tolaywaste | 18.

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[Alex is praying. He's in the chapel with his head bowed, like he's been since just after lunch, and he thinks he's gonna stay until dinner. It probably won't help in the grand scheme of things, but it's quiet here, and that's what he wants. Space to think. Or feel, maybe.]

[He woke up to a flood that drew the very worst memories of his life out of him, laid them on display for anyone at all to see, and now that the smoke is clearing he finds himself in mourning again. It's unexpected how much he misses Pietro, like a sharp pain between his ribs. He wasn't a brother, wasn't important in the same way that Ben or Sean or Armando are, but he was - is - important. He understood things implicitly, things about family that Alex doesn't like to explain.]

[So Alex isn't sure what he's praying for, exactly, other than Pietro's safety. Maybe his, maybe Anya's, maybe nothing in particular. All he knows for sure is he doesn't want to leave.]

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[He's not letting go. Ben isn't letting go, it's serious, Ben doesn't like touch, he'd be moving away if this wasn't serious. If he wasn't scared.]

[Even in the midst of everything, Alex feels fierce pride in his friend, bright and burning in the center of his heart. He would never have spoken like this even months ago, would never have been so assertive, would never have demanded anything. Alex remembers the first time Ben did demand something of him, told him to stop, to behave responsibly. That he could do. But this - this is asking so much.]

[He doesn't know if he's punishing himself. He probably is - he does that, he knows, and he remembers like a distant dream what Ben is speaking of now, the words of someone who used to be him and still halfway is. It's punishment. This, maybe, is redemption.]

[His shoulders tremble. He loves this boy like family, like a brother, wishes he could do more and be better for him, but this is all he is: broken and sad, small and weak.]

I miss them.

[I miss them; he misses everyone who's gone and left him. He misses Angel, though he's angry with her. Misses Haley, whom he left, even though he didn't meant to. And he's terrified that he's going to have to miss Erik again soon. That he'll leave and everything will go back to how it was. They won't be family.]

[His family is falling apart.]

[He laughs like he's drowning, a choked and liquid laugh, and doesn't let go of Ben's hand in case he falls away.]

I miss them all so much, I don't . . .

[Ben, he would contend - as he would contend his fragility, that he is so broken that he can withstand no more damage when it is in fact the opposite: he can withstand any amount of damage now because he is broken - is only asking so much because he knows without question that Alex is equal to the task. That he can master this, the negative side to his gift - his real gift, not the one that destroys anything that stands before him. To caring, deeply and inexorably.

That makes him think he needs redemption from being unable to control every aspect of life and consequence and happenstance. To make him punish himself for not being a god.

Ben feels the tremor beneath his palm and, finally standing, he climbs the pew to lower himself, cross-legged and facing Alex, into the pew next to him without pulling his hand free of Alex's.]

I know.

[It's not an empty consolation; Ben knows. Better, perhaps, than anyone who isn't Alex could, Ben knows about missing his family, about people who have left him, people who are angry with him and with whom he is angry, people who don't trust him anymore and never will again. He knows about being powerless to stop it and powerless to stop it from hurting him and powerless to help anyone. Ben knows.]

You don't have to know what to do. You don't have to stop missing them. But you must not let it consume you. You must not allow it to break you.

[There's a miraculously dry-eyed smile from Alex as Ben climbs over the pew. Only Ben, he thinks, of all the people he knows, would do that and not think anything of it. Only Ben.]

[And that must mean he's lucky. It must, because how many people have the opportunity to know people like Ben? This boy who's spent so much of his life trying to be what he was designed to be, who has now become not just that but something stronger, more complete. He's become someone strong enough not only to lead, but to teach others how to lead.]

[Alex looks up at him and the smile falls away, because he knows what he's being told is the truth. It helps, weirdly enough, not to be comforted but to be told what he has to do, what he's known all this time that he has to do. He can be strong through this. He survived Erik leaving them, after all; he stayed strong for Charles, for Sean and for Hank. He protected his family. He did not allow it to break him.]

[His family is here now. These are the people he has to protect. That, he thinks, is what Charles just doesn't understand. This isn't home, not really, but then again, it isn't not home either. Home isn't any one place, not necessarily. It can be - but it can be several. There are parts of his heart that will stay buried here forever, and there's nothing he can do about it. Nothing he wants to, either.]

[He squeezes Ben's hand, then lets go.]

You believe that I'm that strong.

[Not, notably, You believe I'm stronger than I am. Because he knows Ben believes he is exactly as strong as he is. He knows Ben's right. He can do this. It'll just hurt along the way.]

