"The Most Dangerous Game"
a Pike & Benny joint
By Viridian5
6/27/99

RATING: PG-13 (maybe R for language); Pike/Benny.  If m/m 
interaction bothers you, pass on by.
SUMMARY: At first sight.
DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: Pike and Benny, from the _Buffy the Vampire 
Slayer_ movie, belong to Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, and 
Kuzui Enterprises/Sandollar.  I'm just dusting them off and letting 
them play.  No infringement intended.  Suing me would be a waste 
of time.  
NOTES: Te said she liked to think about the stalking I mentioned 
in "Plush Things You Hold," so I had to present it.  That makes 
this the see-and-stalk story.
Thanks to Laura and Te for suggestions.  


============================ 
"The Most Dangerous Game" 
By Viridian5 
============================ 

Benny look down at the *thing* on his plate and tried to figure out 
what it was.  It could be pizza, a hamburger, or chicken patty on a 
bun.  All three came out of the school kitchen as the same brown, 
greasy, soggy lump.  He made a face at the lunch lady, who only 
gave him a disgusted look and waved her hand to tell him to move 
along.  He only bought the school lunch once in a while to remind 
him why he was better off using the candy machines.

Those few times when he did get the lunch, he usually stared down 
at his tray or at the lunch staff, giving them the evil eye, the whole 
time he stood in line.  Today, some part of him said, Look.  Look 
there.  Being the type who believed in listening to his instincts, he 
followed it. He shook unruly black hair out of his eyes, turned his 
head, and--

In a movie, the music would have come on strong: sickly sweet or 
triumphant.  Everything would have gone into slow-mo and 
focused on that one person, that guy standing by himself near the 
mural.  The guy would look right at him, would *know*, and their 
eyes would meet.  The world would just stop.

The world and people in it kept on moving.  Only Benny had 
stopped.  The low, dull roar of hundreds of teenagers talking at 
once provided the only soundtrack.  The guy never looked up or 
noticed him to acknowledge the momentous thing that had just 
happened.  

//Only, only, only.  Except...//

Thank God.  It was shattering enough as it was.  With all that too, 
it might have killed Benny.  

And he would have died without having any idea what had hit him.

He had never felt anything quite like this before.  It felt like 
something pulled on his mind like string.  Like he sailed on a high 
so good and so overwhelming that it couldn't help but be terrifying 
too.  Like he'd been empty, and something had just filled him.  But 
it was also stronger than all of those things.  Crazy.

He didn't want to be filled; he'd worked hard to be empty.  You 
could do anything when you just didn't care, so people respected 
you.  They couldn't take anything or anyone you loved away if you 
loved nothing and no one.  This rush of emotion had the pain of 
circulation returning to the arm you'd slept on all night.

Why this guy?  Maybe you could call him attractive if you were 
into small, delicate looking, and too thin.  He was probably older 
than he looked, had to be, because he looked too damned young to 
be in high school.  He wore the same kind of clothes Benny did--
army/navy wear and Salvation Army castoffs--but they looked 
authentically shabby on him.  

But he walked and scanned the room now with a wariness and 
crackling energy that Benny could feel even standing so far away.  
The soul inside that body didn't match the delicacy of the exterior.  
That self called to Benny.  I'm here.  Come get me. You *know* 
me.

The guy broke stride with a little jump that suggested that the 
basketball team's star player had just tried and failed to trip him.  
//So it's like that, is it?//  Benny wanted to rip the bastard's head 
off.  Normal reaction.  He also wanted to hold the guy, keep him 
safe, and wash the wariness from his face, unleashing the 
sweetness that lurked around dark eyes...  

Really abnormal reaction.

Ben had never felt anything like this before, had never even 
noticed the lack.  Girls didn't do it for him, and guys didn't either.  
He had some experience with both; curious groping in the first 
case, and business transactions in the second.  Blowjobs in parked 
cars with older men for mad money, and didn't it make him smile 
to think of how Dad had always said his mouth would get him into 
trouble....

But it was always just physical and didn't mean anything.  This did 
somehow, and after only a moment of looking.  

Apparently, love at first sight did exist.  It also seemed to have one 
hell of a sense of humor.

The guy perched on the end of one of the benches, then pushed a 
little to force some room for himself.  Alone, obviously very much 
alone.  He opened a small bag of popcorn and started to eat slowly.  
It seemed to be the only food he had.  Lunch money should have 
been enough for two bags of junk....

Sunlight streaming through the dirty windows struck gold in his 
brown hair and seemed to create a kind of halo.  Benny almost 
snickered at himself.  //What closet have I been hiding this 
romantic side in?//  The guy stiffened a little, then started to look 
up.  He knew he was being watched.  Would their eyes finally 
meet?  Benny wasn't sure if he wanted them to.  Up, up....

