tolaywaste | 32. » spam & voice, backdated to yesterday

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32. » spam & voice, backdated to yesterday

[. . . before the ominous Admiral message.]

So I'm leaving.

[He's leaving for good, and this is voice, not video, for a reason. It's not that he doesn't want to look people in the eye, it's just that he doesn't want them to see how guilty he feels, even now, to be leaving this place behind.]

[Not as bad as he expected, though. Not as bad as it would have been a few months ago. Charles was right: there is a time and a place to take your life back for your own.]

I don't really have anything much to say besides - goodbye, and thanks. To everyone, even the people I never really knew, for making this place livable. Making it home for a while. It'd be hell here without you.

Don't screw each other up too bad.

spam } ben

[But before any of that, he goes to see Ben.]

[This will be the worst of it. This will be the hardest. This is the one he has no choice but to do in person, because if he's going to turn back, this is where he's going to do it.]

[He knocks on Ben's door with his heart in his throat, beating like a jackhammer, and wonders if Ben can hear it. If he'll be concerned before Alex says what he has to say - if he'll think there's something wrong.]

[Alex can't control that one way or another. He can't make this nice. He can pretty much just be honest.]

( ooc; if anyone would like to spam off this post, alex will be in his cabin [6-02] and/or pretty much wherever you want for goodbyes ♥ )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The consternation in Ben's face does nothing to make Alex feel any more solid, more secure. His fingers twitch, almost rising to the marks just under his collarbone; but it's enough to know they're there. He is able to take a breath, to become solid ground again for his friend.]

Hi, Ben.

[Don't deny it. Don't prolong it. Don't put it off; it's as bad as lying. Tell him now, then weather it.]

I needed to tell you first. I'm leaving. I'm going home. Today.

[He is right this time. Something is wrong. Alex is leaving.

But it's not wrong. It's a good thing. Alex is going home.

Both of these hit Ben at exactly the same time and in between them he is frozen, every muscle in his body going tense and his eyes first narrowing and then going unfocused. Something stings behind the delicate ridge of his nose. The muscles of his cheeks want to smile. He allows neither, and swallows instead.

Alex may become solid ground here, now, but he's leaving. He'll never be there again. He's leaving Ben behind, he's going home, back to his friends, his family, the people he belongs with, and that's excellent, that's all Ben could wish for his friend, that's...]

Oh.

[Ben swallows again, searches the empty hollow and deafening pound of his chest, the excited jump of his stomach, the nauseous twist of his gut for anything at all to say, but when his eyes focus on Alex again they're blurry, he can't seem to get them to clear, and that's all he can think of. Oh.

His hand falls off the doorknob, loose and heavy at his side, and he slides further back, back until he can find something safe, something he understands, which he latches onto with everything he has: his posture straightens, smooths out, correct angles and a detached professionalism. That helps a little, that lets him think, he needs information not emotion, not whatever this is, he needs to know details, that will help. That will let him know what to do, what to say.

His voice is tight and blank, and he hides behind it, trying to find solid ground.] When?

Edited 2014-06-22 00:57 (UTC)

[It's good. It's what he wants. It's what he needs, now. This is not his place anymore. It was all he could imagine for so long, but now it hems him in like a too-tight glove. It makes him claustrophobic.]

[Ben has been his fresh air for months and months now, but Alex knows Ben can't be his everything. It's not fair to either of them.]

[He doesn't want to explain this, and won't. Instead he chews the inside of his cheek and is as brave as he can be, by not looking away.]

A few hours. [A few hours after he finishes speaking to Ben. However long that takes is however long it takes. He doesn't want to rush this. He wants it to hurt as little as it can hurt. But it's going to hurt.]

[Please don't run away from me, he doesn't say as Ben retreats into blankness. It's Ben's choice, he supposes, what he does, how he reacts. That is his right now.]

[Why couldn't he be Alex's everything? He could. He could. He would. Or maybe not everything, but enough - good enough for him to keep, good enough to stay, enough to come back to.

No. Alex has his family. Ben would tell stories until his throat closed in on itself, fight until his body wouldn't hold itself up, he would try and try and try again until he had completely remade himself into someone Alex would want to stay around, want to keep with him, but Ben cannot be Darwin, cannot be Hayley, cannot be Sean and Raven and Charles and Erik and Hank. He's seen them in pictures, heard Alex talk about them, remembers them as best he can, but he will never be any of them.

