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In the aftermath, having prevented total global annihilation, Benji finds himself in a Washington hospital.
It's a private room; nice, but hardly quiet. He's on a steady regimen of broken sleep, superfluous narcotics, and aimless interviews; he's spoken with directors and secretaries and analysts, operation officers and police. He doesn't trust any one of them to fully understand the gravity of his contribution to Ethan's mission, and consequently, he doesn't trust that he's properly safe in his little private room with his full legal name on the ledger.
Several hours before dawnbreak, Benji wakes for a glass of water, and to find Paris dozing in the guest chair next to his bedside table. This has been a constant since he's been coherent enough to set the alarm on his wristwatch, and though it's not exactly the company he'd ever expected, there's no denying that it's welcome.
She wakes when he sets the glass coasterless onto the table, seems to have a sort of sixth sense for it.
"Hi," he says, watching her sit up with a groan, eyelids heavy and chalked in black liner.
Benji's never asked where she comes from at night, how she gets past the security guards and night shift nurses—not in detail, anyway. It doesn't matter, it's child's play for people like them, but there's a gnawing curiosity in wondering how much effort she goes through just to sit quietly in his room while he rests. Selfishly, he hopes maybe Ethan's put her up to surveilling him.
But that, too, is something he's never asked.
"Ça va?"
"Good, good. I believe I'm getting out of here after the weekend..."
Thank god. Things had been touch-and-go for a while, he'd been told, but the gunshot wound had been clean and his collapsed lung was healing faster than average for someone his age. "Two weeks to go and the doctor said I'll," Benji winces slightly, pushing himself upright in bed, "...be able to sit up without wanting to vomit."
Paris smiles, but her features betray her. It's been a week of concerned glances, glassy eyes and unsure smirks. It's understandable, Benji supposes, that she might be concerned for him in the same way that he's been concerned about Ethan for nearly twenty years. His survival is a fruit of her labour, after all, not all that different from how Ethan's alive because of Benji; because of his team.
His team…
"Thank you," Benji says then, "for always being here."
She's quiet when she leans forward in her chair, a packet of chocolate chip cookies in hand; she looks over at him and her eyes smile slightly before her lips do. She nods, "De rien," and offers him an inch-big morsel of sweetness.
"Paris," Benji fishes a tiny cookie from the tiny packet, "I still don't know your story… but I know I've been you. I've been in hospital rooms, keeping tabs on… my team. You don't have to be the best friend, the caretaker. I don't regret anything I've done with the IMF, but… it's a hard life, being loyal."
He catches a reflection of himself, blue and ghostly in the window to his right. Every wrinkle accentuated in contrast from the moonlight. He's grown so old. It's easy to feel nostalgic for life before the IMF, back when he had a desk job and sat at a computer making five figures for a few hours of coding each day. He remembers meeting Ethan with rose-tinted glasses, but even when life was stressful, it was exciting and made his heart race.
"Tu mérites des amis fidèles."
It hauls the breath from Benji's battered lungs, makes him wheeze just turning to look at her. The worry on her face softens him, tapping the top of her hand with his own when she reaches out to him as a sympathetic gesture. "Well, yes. So this is me looking out for you—keep hanging around here and the CIA will be hounding you as much as they are me. You should go. Enjoy life for a while."
"Tu parles," she grins. But there's a silence between them, a moment of growth, or understanding in which Paris leans close and squeezes his hand. "Après la pluie, le beau temps."
In his exhaustion, Benji barely has the strength to squeeze back before his vision of her turns black.
From then on, when Benji wakes up, she's not there.
***
He's home.
That is to say, he's staying in a rented hotel room until he can figure out his next steps. He's not so naïve as to think he's out work yet; there'll always be another evil, another mission. It's just, he'd like to settle down somewhere in the meantime. London's been his home for a decent chunk of his life—in or around, anyway—and despite the rain it's not that bad, really. He just can't decide whether or not it's too on the nose for the English guy to move back to England, can't decide if it makes him an easier mark.
The drop goes smoothly, ten o'clock at night, on the dot; probably the lowest stakes drop he's ever taken part in given the value of the package. It's nice to see his team, nice to see Ethan… maybe too nice. So nice that it hurts.
But of course, he's still not fully healed.
