[closed] save me

[altusimperius]

WHO: Benedict, people with clearance to see him
WHAT: Benedict is in baby jail resulting from some poor decision-making.
WHEN: the days following this
WHERE: BABY JAIL (the Gallows dungeon, solitary confinement)
NOTES: It might get dark? There will likely be talk of abuse. Also, only certain people will be allowed to see him, so please PM me if you want to get in on it!

The attitude is more difficult to maintain when no one's around, and it didn't take Benedict very long to cave. Between the magebane, the darkness, and the quiet, he's been an emotional wreck; he has outright refused to eat the rations slid to him through the slot in the door and would shout at the guard who put them there, a barrage of desperate pleas and empty threats.

As despair has settled in, Benedict has gone quieter, ending his hunger strike by picking at the tray even if he never finishes it, weeping often and becoming increasingly convinced that he's going mad.
Someone like him was never prepared for the likes of this.

Comments

[ragweed]

He leaves the tea put, where Benedict can grab it should he change his mind. Though Kit has to acknowledge that he doesn't really have much incentive to do so, or to cooperate, all things considered. He scratches absently at his beard.

"You know you're not going anywhere until folks with way more clout than me decide to let you out." He delivers the news to Benedict straight, but not unkindly; judging by the state he's in, he wonders just how far a little kindness might go in getting the Inquisition what it wants from him.

"I told you I believe you," he points out thoughtfully, spreading his hands some. "You want me to help you, you've got to help me a little bit, too. C'mon," he adds, nudging the tea forward a bit with his boot. "This'll be a nice break from the shitty well water they're giving you."

[altusimperius]

Huffing out an angry breath, Benedict draws one in, and has a little more trouble keeping the next exhale from shaking. He ducks his head and pinches his nose, using every ounce of his restraint not to break, but he's never even tried to conceal his thoughts before, let alone the negative ones.
Perhaps it's the unexpected kindness that breaks him, or that he has no idea what will follow it; the next breath comes out as a sob, which he stifles into his hands as he quickly loses his composure. This has been waiting just below the surface for days, and though periodically it comes out, never when anyone else is here. Looks like this is the exception.

[ragweed]

Kit waits in uncomfortable silence as the last shreds of Benedict's admittedly limited composure dissolve around him. He finds it difficult to watch, and so instead affords the boy a modicum of privacy by looking away from him, to pick at bits of stubborn dirt that remain ever lodged under his fingernails.

When it sounds to him as though Benedict is beginning to regain control of his shuddering breaths, he looks up again. He doesn't ask any questions, doesn't make any more offers. Just nudges the cup of tea towards him. Now it looks like he might really need it.

[altusimperius]

Becoming rapidly more dismayed by the fact that he now has no way to blow his nose unless he uses his own shirt, which is already filthy, Benedict caves. He picks up the cup with a furtive glance to the dwarf, sniffs it as best he can despite having just been crying, and takes a sip. Finding that it at least isn't obviously poisoned, he glances back at Kit again and gives an almost imperceptible nod. Gratitude? Don't read too much into it, plebe.

[ragweed]

"Good," Kit says, like someone might say to a spooked horse that is starting to gentle. He can't make a clean kerchief materialize out of no where, but there's a passably clean tag for wiping down his amor in his pocket. Kit fetches that out and tosses it over to him.

"So," he begins while Benedict drinks, "how do you know the old bastard?" Referring to Atticus, ostensibly. "Family connection?"

[altusimperius]

Benedict picks up the cloth and blows his nose, this time not looking at his benefactor because his eyes are too watery and he's too ashamed of this total, abject indignity.
He sips at the tea, sneering behind it as soon as the subject arises. "I was his apprentice," he mumbles, emphasis on 'was'.

[ragweed]

At least he's accepting the small gestures of kindness that are extended to him now. It's a step in the right direction.

"I was his apprentice."

"Yeah, picked up on that part already," Kit answers him, smiling a lopsided, crooked grin, then braces his elbows on both of his knees. He spreads his hands out to either side. "I get the impression he kind of left you out of the loop regarding his moonlighting gig for the Venatori."

He considers his next words carefully, scratching at the underside of his chin where the bristles of his beard make his skin itch. Too many different angles to play--and since being given the choice about it, Kit's hasn't been the type of person to get what he wants from a guy just by beating it out of him, physically or otherwise. He doesn't have the head for manipulation, either, not when his mark is in this state. Maybe especially when his mark is in this state.

"You play cards?" he asks at last, already fetching a deck out of his pocket. Yeah, he just carries those with him basically everywhere. "C'mon, sit up, I'll teach you something easy."

[altusimperius]

The subject never gets any less infuriating, and Benedict bristles at the mention of it, and at 'Venatori', a word he's tired of hearing and even more tired of saying. Whatever the Venatori are, they've destroyed his life without even trying.

He finishes the tea and sets it down, almost docile for a moment before he looks back at Kit. His gaze flits to the cards, then back up to the man's face, his own expression seeming to say 'are you joking'.
"No, he replies, as though it should be obvious that he doesn't, "I'm not common."

[ragweed]

"I'm not common."

"Well I won't hold that against you this time, you can't help how you're born," Kit goes right on as though Benedict's statement hasn't ruffled him at all. "Anyway, sit up--I'm going to teach you Dead Man's Tricks."

He shuffles the cards with dextrous fingers; he doesn't quite put on a show as he does it, but he does do a few sleight of hand tricks with the cards just to demonstrate that he can. He goes over the rules regardless of how interested in it Benedict seems; if he's bored, that at least means he's not languishing in misery.

