[Overall, Ben knows this is a rarity from Alex; he knows several of his friend's habits. It's just also that feeling truly comfortable is rare enough for him, and he trusts Alex so implicitly - he gave him his file, entrusted the mutant with keeping him safe and keeping others safe from him - that he doesn't feel the need to analyze it just now. Alex says please and Ben, flashing a quick, quiet smile that he masks with a short nod, unfolds smoothly from where he's sitting with a raised hand and finger, a universal hold on that he picked up from somewhere. It doesn't belong to him.
When considering a room, there are many things that Ben makes note of; he's taught Alex some of them, showing him how to find the vulnerabilities in any given surroundings, the strengths. If Ben were attacked in the chapel, he knows exactly where he would go, exactly what he would do, how he would escape and how he would protect others. Secondarily, he's marked every point of beauty, every oddity he doesn't understand, every aspect that might be significant or is for certain.
Last, but not least, Ben has been looking at the candles. He climbs down off the pew and moves to collect the nearest one, having already decided where he will gather them. There is a wall sconce at the front of the chamber, off to one side, and this is where he deposits the floor stand with its five-fingered candle holders, before blowing out the wall sconce. He blows out another on his way by to collect the second nearest floor stand, sets it carefully beside the first, and so forth and so on throughout the sanctuary. He talks as he moves, voice steady and... not exactly soft but without the military precision that characterizes him around most. Quietly driven.]
Sometimes, at Manticore, it wasn't safe to speak. There were guards that would rotate more closely to the barracks, or times when we were under much closer supervision, so it was not safe to tell stories to my unit as was customary for us. We could communicate with hand signals, of course, but that belonged to Manticore as well. That was their language. The stories needed to be our own.
[He adjusts the assembled candles and tapers once he's collected all of them, studying them and then the wall with a critical eye that has nothing to do with tactics. When he's satisfied, he turns back to Alex and cocks his head curiously, beckoning to him in invitation with one hand without sitting down himself, indicating the nearest corner of the foremost pew, bright eyes bathed a tawny gold in the flickering, warm light of the flames, flashing reflective occasionally when he turns his head.]
So on nights when my brothers and sisters could not sleep, when the guards were too close and too dangerous, I discovered a new way to show them the things I wanted them to know.
no subject
When considering a room, there are many things that Ben makes note of; he's taught Alex some of them, showing him how to find the vulnerabilities in any given surroundings, the strengths. If Ben were attacked in the chapel, he knows exactly where he would go, exactly what he would do, how he would escape and how he would protect others. Secondarily, he's marked every point of beauty, every oddity he doesn't understand, every aspect that might be significant or is for certain.
Last, but not least, Ben has been looking at the candles. He climbs down off the pew and moves to collect the nearest one, having already decided where he will gather them. There is a wall sconce at the front of the chamber, off to one side, and this is where he deposits the floor stand with its five-fingered candle holders, before blowing out the wall sconce. He blows out another on his way by to collect the second nearest floor stand, sets it carefully beside the first, and so forth and so on throughout the sanctuary. He talks as he moves, voice steady and... not exactly soft but without the military precision that characterizes him around most. Quietly driven.]
Sometimes, at Manticore, it wasn't safe to speak. There were guards that would rotate more closely to the barracks, or times when we were under much closer supervision, so it was not safe to tell stories to my unit as was customary for us. We could communicate with hand signals, of course, but that belonged to Manticore as well. That was their language. The stories needed to be our own.
[He adjusts the assembled candles and tapers once he's collected all of them, studying them and then the wall with a critical eye that has nothing to do with tactics. When he's satisfied, he turns back to Alex and cocks his head curiously, beckoning to him in invitation with one hand without sitting down himself, indicating the nearest corner of the foremost pew, bright eyes bathed a tawny gold in the flickering, warm light of the flames, flashing reflective occasionally when he turns his head.]
So on nights when my brothers and sisters could not sleep, when the guards were too close and too dangerous, I discovered a new way to show them the things I wanted them to know.