tolaywaste | 30.

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30. » spam

spam } open

[Since the other Barge, Alex has been quiet. A lot of the anger he was feeling in the last few months has gone, or at least - more likely - been suppressed. He let out too much anger when he was there, and it probably still counts. Probably.]

[With Aeryn graduated - which he doesn't make an announcement about; it was her business to say goodbye to people, if she wanted to - he's quieter still. His habits become almost pathological. In the morning he runs in the CES. During the day, he spends time in the gym, maybe too much, and visits Ben in the kitchens.]

[And then, on a whim, he starts visiting the gardens. They remind him of Snow. Lately, idly, he's been thinking of visiting her. Seeing the forest she talked about.]

[The gardens are the place where he smiles most, at nothing in particular that's outside of his head.]

spam } anya

[He has to knock on her door with an elbow, because his hands are full. Full of bowls and plates haphazardly covered with tinfoil. It actually smells good, although he's dead certain he fucked something up. He's never cooked, properly cooked, without her before.]

[But at least he didn't set anything on fire.]

spam } ben

[Alex is pretty sure that most people, on meeting him, would never suspect he's got the problem of thinking too much. Maybe the opposite. He knows he's no genius, especially compared with some of the people on board, and a lot of times he lets his heart do his thinking instead of his brain.]

[But in terms of ruminating, perseverating, worrying, he does that plenty. And this is something he's thought about for maybe too long. Maybe he should have done it before. But things just kept coming up.]

[There won't be a perfect time to ask a favor this big. He's tried to resign himself to that, but it'd be a lie to say he's not nervous as he knocks on Ben's door.]

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[The first place Ben went, in a long list of rooms and people to check on, had been Alex's room; his friend was out running at the time so instead of his usual sentry post in the chair in the corner, Ben had curled up on the bed, aching and exhausted. Four levels down, even on the elevator, had nearly done him in but he wanted to see his friend. Wanted to make sure the best way he knows how that he was alright.

It's been a slow but steady recovery since then, and Ben is one of the more patient death tollers around. He returns to work in a supervisory role by the second week, and gains strength steadily from there.

Ben is one of those that knows Alex gets trapped in his own head. He's watched it happen time and time again, and he does his best to pull his friend back out into the world when it gets too bad. This is, in truth, part of why he began breaking into rooms to begin with, aside from genuine concern and no sound method for expressing it: it is very difficult to internalize that kind of shock fresh out of sleep.

Ben is not asleep, now. He is sitting cross-legged on his bed, barefoot in his BDU pants, but wearing the sweater Anya knit him for Christmas with his name across the front; he's bent over a book in his lap, idly rubbing his chest, when he glances up.

A few moments later he's answering the door, the bright brown of his eyes shifting from curious and wary - in that order - to warm as he steps out from behind it upon seeing who it is.]

Hello, Alex.

Edited 2014-05-26 00:31 (UTC)

[Alex's eyes shift wary, warm, nervous, warm. Wary again. He's never looked more like a prey animal than he does right now, frozen in the sight of what he's built himself up to asking.]

[He smiles anyway, because that's what he does for Ben, always.]

Hey, Ben. How--

[--are you? But his voice cracks a little and he hunches his shoulders, embarrassed.]

. . . do you. Have a minute? Just, there's a favor I want to ask you.

[Be direct about it. Don't play games. Friends don't play games with each other.]

[It took Ben a long time to understand the caution he recognizes in Alex; his friend is not, like Ben himself when they met, afraid of everyone and everything around him. He is afraid for them, for what may happen to them if they are near him for too long. At all.

Somewhere along the way, Ben decided he could trust Alex, and he has not been wrong: Alex does not press close, to avoid triggering Ben's fear. Ben has taken to standing directly before Alex, unflinching and unafraid. He does so now for just a moment, then steps aside with an inviting motion of his hand, his eyebrows pulling ever so slightly together in what would be, on others, a mere thought of concern.

He doesn't know what it is that has Alex looking like that, but he knows he won't be wondering long, one way or another.]

Yes, Alex. I'm fine. Please come in and tell me what's going on.

[Ben knows what Alex is going to say before he says it. Ben stands close because Alex doesn't, just in case. Ben is looking at him now with something that Alex thinks might be the transgenic version of alarm. Then again, he could be totally wrong. Overreacting. Something.]

[He comes in anyway, forcing himself to relax and to stand straight. After a moment of looking around like he's never seen the room before, he sits on one of the chairs by the table. Then he looks at Ben with wide eyes, slightly helpless.]

I want a tattoo. Right here. [His right hand over his heart, which he can feel beating.] And I want you to do it.

[He forces himself to stop talking then, to only bite the inside of his cheek enough that it hurts but not enough that it bleeds, to keep looking at Ben instead of away. He can explain more later. This is enough that Ben can say no if no is the right answer.]