The doctor had said he might always feel a tightness in his stomach and stiff muscles.
When he's in his room and alone that night, Benji thinks about Luther. He could fill that hole, maybe, painful as it is to think about. Remote work, computer work… retirement, if he's lucky. He knows he'll never escape the inherent danger of the job, he'll never get past thinking too much into every little background sound, no matter how innocuous. It feels almost absurd that the soft thud outside his balcony door should make him bristle…
There's a tap at the window.
A sort of scraping sound.
The balcony's behind him almost exactly, the front door at eleven o'clock. He's already pinpointed appropriate cover should he need it.
Slowly, he sits up, slinking a hand down to the handgun holstered around his calf. The door squeaks as it glides open, sure of itself and of whoever opened it—too noisy for anyone but a novice or a friend.
Benji turns at the first sound of footsteps on carpet.
"Have you always been fond of unconventional entrances?"
Paris gives him a lopsided smirk, letting her bag drop to the floor, and nudges the balcony door closed with the toe of her boots. The city skyline twinkles around her shoulders.
"We're eighteen storeys up! Where—where are you staying?"
Her lips part as she approaches him on the sofa, as if she's about to tell him she's got a late flight, got herself a place somewhere nice, anywhere but here. But as she stands before him, she seems to think better of it. Rather, she shrugs playfully, eyes towards the ceiling.
"Here? I-ici?"
"Mm, oui, si tu es d'accord."
"If it's alright," Benji repeats, a bit incredulous, but in good humour. Who is he to turn her away, a friend, when life is so fleeting? Being shot does motivate one to seize the day. He makes to stand, to greet her properly, but is met with pointed fingertips and a firm push that has him flopping back against the cushions. "Paris..? Qu'est-ce que tu fais?"
"Est-ce que tu te sens bien?"
"Y-yeah, um, still a bit stiff." Her boots are the first to go. He watches her kick at the heel of the left before she bends to claw it off, and repeats the same on the right with stockinged toes. "But, ah, oui… Oui."
She comes down on the soles of her feet about 3 inches shorter than before, but just as imposing; just as mysterious a creature now as the day he'd met her. Backlit in yellow lamplight, she shrugs her coat to the floor.
Benji can feel the tension in his temple, his brow furrowing in confusion before rocketing sky-high in understanding. "Oh," he says, "well. I don't know if, I mean, ce n'est pas une bonne idée… n'est-ce pas?"
With her fingers picking at the button of her fly, she smiles, "Tu avais l'air d'avoir besoin d'un ami… Benji."
The way she says his name vibrates through his core.
Those dark eyes seem to gleam more richly when Benji gulps in reply, mutters clumsily while he flounders in decision. On the one hand, Paris is undoubtedly beautiful—he should be so lucky. But, for better or worse, this isn't the sort of R&R he typically engages in with his coworkers. He feels her weight impressing the cushions before he knows it, and she's there, straddling him in a cropped jumper and knickers.
He chuckles, mostly in disbelief, a nervous exhalation that's the sum of everything he's not presently saying aloud. Benji's not always been the best at emoting without babbling, but tonight he's truly speechless. And while it seems as though Paris had been anticipating nothing less, he's self-conscious of his lack of composure anyway.
"Ça ira," she says, and allows him to cup her jaw.
Every part of her is toned and tight, tan and tempestuous. She's satin smooth under his thumb, the most delicate thing he's held in what seems like ages. No—not delicate, but soft and warm, and he indulges himself for as long as she lets him before she crosses her arms over her chest and tugs the jumper over her head.
She smiles, wild with static in her hair and the defiance of a pesky child.
Her body's heavy on his legs as she leans in and begins to pluck the next top button after the one Benji had undone earlier in an effort to remove his tie and just breathe. Her eyes meet his between their shadows, "Oui..?" she asks, and Benji nods with "Oui" silent on his lips.
Each of his buttons follow quickly after that.
The small incision above Benji's second rib's healed slightly pink, easy to notice on the expanse of his pale chest, even in the dull light he's kept in the room. Paris touches it; runs the pad of her forefinger over it as though it's some sort of rare jewel.
"You saved my life." He's acknowledged it, thanked her so many times while in hospital, but maybe seeing the mark will help the truth to sink in. "Does it look cool?"