And yet he knows with the exact same certainty that it is not that. Alex deserves this. Alex earned this. Alex is only leaving him because Ben is not ready to go yet, or he would take him with him. He's promised him a home, always, where he is and Ben believes that. But he also believes he's never known what a home is, never understood the drive to return there, never...

He swallows.] I have to go. [Toneless, there is only the barest twist of something like panic on the end like punctuation and then Ben, unassuming, passive, standoffish Ben, pushes out into the hallway and starts walking without looking back.

By the time he reaches the stairs, he blinks out of sight, blurring to reach the open space of the deck and going higher, higher, as high as he can get where maybe at last he'll be able to breathe and think.]

[Ben leaves him.]

[Alex considers reaching out to stop him. His shoulder muscles even make the first, abbreviated movements towards reaching out and pulling him close. But leaving, too, is Ben's choice.]

[Folding down into a tired ball on Ben's bed is Alex's choice. It's a familiar place - he's slept here a few times, when he's been ordered to, and visited far more often than that. This room and this bed are safe spaces. Probably the safest places on the barge, now.]

[He cries a little bit, because he doesn't know anywhere else that he can, and he is goddamn exhausted. It's very quiet crying, and his tears dry up quickly enough, but what he's wept stays sunk in the warp and weft of the blanket.]

[Eventually, he falls asleep on top of the covers. Even in sleep, he stays very still so as not to muss the sheets. Perhaps oddly, his rest is untroubled - or maybe that's not odd at all, considering where he's come from and where he's going.]

[The Barge is an exhausting place. Ben knows this, logically, but in this regard his tolerance is notably higher than most. His life has always been exhausting and filled with improbably terrors and impossible obstacles, but here at least there is the reprieve in between and people he loves surrounding him. He knows that most of the passengers here spend their every waking moment trying to get back to where they came from for one reason or another, or anywhere but here, but he forgets that because he is not amongst them.

It is a lonely place for some, too, but he has never had to face this either. There are more people here that he cares about than he's had for half his life, and they are all only a moment of contact away. He had a taste of it when Rhade left, pale cracks of envy spiderwebbing through his resolve because his warden was going home to a daughter he had always made sure Ben knew was his priority, but there had been plenty of people left behind to help Ben plaster over them. Now, if Alex goes - now that Alex is going - there are more people gone than here. And Alex is...

His best friend. And friends want what's best for each other. Ben knows that because of Alex, and he knows that because of this he must, somehow, find a way to press that genuine desire into being rather than the crushing, grating feel of panic like all of his ribs breaking and compressing in, the dizzying feel he associates with losing time or losing self; he must be glad, because Alex is exhausted, and Alex is lonely, and he should be happy.

He should be happy.

So by the time Alex wakes up in Ben's bed, there is an open private video feed on his communicator; wind blows gently against the microphone, and mostly in view are the stars from the deck. There's a darker outline nearby: Ben sitting on the landing to the conference room that no one uses, knees pulled up to his chest, chin resting atop them, and waiting in quiet stillness for Alex to answer.]

[He rises from sleep slowly, like lifting his head above fog. For a moment he doesn't understand where he is; once he understands where, he does not understand why Ben isn't here with him.]

[Then he hears the wind and sees the feed and knows. Ben isn't here because he's somewhere else, and sad, and afraid.]

[Alex doesn't answer in words. He doesn't know any words that would work right now, or fill the hole that Ben is feeling. So he pockets his communicator and walks up to the deck, to the conference room that no one uses, and sits down next to Ben. It's only then, once he's next to his best friend for real, that he reaches into his pocket and shuts off the feed.]

[It's beautiful up here, but he wouldn't care if it was the most desolate place on any world. Ben is here.]

[A few months ago, he would have said I'm sorry. But he isn't, can't be, sorry anymore. So he just sits. Just is, close and quiet and as solid as can be.]

[Ben waits, even when he hears Alex begin moving around; he only reaches down to his side to pick up his own communicator when his friend takes the last step up onto the landing, turns it off and slips it away into his pocket before returning to the exact same position he'd been in before. He is often compact, drawn not quite in on himself though never sprawling, but very rarely does he allow himself to fall back onto the childish comfort of hugging himself. His eyes are unfocused straight ahead and if Alex cried before falling asleep, there is a blur that lingers in Ben's gaze but that neither falls nor passes. He breathes out silently, and pulls in a lungful of air with Alex's particular scent on it, and the unshed tears thicken but still do not fall.