[Ben suspects he knows what this is about, the moment after Alex crosses the threshold of his room and Ben closes the door behind him, trails him quietly to the chair. Something at the very center of him pulls more painfully than the ghost of a wound that killed him, but he does not show it. He's good at not showing things. He can hold onto it until Alex is gone, and he opens his mouth to tell his friend it's alright. He will be even, he will be steady, he will smile.

He is wrong.

Perplexed - and completely blindsided - Ben tilts his head sharply, questioning gaze still on Alex. He has just enough time to process the desire at all, just enough time to wonder why it would cause such distress, why he's being told at all, when Alex closes the statement and then looks at him like he expects Ben to explode.

Instead, the X5 goes very, very still.]

Alex, I... [He does, of course, know how to do it. He tattooed his victims, made them less than, made them him, made them dead. He's distanced himself from the free falling tailspin that was that part of his life, but he still feels the pull of it. He still knows what it meant, for him.

But he has also learned that it means other things to other people. Slowly, carefully, after a long minute of trying to decide what question to ask, he says:] I don't understand.

[So he doesn't say no.]

[He doesn't say yes, either, but Alex expected that in his way. He can't predict every iteration of any interaction, but he knows that this is too complex to move forward quickly. He knows that this means too many different things at once to be navigated easily.]

[There is something in Ben that goes quickly, dangerously sharp once he's processed the question. Alex is not afraid, but he is cautious. He has the file. He knows what this means. He knows that Ben held people still and scratched his bar code into their necks. He knows what came after.]

[That isn't this. But it's not far enough removed not to call back to that time, and Alex knows it. That's why he didn't ask right away - why he feels like apologizing after every word. It's also why it's important that Ben do it. Alex can't explain it, or at least can't explain it well, but it has to be Ben's hand.]

Do you remember - when I died? When you wrote 100% on my hands. How it felt good, it felt solid. It was better, for me. Because of what it was, and because it was you.

Do you remember?

[It would be inaccurate to say that there is a part of Ben that fears having power over another; there isn't. He is wary of his inherent ability to overpower and outclass most adversaries, intentional or otherwise, and rarely chooses to engage unless specifically asked or forced. He does not like the way that Manticore made that a part of him, when he suspects his own personality is anything but forceful.

This isn't that. Ben still remembers how it felt, though, men struggling beneath his palms, marking them so that they would make sense in the context of his insane world. How it sounds familiar, what Alex is saying, how it felt good, solid, better for him.]

I remember. [ And he does, too, remember that day. He remembers explaining about how the solid black lines help remind him who to be, help ground him; he had intended for it to help Alex, if it could. He doubts many others would have listened to him the way Alex did, would have accepted it as one of the many, many ways in which Ben is different but not necessarily bad.

He hasn't written his own manifesto on his skin in months; even when he'd been teetering on the edge of sanity at the mercy of his own genetic failings, he had not needed it. It's a bandaid for his mental state, and that had been more or less physical. Now...

Ben thinks about sitting down, as he did then, cross legged on the floor before Alex. Instead he shifts his weight slightly, tilts his head the opposite direction.]

I'm glad it helped you. I know... [But he already explained it, so he just trails off for now, still questioning, still uncertain, a flash of confusion and caution from a knife's blade.]

[Ben doesn't sit, so Alex holds his hands out. It's mostly a plea, partially a request. Maybe even a little manipulative. He doesn't want to be this far away from the people he cares about - "this far away" being a few feet which feel like miles. He feels the end of his time here tugging at him like the ebbing tide, and it hurts, it aches to think about being further.]

[So he holds his hands out and begs with his eyes and feels alone and sorry, because Ben doesn't understand and he's never been much for words. But he tries. Again and again he'll try if there's even the slightest chance it might help someday.]

Please. I want to have it as part of me. 100%. Because I think . . . if it is, I won't get so scared and confused. I won't fall so fast or so often, because it'll be right there. And I'll know . . .

[Everything that it means, and it does mean everything. They are friends, 100%; there for each other, 100%; they are, 100%, themselves, a 100% unique composition that, separate and together, cannot be replicated. It's a statement of meaning, a statement of wholeness. It makes him feel valuable and in one piece, and not alone.]

[He worries his lip and doesn't let his hands waver even a bit.]

[Ben wishes he could say he didn't understand again. The problem is, he does.]

And it must be me.

[There is something possessive there in his quiet voice between the two of them, his answer to the imploring tone in everything about Alex. He realizes, without asking, what it is that Alex wants tattooed there just above his heart, punched into his skin and stained into his blood. No one asks for a barcode.

Neither of them asked for a friend, either. It just happened. Alex is his, this friendship is his, this task is his. For the first time, he thinks he may understand what a "right" is - though it doesn't stop his hands from wanting to tremble at his sides, before he lifts one to reach out to close the gap, hesitating just before their skin touches and then dropping their fingers together.

100%. He'll always know he has Ben, even if they are not together.]

It is part of you. But I... understand.

I will do my best. If you are sure.

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