#samben

“Like you could do it better,” Ben hisses, looking determinedly away from Sammy’s lips, hopelessly twitching at Ben’s inexpert carrot peeling.

“I could! I have! A toddler could do better, Ben.”

“Look, if you aren’t going to help, you can fuck off,” Ben says, with maybe more vitriol than he intended. He gives a particularly fierce swipe of the peeler and gets some skin off himself as well as the carrot, then swears viciously and puts his hand to his mouth.

Sammy winces and slips down off the counter. “Ooh, ouch. That looks nasty.” He starts rummaging in their hand towel drawer, and Ben waves him off.

“It’s fine, just–get out, stop making fun of me. I’m doing my best, all right?”

By then, though, Sammy has gotten a hand towel and is holding it against the bleeding spot, clutching Ben’s hand tight between his own. “I’m sorry, Ben, I didn’t…” His eyes go soft, which makes Ben hurt in an entirely different way. “I mean, I can help.”

“What?”

“You said to fuck off if I wasn’t going to help. Well, I can. If you want. Show you how.”

Ben squints at him, trying to figure out whether Sammy’s doing one of his deadpan bits or some kind of prank, but he looks back into Ben’s eyes, so sincere. Ben looks away again. “Fine. Sure. Go all Rachael Ray on me.”

“Eh. I’m more of a Barefoot Contessa.”

Ben can’t not laugh at that. “What the fuck ever!” The laughter seems enough of a cue for Sammy, who smiles and tentatively releases Ben’s hand, checks that the bleeding has stopped, and puts the hand towel aside.

Then he’s reaching across Ben’s back for the knife and briefly touching Ben’s hip to steady himself as he settles behind him. Ben nearly freezes. “I didn’t think–” he begins.

“I’m teaching you to do it, remember, not doing it for you,” Sammy says, low and amused. “Keep up, Ben.”

“I–I’m keeping,” Ben defends, but he doesn’t know what to do with his hands until Sammy’s taken his wrist, turned his palm, and put the knife handle there.

“Do you want these julienned?” Sammy asks.

“Uhh…”

“Cut into big strips,” Sammy says, and Ben can hear him refrain from rolling his eyes.

“Yeah? Sure?” Ben’s voice is a little higher than usual. That’s fine. He’s Ben Arnold. Voice shit happens sometimes. It’s fine.

“Okay,” Sammy says, and positions the carrot, guides Ben’s other hand to hold it still as he cuts. “You cut with the front half of the knife first, then follow the motion through to the back.”

The meal preparation goes on like that, and Ben’s pretty sure he’s not learning a damn thing. Sammy’s a good teacher, but he keeps reaching around Ben or leaning over Ben’s shoulders, crowding him into the counter so that he can hardly breathe, or maybe just holds his breath because he doesn’t want to. Almost the whole time, he has his hands on Ben’s, his fingers skilled and his touches soft and guiding, and, well. It’s making Ben react.

Sammy has no idea. He just goes on talking with that low, gorgeous ASMR voice in Ben’s ear–hold the knife like this, angle your fingers like that–while Ben isn’t sure he should be holding a knife at all.

“Ben?”

“Yep,” says Ben through gritted teeth. “I’m here.”

“You’re holding the knife way too tight. You’re going to hurt yourself again if you keep being so tense, you end up pushing too hard and–”

“I’ll show you pushing too hard,” Ben mumbles.

“What?” Sammy says, pausing halfway through prying Ben’s fingers looser on the knife, and that is absolutely the last straw.

Ben puts the knife in the sink, because all appearances to the contrary, he is not a complete idiot. Then he turns around to face Sammy, his jaw still clenched. “Notice anything different about me?” he growls.

Sammy’s eyes went wide as soon as Ben turned, so it’s safe to say he did notice Ben’s predicament. He steps back, staggers back really. “Oh. Um. Yeah, I–” Sammy’s eyes are darting around the way they do when he’s looking for an escape route. “Sorry about that, should have–realized–I know you’re like, sensitive, but uh–yeah–I’ll just–”

Sammy’s halfway to the door when Ben catches his wrist. “You’ll just what, run away?”

Sammy’s eyes reluctantly drift back to Ben, then back away from him to fix determinedly in a corner. He doesn’t pull away, though. “That was the plan, actually, yes. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Ben says. “I mean–I do? I do mind, actually. But I don’t–” He sighs irritably and tugs Sammy back toward him. “I was giving you the opportunity to take responsibility.”

