co-workers. Sam and Karlie could both be assholes they seemed to truly enjoy each others and his company. Ma was doing good and had been for years at this point. Or as good as she could be. She took her meds, showered most days, and left the house when she needed to. Really he could have gotten his own place a while ago. He knew that. He didn't want to say he was scared because he fucking wasn't, but he didn't know anything other than work and taking care of her. Benson had never allowed himself to. Since he found her in the bathtub all those years ago he never let himself look beyond that narrow view of his life. It was locked in place at that moment.
And then there was Randy. He still didn't know Randy. Sure they had spent the past several weeks speaking, he had let him see parts of himself that he had locked inside himself since Sarah, but he didn't know him. Not yet. And if he kept the gun in his trunk he never would. Not the way he wanted to. Benson wanted to know everything, all the bits and pieces, the good and the bad, all the things he had resigned himself before to never know. He wanted to dig into the belly of who Randy was and eat what he found, bloody and raw.
He wanted it all.
His keys were biting into the meat of his palm and his eyes were burning. Tossing his cigarette butt off the porch he forced himself to his feet. They felt like they were encased in cement as he jogged across the street and popped the trunk. The shotgun was in its soft canvas bag, as usual, innocuous and simple. It was just a gun. He made his own choices, not it. Not Mr. Sheppard, or his father. He did.
Taking it from the trunk it felt lighter than he remembered. He turned back towards the house and went around to let himself in the back. Ma didn't know about the shotgun or the handgun locked in the hutch in the living room. She thought that Pop had taken them with him when he left. He could hear her laughing along to the canned laugh track in the living room and he skipped the squeaky floorboard by instinct and once in his room stowed the gun in his closet.
It was still there just in case. Things could change but for now he had a dinner to get to.