Ben doesn't want him to be sorry, no matter how terrified, how desperate he feels; he wants better for Alex than that, and has for quite some time, without knowing how to give it to him or help him discover it for himself. Ben remembers more about Alex than Alex likely thinks there even is to remember; remembers his difficulty quantifying the existence of multiple realities, the skittish, anxious way he tried anyway, the powerful flex of his fear against the confining walls of the Barge both here and there, the grim determination as he stared down oncoming battles, and the helpless rage once they were passed. Ben knows that Alex came here for a reason and he knows that reason has been accomplished. Ben wants him to go home, victorious.

But he is so sick of being left behind, even temporarily, even with good reason. Even knowing as he does that it's entirely likely that he will simply cease to exist the moment he leaves the Barge himself. His fingers curl into the fabric of his BDU pants, his uniform fingernails finding the small seam and hooking into it fitfully but subtly.]

It will be good for you to see them again. [Ben's voice is quiet, pliable and translucent, muffled by his knees and his arm and the heaviness in his gut, but all his own.] You will be happier.

[He would not have discovered it if not for Ben. That's the strange thing about this place - Alex still can't help feeling that he's gotten more from it than he gave. What would his life have been if he'd never met Bruce, or Pietro, or Aeryn - how much less would he add up to now, if he hadn't come here? And Ben has always been the most of it. He has learned compassion. He's learned how to take care of himself. He's learned not to assume things about other people, and--]

[Kindness. He's learned that too.]

[He loves Ben, who is his best friend, 100%. The pain in him writhes in Alex's gut. He wants it gone, but then, would he be any better if it was the other way around - if Ben was leaving and Alex was staying? He doesn't know. Maybe he'd be worse.]

[His eyes are red from crying and sleep, and there is still salt on his cheeks. He glances sideways at Ben, curious and sad and shy.]

Are you saying that for me or for you?

For you.

[There's no sense in pretending it's anything but what it is: the fear belongs to Ben, as it ever has. The sincere desire for Alex to be well, wherever he is and whatever he is doing, belongs to Alex. For himself, Ben became someone that deals in stark reality, in the blacks and the whites that make up life instead of the array of colors that make up his stories and the worlds he makes up for others. Telling himself that Alex will be happier will not help him believe it. That will only come with time.

Anyway he already believes it. It isn't as effective as he'd like, for himself, but it could be for Alex. If Alex would only do this one last thing and take it with him when he goes, and not the responsibility that was never his for the state of the people he leaves behind. The pain in Ben was never Alex's fault, but he has never succeeded in convincing his friend of that.

The trust in him is Alex's fault. That he knows what a friend is. That sometimes he smiles and sometimes he laughs and sometimes, for a gleaming, precious moment, he is afraid of nothing. That is Alex's fault. That, he can take with him when he goes, and Ben is terrified of that and wants him to with equal intensity.]

And because it's true.

Edited 2014-06-22 06:05 (UTC)

[He hunches his shoulders. The words aren't meant as barbs, but still he feels as though he's betrayed his friend by not being perfectly content here. By letting it be true. He'll be happier free, with the burdens he chooses.]

[It's only that Ben has never been a burden - has always ever been a light - that makes this decision hard. That makes him consider, even now, staying. But only for a moment.]

Yeah. I'm going to be happier. [This thing that he's worked towards without knowing it, yes, it will make him happier. Only now there's a space in his soul that won't be filled by anything or anyone else. He'll be happier at home, surrounded by things that keep his heart warm, but he'll be lonely for this, sitting here in the dark with his friend. He doesn't think he can completely win, but then most people can't, can they.]

[He wonders at how he can hurt so much and feel so serene all at once.]

Are you angry at me?

No. I'm angry, but not at you. How can I?

[He has to stop then, barely breathing, to keep the crack in his voice as only that, to let his heartbeat slow and reel back with it the threat of tears. He knows there's anger mixed up in the thick weight trying to choke him, but there are a hundred other things as well, and he can't pick out one thread of them and hold it in front of him; he knows how to swallow it all back down and keep it from affecting his behavior, his thoughts, as much as he can. He knows how to function. He doesn't know how to heal.

