faderift | [closed] the boy is back in town

Entry tags:

[closed] the boy is back in town

WHO: Benedict and Leander
WHAT: Leander gets to Hunt a Man
WHEN: early-mid August
WHERE: Lowtown
NOTES: god who even knows

When Benedict first arrived back in Kirkwall after weeks spent in Minrathous (and the subsequent escort out of Minrathous and dumping near Sundermount), he had every intention of returning to the Gallows, explaining that he was held against his will, offering to continue in his normal duties, and getting on with his life.
Instead, he spent about half an hour just standing at the ferry, watching the boats come and go until he felt compelled by an unseen force to just... not.

He's been Not for a little over a week now. It doesn't suit him: he's filthy, for one thing, and ravenously hungry, the bruises yellowing from his escort "helping" him look the part of an escaped captive, his clothing tattered and stained from both that and the subsequent time spent on the street.

He can't go back, of course. To either Tevinter or Riftwatch, both of whom will likely have his head for some completely valid reason or another. So he just Doesn't, buying time until he gets a better idea.

Maybe Antiva's nice. If he could afford to get on a boat there. Maybe he can sell his hair.

At present, he's huddled in a dark corner of the Hanged Man, forcing himself to stay awake so he can keep watch for food left over from other patrons. He hasn't been kicked out yet, but likely will be before too long.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's almost audible how he crumbles, a deep wince pressing Benedict further against the doorframe. He almost answers with total honesty, but even he, in his rattled state, recognizes that he might be overheard. There's a nagging little feeling keeping him on his guard with Leander, as much as he desperately wants to trust him, to receive this gentleness from anyone; it's always been there, but at the moment he might as well chalk it up to how afraid he already is.
He'd feel the same with anyone, surely.

"I can't go back," he says breathlessly, rather than answer either question, "they'll kill me."

"Who will?"

They might. Leander himself is considering it. There's a simple excuse built in: Benedict fights, Lea makes a regrettable choice. Maybe Benedict has wandered into the wrong quarter and met his end at the hands of Kirkwall's finest. (Not the city guard, obviously.) Maybe no one will ever find him at all. Wouldn't that be a shame.

But there's time, yet. They've hardly begun, and Leander has none of that knee-jerk patriotism to obscure his curiosity. Tevinter, a lifelong fascination, and this young man a living window through which he might glimpse a bit of its truth.

"What happened?"

Pressing a hand over his face, Benedict stifles the urge to collapse into a sobbing heap-- the only thing that escapes is a hitch in his breath, which he calms before shakily replying, "I can't... tell you."

Stopping was clearly a mistake. Leander is going to go back to the Gallows and talk about this, and then it's only a matter of time. Benedict steps out of the doorway to face him, his hands at the ready with fingers slightly splayed, quivering but prepared to cast if the need arises.
He looks awful, like he's about to fall over at any moment.

"Let me go," he says in a weak, pleading voice, "I'll leave Kirkwall, I never should've come back. Pretend you never saw me."

A step slid back, hands hanging soft at waist level, suggestions of caution—as if he's worried of a man who can't bring himself to cast a barrier even when safe at home—

"I can't do that." Potentially ominous words; Leander makes them gentle. "Not now. Look at you—when's the last time you slept?" Easing his weight forward again, the step regained. Careful, careful. "Or ate anything you didn't have to find? Will you... let me help you get cleaned up, at least?"

Barriers are one thing; Benedict has somewhat of a history of casting defensively under duress and making everything worse for everyone, so it's fortunate for both of them that he can't bring himself to do it to Leander.
"Please," he whispers-- whether means 'please let me go' or 'please help me' is unclear-- and he sinks to his knees, their trembling unable to support him any longer. He bows his head in weary surrender, and Leander is free to approach.

Free, perhaps, but it's still early. If he's to approach, it will be with caution—partly for show, yes, also because he isn't a fool. He's played the reverse role more than once. (It helps to have the eyes for it.)

"Shhh," closer, closer still, nothing quick in his movements. "You're all right." Stopping short of Benedict's arm's reach, by his estimate, "Are you hurt anywhere? I won't touch you unless you ask."

It seems the surrender is in earnest. Benedict's head remains lowered, his hands folded over his knees, his shoulders dejectedly slumped. He looks up slightly when spoken to, giving a twitch of his head that's half a nod and half a shake.
"They--" he begins, tempted to cry victim as he always does, but silences himself when he realizes how he'd be implicated. He shakes his head.
"...I'm not hurt badly," he amends, and lifts his eyes the rest of the way, meeting Leander's imploringly. "I can't be seen. By anyone." Which is to say: he'll go with him, but nowhere too visible.