[It isn't, of course, what he meant; even Alex, who understands him with more regularity than anyone left here, sometimes misses the simplicity of what he's saying. How literally Ben speaks, though he's learning to be more circumspect. Learning that sometimes people say things like someone mustn't break and they mean "because I need you not to" or "because it would hurt me." That is true, of course, but less important here, now, or ever than what Ben actually meant.

Alex mustn't break for Alex's sake. Because it will hurt him, and while Ben of all people knows how unavoidable that is realistically, so too is loss. So too is life. Alex is a survivor, he won't lay down and die like Ben did, but even a coward such as Ben survived just long enough to become something terrible because the world broke him. Because he allowed it to break him. He doesn't want that for his friend. He doesn't want Alex to let it change him beyond recognition.

A muscle in Ben's jaw tightens when Alex squeezes his hand. He leaves it where it is anyway for a few moments longer before withdrawing it, tilting his head to keep meeting Alex's eyes.]

I do, yes. I also know that you are. [The boy made out of earth. Ben folds his hands into his lap and sits quietly for a moment, straightening his spine now that he's not tethered to one place, reclaiming his comfort distance - although his near knee is still very nearly brushing Alex's side. He glances around them, and remembers again that despite the fact he isn't comfortable here, it's not because he doesn't like it; he likes it too much. The windows are beautiful to look at, and when he glances forward to where the denominational statue would normally be, something in him settles that never quite does.

He looks back to Alex quickly.] May I show you something?

[Pulling his hand back into his lap, he leans away slightly, giving Ben space. He doesn't want to crowd him. It's strange, being so content with not touching. There was a code he learned, a way of getting along with the other boys, back when he was in school. A way of pushing and shoving to show affection, shallow though it was for him, as little as he trusted people. He was able, at least, to pretend.]

[He doesn't need that with Ben, and Ben doesn't like it. He's decided it's not always necessary, although nice, sometimes.]

[Looking up at Ben, he nods.]

Please.

[Something else he doesn't do much of. Say please. Be respectful. That's something Ben's taught him, really. Not to be gentle, exactly - he already knew how to do that, way down deep - but to be quiet, to be polite. To be kind. To not cover up the things he fears with the things he thinks he should be.]

[It's no wonder Ben's a warden, really. He was teaching long before he graduated.]

[Alex smiles at his friend, and it is kind. For this one moment in time, people back home might not quite recognize him.]

What is it?

[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.

[Alex's first instinct is to follow Ben up to the front, to help him. But this has all the feeling of a sacrament, and besides, Ben's gestured to him (a gesture, he realizes unconsciously, that is not Ben's) to stay.]

[So Alex gets a quarter of the way up on his feet and then slowly lowers himself back down. And he listens. Really listens, absorbing Ben's words like gospel, leaning in with his elbows on his knees and sharp, intent eyes.]

[It's in moments like these when Alex looks younger than his age. He never realizes it. But there are things he never got, or at least doesn't remember. Stories, for example, other than those from Haley's. And he was older, more responsible, allegedly, than she was. He never had someone like Ben before.]

[At brothers and sisters, he shifts his gaze to the floor. He's always felt guilty comparing himself. He's not a transgenic. He doesn't know Ben's experience. But he feels as though this is where he belongs anyway.]

[When, after a pause, he looks up again, he's struck by the play of the light on Ben's face. A stage is prepared. He can't help but smile, uncertain but curious.]

How did you show them?

[But whatever guilt Alex feels, when his eyes lift again Ben's are right there to catch them, engaged here in the privacy of the chapel like he has learned not to be just anywhere that others might see, where others might know. There's a moment where the corner of his mouth curls like other peoples' mouths do, a smile, a proper smile, and the mischievous humor that Alex has learned to identify amongst the ashes left behind by Manticore plain in the flickering candlelight.

Then it's gone and he's turning away towards the candles, gaze searching for the play of the shadows and light, critical. He skirts around the edge of the line of light he's created, flexing his fingers and extending them straight again as though familiarizing himself with how they work as he considers.

Ben's hands, like the rest of him, are almost unseemly in their delicacy for someone designed from birth to be a killer and a tool of war; he's put together in clean, crisp lines and angles, and he knows how to use every one of them with the understated, precise movements of true efficiency. Normally this manifests in mundane tasks, pulling a book off a shelf, moving a chess piece, slicing onions, picking apart the wires of a radio; in times of crisis it's the killing blow or the incapacitating hold, swift and lethal and decisive; now, he raises his hands and hesitates, as though he's not certain how they fit together to do what he wants.