Which is how he knows this isn't Alex's fault. Ben brought this with him to the Barge, accumulated from every threat Manticore ever posed him or his unit, every harsh order he was given to keep him alive, every unfairness heaped upon him without explanation or provocation, every desperate plea to a Lady that remained silent, every time he woke up to find Zack gone, every time he came back and told Ben he must stay behind because he is broken. Every time he apologized, like that could somehow distract Ben from the fact that nothing ever changed and that more and more he was only a burden, something to be dealt with, something dangerous. Something, not someone.]

That's all I've ever wanted for you. [This is too honest, the kind he learned very early on that he could only whisper in the darkness to the X5 beside him, so that's what he does now: his voice is low, and he has to stop after he says it. What he says next is even rawer honesty, is even more deadly in the parts of his mind and his heart that he will never quite own, and he cannot look at Alex while he admits to it, so he doesn't.]

But I'm afraid, too. I'm sorry.

[It's funny: all Alex has ever wanted for Ben was happiness. Not the easy kind of happiness, but the kind that comes with taking freedom and figuring out what to make of yourself in its context, to learn to patch up your own wounds when you can and ask someone else to stop the bleeding when you don't know how to. The kind of happiness that comes from not being alone, and not being lost.]

[He's never wanted to hurt Ben, but in a way, he's hurt him by being his friend. It's harder, in a lot of ways, to have something to count on and lose it. He feared it for the longest time.]

[The only thing he can do now is believe that it's a better hurt to have love at all than to live bereft.]

[The angular planes of his face soften into kindness and sorrow at Ben's words.] No. Don't be sorry. Not for being afraid.

[Never, don't ever be sorry, no, no - he has been caught in the iron grip of fear before, has felt it clutch his heart, and he's gotten through with Ben's help, they will get through, both of them on opposite sides of the universe, he knows, he knows--]

[He reaches out tentatively, hand open, palm up.]

You don't have anything to be sorry about.

[Ben, were he asked, would much prefer whatever harm knowing Alex has done him to never knowing him at all, and maybe that's a symptom. Maybe it's wrong to want the pain born of love alongside whatever harm was done him out of malice. But Ben, of all people, knows that life cannot be lived painless.

He would much prefer whatever harm knowing Alex has done him.

Alex reaches out his hand and a part of Ben quivers with raw anxiety: he is powerful, he is his own now, but he still fears the simple raise of a hand on a level he cannot root out without prying at everything else that makes him who he is. He is aware of the movement, small and unobtrusive but definitive, as if it were limned in fire and pressed directly against his chest, and his nails dig deeper into the fabric of his clothing. Alex will not hurt him. Not like that. Ben knows this, but he cannot reach for his friend's hand. He cannot stop being afraid.

He cannot stop loving him, and he doesn't want to; his instinct is to keep it safe, then, keep it hidden, keep it his own if Alex is going to go. Alex is going to go. Ben is going to stay. They will, he knows, be okay on opposite ends of the universe. Alex will go home. Ben will stay home.

He breathes out, his voice barely audible and his entire tense, unhappy frame otherwise still.]

You are made of earth, Alex Summers.

Your presence stretches from horizon to horizon, supports those that depend on you, makes the dreams and lives of others possible. You can take a blow from a knife without lessening or bleeding: you can stick it fast without harming it and without allowing it to harm others.

Your heart beats slow but powerfully. And you are always there.

[He tilts his head down, buries his face a little further in the crook of his arm, and tells the inside of his elbow delicately, sadly:] You are made of earth.

[He has never heard this story before. The surprise of it is enough to take away some of the sting that comes from his empty hand. Underneath his tense shoulders and his sometimes-sharp speech, he wants to be held as much as anyone.]

[But Ben does not want to hold him. That's all right. It will have to be all right. There's a story here instead, and Alex listens to it as if these are the first words he's ever heard in his life.]

[In a way, they are. He's never heard anything like this. Not like this, not beautiful. He has never been talked about as though he's a force of nature. He has never been described the way Ben describes him now, in bright, wide swathes of color and meaning and purpose and power. Of permanence.]

[He has never felt so permanent or impermanent as he does now. The implication is there and he can see it: if he is always there, but he leaves, then he's always there for everyone but Ben.]

[Ben's voice sounds brittle, breakable. Awkwardly, Alex bunches his fingers into a loose fist. His sigh is quiet, helpless.]

