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The walls blinded him with their brightness, the lights glaring down both at him and his redheaded cousin as she reassured him with muffled words. He was only slightly paying attention, numb and faint. His mind was racing and at the same time dangerously quiet. He could hear everything and nothing, practically feeling the hum of his brain through the palm of his hand, keeping his eyes lowered to the white tiles of the hospital floor. He scratched his knee through his blue jeans as Gwen rubbed one of his shoulders with a gentle hand, her eyes staring down at him from only a few inches away as she asked if he was ok.
He lied and nodded a yes, swallowing and feeling his left eye, the one away from her, twitch.
"Ben, Grandpa Max will be fine. He's been through worse." She didn't sound so sure herself. Her red hair spilled over her shoulder.
"I know that," he tried to keep the slight irritation he felt out of his voice and failed. He had a headache coming on and clenching his eyes as hard as he could was not even remotely helping. He brought his hand down to the bridge of his nose and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. "I'm fine, alright?" Once again he tried for a smile, finally looking into her matching green eyes, but the frown on her face and the slight line between her eyebrows said she didn't buy it.
She left him alone anyway, taking her hand off his shoulder and moving over to her right a little to give him space. Her red vest was ripped at the shoulder and her pink lip gloss failed to completely come off, leaving a smudge on the side of her face. Her normally perfect ponytail was crooked and as grimy as Ben's (now dirt green) jacket.
Ben could feel the eyes of a middle-aged woman a few chairs beside him. He ignored her. At the very least she was polite enough to not ask for an autograph while he was waiting in the lobby of a hospital. It had been bad enough having every nurse that passed by eye and whisper about him over near the front desk like he couldn't guess what they were saying. It was one of the many reasons he didn't like hospitals. He'd rather have taken Grandpa Max to Asmuth than a human hospital, but there wouldn't have been any time to get to Primus, or even find out where it is. For once in his life, Ben really wished he wasn't a famous superhero.
He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut again and rubbing his temples with his thumbs, willing back the wetness in his eyes.
Four seconds. That's really all it takes, huh?
"Ben!" His heart stuttered while his body completely froze. His breath hitched audibly, eyes widening down at the tops of his black converse before slithering over the white tiles, soiled with brown footsteps, across the room up to where the voice came from. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gwen's slack-jawed expression. The boy was standing at the entrance of the corridor leading to outside, his usually slicked back hair falling over his onyx brown eyes and the white bandage over his black, furrowed, left eyebrow, matching the one on his right cheek.
Completely frozen to the spot, Ben not so much looked over as took in the sight of Rex. His style hasn't changed, still with his trademark red and orange leather jacket and his navy blue and white shirt. Skinny jeans, black boots. He was missing his gloves, though, Ben noticed. One hand had a bandaid on the back of it while the other held the goggles he usually kept on his forehead like sunglasses. He looked older than the last time they'd seen each other. Rex was supposed to be underground on what he'd said was approximately a six month mission, and only half the time had passed since then. Rex's thin almond eyes were large with worry, his hair a little longer, his bronze cheekbones a little stronger. The lines under his eyes made him look even older, but they tended to when he was tired.
Barely a few seconds passed between when Rex first walked in and Ben finished searching him for oddities, but as fast as it was, it took even less time for Ben to stand from his seat and fast walk across the room and into Rex's embrace. Immediately he felt the work of Rex's fingers in his hair as he placed his forehead on Rex's collarbone and let the wetness spill down his cheeks onto Rex's shirt.
For a long minute they stood like this: Ben crying silently into Rex's chest, arms around his waist, and Rex holding him close with a bandaged hand in his brown hair and his occupied hand around Ben's shoulder.
Gwen watched from where she sat, leaning over the edge of her chair, ready to greet Ben's boyfriend, before sitting back in her chair in a quick decision to give them some privacy. Rex pressed his lips to the top of Ben's head and pulled back just enough to look at him, both hands cupping Ben's red face.
"You ok?" Rex asked in a soft whisper.
Ben sniffed, meeting his gaze with red eyes and mouthing a no.
Rex wiped a stray tear with his thumb. "Do you wanna go outside?" When Ben gave him an affirmative answer, Rex slid his arm around Ben's neck once more and started for the door. "Alright, let's go outside." He looked over at Gwen, nodding at her and giving her a thumbs up before disappearing around the corner.