It's right there, though, when he sifts his mental fingers through the powdered glass covering the distance in between. He still does this sometimes, alone in his room, to comfort himself. His hands know the shape, fingers splaying, thumbs crooking to hook together, wrists crossing.

It takes him a moment to find the right distance from the candles, the angle where the light is strongest in the direction he needs it. And then the shadow of his hands on the wall resolves into a bundle of haphazard limbs and lines and then, when he turns his wrists just so, a dove bursts into flight over the dark stone.]

[Comfort washes over Alex like a wave.]

[He doesn't know why, not exactly. It's clear that this isn't something Ben would do for just anyone, which is nice, but that's not what changes the experience for him. Maybe it's the look on his friend's face. Because every little glimpse of true humor that Ben lets through the cracks is so important to him, and this is overwhelming.]

[This must be what he was like before he was entirely destroyed.]

[He watches the movements of the dove in utter, rapt silence, like it's a real bird, like it's a mystery, like it's something he has to catch and understand. Knows he never can.]

[What it is, over anything, is beautiful.]

[Ben hasn't shown anyone this for years; the stories come to him more easily, become easier to apply where they're needed, have a wider range. He did this for Zack one or twice after they escaped Manticore, but mostly it's just been for himself. An intangible touchstone back to a time when he felt secure and necessary, when he had something to offer to those that are important to him, when the world made sense.

His repertoire, as a result, is not extremely varied; he does birds mostly, letting the shadow of the dove trail from his hands in circles and patterns over the wall, spreading his fingers more for something larger, fiercer, changing the movement of his hands. He can do dogs, which become menacing, sharp-toothed and narrow-eyed creatures flowing along the bottom of the available light, and something human-like, half-formed and stumbling and always converting to one of the other creatures.

After several minutes, hands still raised, he finally glances back to Alex, and there's another slice of the personality that would have been, once. Signs of it show through from time to time, if one knows how to pick them out from amongst the rest, but overall not many would describe Ben as shy. His gaze now, though, is almost furtive, hopeful and hoping, the youthful core of him bringing Alex something precious and hidden, seeking approval as he so often does, trusting that he won't be punished for having it in the first place.]

Edited 2013-10-01 23:40 (UTC)

[But when Ben turns around, Alex has his knees pulled up to his chest, not for protection but because he needs something concrete to hold onto while he watches. It's not like it's all that fascinating, technically speaking, to someone who's been in a high-speed jet chase, but there's a passion in this that machines can't convey. A love to it, a kindness.]

[He watches, unsmiling but content, relaxed in a way that people who don't know him very well might never realize. His fingers twine together in a gesture of vulnerability that, were he fully aware it was happening, he'd be very loath to show.]

[Here and now, though, he's safe. When Ben looks at him, that's what shows in his eyes: safety, happiness, joy in its most basic (though not simplistic) form. A love to him, a kindness. Approval, above all, as well as the subtle tug of a smile that indicates you don't need it. Or, maybe: you have it, always.]

[No one's ever just a killer, or just a monster, or just a good or bad person. There are layers and layers to people. This is the heart of Ben that has been hinted at so many times in Alex's presence, the caretaker, the storyteller, the silent protector.]

[Alex is happy to see him, and greets him (with already-deepening lines around his eyes from smiling, from stress, from some combination) like an old friend.]

[It's familiar, the pose; it soothes a part of him Ben didn't know needed it, one more buzz of anxiety, of background noise, ever present amongst a chorus. One more thing he misses about his family, about a time when they were family, whatever else they were.

He ducks his chin slightly to hide the tug of his replying smile, and turns back to what his hands are doing, imagining Max laying on her stomach with her pillow bunched up under her chin, Zack laying on his side pretending not to watch but actually watching both the story and the hallway, Jack holding his breath as if there's some kind of riveting narrative to go along with it. Eva feigning disinterest while her hands folded at her chest mimic the movement of Ben's in the air.

He continues for a few more silent minutes, then lets the dove break apart into flicks of his fingers, feather-shapes floating down, until they're at his sides and he steps back without dropping his eyes. Eyes that trace the stones of the wall, the play of the light on the empty stage, and find their way to the idol in the corner.

He licks his lips, then, and turns to slink to the pew next to Alex, folding himself up neatly, smoothly, and almost identically to his friend, his chin resting on his own knees.]

Max liked them best. Zack needed them most. I haven't had anyone to tell them to since... Miami, I think, is what it was called.