Something shoved Benny hard into the metal railing and over his 
tray.  "Move, you asshole!  You're holding up the line!" a voice 
said from behind.

Through the flare of pain in his ribs and back, Benny recognized 
the voice as belonging to one of the basketball bastards, a fucking 
b-boy.  He'd fix him later.  Benny's mouth twisted.  "Yes, sir," he 
said, picked up his tray, and moved on.  

Benny glanced back to see that the guy had withdrawn back into 
paying complete attention to his lunch.  Now Benny would never 
known if that dreaded and wanted eye contact would have happened.  

He felt the jock walking a little bit behind him.  //I'm going to 
*get* you for that, you....// But you had to be careful getting 
revenge on the jocks.  The team couldn't play worth shit, but the 
school gave them carte blanche, with their word taken over anyone 
else's, their right to bully unchallenged.  You had to be subtle, wait 
for the right moment when you could do it without anyone taking 
you down.

Benny could think long term when he wanted to.  This jock would 
get his later.  The guy... well, that looked like it would be even 
longer term.  He'd need recon first, like you would whenever you 
went into unknown territory.  

No matter what the after-school specials wanted people to believe, 
you couldn't just walk up and say, "Let's be friends." No one would 
trust that as being for real, and this guy in particular would see an 
outstretched hand as the next best thing to a striking cobra.  Benny 
knew that about him already.  You had to know the right tack, had 
to know how to coax him to you so naturally he never realized it 
wasn't his own idea....

//I'll show you that you can trust.  Me.//

Besides, the thought of just going over and talking struck Benny 
with an unaccustomed terror.  Usually he didn't give a damn what 
people thought.  //What if he laughed in my face?  What if he said 
no?  What if he thought I was a freak?  I mean a bad freak.  "Hi.  I 
saw you across the room and knew we had to be friends.  Why are 
you running away?"

//If this is what love feels like, how the hell do people survive it?//

Benny sat down near his usual group.  While he couldn't exactly 
say he had friends here, he hung out now and then with the stoners 
for loaner drugs.  Any one of them provided the stuff for a friend 
in need.  He did for them too to keep the largesse coming.

"Thought you stroked out on line, man.  Looked like you had a 
seizure," Gecko said then finger-combed his bleached blond hair 
out of his reddened eyes.

//Damn.  But see how well you do when you realize the missing 
piece of yourself, the important one you didn't know was missing, 
is standing across the room from you.//  "Do you know anything 
about that guy over there?" Benny pointed his head in the correct 
direction.

"Nothing."

"What about--"

The others all shook their heads.  Some of them looked a bit dizzy 
afterwards.  Seemed like they'd already hit the yard.

//Well, I figured that would be pointless anyway.//  This crowd 
only paid attention to drug-bearing people in their immediate 
group.  //I have sources to find, a certain someone to follow.  
Finding out his fucking *name* would be a good first step.  Yeah, 
I can do this.  I have to do this.//

Benny bit into the soggy lump and tasted what might have once 
been tomato sauce.  It was supposed to be pizza, then.  He sighed.  
//Maybe I can walk over and commend him on being smart enough 
to hit the machines? Nah.  Stupid!//

He hated feeling like this.  Weak.  Dependent on someone else's 
opinion of him.  //Easy.  I make him want me like I want him.  
Then we'll be even.//  He lost himself in thoughts of what that soft 
looking skin might taste like as he swiped potato chips from 
Gecko's lunch.  //But what if I can't?  Oh God.  But we can be 
friends anyway.  Sure.//  Benny spent the next 20 minutes getting 
as many surreptitious glances at his target as possible.

Benny noticed that the b-boys had gotten up to dump their trays.  
They seemed to do everything together, which made him wonder 
about their sex lives....  But the asshole who had pushed him would 
be walking on his side of the row.  Revenge came calling sooner 
than expected.  This would be dangerously close, but he thought he 
could nail it.  He just needed to time it perfectly.

Benny waited, waited... then shot his foot out and back.  //Put your 
left foot in, put your left foot out.//  It connected only briefly with 
the jock's ankle, but it did the trick.  He tripped and hit the floor 
hard in a sprawl of limbs, while the tray flipped in the air, spewing 
trash, before clanging to a halt next to him.  The room burst into 
applause that abruptly and uncomfortably trailed off as the students 
realized who had fallen and what reach he had.

He got up and looked all around, but Benny looked exactly as 
uncomfortable as everyone else in the room, no more, no less.  It 
was a gift of his.  Fortunately, the jock didn't seem to remember 
the shoving incident earlier, or maybe he'd never gotten a good 
look at his victim's front.  

"I think someone tripped me!"

His teammates chuckled.  "Suuuuuure.  Give it up, Darryl." 

"But--"

"You're making it worse, man." Still smirking at his public 
humiliation, they led him away.

Benny glanced back to look at his certain someone and enjoyed the 
slight smile that curved those lips.  //When I get you, I'm going to 
make you smile more often.  Bet on it.

//What am I thinking? Shit, I'm ruined for life!//

Benny followed his target at a distance to every class for the rest of 
his day.  It made him late to his own, but that was nothing new.  
When the school day ended, Benny followed the guy away to see 
where he lived.  Instead, he stopped inside an auto body shop and 
didn't come out.  Benny found a wall he could lean against across 
the street and lit up.  As hours passed with no reappearance, he let 
himself daydream.  At least not all of them featured his certain 
someone.  //Yet?//

Finally it got dark, and eventually a light went on in the window 
of the second story of the building.  Someone stood in silhouette 
and seemed to be searching the night.  //Do you feel me out here?//  
The light went out, and he didn't reappear.  Benny now knew his 
job and home, and it would be seriously creepy if he stayed out 
here all night.  Grinning ruefully, he went home.

Benny followed him to classes for the next three days and soon 
saw what he took.  Like everyone else, his certain someone's 
Tuesday and Thursday had the same schedule, and Monday, 
Wednesday, and Friday did.  It reached the point where Benny 
knew exactly the way he walked and gestured, knew exactly how 
the ever-present dogtags would sway in any movement.  

The guy never had company and never caught anyone's notice.  He 
was a ghost, and he seemed to either prefer it that way or have 
come to terms with it.  Asking other students about him turned out 
to be useless, because he didn't mix and barely spoke to anyone 
else.

Somehow, Benny fell harder and harder for him every day.  It was 
insane.  He gave off some kind of aura of personality that snared 
Benny.  Charisma?  It made Benny want to approach, want to hold 
and protect him, but fear kept him waiting for the right moment.

On the second day a group of the b-boys caught the guy in a 
deserted length of hallway.  The seven of them circled him like 
vultures.  "You want to pass, you have to pay the toll, cocksucker."

Benny heard his voice for the first time.  It was soft and gravelly.  
"Fuck you." He flinched as a fist struck the locker next to him.

"Wrong answer.  What should we make you do for us?"

He straightened.  "What?  You want me to suck your cock?  What 
does that say about *you*, you stupid fucker?"

Did he think he could anger them enough to make them lose 
control and get in their own way while beating him?  Maybe he 
was the type who couldn't help running his mouth.  Or maybe he 
was suicidal.  Whatever, Benny couldn't help admiring his 
kamikaze flair.

The lead bully moved so quickly Benny hadn't even known he'd 
struck until the guy doubled over.  "You calling *me* a fag?"

The guy straightened again.  "Why?  Is it true?  And my mother hit 
harder, you pussy."

This was bad.  It almost had the air of ritual, something they did on 
a regular basis, but....  It could get very ugly.  To his surprise, 
Benny felt the sudden need to get involved, to help defend.  //A 
lightning strike from behind?  Damn, he's making me insane!//  He 
couldn't change the odds enough against seven people.  They'd 
both get their asses kicked.

He thought of the fire alarm.  He'd been saving that one for a rainy 
day, but....  The guy, his stance suggesting a cornered animal, 
started to swing to punch.  This couldn't go any further.  Fire alarm 
it was.  

Benny turned--jazzed at the thought of glass to be broken and 
blessed chaos to be started, a chance to watch the sheep panic and 
run--but, to his disappointment, a teacher came out and broke the 
fight up first.  Probably wouldn't report the incident, but at least he 
put a stop to it.  The jocks promised Pike they'd get him next time.

And, like that, from the last people he'd expect, Benny finally got a 
name for him.

Even more surprising, the teacher stayed to talk with Pike as he got 
his breath back, and he answered respectfully with a sudden 
brightness that suggested actual interest.  He hadn't seemed like the 
honor roll type.  Benny had to stay too far back to hear what they 
talked about, but he still enjoyed the low mumble of that voice 
caressing his skin from a distance.  Enjoyed saying the new name 
to himself under his breath over and over.  Pike.  //You're one sad 
individual, Ben.//

Even better, he had his information sources at last.  Ask Pike's 
*teachers* about him.  That thought had no jolt of fear attached.  
At least this whatever-the-hell-it-was he felt for Pike hadn't turned 
him completely soft and scared.

At 3:05 he wandered into the auto shop.  The older grimy guy in 
there alone, putting tools away, had to be the teacher.  Benny 
hoped.  He cleared his throat and asked, "You teach the auto 
shop?"

"No, I just like the smell of oil.  Yeah.  What do you want?"

"I'm a friend of Pike's, and--" 

Those seemed to be the magic words.  The man's face took on such 
an expression of relief that Benny had to fight giggles down.  The 
words "Pike *does* have friends?  Thank God," might as well 
have been tattooed on his forehead.  But he still seemed wary.

"--and I'm concerned about him.  He's been quieter and moodier 
lately.  He said once that this was his favorite class and you're his 
favorite teacher.  How's he been doing in class?"

It took some more convincing, a lot of fast talk and half-truths, but 
eventually the teacher started to confide.  It seemed like he'd 
wanted to, that he hoped someone would come in who cared about 
Pike that he could talk to.  

Pike was a fast learner, a dream student.  Benny had to kick his 
brain out of the gutter when the teacher said he was good with his 
hands.  But....

"Does he ever say anything about his home life to you?" the 
teacher asked.

"No, sir." A little respect, real or not, always greased the wheels.  
Besides, he almost liked this guy.  "Why?"

"We're not encouraged to touch students--lawsuits and all--but 
there was one class where he fixed a complicated problem so 
quickly that I couldn't help trying to pat him on the back.  He 
flinched so hard he shook me off.  He's very twitchy and doesn't 
like to be touched at all."

"I don't know anything about it."

"You tell him that if he ever wants to talk, I'm here.  When I tell 
him, he doesn't listen.  Maybe he will to you."

"I'll give it a try.  And thanks. You won't tell him I asked, right?  
He'd be embarrassed."

A background of abuse would explain a lot.  Benny had *known* 
Pike was too twitchy for a bunch of bullying jocks to be wholly 
responsible.

By the third day Pike started to look more nervous, suggesting that 
he *knew* he was being followed.  He glanced back now and then.  
Benny started to think that maybe the best way to calm him into 
trust didn't involve stalking him until his natural paranoia flared 
into terror.  Time to give up on following and move to Phase 2, 
casing the rest of the teachers.  

At least until that perfect moment came.

After a lot of coaxing, Pike's history and English teachers provided 
more of the picture, speaking of an underachiever who could be a 
brilliant student if he would apply himself.  The English teacher 
thought he could earn scholarships if he tried harder and saw his 
vo-tech concentration as a criminal shame, even if it did help him 
in his after-school job.  Both believed that he was having problems 
at home that distracted him.  

Benny walked out of the consultation with the history teacher at 
3:20 and left the building.  A soft "Hey" stopped him.  Pike was 
leaning against the wall, staring him down.  Benny's heart skipped 
and constricted in terror.  And affection.

//You have it so damned bad.//

"Why have you been following me?  Why are you asking about 
me?" But it didn't sound accusing.  Pike just sounded curious.

Even if something in him still suggested a feral creature ready to 
fight or run at any second.

At the moment, Benny knew exactly how that felt.  //I love you.//  
Definitely couldn't let that one out.  Benny had thought he'd have 
more time to put together the all-important first words, because he 
would decide when and how to approach.  That had obviously 
gone to hell.  

That Pike had discovered and identified him only made him want 
Pike even more.

Benny took everything he knew of Pike and said, "I need someone 
to watch my back."

"Yeah, I saw Darryl shove you in the lunchroom a few days ago.  
Brutal."

//He did notice me then!//  Benny shoved down the glee and kept 
his face blank.  //Yeah, he saw me get knocked around.  But he's a 
bright boy; maybe he guessed that I was the one who tripped 
Darryl down.  He'll hear what I'm not saying too.//  "I thought 
you'd be a good candidate, but I like to know someone before I 
make any commitments." Benny smiled inwardly as Pike nodded 
at the words.  "Maybe... you'd want to have someone watch your 
back too?"

Slight smile.  Pike looked amused.  "So it would be an exchange of 
backs?"

//Please?//  "Could be."

Brown eyes //So that's what color they are// looked inward for a 
brief moment before returning their pinpoint focus on Benny.  
"Maybe."

"You could smoke some weed while you think it over.  I got some 
of the really good stuff from Gecko."

Despite Pike's bored, jaded look, something in his stance became 
more open, receptive.  Wait, his expression had changed a bit 
around his mouth.  Benny realized that it had relaxed a little.  It 
changed the whole look of his face somehow.

//He does have a sweet face when he's not feeling so suspicious.//

"If you're providing..."

"Yep."

"Hell, why not?"

//Got him.  Thank God.//


*********************THE END************************