As bright as it was inside the hospital, it was even brighter outside. The sun was shining— glaring, even— and the sky was a lively blue, with barely a white cloud in the sky. Ben was thrown aback by the hot rush of air on his face as he exited the revolving door out of the death bank. He inhaled a breath of fresh air, slightly disappointed that it didn't really help his heartache. He wiped his face with both hands, dragging them down his cheeks until the pink of his teeth and eyes showed. Rex strolled past him, placing a hand on his shoulder as he went by and sat on the bench between the courtyard and roundabout that worked as the entrance for carpooling.
Now trusting himself to speak, Ben finally asked the question on his mind. "What are you doing here? I thought you had some big mission to take care of." He walked up to Rex, beginning to sit down next to him.
"Well, it got dealt with faster than we planned. Last night, in fact." Sometime after sitting down, Rex had taken his jacket off and was now showing off an extensive bandage wrapped over his wrist, a smirk on his face as if he were proud of it. "Some unexpected stuff happened. You know how it goes." He shrugged, moving his arm to the back of the bench and behind Ben's head. "What I wanna know is what happened here."
Rex had revealed even more wounds on his body than Ben had previously spotted. There was a bandage over both of his biceps as well, and a green band-aid right above the bandage on his wrist. Ben was in the midst of searching for more when Rex snapped his fingers in his face. "I'm fine." He said, before hypocritically looking over Ben himself. As if just reminded of the way he appeared, he looked down at his apparel too. His jacket was drenched with mud, alien goop, and blood. He was unsure if the blood was his or not. He knew he had scratches all over his face that would probably get infected if he didn't do something about them soon, and unseen bruises on his own arms as well that were steadily throbbing less and less. It's been hours and they've finally stopped itching. Or he just forgot about them. He was too in a hurry to get Grandpa Max to the hospital to worry about himself, and denied any treatment from the nurses until he was sure Max was alright.
His heart started pounding again. There was no guarantee Grandpa Max would be ok. Ben ducked his head down and wiped his eyes before they could even think of watering up, then smiled back up at Rex unconvincingly. Then again, what did he have to convince Rex of, anyway? If anyone could understand, it would be him.
But apparently he had been silent too long. "Hold on, I think I have leftover bandages in the stealth cycle." And with that, Rex left to go get his medikit. He came back a few minutes later with a white case in hand and got straight to work; First on Ben's face, then his arms, and finally on his knee, which he had landed on wrong in the midst of last night's battle. Rex didn't ask him about what happened after that first time, and instead filled the silence with an explanation on how he found out something had happened in the first place. Kevin, to Ben's surprise, had contacted him. He somehow had some connections with people who had connections with Providence, and got a hold of Rex. Ben had to remember to thank Kevin later.
"How long have you been here?" Rex asked as he finished bandaging Ben's knee and rolled his pant leg back down.
"Since three something."
"Three a.m.?" Rex asked incredulously. "That was, like, eight hours ago!"
Ben shrugged. He hadn't realized how much time had really passed until he got outside and saw the sunlight.
"Did you sleep at all? Did you eat?"
"I'm not hungry. Or tired," Ben added, "It's not like you get any sleep either."
Rex couldn't say anything to that since it was true. Both of them had a habit of not sleeping even when they weren't busy fighting aliens and evo's. Didn't mean they couldn't get to sleep, but just that they didn't. Still, it didn't stop Rex from worrying about him. "Ok, well, I'm hungry, so we're getting food. Where's the closest Bob’s Biscuit Barn?”
The sharp splat of the brown bag filled with food made Ben blink repeatedly, roused from his hazy mind. He kept going over the fight in his head: the ditch, the bomb, the white eyes of the spirit-like alien. Rex sat down across from him, jacket tied around his waist with his goggles in his pocket. He looked like a hoodlum with his messy black hair and bandaged face. At least that's what an outsider would think if the two of them weren't famous. But Rex wasn't afraid to clear out a whole restaurant if it meant they could get some alone time, and that's what he did. No one but them and the employees of the fine establishment were in the building. Any customers were either forced to sit at the tables outside or leave, new ones had to go through the drive-through. Luckily, not many people were there to begin with. There wasn't a Bob's Biscuit Barn on this side of the reality the two heroes happened to share, but Ben's equivalent happened to be Mr. Smoothies, and everyone in Bellwood knew that the place was basically a beehive for Ben Tennyson and his more hostile alien "friends". Ben practically owned the place.