You never told me that.

[But he knew, he thinks. It was in every time Ben looked at him.]

[His throat hurts. He scrubs at his eyes furiously to keep them dry.]

[It is an unintended implication; or maybe it isn't. Ben himself can't say for sure, wouldn't be able to answer if asked. It is as unintended a rejection, or maybe it isn't: Ben wants Alex near, he always has, but now he must stop. He must stop for the good of both of them somehow, some way - or maybe it is something as simple as fear that keeps him from bridging the gap. Something as unworthy.

Alex tells Ben he was never told about this, and Ben wants to laugh but it catches in his throat. Does it ever occur to anyone to inform the earth beneath their feet that it is very solid, very reassuring? That it exists? Or, perhaps, hasn't he? Hasn't he told Alex over and over, didn't he bring him his file, doesn't he seek him out to lean against and breathe - metaphorically, if not literally?

Doesn't Ben trust him to always keep him steady?]

I don't tell... people... a lot of things. [He murmurs it, instead, into the fabric of his jacket sleeve. Ducks his head slightly to wipe his own eyes, breathes out.] For a lot of reasons.

You wouldn't have believed me. You didn't. It's hard for you to see how strong you are, to believe in it the way I do.

But I think maybe now you can. [He swallows.] Which is how I knew you would be going soon. Which is why I know you must, and that you should.

You must go now and be earth for other people. For yourself. You deserve that.

I believe it. At least most of the time.

[Which is Ben's doing. Bruce's and Charles's and Anya's, too, but Ben's most of all. It digs at him, a thorn in his side, that Ben has made him most solid and it's Ben that he's leaving in the end. As though he's taking everything Ben's ever done for him for granted and running away with his prize.]

[He doesn't know how to articulate that as much as Ben doesn't want to leave the Barge for fear of what will become of him away from it, he is afraid of what he'll become if he stays. A bitter, angry thing, trapped and pacing, unable to help everyone he wants to help, unable to keep even a majority of people safe, and unable to see his family - the rest of his family - the people he's worked so hard to bring together again. Alex can see his own negative potential in what Erik became, and doesn't ever want to become that angry.]

[But leaving Ben behind is beginning to feel like cutting off his own arm.]

I believe you now. I just wish - I always wish - I want -

[He looks down at his friend, crouched over and murmuring into his own sleeve, and his heart is full of sorrow and joy and bittersweetness. He has grown so much. They have both grown so much.]

I want you to be able to feel my heart.

[The words are clumsy in his mouth. What he means to say is that Ben will have it, even if he is far away. What he realizes as he's saying it is that he wants Ben to tell him that everything will be okay.]

[He realizes, too, that he may not get it. This is abandonment. Even if it's for his own good, it may not be for Ben's.]

[If he is honest, it is a little what it feels like: like how his unit behaved, letting Ben break himself apart to stitch them back together, leaving him in his shambles because he could not follow them. He doesn't blame them, most days, of course because it is what they were trained to do. Maybe it was what Ben himself would have done, had he been able. But some days he remembers Max's harsh denial, her easy dismissal of the things he had once believed in absolutely: We made her up, Ben. Normal kids had the tooth fairy, we had Her. That, as much as the disparagement of his faith, had torn at him then.

And it is that brief, tearing memory that abruptly makes the difference clear to him now.

Ben listens to Alex struggling as he himself once struggled - more obviously, because Alex has never had to be subtle, but it is the same. Putting himself into words. Speaking them where others can hear, for others to know and judge and reject and accept and twist and covet. Where others will know they exist and what they are. He lets him, and he breathes, and when he hears the final, awkward edict, he is certain he could not love Alex more.

Alex, who will take whatever Ben has given him, who will cherish it, use it, and welcome Ben into his life once more wherever he goes. This, Ben can trust, because Alex has promised it. This, Alex has shown him time and time and time again.

At last Ben's eyes lift, slide over to find Alex's, and he lifts his head. The fingers of one hand are still dug tightly in on themselves like he must keep hold of himself or lose his way, but the other relaxes by increments as his gaze lingers. As one slow blink after another clears his vision and he sees his friend, really sees him.

It doesn't hurt any less. He doesn't think it can. But he remembers because he remembers a time when nothing hurt that sometimes, that is good as well, and slowly his arm drops from around his knees, extends towards Alex instead.