[Alex follows Ben's movements with his eyes. He's still relaxed, but alert, too, to Ben's needs, the possibility that they'll need to flee this place, that it's too dangerous.]

[That's not all he's watching for, though. Ben isn't just someone he needs to watch out for. He's someone Alex admires deeply for his precision, his artistry, his seeming incapability of doing anything but try until he can try no more and then getting up and trying again, his stubbornness in the face of terms and actions and interactions that he has no natural way of understanding. Alex watches him treat this space like a stage, and he thinks that even if he never made a single other friend here or graduated an inmate, knowing Ben would make it all worth it.]

[He smiles at the proximity, not too close, but close enough, and ducks his head.]

Zack needs a lot of things that I need. [That's probably why they don't get along very well, he thinks.] I like them a lot. I've never . . . seen anything like that.

[There's no way to hide that he's a little bit in awe, and he wouldn't want to try anyway.]

[If Ben were privy to these thoughts, he wouldn't know what to do with them at all. He had, after all, given up and that is how he ended up here. He'd convinced himself that he was out of control, unsafe, a failure, and he had given up.

Now he sits quietly and considers Alex, who always reminded him of Zack, in a way. They both have the same complicated simplicity, the same thoughtful forcefulness, the same low opinion of themselves and their worth. They both think they are good only as shields, soaking up damage and dealing it back away from those they love, nothing more. They don't try to be more, and it is disheartening.

The awe, though, is offputting for a moment; not in an unpleasant way, merely that Ben has no idea what to do with it, except that it feels nice. He doesn't know why. There's the swift, silent flash of teeth visible just before Ben glances away, hiding the surprised grin in the crook of his elbow until he can get it back under control. It's dangerous, out here in the world, for an expression like that. It's dangerous to tell fanciful stories with his hands on the wall of a church where he enjoys being far too much.]

It isn't difficult. I could teach you.

It's okay.

[In response not to the smile, but to the attempt to hide it. It's okay. Which isn't true and is. It will never feel wholly safe for Ben to express emotion the way Alex might, and that's just a fact. But with him, Alex would like to think, it's safe to smile every little while. Because Alex knows him, what he's done, where he started from, how far he's come, and what he's still capable of.]

[He packs as much of that sentiment as he can into those three syllables and grins in echo of his friend. It's dangerous out here in the world for an expression like that. But there are little shelters along the way. Alex is one of them.]

If you think I could do it - do it and make it feel like that. I'd like to learn.

[He could show Darwin, he thinks. Or Ben could. But there are some things that are too much to hope even in the privacy of your own mind.]

[Ben looks back at the reassurance, and he doesn't grin again, but the corners of his mouth quirk. He knows that, he does, but he's only capable of so much at any given time. So much trust. So much belief. He holds the knowledge as a mile marker, a goal to be obtained, something to work towards, and resigns himself to having to work towards it. There won't be a day where he wakes up and finds himself capable of it. He doesn't, anymore, need there to be.

So it's easy, too, to agree to that. Not now, maybe, not when Ben is still thrumming with the hidden but no less exhilarating thrill of admitting something so private, of sharing something that had once meant so much before it was rendered obsolete. But he will. His fingers clasped around his knees twist into themselves, and he is quiet a few more moments.

Then:] May I stay for a while?

[It isn't - in Alex's mind - obsolete. It is a thing that had one purpose and evolved to have another, not totally disparate, purpose. Here is the thing: Ben is kind. Has always been; will always be, in one form or another. This is a manifestation of his kindness, a presentation of it to the world, a tendril reaching out to warmth.]

[Kindness begets kindness, and kindness thrives from kindness given. Alex has never been one for metaphor, but he thinks briefly of a tropical flower, uprooted and transplanted, requiring nourishment. Particularly fragile, but no less vital for all that.]

[The thought scurries away quickly. He'll forget it soon.]

[For the moment, he watches Ben in his silence and then in his thought, and when words come, he smiles.]

Yeah. I'd like that.

Edited 2013-11-12 02:14 (UTC)

Thank you.

[Ben draws a breath as if to say something else, but when he reaches for the words, he finds to his pleasant surprise that everything has already been said. He exhales slowly, quietly, and sets his chin back down on his knees, content.

It's a strange feeling, one he's only just become accustomed to knowing with any kind of regularity or presence of mind; he used to feel it, when he was closest to the Lady. When Zack came back and things were good between them, as rarely as that happened. It's good, now, to know he can relax into it. That he can stay.

So he says nothing further, and he doesn't move except to breathe, and merely enjoys the company of his best friend and a peaceful, beautiful place in which to do so.]

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