Rex slid Ben's bag of food across the booth to him, to which Ben put it aside and said, "I'll eat it later."
"Dude," Rex furrowed his eyebrows. "It's Mr. Smoothies."
"It doesn't matter. I'm not hungry."
Rex gave him a grave look. "Ben, I know you're going through a hard time right now, but you need to eat something. I know you. You probably started fighting this guy around six to eight last night, spent the rest of the six hours travelling the country via the rustbucket looking for the guy, found him, defeated him, foiled his plans, and stayed in the hospital the whole night after. Meaning, you probably haven't eaten in more than fifteen hours. So, you have two options." He held up two fingers. "Either we eat together, or we're not eating at all."
"You're bluffing."
"Try me." His gaze was unshaking. "I'm not eating until you do."
Ben crossed his arms and sat back against the cushions. There was a long few moments of silence, then Rex grabbed both bags and stood up. Ben watched him make his way to the trash can, frowning as Rex pushed it open with his free hand and began to move the other towards the entrance—
"Stop!" Ben exclaimed, giving up. He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose again with his other hand outstretched toward Rex, bringing it towards himself to signal for him to come back. "I'll eat— just..don't waste Mr. Smoothies. I'm sponsored."
Rex sat back down with a wide grin. Ben glared at him as he grabbed his bag and took out some fries. He took a bite out of a singular fry while continuing to glare into Rex's eyes, as if to say there, I did it!
Rex took a bite out of his burger, smug.
To his embarrassment, Ben found himself chowing down on his food like he was a wolf who hadn't had a meal in days. He hadn't realized how hungry he was while in his pursuit of worrying over Grandpa Max. It was the last thing on his mind at the time, but now that he had what he would count as a meal for today, his mouth was watering. He sucked the salt off his thumb as he called out an order for a smoothie. Rex didn't hide his joy of seeing him eat, but Ben ignored him for his Banana-Mint Swirl.
"I got White to buy us a place in the city to stay for the night." Rex relaxed against the booth with his arms spread over the top of his seat.
"That ragged old man actually agreed on something for once?"
"Eh, he's been coming around lately. Don't tell anyone, but I think he's starting to go soft on me."
"In any other context, I'd have to beat him up." The straw made a crackling sound as he sucked up the last of his smoothie.
"Oh ha ha."
"What do we need a room for anyway? You can just sleep over my house."
"I figured you'd want to get away for a while. You know, from everything." Rex shrugged, then smirked. "I know, I'm a great boyfriend."
Ben gave him a long look. If anyone needed to get away for a while, it would be Rex. Ben was used to late nights and stress-filled heroings. Rex was usually the one who called Ben up asking to hang out. If Ben wasn't busy with kicking alien butt or doing homework and studying for a chemistry test then he was chilling in either his or Rex's room watching soap operas or martial arts cartoons. They had very different interests in that aspect, and different "love languages" too, as they call it. Apparently Rex was the type to value time spent together while Ben was more of the servitude type. Rex never minded paying for smoothies or chilli fries every once in a while, and Ben didn't usually mind skipping homework to hang with Rex, to his ex-girlfriend's annoyance. They scratched each other's backs. Turns out, Rex is a boss at chemistry. And algebra 2. And physics. And just about everything.
But Rex was also easily discouraged, and he confided in Ben to keep his biometrics up when he was feeling down. Hunter Cain, for example. Rex had no idea how Ben could just shrug off whatever Will Harangue says. The pathetic excuse for a news anchor made a fool out of himself whenever he opened his mouth, so Ben enjoyed the slander Harangue got on social media just as much as the man enjoyed talking about him. It only upped Ben's popularity even more, which, yeah, can suck at times, but mostly it was enough just to have the thought on his mind. Not that Ben wouldn't fight Hunter Cain to the death if he ever saw him, but the chances of them ever meeting face to face was low to none after Rex beat off him and the rest of the Sinister 4. As well as the fact that the only way Cain can get into Ben's reality is if Rex let him. Either way, Rex was worth fighting for. He had no doubt that Rex would fight for him too. As he said before, they scratch each other's backs, and right now, Ben's not the only one who's back needs scratching. Rex wasn't talking about his mission, which Ben figured was because of the Max situation at first, but now he wasn't so sure. Rex had healing powers, yet he was sporting some wounds all over. It could just be that his nanites were working slow because he's tired, but Ben felt like that wasn't it. Rex wasn't saying something.