Pauses, hanging tentative in the air between them, just over Alex's shoulder; shifts down just a little, to the center of his chest, and without looking away from his face, brushes there instead until he can feel the uneven, desperate, strong beat of Alex's heart.]

Why do you think I trusted you in the first place? [He always did.]

[Every moment is another moment when Alex is afraid that Ben will run away again. And Alex wouldn't blame him, not now and not ever, but he would be sad, so sad, consumed by his own sorrow and self-loathing. It feels like all he's ever wanted is to make Ben feel safe, like that is the beginning and the end of his entire life. He can't see anything else to himself in this moment.]

[But there is something else. He has to remember that fact. There is somewhere for him to be, somewhere he belongs. Isn't that what he's always wanted, to belong somewhere, belong to someone, the way he and Ben belong to each other?]

[His throat is thick with tears. He swallows them and watches Ben's hand tentatively, keeping very still as though being approached by a wild animal. Long, strong fingers move in the air as though measuring something vital - and then land on his chest.]

[Alex flushes, his heart stuttering slightly as he remembers the last time - better not to think about it, but he can't not - as he does what he probably shouldn't and lays his hand over Ben's, pulling him closer. He remembers being reassured, over and over again, in that other place, the calming touch and the taste of tears on the back of his tongue. It's too similar, but it's a hundred years different.]

[You are good, Alex. You are so good.]

[It is so good to be trusted. To be loved. To have family like this, even if it hurts when you aren't by their side. No, it doesn't hurt any less, but it feels good at the same time as it hurts.]

[Alex bows his head, no longer quite able to meet Ben's eyes, and swallows.]

Don't forget-- [What? All they've been through? All they've done, how they've grown? The way it feels to be alone and frightened and at someone else's mercy, because Ben would never forget that. Don't forget me? Anything Alex could say would be insulting. So he doesn't say anything. Just laces his fingers with Ben's over his heart and doesn't cry, doesn't cry, doesn't cry.]

Edited 2014-07-04 19:46 (UTC)

[Ben can't promise he won't forget anything. That is part of his reality, which he warns others about over and over, which others think is hyperbole because they feel they are important enough to remember, or they look at him and see a soldier that learned how to function even when he is completely lost. A boy who learned to trust the cues of those that love him to function in a society that is not based around orders, giving and taking and obeying. Alex knows he can't promise this, and maybe that's why he doesn't finish the sentence.

More likely, Ben knows, it is that there is too much for him to remember. He secures their hands instead, and the X5 closes his eyes, and at last the threatening tears fall: not quickly, not profusely, but one at a time in reluctant trails down his cheeks, though he tilts his head to try and stop them. Then he doesn't want to stop them at all.

Don't forget what? Forget Alex, who befriended him in spite of them both? Forget what they've been through, following Alex as he coaxed Ben through and then in turn guiding him along beside? Forget that he didn't have a future at all before he came here, and if he didn't learn to love here, he learned to trust, to smile, to laugh? Forget who had a constant, steadying hand in all of that? Forget one of two people he would step off this Barge for and risk everything he is convinced he would be risking?

Don't forget that he has choices, now, too?

Ben doesn't know when he leaned across the few spare centimeters separating them; he doesn't even notice that he's followed his hand, leaning his shoulder one last time against his friend's, steadying himself against the rock steadiness of the trust between them. He doesn't answer for several long minutes, trying to swallow it down, trying to think of how he can possibly answer this last request. Before he finds the words his head leans over, too, because how ridiculous is fearing a thing like closeness when Alex is going away from him?

Away from here. Not away from him. Away from here. His fingers in Alex's tighten, and his voice is barely audible, but unwavering:] I won't.

[When Ben leans close it feels as though his heart has finally found steadiness. Maybe, when Ben says he's earth, what he means without realizing it is that they're earth for each other, because Alex has never felt steadier than when Ben's by his side like this. Than when they're leaning together. It's happened so few times, he can count them on one hand, but he knows how much it means. For both of them.]

[He leans towards Ben, rests his chin on his shoulder in a half-hug, a not-quite-embrace, something that would look strange and clumsy from the outside but which feels so incredibly natural to him. This is where he needs to be right now. In a few hours he'll need to be somewhere else, in another universe entirely. But this is his place now.]