Sammy’s eyes go wide again, but this time he’s looking right at Ben. “Are–wh–what are you saying, Ben?”

“I thought it was obvious,” Ben says, swallowing and standing up straighter. Sammy’s eyes go down to the line of his throat, then back up, then down to his mouth.

“I… uh…”

“If you want to hear me say it, that’s fine too.”

“Ben…”“I just…” Ben slips his hands up from Sammy’s wrist to his chest. He takes a deep breath and slides one further up to curl at the nape of his neck. “Tell me I’m wrong about this?”

Sammy hisses out a long breath. “I mean–that’s not what I’m saying, Ben, but–”

“But what?” Ben leans up into Sammy’s space, and it’s ridiculous how jittery Sammy gets at that considering how long he spent absolutely in Ben’s space. “If you don’t want this, just tell me and I’ll fuck off and nothing has to be different.”

The panicked look in Sammy’s eye tells him that’s a severe temptation, and Ben’s about to drop back onto his heels and fuck off after all when Sammy settles his hovering hands back on Ben, one at his jaw and one at his waist. He takes another deep breath. “Are you sure?”

Ben blinks and then lets his eyelids flutter low. “When have I ever not been sure?”

“Ben–”

Ben’s already kissing him, and after a moment Sammy sighs into him, all the tense energy dissolving. Ben walks him backward toward a counter not still covered in food; Sammy leans over him and plants his hands on it, crowding him back against it, and this time it’s definitely that Ben does not want to breathe. Not when Sammy’s tongue is slick against his. 

Ben barely wants to break the kiss to hop up on the counter so that he’s not reaching up so far and Sammy won’t complain of a neck ache after this. But he does, and his fingers find Sammy’s and squeeze. Sammy squeezes back, firm and not terrified like his voice was. His other hand trails up Ben’s thigh and Ben squirms, gasping.

“Sensitive is right,” Sammy laughs breathlessly.

“Shut up,” Ben pants, his hips canting upward despite himself. “Had you doing that romcom covering my hands bullshit for half an hour–breathing on my neck and shit–”

“Oh,” Sammy says, with a tone right between mischievous and smug that Ben knows he should be terrified of. “You mean like this?” He leans into Ben’s throat and runs his lips over it, then his teeth. Ben makes a strangled noise and hooks his ankles around Sammy’s back as Sammy starts to murmur words into his skin that are definitely not cooking instructions.

“Sammy, fuck,” Ben wheezes.

“Getting there,” Sammy replies, unbuttoning Ben’s pants.

“You suck.”

“Getting there too.”

Ben fails to breathe for a moment as Sammy pulls his zipper down. “I’m, uh, I’m not gonna win here, am I?”

“I don’t know, you could go 'Sammy!’ like you always do, and I would say, 'that’s not the only time you’re going to scream my name tonight’–”

“I can’t believe I’m still turned on,” Ben groans.

“–and you’d say, 'oh my god, stop’ and I’d say 'stop’s not the safe word’–”

Ben grabs Sammy by the hair and yanks until Sammy yelps. When he looks at Ben again, his eyes have bloomed dark.

“Don’t make me beg for it, Stevens.”

Sammy looks up at Ben with his mouth open for a moment, then nods and wipes it. “Fair enough,” he says, pulls out Ben’s cock, looks up at him one more time, and then takes it into his mouth.

Ben realizes a new fact as soon as Sammy swipes his tongue up Ben’s slit and draws a completely involuntary noise out of him: Sammy’s good at this. Which makes sense, of course, but he’s just, he’s really good at this. Like, way better than any woman Ben’s ever slept with. Must be some combination of preferentially sucking dick and having a dick of his own, because he knows exactly what to do with Ben’s.

Ben ends up tugging his shirt up and holding it between his teeth both to shut himself up and to keep it out of the way without using his hands, which are put to much better use tangling in Sammy’s hair and pulling the tie out. Sammy makes a sound of complaint at that, which is incredible because he had taken Ben fucking what he’s pretty sure must be Sammy’s throat like a champ.

Still, the vibration of Sammy making that sound around him pretty much ends it for Ben. He clutches at Sammy and when he pulls off expects him to spit in the sink–it’s right there–but Sammy has already apparently swallowed, no issue, just a grin and wiping his mouth on his arm. Ben’s glad he’s sitting down because that would be enough to make his knees weak.