Rex was always saying something. Why wasn't he saying anything now?
Ben set his cup down with an overly loud clack. "Are you sure this was the only reason you came?"
Rex raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, that stuff like this happens all the time, to both of us for that matter, and neither of us have ever taken the time to drive across the country to come see each other." Ben made a motion with his hand. "Unless it's, you know, world-ending."
"Well maybe we should change that," Rex leaned forward and put his cheek in his hand. "Do you always cry when someone gets sent to the hospital?"
Ben went silent. After half a minute of silence, Rex leaned back and lowered his guilt-ridden voice. "Sorry.." He lowered his eyes to the table. "Kevin called and it made me worry about you. It's not like it's something he's done before… and also," he tried to look Ben in his eyes but his gaze was clouded over, lidded. "I wanted to see you."
Again, Ben took a long time before he spoke up. "Four seconds."
"Huh?"
"That's all it took," He finally met Rex's gaze. "Three seconds of waiting for the beeping to start up again, and one second to feel the world coming down on me."
Rex couldn't tell what he was getting at, at first. When it finally hit him, though, his body sat straight up and he was rushing out words before he could even think them, "I thought Max was still ok?"
"He is," Ben brought his hands up to his face again and sighed deeply as he repeated himself. "He is.. But..for a second, he wasn't. And for a second, I thought that was it. I've seen him "die" before, Rex. Practically the same day I put on the Omnitrix again. But it was nothing like seeing his face, and hearing the monitor just…" He stopped.
Rex waited for him to say something else, but he didn't. "...Are you ok?"
"Yeah," Ben said with surprising clarity. His voice was casual, nonchalant, as if he had just asked about the weather. He rested his cheek in his hand and looked at the wall blocking them from the empty booth on the other side. "I mean, no, but yeah… You're right. I would like to get out of here."
Rex was already sliding out of the booth. "Smoothie to go?"
Ben nodded at him before returning his gaze back to nothing, making no move to stand.
They arrived at a small one story farmhouse just outside the city, making it a forty-five minute drive from the hospital and an hour drive to Ben's house. He probably needed to call his parents, tell them he wouldn't be home that night. Not that they weren't used to him not coming home without calling. But it's the principle of the thing.
Rex parked inside the garage on the side of the house, the angry garage door creaking as it lowered to the ground, shutting them inside. Rex grabbed some keys from somewhere Ben didn't catch and unlocked the door into the kitchen.
"A whole house? What, a hotel room is too fancy?" Ben looked around. The walls were a boring tan and the counters were a sparkling clean, peppery marble. A glass door led to the backyard and perfectly showed the island splitting the kitchen around the middle, it's pots and pans hanging up over it for any unwanted guests to see.
"Six threatened these vacation homestay guys to let us have the house for tonight. Paid them before they could complain about not having enough time to clean up. I don't know how much they usually charge for this kind of thing but I do know that Six paid them a lot for just one night, so.." Rex led him into the living room. The floor was carpet, unlike the wooden tiles in the kitchen. "Let's take as much advantage of it as we can!"
Two couches sat adjacent to a flat screen TV built into the wall with a small coffee table between them and a patterned carpet under it. The couch was starting to look really comfy to Ben. The hall opposite the TV probably led to the bedrooms, and he was thinking of making a beeline for it. His eyes were getting droopy the more he thought about it, and he let out a yawn.
"If taking advantage of it means sleeping until morning, then yeah."
Rex flattened his lips and snapped his fingers before pointing down the hallway. That obviously hadn't been one of his ideas, at least until later. But then again, he also wasn't feeling too energized after a whole night of fighting and driving, himself.
Ben was making his way around the room when he turned around and gave Rex a weird look. "You coming?"
Rex blinked, mind going completely blank for a second, before obediently following.
