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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 ♥ )

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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.]

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32. » spam & voice, backdated to yesterday

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