"You're not a ghost yet," he murmurs, and crouches down to meet Benedict at eye level. "I can see you just fine." Tilting his head, looking here and there now that he's closer, for obvious sign of injury—or anything else of particular interest. "Give me a little time to find a place nearby," tilting the other way, "and I'll buy a room and a bath, and come back for you. We'll sneak you in, get a proper meal in you. What do you say?"

(At a glance, Lea reckons he could dash his head on the ground right now and be done with it.)

There are bruises on Benedict's face and arms, most likely elsewhere too, but no evidence of broken skin or otherwise ill use. He watches Leander look him over, his impulse to make a run for it slowly fading. A room, a bath? There are no greater riches imaginable.

He gives a heavy nod, slowly rising to his feet and folding his arms as though chilled despite the heat of the Kirkwall summer evening.

"Good man."

Spoken as they stand together, a casual affirmation with a hidden barb. He seems unaware he's delivered it. (He isn't.) Here he might put a hand on Benedict's shoulder—but he did say he wouldn't touch, so the gesture ghosts a few inches short.

"Come with me to start, and I'll leave you somewhere easier to find again."

And so he does—or leaves Benedict just here, if he insists on waiting longer for Leander to return. Either way, the final destination is the same: an out-of-the-way alehouse with a second entrance that doesn't pass through the kitchen. It's small and grubby, but not overmuch, and there's a single room available with a private bath—which really means, right there on the floor sits a wooden tub that resembles nothing more closely than half a large barrel. For a little more, says the keep, they'll make sure the water's hot on arrival. Enjoying the idea of letting a perfectly good bath cool off while he directs the filthy fugitive to eat first, and the low-effort incentive—perhaps gentle torment—that might provide, Leander deposits an extra coin in the keep's meaty palm.

The stew, at least, is edible. If Benedict becomes inexplicably of a mind to fuss about either mystery meat or boiled tubers, he'll have to be satisfied with the exceptionally average loaf delivered alongside. Leander seems fine with it. In lieu of a spoon he's been using little pieces of bread to deliver broth to his mouth, slowly, appearing indifferent to his own nourishment. (He isn't; his enjoyment is quiet.)

"When you're ready," the implication being he might want to be ready soon, "I'd like to hear what's happened to you."

Edited 2019-08-22 13:30 (UTC)

At any other time Benedict might have put up a fuss, but this is the first full meal that's been his to eat for over a week and it could be straight out of the garbage for all the care he's showing in shoveling it in his mouth. Pathetically, he still can't shake his princely instincts, which means he still holds the spoon a certain way and pauses to use a napkin more often than he'd clearly like.
He would be useless undercover, at least as anything but a highborn.

When he's finally finished daintily scraping the bowl with the bread, he rests back in his chair for a moment, then looks imploringly at the bath. Leander was right, ultimately, he probably would've passed out in there, but the time is right, and--

--bollocks, it's cooled off. He finds this when he crosses the room to test it, already shrugging off his jacket as he casts an uncertain glance over his shoulder at Leander. He's already been naked in front of him once in a similar scenario, but it seems strange now, tilted, the vulnerability of it more pronounced with the man sitting over there asking where he's been.

...but damn it, nothing could feel better than being clean. "...d'you mind," Benedict asks, his hands pausing on the lacing of his shirt, the sheepishness in his eyes suggesting he would prefer Leander turn away.

Without reference to the circumstance, as if it were his own idea and not a suggestion, he turns his face aside—that is, straight ahead. Conveniently, his body's angled nearly perpendicular to Benedict's line of sight, and it was more trouble to look his way in the first place. Now he becomes a vague blend of colours in the corner of Leander's eye.

He pulls free another bit of the bread's soft middle and dips it, languid, elegant even in this basic gesture. Giving him some time to settle in the bath unobserved, and listening to whatever that may mean.

With a small sigh of relief, Benedict proceeds to disrobe, peeling off his disgusting, filthy clothing and letting it fall in a heap beside the tub. The... not-quite-big-enough tub, which he (a fairly tall person) has to fold himself into like a little wooden puppet, but all the same it feels wonderful.
He dunks his head forward, proceeding to scrub with gusto at his scalp and limbs until, before too long, he's looking much better off and the water is grey and murky. Now, freed from their cover of dirt, the bruises on his arms and his knees are more visible.