A pain like something was twisting in his stomach woke Ben up in a dimly lit bedroom. The faint blue light came from behind the thick dark orange curtains facing him, and he soon realized the ache in his stomach was hunger. Not soon after, he also noticed that Rex wasn't beside him anymore and that there was a smell coming from what he guessed was the kitchen. A crispy scent drifted up his nose and made his stomach growl in anticipation. Blinking slowly, Ben raised up on his arms, shifting his legs up and promptly pausing when a more dull pain went up his leg from his knee. He sighed heavily and sucked it up, pulling his legs over the bed's edge and running his hands over his face(a habit he'd formed in only a few hours). He peeked through the slits in his fingers at the alarm clock on the bedside table; he'd slept for four hours. He couldn't tell if that was a lot or not for a midday nap.
He stood up, finally, letting his toes wiggle on the frizzy carpet before making his way to the kitchen. Rex's back was turned to him. He seemed to be turning something over on the stove. He didn't seem to notice Ben had walked in. "How long did you sleep for?"
Rex looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised in surprise but otherwise unfazed by his boyfriend materializing behind him. "Uhh, about two hours."
Ben nodded despite the fact that Rex had already turned back to what he was doing. He stared at him for a few minutes, just watching with nothing else better to really do. The food looked close to done anyway. Ben wondered if Sumo Slammers was on, or if the house's owners even had the channel on their fancy TV.
The smell of chicken was making his stomach growl even more so he pulled himself off the door frame and back into the living room. Rex must've gone out to the store while he was still asleep. He didn't remember any groceries being in the stealth cycle when he was in there, though granted, he wasn't really paying any attention. Sitting down on the couch furthest from the kitchen door, Ben quickly found the remote and turned the TV on. He flipped from channel to channel until he found what he was looking for.
His thoughts drifted back to the hospital. Was Gwen still there? Did Kevin meet up with her? Have they had food too, yet? Was Grandpa ok? Did his monitor stop beeping for a second time? Is he still alive?
Ben shook his head and tried to think of something else. Did his parents go to the hospital to check on them? Do they know he's with Rex? Should he call them? But his phone is broken. Slipped down a cliff last night. Maybe Rex will let him borrow his. Or maybe Gwen has it handled. But what if there's an emergency? No, she can just call Rex. Everything's fine. Everything's fine.
Thirty minutes passed and Ben was sitting at the dinner table with Rex placing the first plate in front of him, like he was a waiter or something. Ben looked down at the plate of chicken legs and macaroni. He made a face. "Are you sure this is edible?"
"Try it." Rex leaned against the counter and smiled. Ben didn't feel comforted. Even less when knowing that was Rex's it'll probably explode but everything will be fine maybe face.
Nevertheless, he took a bite. "Rex," Ben said carefully, putting the leg back down on the plate and keeping his eyes on it, daring it to move. "I love you. But this tastes awful."
With no hesitation, Rex asked, "Wanna order a pizza?"
"Most definitely."
Another thirty minutes pass and they're chewing down on pineapple and salmon pizza. Ben had eaten worse stuff and he was so hungry that it tasted like a meal fit for a king. Rex rarely bothered him about his "weird smoothie abominations", as Gwen and Kevin called them, so the least he could do is let Rex have his own version of seemingly disgusting foods. And it didn't taste that bad.
The sky turned navy blue and stars started to wink outside. They finished off the entire pizza box while laying together on the couch, watching Ben's reality's equivalent of the Spanish soap opera Rex loved so much. Ben could never remember the name: El Samor or something. It was a long title and whenever Rex talked about it he would go so fast that Ben would never have the chance to repeat it. Either way, this version of the soap opera was apparently similar to Rex's, according to the man himself(but Rex still preferred his version).
Ben had no problems reading the subtitles, since they both agreed the English dub was crap, and his eyes scanned the screen tirelessly as he traced his fingers over the back of Rex's hand where his bandaid was. Rex's arm was over his shoulder with Ben sitting against his side, legs brought up to his chest on the couch as he watched. Ben was in the midst of taking another nap when the show started to get serious and he started to actually get interested. He watched intently as Marcy and Elizabeth hovered over the unconscious body of the man they were fighting for earlier in the show. Ronaldo, which sounded just like Reynaldo, to Rex's annoyance and excitement, was in the hospital after a tragic car accident.