[altusimperius]

The look Benedict sends Kit is incredulous, but at the very least he is silenced by the comment.
He continues to sit turned away, arms folded, side pressed against the wall, as he scrutinizes the cards and the person manipulating them. Blessedly, he refrains from speaking all the while, enduring the tutorial because it's here and there are no other options.

[ragweed]

It's not a complicated tutorial, even for someone who doesn't have a head for cards, and Kit makes sure to go through even the slightly more complicated bits a bit more slowly, since Benedict is obviously a beginner at this. (He's actually not a bad teacher.)

At the end of it, he toys with a couple of the cards, even managing the illusion of disappearing one into his palm, only to make it reappear supposedly out of thin air in the other hand. Then, casual as can be, he tucks the card back into the deck and shuffles it again. "So what do you say? Wanna give it a try?"

[altusimperius]

An immediate response would suggest eagerness, which Benedict is in no way willing to do. Even here in this cell, the only power he has is that over his own aloofness, especially when someone is trying to get his attention.
Perhaps he's able to see that there is kindness in the visitor's actions, but at the moment, control is key. Not sympathy.

"Fine," he says after some debate, and resigns himself to it. If he loses on the first round, he almost certainly won't want to play again.

[ragweed]

"Great," Kit says, like it actually is, and deals the cards without preamble.

It's a game that goes pretty quick, once one gets the hang of it. When Benedict seems unsure of how to proceed with a given hand, Kit's comfortable enough giving him pointers, or just hints to help him figure it out on his own. At the end of the first game, Benedict is in fact the winner (and whether or not Kit let him win is immaterial, since the point of the game really wasn't for him to hold anything over Benedict's head in the first place).

Afterwards, he gathers up the cards, shuffles them again, and starts to put them away, then reconsiders. He hands them over to Benedict. "So you can practice more for next time," he says; whether or not he takes them, Kit starts to get up to leave.

[altusimperius]

The mental stimulation alone is enough to make Benedict feel better, and by the time they've finished the game, he's gotten a little into it. When Kit starts to shuffle up the cards again, the boy watches them almost hungrily, and is then surprised when they're instead given to him.
And now the dwarf is leaving.
"Wait," Benedict says, a command weakened by desperation.

[ragweed]

"Wait."

Kit pauses with a carefully guarded look on his face, but it's not one bereft of compassion. Ancestors, but keeping the kid in here is doing nothing for him, or the Inquisition.

"What?" he asks.

[altusimperius]

Benedict stalls briefly. He doesn't want to sound like he's asking for help, especially not pleading, nothing so undignified.
It comes out as more of a command when he says, "I want to play again." He narrows his eyes, tensing his shoulders, anticipating the slam of a door and darkness again.

[ragweed]

Maybe someone else would caution Kit against giving Benedict what he wants, even in such small measure. Another set of eyes might see manipulation alone; Kit isn't blind to it, not really.

In this case, though, what's the harm? Madame de Cedoux and that Templar wanted Benedict to look to him as a source of security in an uncertain world. They've gotten their wish.

The least Kit can do is make it more than a ploy.

He shrugs, eases himself back down onto the stool, and gestures at the cards. "You deal this time."

[altusimperius]

Though it is manipulation in its way, it's manipulation in its simplest form: a homeless person asking for coin is performing a manipulation in the way a prisoner is currently asking for company.
Benedict watches sourly as Kit deliberates, but seems to relax when he comes back, and, after an awkward attempt at shuffling, painstakingly deals the cards out the way he saw the dwarf do it earlier. He scowls in concentration, anxiety no doubt affecting his expression as well.

[ragweed]

They play through the game two or three more times; this time, Kit doesn't go quite as easy on him, and wins more often than he loses--but he makes sure to point out to Benedict just how he was able to win, what he looked for in a good hand, or in an opponent's tells. Maybe with another opponent, he'd be quick to grin and savour his victory, but this is a lesson of more than one kind. This really isn't about cards, after all.

Eventually, the guard comes by and knocks on the door. "Messere Gandir," he prompts nervously, "your time's up."

"All right, give me a minute," Kit calls back. He glances back at Benedict with a small grimace, apology in his eyes. "I've really got to go now, kid."

[altusimperius]

Benedict couldn't possibly look like he's having less fun, but he's an apt pupil and learns the game fairly quickly, even if he loses. He always sneers when he does so, but seems willing to accept the defeat when Kit explains it to him.
And despite how little he appeared to be enjoying it, his faces takes on a fearful, childish quality when Kit picks up to leave a second time.
"No," he says, urgency creeping into the request, "please don't."

[ragweed]

He's not cruel or harsh with Benedict, but this time he doesn't sit back down, even though some part of him is almost wounded by the note of desperation in the boy's voice. Instead he very gently reaches out as though to touch his shoulder, then stops short of doing it, just in case the gesture might spook him. He exhales, looking both sad and weary.

"I have to," he says steadily, then adds with raised eyebrows, "but I'll come back tomorrow. Okay? You hang in there 'til tomorrow?" He doesn't take the cards back, but stacks them up neatly and presses them into one of Benedict's hands. "You keep these, kid, and you practice until I come back."

The way he says it and holds Benedict's gaze makes it a promise.

[altusimperius]

Benedict reluctantly concedes, accepting the cards with a nod and a downward glance. There was a time not so long ago when he'd be able to summon the most pitiful of crocodile tears to get his way, but while he seems on the verge now, there's nothing reptilian about them. This has been the only kindness extended to him since his arrival, the only humanity allowed him since he was put in isolation, and now it's being taken away again.
He holds the cards clasped in his hands and watches Kit go, holding himself together with a weary desolation. He doesn't know when tomorrow will be, he doesn't even know how many days he's been here. Time is meaningless.