A/N: I wrote this for the BeVinplz Winter contest on DeviantART. I found Kevin a lot easier to write this time around. Probably why he's got the most attention in this fic. It's odd. Usually Ben's easier for me to write. O__o

EDIT: NOW WITH SEQUEL!! Check out "Bedroom Window" when you're done here!

*****

Cold Bedroom

by Minty Chinchilla

Ben couldn't explain it. His bedroom was always the coldest room in the house. No matter if the central heating was on: his room would still be cold. It was the worst in winter. The wind would whip around the corner of the house, howling as it rattled the windowpanes. What little heat was left in the room would seep out the glass, leaving Ben in a frigid space that called itself a bedroom. Ben wondered how cold his room could get before it started snowing.

Tonight was particularly nasty. Ben wore his warmest pajamas and took all the extra blankets in the house. He was wrapped up so completely that the only part of him that could be seen was his nose. There was faint static coming from inside the blankets; Ben was trying to distract himself from the cold with music played too loud for earphones. It wasn't working very well.

Ben would have gone to a warmer room in the house, but it was past midnight and he didn't want to risk waking his parents as he stumbled around the house looking for a warm spot to curl up in. Fumbling around the kitchen trying to make hot chocolate wasn't possible either. Ben would end up spilling the milk or setting the stove on fire. Again.

So Ben scrunched himself deeper into the blankets, turning his music up louder.

*****

Kevin couldn't explain it. He loved winter and its rainy, windy, dreadful weather. He supposed it made sense. Kevin was a generally cold guy unless he was truly comfortable with the people he was with. He had missed winter and its gray skies when he was trapped in the Null Void, all while it conditioned him to be more like the gloomy season.

The wind was blowing through the trees, rustling leaves and creaking branches. Kevin sat beneath a large oak, peering up through its leaves despite the midnight darkness. He enjoyed the solitude of winter nights. They had a feel completely unlike anything the other seasons had. There weren't any sniffing animals poking around, glaring lights from houses down the street, or annoying late night dog-walkers on winter nights. The darkness and the wind made Kevin feel entirely alone, entirely safe to think. Safe to think thoughts he hid away during the day, thoughts he hid from Ben and Gwen as they tracked down DNAliens and Plumber's kids on nights when blips showed up on his badge. Thoughts he hardly dared to admit he even harbored.

Kevin gave a wistful sigh to the cold wind. On nights like these he gave in to the strange stirrings in his heart. The tugging sensation that seized him whenever he looked at, was around with, merely even thought about that boy. That boy with the intoxicating green eyes Kevin could lose himself in, that boy with the determination and the will to save the world no matter what. That boy with the determination and the will to turn Kevin completely around from his old ways. That boy with the heart warm enough to forgive Kevin for hurting him when they were kids, warm enough to be his friend. But god! How Kevin wanted to be more than just Ben's friend. He wanted to be Ben's everything: his teammate, his ally, his friend, his lover.

Kevin slammed his head into the tree trunk behind him. It was torturous holding himself back. Kevin tried so hard to keep his feelings to himself, to hide them so well as to convince everyone that he liked Gwen. It frustrated him to no end having to keep up such a charade. He had dropped it months ago, but Gwen had still persisted despite his lack of response to her advances. Kevin had no idea what Ben thought, if Ben even noticed that Kevin had stopped. Ben was oblivious to that sort of thing. At least he got the idea when Julie told him she only wanted to be friends. But only when she told him straight to his face. Kevin had mentally leapt for joy when he heard that. But he checked himself before he could scoop Ben into his arms. He still had no idea if Ben would accept him. No idea at all.

How could he have fallen so hard? Kevin spent more time watching Ben than anything else, paid more attention to the younger's mannerisms than anyone else. Kevin almost gave himself away that one time he let slip that he knew Ben's left eye twitched when he lied. No one else had known that! And since Ben rarely lied, how could Kevin have had enough opportunities to tell? That was the closest Kevin had come to being interrogated about his "thoughts" on Ben, as Gwen had put it.

Maybe Kevin should have seen this frustrating mish-mash of feelings and thoughts coming. Maybe he should give up resisting. Maybe then he'd be able to concentrate, if only on the way Ben moved rather than investigating alien activity. Kevin closed his eyes, letting the wind blow across his face as his mind conjured up the boy he thought so much about.

Kevin's eyes flew open. He glared at the leaves above his head. Well, why couldn't he have Ben? What was there to stop him from telling Ben he loved him? Surely nothing but his fear of Ben's reaction. And how could Kevin know how Ben would react if he didn't take the chance to find out?