[There are tears on Ben's cheeks and a few on his own, too, but he's happy at the same time. Happy at the promise that may not be kept, just because of what it means that Ben's made it.]

I'm glad. I'm glad I know you. I need to know you to be -

[Himself. Fully himself, everything he has the potential to be. A leader. A man, he guesses, as well as a friend.]

[He buries his face in Ben's neck all of a sudden. Anything but thinking about how he'll have to go in a little while, about how it's what he needs and how it won't be goodbye, really, not forever, but for a while.]

[Ben understands, as soon as the sounds register into the words they are. He knows better than most what happens when people are isolated, left to their own devices, friendless and supportless; he knows that he is who he is today because he knew Rhade, Aya, Anya, Alex. He knows that without them he would just be dead, or worse. He knows because he's already been there.

So when Alex cuts off and abruptly Ben feels hot breath against his neck, he closes his eyes and he doesn't pull away. His free hand comes up to touch Alex's hair, a silent reassurance that it's alright, and then he's gripping right back. He's gripping back as though whatever either of them believes this will be the last time they get the opportunity, and like he can be steady this one time, this one time.

The reality is that this is familiar. It wasn't allowed the last time he was in a position to be this person for people that needed him, but it still feels familiar. Ben doesn't say anything and he doesn't try to pull away, doesn't move except the occasional twitch of his fingertips.

Low, low, low:] You will see Charles and Erik again. You will see Snow, you will see Darwin, Sean, Hank, Raven. [Ben knows them all, knows their faces and their names and how they are through Alex's eyes. He places them down now like cards, suit and number and rank, lines them up like defense.] You will have your own life. Whatever you like.

I am glad for that.

[Whatever you like.]

[Not so long ago, Alex couldn't have imagined a life lived as he wanted it. He thought he was destined, that he deserved to be locked up for the rest of his life, that his existence would be four walls and a high window and sometimes the presence of a guard who was afraid of him. Isolation, insecurity, fear. Self-protection by protecting other people.]

[Now he can have his own life, whatever he likes, and though he knew it was coming, though he has felt his debt paid for months now, it still comes over him like a wave. His body shakes, not with a sob but with emotion nevertheless, something great and wide and powerful and unnameable. Love, maybe. Readiness. Sorrow, but no fear.]

[He pulls back and leans his forehead against Ben's, so he can breathe his friend's breath, see the darkest and lightest parts of his eyes well enough to remember them for as long as it takes until they reunite.]

I'll see you again.

[When Ben is ready to take his own life. Whatever he likes.]

This isn't goodbye. Not forever goodbye. You believe me, don't you?

[Ben feels part of his heart go with Alex when he leans away; he looks back from a distance of only a few inches, difficult to focus at this range for him, but he doesn't need to. Whatever his mind keeps, it keeps all of: he has had Alex memorized for years.

He is able to look steadily back, and - what he says is not a lie. He believes Alex, utterly.] Of course.

It won't be. [He believes that Alex believes it, that he must. It's Ben's own life he doesn't trust. It's his own history, his own obstacles, his own decisions. If he can, he will see Alex again, he will go there, he will meet the people he's heard so much about.

If he can.] It can't be. [He smiles, then, because there is nothing else left to do.

Nothing except offer something back that he didn't learn from Alex, but he may as well have.] You won't be rid of me that easily.

[He can.]

[Or at least here is the difference between the two of them - Ben believes in Alex, while Alex believes in Ben utterly. He believes that there will come a day when this won't be enough, when Ben not only can leave but will want to, that the fact that there's somewhere else available to him in the wide universe will be not a burden but a reassurance. He believes that someday he can be safe harbor in a place that feels safe to him, too. He believes that Ben is as much and as capable as anyone else.]

[If this belief proves to be false, he won't be upset, and he won't be disappointed. But he won't believe it until he sees it.]

[His face lights up at the smile, at the quip that's so much more from Ben, a declaration of independence and determination. He will never not hate the moment of goodbye, but it ends, it has to, he can feel it ending now and Ben isn't crying or running, he's smiling.]

[He is the best friend Alex has ever had.]

I'm never gonna be rid of you.

[All soft affection and open-hearted love. He wouldn't want it any other way.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

32. » spam & voice, backdated to yesterday

Spam wails preemptively

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Spam alex is trying to be a grownup about this

Spam yeah um about that being an adult thing

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