POST RESCUE- Outside the Warehouse (Jacen and Ben!)
Ben had been trained to react with calm under fire in any situation; it was the difference between life and being brought back by his Mom or aunt Claire to be smacked around for days for dying. Calm under fire didn't always happen – he was still a Winchester, you know – but Ben usually strove for that. Even in the aftermath of a fight, those senses were on alert and that calm was still meant to be accessible.
He still jumped when that voice spoke in his ear, no chance for biting back the Jesus fucking Christ on a fucking cracker that passed his lips.
One of the ongoing jokes in his and Allana's friendship had been Ben exaggerating his fear of Jacen-shaped retribution for anything he might do that could in any way be construed as unfavorable in the former Sith Lord's eyes. All right, and meaning that fear sometimes; after all, it had taken him to age twenty-five to kiss Allana, hadn't it, and he wasn't a shy boy by any means. It was just the way it worked because Ben knew his reputation and knew the further addition to that reputation because of who Dean Winchester was, had been and would continue to be and how that played into what certain fathers felt about his proximity to certain daughters. He rolled with it, joked about it, was as polite and non-assuming as he could be when he could get away with it and had been gifted with charm and manners enough to thus far keep from being Force smote and starting some eye for an eye chain-of-smiting from Castiel onward.
But it really didn't help situations in which sneaky Solos fucking snuck up on him.
Still, he was a man and felt very manly from the getting of two kisses – the second far more of an ego-bolstering one, really, as the first had come with all sorts of 'time of distress' hang ups – and he wasn't about to wimp out at the Moment of Truth, such as it were. He was Ben Winchester and he'd be damned if he'd back down now – especially not when he felt pretty sure he had something there to fight for. That out of the ballpark second kiss less than ten minutes ago hadn't been one-sided at all.
"Absolutely, sir," he said as he turned, smile sliding into place to replace the startled expression of moments ago. "I've even got time for more than one word."
What? Some essential Ben-ness couldn't be contained even in the face of certain doom. However, the essential Ben-ness was scorned by other parts of Ben that hoped his parents weren't going to kill him again once he'd been brought back to life.