A purse of her lips and her hands are all over him, massaging her thumbs into the pressure points along his pecs; folding herself in two to be able to press those lips to his neck. It sets the hair at the back of his neck on end, has him trying to somehow reciprocate by fixing his arms around her and unclasping her bra. She erupts in goose pimples as his fingers dip beneath the straps and let them fall off her shoulders.
Tiny kisses burn into his flesh, everlasting in his somatic memory: jaw, neck, clavicle, every inch until she can't bend lower.
She wriggles in his lap at the first stirring of his arousal between her legs. Her hands sweep up his arms to lay firm on either shoulder, and she raises herself on her knees just enough for Benji to unfasten his fly front and shuck his trousers and underpants down past his bum. The valley of her mound shallowly hugs his cock when she lowers herself down.
An involuntary hiss makes Benji flush with embarrassment, but Paris only snickers, giddy and exuberant, hooking a finger into Benji's gawking mouth and drawing him forward to her chest.
She encourages his tongue on her breast.
Benji finds he has an appetite for this. In all these years, he's never really used casual sex to decompress; it's almost as exciting as his first field mission, completely uncharted territory. He peppers her with kisses, following her example, holds her firmly in his lap and runs his hands down her sides for novelty. The scar down the front of her abs is like a route he might trace on a map, long and twisted; puffy and dark, were those also maplike qualities. "How—" he starts, curious about the story behind it—but she cuts him short with a curt shake of her head.
And there, just right of her navel, the stab wound Ethan had told him was from Gabriel.
"Do you remember how many people you've killed?" Benji asks softly, planting a tender kiss on her sternum. She shakes her head above him, eyes narrow and searching, probably wondering what he's on about. Benji's smile is bittersweet, "Neither do I. Er, but that isn't sexy, is it, thinking about death."
She flashes him a cheeky expression, eyebrows raised, Des fois.
He caresses her down, thumbs edging beneath what little fabric is left on her body, places a kiss over her nipple and laves it with his tongue.
"Don't they call this—sex, I mean—don't they call it, 'La petite mort?'"
"C'est l'orgasme," she says, coy, rolling her hips forward to press against his erection. "Veux-tu mourir, Benji?"
He did say she'd be the death of him.
Mercifully having put up with Benji's blundering pillow talk, Paris slips her hand between her thighs, then, shifting to step out of her knickers. Benji watches them tumble down one leg and catch on her foot when she makes to straddle him again. The amusement on his face makes her huff, kicking them away and into the pool of her clothes, but her attention shifts quickly enough to the task at hand.
Mon Dieu…
A finger trails down, and Benji watches with bated breath: a heat-seeking missile that lands on her clit and soothes, rubs gently up and down until her voice catches in a gasp. She smiles triumphantly when she finally takes his cock in hand, staring Benji down and grinding against the length of his shaft once—twice—before she finally positions herself atop him and sinks down.
"Putain," he swears under his breath. "You don't waste time."
It's white hot bliss, and Benji can't help but close his eyes against it. She's so wet, taking him in effortlessly like she's wanted it for years.
He imagines an inferno between them, the way he sweats, the way he's entranced as though he were back in school. His palms smooth down her hips and still, closer to the action, silently begging for her to let him touch; spreading her apart when she smiles, D'accord, his thumb grazing her clit, his thumb stroking his cock where it's splitting her open.
She trembles and slides forward, gripping his shoulders as she raises herself slowly on and off of him, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt as she slows her pace and pushes down against him for better friction. Benji thinks he might even hear a whisper of his name.
And then there's a shift.
With a death-grip on his collar, Paris pushes herself back, sits herself up. She comes down hard, forcing Benji in deep, and then lifts herself again. And again. She moves faster, fucks herself on him harder, until every nerve is on fire. And when he can feel her begin to tire, Benji holds her by the waist and thrusts into her as ardently as he can.
God, he groans.
He groans like she's tearing them from his throat with her bare hands; fights to keep his eyes open as though Paris might evaporate if he doesn't physically witness every millisecond of their tryst. He's not so sure she's so much as blinked once.
She's magnificent, strange. Fit. He's got an incredible array of adjectives for her, but he wonders—as much as he has the capacity to—what it is about him that appeals to her. What about him has her desperately clasping either side of his face and locking eyes with him like she wants to keep him forever. Those eyes are dark as chocolate, sharp and mischievous; they seem to ask questions that Benji can't translate, but he grins in lieu of words, ready for anything.
Then all at once she's up and off him.
It's like an unexpected draught, a dousing of cold water. Benji jolts, is about to ramble through an apology, but Paris simply presses a fingertip to his lips, Shhh, and sinks to her knees on the carpet between his legs.
He practically sobs to see her there, an angel of death. God, he wants her. He wants her to—
"Paris," he gulps, "baise moi… y-yeah?"
She's firm when she strokes him, holding his gaze and delighting in each of Benji's shallow breaths as his cock throbs in her hand. She teases the underside with the back of her knuckle, swirls a fingertip over the bead of precome; swirls her tongue over the same finger. "Tu m'excites," she purrs.
Benji's world tilts as she takes him into her mouth.
Her throat is just as sweet and wanting as her pussy. She bobs her head in time with her fist, flicking the tip of Benji's cock with her talented tongue and hollowing her cheeks as she sucks. For as quiet as she's been this entire evening, she seems keen to let loose now, moaning gently as Benji hits the roof of her mouth, keening when she removes her hand and he hits the back of her throat.
She wiggles below him, then, slipping one hand between her legs and pulling off of him to place the other to her pinkened lips. Benji watches them disappear, watches them work slowly in and out until at last she removes them, connected to her tongue with a string of thick saliva. She nods up at him and he takes the hint, slides down the sofa…
And her fingers enter him.
"C'est bon?"
Benji grunts, shudders, but it isn't really an issue. Just a satisfying burn, a stretch of muscle he doesn't trust many to inflict. "Oui, oui. Go on," he breathes, "please."
The pace starts slow and steady. He clenches around her, encouraging her inside, trying not to be too eager when she swallows his cock down once again and fucks into him more quickly. It doesn't take long before she curls her fingers slightly and rubs against him just right, strokes his prostate again and again and has him gasping swears at the ceiling. She's relentless about it, driving him mad with each of those teasing strokes that burn in the best way; making him whimper when she takes him to the back of her throat and holds him there, contracting around him when she swallows.
"Oh, God…"
He's absolutely gone when he hears Paris fucking herself on her fingers, soaking wet and hot for him, of all people. He's got some self-worth, it's not like that—but swept up in the moment, lightheaded and pent-up, the mere thought of pulling a woman like Paris without even trying has him struggling for balance on the knife edge of orgasm. It hits him fast, that heat pooling in his gut, the immense pressure of impending relief.
"Fuck," he gasps, "I-I'm gonna come—"
He comes with his hands dug into the sofa cushions, too afraid to put them elsewhere, to touch and startle her like a fawn. She swallows his spend, continues to lazily suck until he's too sensitive and flinches, wincing with a hand on his still-healing left side.
She seems to materialise directly beside him on the sofa, then. She slides her fingers down, circling over her clit until her breath is coming in quicksilver pants. Benji turns to watch the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the slight jiggle of her breasts, and at last she's closed her eyes, gasping—almost silently—her petite mort. It feels voyeuristic, like something he oughtn't see, so he snaps his head forward with a sniffle before she notices.
Then just as it had happened that early morning in the hospital, they share a silent moment of growth, or understanding.
"I don't really know, why me," Benji says with a contented sigh, leaning his head against the back of the sofa, "but thank you."
"Chais pas," Paris laughs. Then more seriously,
"Tu es un ami fidèle… Très mignon. Je me dis… des fois j'aimerais être comme toi."
***
Benji wakes the next morning, unbothered by the laundry list of major life decisions needing to be made. Sun beams through the balcony window, localising entirely across his queen size bed, enveloping him completely, and the warmth of it's lovely. Before he's even opened his eyes, the smell of bacon and eggs has flooded his senses.
He nearly leaps through the ceiling when he rubs his eyes open to find a porter unloading matching trays of breakfast onto the coffee table—has a mini heart attack when he remembers he's naked and has to bunch the comforter up around him to keep from feeling scandalised.
And then there's Paris, berobed and fishing a tip from Benji's wallet with a light in her face he's not seen until now.
Coffee's on once they're alone. "Avec du sucre?"
And he's home.