Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Sam sometimes forgets that Benny doesn’t understand his particular language. And that Benny’s not psychic. And that sometimes Sam projects a little too hard and gives him a headache.

“Sorry,” he whispers, petting Benny’s forehead apologetically. “On accident.”

“I know, just… Gawd.” Another lightning-bolt shot of pain through his skull. He curls in on himself a little tighter and gives Sam a nauseated smile. “Little gentler from now on, huh?”

Sam nods, looking sorrowful, continuing to pat Benny’s forehead gently. It doesn’t exactly make him feel any better, but it doesn’t make it hurt any more, either, so he lets it be.

“’M gonna… gonna sleep now. Okay?”

Sam nods, hand still moving up and down rhythmically. “Sleep now,” he agrees. Benny smiles, just a little, and lets himself drift off on the wave of pain,and the soothing rhythm of Sam’s hand.

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“You got any family, Sam?” Benny asks one day. Sam, who has spent the past twenty-seven minutes examining a dried apple chip from every possible angle, glances over at him.

“Family?”

“Ya know… brothers, sisters? Mom and dad? Crazy uncle?” Sam continues to look at him blankly. “People like you.”

“More Sams?” he asks curiously, and Benny shakes his head.

“No, like… Like these.” He focuses on memories of his childhood, catching crawdads with his little sister and cooking beignets with his mom, on the feelings he has for each of them as he tries to get the idea across.

“Oh,” Sam says quietly. “No. No Sam family. Not now.”

“Aw, I’m sorry, cher.”

Sam shrugs. “Have you. Right?”

“Yeah.” Benny bumps his shoulder against Sam’s, earning himself a startled look and a hesitant smile. “You have me.”

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“What are you drinking?” Sam asks, and Benny hardly even jumps because he’s gotten so used to his friend just appearing.

“Hey,” he smiles, licking his upper lip and capping the bottle. “Your English is comin’ along pretty well.”

Sam nods. “Yes. What were you drinking?”

“What, this? Nothin’, just a little pick-me-up.”

Sam’s brow furrows. Or more like Sam furrows his brow; it looks very deliberate. “‘Pick-me-up?’ It’s too small and inanimate to do that.”

Benny laughs. “It’s just a phrase, cher. About, uh… energy levels. My energy was low, so this picked ‘em up.”

“Energy is not a physical object to be picked up,” Sam says flatly. “You don’t make sense.”

Benny snorts and twist the bottle in his hand so that the words “Blood type: O-” printed on the side are hidden beneath his palm. “You’re tellin’ me.”

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“What’s a vampire?” Sam asks out of nowhere. Benny starts and looks at him.

“What?”

“A vampire. I think I have confusion.”

“You’re confused,” Benny corrects, stomach twisting uncomfortably. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because my understanding of vampire is a fictional creature that consumes blood and wears capes,” Sam says promptly. “But that doesn’t suit you at all. You’re a benny.”

“Human,” Benny says, and he can’t even laugh at it like he usually would. Sam rolls his eyes in a perfect circle.

“You’re Benny. Not a vampire.”

“Well, it doesn’t mean a monster, but it’s also, uh, an insult.”

“What is insult?”

“Something you say to someone to hurt them,” Benny says flatly. “When you want someone to feel bad, you use insults.”

Sam nods solemnly. “The other side of nicknames. Why do people have insults for you?”

Benny takes a deep breath. “I drink blood,” he says bluntly. “And it freaks some people out, so they call me a vampire.”

“You don’t drink blood,” Sam says, rolling his eyes again. “You drink blood supplements dissolved in coconut water because your body does not produce enough blood on its own.”

Benny stares. Sam shrugs. “I have eyes now. I see. Why is that a bad thing?”

“It… it’s not,” Benny says blankly. “It’s just a medical condition. Not everyone understands that, though.”

A third eyeroll. Sam tends to latch onto his favorite human gestures and use them as much as possible. “They are not smart for not understanding. Should I give them insults?”

Benny does laugh at that. “Probably best not to. I have a thick skin.”

“Your skin is not thick,” Sam says flatly. “It is thin and delicate. You should avoid things and bennies that hurt it.”

“Or I should just keep you around to protect it,” Benny says teasingly. Sam nods, solemn.

“Yes. You should.”

And Benny finds that he doesn’t have an answer to that.

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Sam is very good at this. He thinks that he could almost pass for a benny, if everyone didn’t already know he wasn’t one.

And then something like this happens, and he’s completely lost.

“You just hop?” he asks, trying to make sure he understands the concept.

The two children in front of him nod. “But first you throw the rock,” the longer-haired one says. It has a gap between its teeth when it smiles.

“Throw it where?” Sam asks, rolling the stone in his fingers.

“On one of the numbers!” the other one, the one with shorter hair, cries. It looks exasperated.

“Oh. Which one?”

They stare at him. “You just throw it!” Long Hair says, rolling its eyes. “And it lands, and then you hop, but you hop over the one with the rock on it. That’s why it’s called hop scotch.”

“Scotch is not healthy for a benny of your age,” Sam informs the child, but then he carefully throws the little rock onto the seven, because he likes the number seven. It lands right in the middle of the chalk-drawn square, and Sam hops over it, to the ten. “Now what?”

“Nooo,” one child wails.

“Your feet’ve gotta touch in the middle!”

“You can’t just fly over it!”

Their words should sound disappointed, but somehow they’re laughing as they say them, and one little benny grabs each of his hands and drags him back to the beginning. “Like this!”

Sam doesn’t particularly mind.