faderift | [open]

He knows that look, because it's the same one Colin was giving him right before Benedict emptied his arsenal and immediately regretted it. So although he puffs up for a moment, aggravated, he forces himself to calm down and settles into something more like a quiet sulk.

"I don't. Know," he admits, at least trying to use his words, "...I don't know how."

“Don’t know how to think about it?” Her brows knit together and she looks, clearly confused, for confirmation or denial.

After a moment's hesitation, Benedict shrugs and looks at her. Yeah, kind of.

She might not be the best person to be having this conversation, but...well, she’s the only one here.

“I mean...you do know how to think, right?”

"I mean--" Bene interjects, and waves his hands helplessly, "it always-- seems like a trap, is the thing. I'll think I have the right answer, but then someone calls me an idiot again, or gets angry, and..."
His hands drop to his sides.
"I know I fucked up. I got under his skin, and it was stupid. I couldn't just stop myself and shut up."

“It only seems like a trap because you only think about things like you,” she says. She might not be good at thinking like a spy, which Yseult made clear, but she can at least understand other people. Usually. “Remember when we first met?”

He scowls, and sighs, and a blush tinges his cheeks. "Yes," he replies sullenly, bracing himself for it.

“Can you understand why I threw the book at you?”

"Yes," in the same furtive tone.

“So the way to avoid getting books thrown at you isssss—?” She raises her eyebrows. It’s really a gamble whether or not he’ll pick up on the metaphor here. The books aren’t always literal books.

"Don't say stupid things to people that will hurt them?" he mutters, "I knew that already." Pausing, his brow twitches into more of a scowl.
"...I mean, I'm bad at it, but I know."

“By thinking about how what you say could hurt them before you say it. Like, Hmm, if I ask Athessa if being a slave would be a bad thing, how would that make her feel?” For that, she lowers her vocal register and approximates his accent, tapping her chin in thought for effect. “Since when you asked, you couldn’t really have known how easily that could’ve happened, simply knowing that it’d feel bad would be enough.”

He’s just lucky that she’s more interested in understanding why he’s such a walnut than in getting well and truly offended.

“What did you say to Colin that made him leave?”

A sulky shrug follows, probably in agreement based on the rest of the conversation. But when Colin comes up again, Benedict first goes very still, then slumps a little lower.

"He accused me of abandoning people," he mumbles, directing his gaze to the floor, "and, um. I. Said he was just mad. Because he's in love with me."

He doesn't dare look at her now.

He’s missing out on her eyebrows trying to ascend off of her face and the rapid blinking like she’s trying to get her brain going again. “Okay, so...Well, you clearly know how he feels about you, then, which means you didn’t say it out of ignorance...”

Is there one step past yikes on the face spectrum?

Even if he can't see her face, he can Feel it. He buries his face in his hands. Yes, it was That Bad.

Well, shit.

“Did you...were you...lashing out because he was right and you didn’t want him to be? So you pushed him away because it was easier?”

"I don't know!!" Benedict snaps suddenly, lowering his hands, "I don't-- I mean I-- I didn't abandon him, I didn't think about it like that! But..."
He winces, the truth fighting to drag itself out despite his best efforts. "...but I guess I don't... think about people? Like I should?" Which is only the entire point of their conversation right now.

A grin practically splits her face in two with how wide it is. Delighted and triumphant and maybe proud but mostly just wickedly surprised that she actually got him to admit to something real and in so many words.

"And there it is."

If anything, he seems more unnerved by the smile than he would be otherwise.

"What? What is it?" he asks, "--nothing makes any sense, I don't know what he even wants from me."

She stares at him.

"You just--" No, there's too much here to unpack. "Okay. Okay-okay-okay, you just said, just. Said. That you don't think about people like you should. That was the right answer, but...so keeping that in mind...you...your idea of love is being nice to someone because you want something? You never thought about like, someone being nice for the sake of being nice, or loving someone without any expectation?"

Bene narrows his eyes back at her, like he doesn't quite understand her point.

"Well everyone has expectations," he says, a bit hesitantly, "...otherwise it's, I mean, why bother?" At the very least, he seems to be approaching this assertion with some caution, venturing into it with the creeping realization that it might not be universal.

"No one's... no one's nice for the sake of being nice? If there's nothing they want, there's something tying their hands."

"For the sake of...of trying to understand this...what would you imagine to be...like...what did I want from you when I gave you your Satinalia presents? What was tying my hands, in this...bizarre, hypothetical scenario."

Someone, somewhere, be proud of her for not calling him a fucking moron in this moment. Bards should sing of her patience and posthumously make her a Saint or something.

He doesn't want to have a ready answer, and yet he does.
"Maybe so you'd look generous to everyone else." He rests his chin on his knees, at least not on any kind of offensive. "I mean-- I like them. The presents. I'm glad you brought them." Just in case she thought he wasn't grateful.

"--or, or maybe you wanted to feel better about yourself. Because there's nothing I can give you right now." The thought seems to trouble him.

She takes a sharp breath as if in preparation to yell at him, or call him stupid, or something, but she clamps down hard on everything she could think to say and takes a moment, pressing her fist to her mouth.

"You are making this so difficult," she grinds out through clenched teeth and thuds her head against the bars lightly. Deep breath. Calm. He's...just consider him a child! That's...better? "First of all, no. Absolutely neither of those things are true. Especially because everyone else amounts to Flint and Colin. I don't care if either of them see me as generous. And for your information, I feel fine about myself."

"Sorry," he says mildly, pursing his lips and looking down at his knees, brow still knitted in uncertainty.

What has he been doing, then? He always wants attention, but always, on some level, knows it's conditional.

"...what do you get out of it?" he says after a moment, "visiting me, giving me things?"

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