If only it were comfortable enough to remain thus, but he can tell he's going to start cramping up soon and has to emerge. Snatching a nearby towel, he rises and wraps it around his waist, looking more himself by the moment-- complete with the contented little smile that's so characteristic of him when he gets what he wants.

Without re-dressing (he'll think about that later), Benedict wanders to the most comfortable piece of furniture in the room, whether it's a chaise or a sofa or the bed, and flops down onto it with a sigh of relief. Finally, human again.

That would be the bed. Leander's in one of two waxy wooden chairs at the waxy wooden table, there isn't enough room to place a sofa—there probably isn't a sofa in the entire building—and the master of this fine establishment has almost certainly never heard the word chaise.

Leander has waited patiently for the bath to be finished, legs crossed at the knee, looking at nothing in particular for very long, discreetly bored. He's left a hollowed-out heel of bread on his plate and all the stewed meat and vegetables behind in his bowl. (Except for two starchy white lumps of potato and one mushy carrot stump.)

His cue to reengage: the sound of a human achieving repose.

"Welcome back." With a slight lean to one side, looking to the sad heap of rags on the floor, "I've asked the keep to drum up some clothes—they'll be dull and ill-fitting, but better than," a dismissive flick of the wrist as he settles back. "That'll be for the morning. Unless you're keen to be off."

"You--" comes the near-question, surprised, followed by a grateful, almost pleasant smile as Benedict angles his head to look at Leander from where he reclines. Whatever the situation, he's fed, clean, and sleepy, and his body is quickly reassuring him that any more pressing cares can wait until tomorrow.
"...thank you," he says instead, with a little sigh. Turning his head to look at the ceiling, he breathes out through his nose, just appreciating the comfort of his present arrangement. "I misjudged you, I think. ...I'm sorry."

"No need," comes with an air of dismissal, too: the satisfied kind. "I should think this makes us even."

(He says, while pushing down on the cosmic scale with one deliberate finger.)

"Will you tell me, now, why you've been running around like an urchin? Where did you get those bruises?" If Benedict remembers he's a Creation mage, he might oblige a request to heal them, but in the course of the bath he's decided not to offer. For making him wait.

The comment about them being even now receives a funny look, but Benedict is too exhausted to find any further suspicion in it. He can't think of anything he's ever done for Leander that would merit this kindness, but... perhaps he just doesn't remember?

"They're from--..." He lolls his head back to look at one on his wrist, wrinkling his nose at it. They're supposed to be from his long journey home from Minrathous, the one after which he was supposed to report directly back to Riftwatch and hope they'd believe he'd fled.
It's been too long to settle on that story. He's good at pontificating, at stalling, but not at outright lying.

"...from when I was dropped off. Outside the city." He presses at one with a wince, then cuts his exhausted gaze back to Leander. "...please, I don't want to talk about it."

Benedict is lucky, he thinks—only if you tilt your head and squint—that Alexandrie sent someone with an ample reservoir of forbearance to fetch him. If you're going to fuck off for ages and refuse to be honest about it, the least you can do is lie well. Practise, maybe, while you do your fucking off. What's he been up to all this time? Leander can't imagine doing nothing for so long.

Tilting his head, and squinting, "Dropped off from where?"

It was hardly nothing, but when one is so singularly relied upon to be both already good at everything expected of him and fully willing to do so, it's all the more obvious when he... isn't.

He fights with himself a moment-- fighting fatigue as much as anything else-- and shakes his head.
"Please don't," he says, a bit more softly, and flashes a smile Leander's way: one that's both ingratiating and pleading. "...please. Forget about-- about Riftwatch right now. And Tevinter. ...let me forget." The smile drifts away into something more self-conscious.

Benedict struggles and smiles and drifts, and Leander is unmoved by any of it. But he's responded well to kindness so far; a little more may not go amiss. Even if it does take a little effort, now, not to roll his eyes externally.

At last, he smiles in return. It's thin this time. Perhaps he's tired, too.

"Very well."

Perhaps he is tired, at that; standing out of the chair feels like a chore. Fortunately there's plenty of sitting to be had in his immediate future, but first he must reach the door. Check the latch. Engage the lock. And, in the same moment he engages the lock, place his other hand on the wood—casually, like he's steadying himself, or creating leverage for a sticky mechanism—and nudge it out of shape enough to wedge it against the frame. Once he's done that, this door won't open. Not even with a key. Not without tools.