Ben read along as the two girls cried over Ronaldo's hospital bed, despite the fact that he was awake and trying to calm them down. One of the girls had red hair, just like Gwen's. Her hand was on his shoulder as he held himself up over the bed, knuckles white on the edge of the rail as Max's heartbeat slowly got back to normal. Hours of riding in the Rustbucket, flinching at the site of the old man eating worms like they were a delicacy, fighting aliens together and saving lives— all of it, almost gone in a snap. It never occurred to him that his Grandpa could really ever die. They've had so many run-ins with death already that Ben had gotten numb to the idea. Everything will be fine, he told himself. It'll fix itself. But there would be one day that it didn't—
And the long, shrill sound would just keep going.
Ben felt something stir in his chest and as soon as he felt it start to crawl its way up, he began to rise to his feet. He murmured, "Bathroom," before moving around the couch and rushing to the hall, to the first door on the left, going through it, and closing it behind him. He slid to the floor with his back against the door, covering his mouth with his hand as tears streamed down his face. He took in a deep breath and quickly stood back to his feet after feeling a sharp pain in his knee from having put his weight on it. He ignored the knock on the door and Rex calling his name to instead look at himself in the mirror. His face was covered in bandages and his eyes were already red from crying. Gosh, what was wrong with him? Why couldn't he suck it up?
He’d been through so much already. Why was this the thing? He’d survived! Everyone had! Max was OK! The fall hadn’t killed him, the alien was imprisoned… God, what was it about ghost types that made Ben’s life such a mess?
He sniffed and wiped his eyes again, to no avail.
"Ben?" Rex's muffled voice called out to him. "Please, come out."
He did, but as soon as Rex tried to step closer, Ben stepped back, tears rushing back to his eyes and clouding his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut, raising his hands to his face before he felt Rex try to come closer and reflexively put his hands up. The thin soft cloth of Rex's shirt underneath his hand was warm, and he could feel the hard thumping of Rex's heart as he heard Rex's soft low voice say, "Hey.."
Ben turned his face away, but did nothing to stop him when Rex cupped his face and turned it back to him. "Hey," he said again. Ben opened his eyes just in time to see a stray tear slide down Rex's cheek. "It's gonna be ok."
Ben searched Rex's eyes before his own blurred with tears again, and this time he was the one to pull Rex into his arms. He cried into his shirt, holding him close. Then even closer than that.
"Yeah, mom. I'll be back tomorrow morning." Ben affirmed as he pulled Rex's shirt down over his head and struggled not to drop Rex's phone.
"You promise?" Her voice raised a pitch, trembling the tiniest bit.
"Yes, I promise," he let out a small laugh. "I'll be fine. Go to sleep, mom."
"Well… OK." She said finally. "Goodnight.."
"Goodnight," he replied back, then hung up the phone and tossed it on the bed beside Rex, continuing to put his arms through the sleeves of his boyfriend's shirt. "I can't believe my mom called you."
"Imagine my face when I answered it and had to tell her you were in the shower." Rex snorted and moved his phone to the nightstand.
"That's not weird." Ben plopped down beside him on the bed, grabbing the remote next to Rex's phone and turning the lights off, leaving only the lamp beside them to keep the room lit.
"It's weird when taken out of context. Which it definitely was."
"Oh," Ben thought of how that conversation could have gone. "Ew."
"Yeah," Rex got underneath the blankets, swiftly followed by Ben. "Tell your cousin to never give her phone to your mom again." They faced each other, continuing their talk until they felt sleep start to overtake them again.
"Hey," Ben said in almost a whisper after turning the lamp off, leaving them in darkness. Their faces were still close enough to see each other clearly. The scent of pineapple lingered between them. "Thanks for…all this."
"What are boyfriends for?"
"Mooching money off of, obviously."
Rex grinned lazily with his eyes closed as Ben laughed silently. "Oh, ok. I see how it is."
"Yeah, it be like that," Ben's chuckling relaxed into a smile, and he took in the sight of Rex, who was already half asleep. Ben suspected he was fully asleep, despite being awake only a few seconds ago. "I love you, Rex."
"Love you too," Rex breathed, face barely moving, as if he were sleep talking.
Ben gave him a light kiss on his cheek, right under his bandage. Rex never told him what was wrong, but maybe there just wasn't anything to be worried about. Maybe Ben was just being paranoid. Either way, Ben thought, that's something that can and will have to wait until morning.
For now, Ben allowed himself to finally, finally, get some sleep.