*****

Ben banged his head against the wall in a jerky rhythm. Through the blankets it didn't hurt, but it was something to do as he waited for sleep to come. Pity it was too cold to be comfortable in his bed.

Trying to distract himself from the cold with music was only partially working. He needed something more, something stronger. Something like Kevin. Ben thumped his head into the wall a little harder at that thought. Funny how things always came back to Kevin. Even when he's freezing cold and jittering, Ben's mind wandered to Kevin. Since when had his thoughts been so full of the ex-con's eyes, lips, face, arms, shoulders, chest, ass, crotch…

Why didn't Ben think of Kevin sooner? He's not so cold anymore.

*****

Kevin pulled his car over to the curb in front of Ben's house. As he got out Kevin contemplated how he was getting in. Should he wake Ben through his bedroom window? Should he sneak in the back door? The bedroom window might be a little too romantic for Kevin's tastes. Wouldn't want to scare Ben off before he even got in the house. Absorbing the metal of the doorknob, Kevin picked the lock and slipped into the kitchen. He crept down the hallway, much too silent for someone wearing clunky boots, much too graceful for someone of his size (and reputation). As he neared the door to Ben's bedroom, Kevin's heartbeat began speeding up. Nerves that he would be caught by Ben's parents jittered through his mind. What if they found him sneaking down the hallway in the middle of the night? What would he say to them? Uh… I broke into your house so I could declare my undying love for your son and have hot monkey sex with him till dawn? Oh, that would go over real well, even with Ben's mother's odd fondness for her son's "ruffian friend."

Kevin's heart was racing as he twisted the doorknob to Ben's room. He pushed the door inward, and poked his head in. At first, he thought Ben wasn't there. His heart plummeted into his stomach. But something on the bed caught Kevin's eye. A very large lump of blankets was on top of Ben's bed. A very large, moving lump of blankets. As Kevin stepped further into the bedroom, he realized that the lump of blankets appeared to be rocking back in forth in time to a faint beat. Oh. Ben was inside that lump of blankets. Kevin smirked. He must be freezing if he needs that many blankets.

Realizing that Ben could not hear him over the music he was blasting through his earphones, Kevin closed the door and crept across the room to stand next to Ben's bed. Ben's entire head was covered with the blankets. Even better. He couldn't see Kevin either.

Kevin threw himself onto the bed, pushing the lump of blankets over and off of Ben's head. The smaller boy's eyes bugged out of his head and he gasped in shock. Kevin smirked down at Ben, a vaguely suggestive quirk to his eyebrows.

"Kevin?!" Ben could hardly breathe. The very idea of Kevin here, in his bedroom, on top of him, was too much to bear. Especially in light of his last thoughts before he was tackled. A blush crept up his cheeks; he hoped it was too dark for Kevin to notice. "What are you doing here so late?"

"I came to see ya." Kevin's eyebrows quirked up another notch on the suggestive scale. "I've been thinking on something for a while now. Figured I'd do something about it."

"Something? Like what?" Ben's breathing wouldn't even out. He was too close to Kevin, too excited, too hopeful.

"Like this." Kevin dipped his head the six inches separating him from Ben and held his lips just barely apart from the younger's. "I've been waiting to do show you how much you mean to me for too long."

Ben couldn't wait any longer either. He lifted his head up to close the tiny, yet much too large, distance between his mouth and Kevin's. He let Kevin take control of the long-sought kiss, let Kevin lead Ben like in so many dreams and fantasies both boys had hidden away. They broke apart much too soon, but fell into each other quickly, as though afraid it was all another dream.

Kevin worked his hands through the layers of blankets separating him from his Ben (his Ben) and ran his fingers along the brunet's side. He could hardly think straight; it was all too amazingly perfect. The green eyes gazing deeply into Kevin's heart, the brown hair running through Kevin's hand, the gentle lips mouthing "olive juice" against Kevin's own.

Much later, as the two boys slowed down, exhaustion taking over them, something niggled at Kevin's few remaining conscious thoughts.

"Ben, why were you hiding in a mountain of blankets when I got here earlier?"

"I was cold." Ben let a small laugh escape his lips as he squirmed under Kevin. The raven wrapped his arms around his Ben's (his Ben's) waist as he settled into the bed. Ben snuggled into the warm chest, listening to Kevin's heartbeat.

"You cold now?"

"No. Definitely not."

They fell asleep in each other's arms, the cold held at bay by the other's warmth.

*****

"CARL! Where's the camera?!?" Sandra ran into the kitchen as her husband jerked up from his morning coffee.

"Next to the television… why?"

"I told you there was something special about Ben's little ruffian friend!" Sandra scampered to the living room and scampered back down the hallway with the camera in hand, fumbling with the lens cap and the power button.