(Like he was meant to do months earlier, with the door to the Speaker's room, before he lost consciousness along with much of his blood.)

"Sleep, then—and hope the spirits are kind enough not to ask you either."

There's that feeling again, like something's not quite right in Leander's eyes, in his smile, but sleep is beginning to take Benedict and there's no fighting it now. Something has happened to the door-- it's locked? Beyond locked, there's something else happening, but-- sleep, his mind says, and so does Leander, so that's permission enough.
Tugging off the towel, he instead pulls the covers over himself and, in very little time at all, proceeds to lose consciousness. He'll worry about it tomorrow, whatever It is.

By tomorrow, Leander will have come and gone from the room twice: once simply to remove himself from the presence of a sleeping body, thinking it would help him keep awake (he was correct); and once to take the dishes down and ask after the clothing he'd requested hours before. Both visits to the downstairs would reassure the keep that there'd be no reason to call at the room, since all was well.

Which it was.

If Benedict had woken up before Leander's return, either time, he would've been fine, given the pitcher of potable water (though he could certainly drink from the leftover bath if he really wanted to), and the makeshift privy box hidden behind a folding screen in the corner furthest from the bed. (The screen's a thoughtful addition, in Lea's opinion, despite being old and damaged.) The locked and jammed door, on the other hand, may have given him pause.

Fortunately, when Leander reenters the room, the body hasn't moved from the bed, and so he doesn't disguise the brief wood-warping as anything but; he reckons that little amount of magic shouldn't be enough to rouse Benedict from a dead sleep. But then, neither does he disguise or soften his footfalls, either. Fabric rustling, clothes being shaken out. A soft tut of disapproval at something or other. Sound of a chair moving, a glass being filled.

Whether or not Benedict has shown signs of stirring by now, Leander brings a cup of water to bedside and bumps it against the sleeper's shoulder. And again, if necessary.

"Here. Up you get."

Never an especially early riser, Benedict isn't easily coaxed from sleep, glancing groggily over one shoulder toward the cup before rolling onto his stomach and hugging the pillow with a little sigh.
"Half an hour," he mutters into the pillowcase.

"Up you get," Leander repeats, entirely unmoved in any direction by the refusal. The cup continues to hover just there, insistently. The hand holding it is relaxed, the arm too, and the face above them both—should Benedict happen to peek upward—is a mask of unsmiling calm. Not severe, only still. "You've slept long enough."

Peek upward he does, in exasperation, but the look he sees stops him cold. It takes him a moment to strategize how to proceed; perhaps further stalling is in order, placating rather than facing a still and awkward interaction with a man he barely knows and can hardly even hope to read.

"Or you could join me," he offers coyly, lifting his head to rest it on the back of one hand: here is a man who knows he has charm and roughly when to use it, even if it's misguided in this case.

Misguided, indeed, and paradoxically welcome.

The opacity of Leander's expression seems to lessen. (It's just increased.) He smiles, and tilts his head, and seems to be thankful for the reminder that he's allowed to be a human being now and then—or, at least, that he should relax once in a while. (No one has ever needed to remind him of that.) With a pleasant, chuckling hum, he reaches out to run his knuckles along the crest of Benedict's jaw.

"Poor thing," like this is a little joke they now share, "you must be starving for friendly attention, after all that." Whatever that is. He can guess; that isn't what he wants. "But I really shouldn't."

Such a workaholic. If only he could escape the chains of professionalism.

Benedict mirrors his smile, such that it is, not even really seeming to mind the condescension of Leander's response. He's not proud, but... well, he is starving for it, and one might say always has been.
But he's been told no, and based on the delicacy of the situation, he'll have to accept that. But instead he just sighs and rolls onto his back again, blinking up at the ceiling.

"What's your hurry, anyway," he murmurs, "if you've somewhere to be, just leave me here and I'll make my way out."

To show him an alternative path, only to snatch it away just as quickly: a direct hit to his patience. Continuing to appear benign suddenly requires more effort than he'd otherwise care to spend, but he's already committed to it, and so—taking special care to keep his hands soft, his posture relaxed, belying none of his frustration—he sits on the edge of the bed.

"I could." He still might, just to see what would happen next. "I could've left after you fell asleep." Pale fingers (still soft, still steady) find a bit of the hair spread beside him, toy with it almost hesitantly. "But I didn't, did I?"

That's... true.
Benedict's brow furrows, and then he raises his gaze to meet Leander's with a searching look, warily prompting him to get to his point.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[closed] the boy is back in town

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject