Colin raises his hands innocently. "I wasn't going to say anything." His hands go down with a shrug. "But tell me what else you miss. Just for the sake of catharsis. I promise I won't try to steal them for you."
Well that's a can of worms best left unopened. And yet, opened it is. "Oh, Maker," Bene sighs, letting his head thud back against the wall, "...real food. Tea. Wine. A bed. Heat from a fire. Elfroot. Sex." He looks plaintively up at the ceiling.
"Athessa brought some elfroot down to smoke once, and I didn't take any of it. You don't know how fucking hard that was."
That was a fascinating observational exercise allowing Colin to directly consider the commonalities between two people of vastly different backgrounds. Except for the last two things, though. Colin is elbows-deep in elfroot every day and almost never has any urge to smoke any of it. As for sex, Benedict has had sex more recently than Colin. It's not that the lack of it has gone unnoticed, but, well, there's only been the one time, and a standard of frequency hasn't been established, not to mention that any such intimacy is a whole emotional risk Colin is usually exhausted just thinking about.
(He has to gear himself up to physically trusting someone, then tell them about this thing and wait for them to process it, consider the whole time that they might decide it's just too much baggage for a casual hookup, and sometimes he wonders if his feelings for Benedict are mostly a desire not to repeat all that work with someone else.)
"Those are...relatable," he decides is the correct response. "I can start bringing food again, but I strongly suspect 'real' doesn't include your, um, secret ingredient."
Magebane. Which gives Colin a thought.
"Don't you Tevinters use glyphs to take away magic? Seems like I saw those when we were rescuing some of our captured."
It's not like Benedict has had a lot of sex, really, but he's fooled around enough times to know he misses it. It all counts, right?
"Real just means not lukewarm and soggy," he sighs, "whatever happened to Eshal? She used to bring me things sometimes." There's a loftiness to the question, as if he's not a barefoot wretch shivering in a dank cell, but still the hedonist lordling reclining in a plush salon. "Ah, well. I won't push my luck."
He raises his eyebrows at Colin, considering the question. "Oh. Um. Yes, sometimes, I suppose. I don't know how it works."
Colin's lips twist in sympathy, but he determines to go back to bringing Benedict good food. Something else is rather more troubling at the moment.
"They had wards like it on certain places in the Circle as well, to hear the rumors," Colin says. "You, you're cooperative. You eat the food. The next Venatori we capture? I mean, if it were me, I wouldn't eat or drink what I was given."
"...Hm?" It takes Colin a second to draw himself out of his Very Serious Thoughts and replay the sounds he heard issue from Benedict. Half a second later, he's suddenly smiling and blushing, rewarding the playful talk with a gentle chuckle.
"Cheeky," he says with no chastisement at all. He makes a mental note to discuss the matter with Flint later, for reasons other than Benedict's comfort. "It would be more economical to have you in a warded cell than to keep mixing up magebane, but that wouldn't be up to me. I'm afraid your poetry will have to be directed toward Flint, should it come about."
A pouty smile follows, and Benedict rolls his eyes. "He wouldn't appreciate it," he mutters, feigning a sulk, "uncultured ginger. None of them appreciate my wit."
"And here I didn't think you had it in you." Bene shifts so that he's facing the bars, gripping one of them casually. "Perhaps there's hope for you after all."
Bene's astonishment in return is real. "It worked though!" he exclaims, and a strange lightness seems to come into his face; he may as well have been wearing a button reading Ask Me About My Windowscreen, but Colin is the first person to have actually mentioned it.
"I've never made anything like that before," he continues, "and it works! And it fits! ...getting a bit grimy, though." He glances back over his shoulder to survey it.
Colin's grin broadens. "You did get it up!" he says as he spots the mesh up there on the window. He's not going to ask Bene to take it down for him to get a closer look at, since it's already cold in here, but he gets as decent a look as he can from where he is. "Inventive," he critiques. "Resourceful, and quality. We'll make a proper commoner of you yet."
Bene opens his mouth as if to quip back, but just closes it again, clearly pleased by the praise but humbled beyond his comfort level by being called a commoner. That's the way things are going to go, it seems.
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"Oh, Maker," Bene sighs, letting his head thud back against the wall, "...real food. Tea. Wine. A bed. Heat from a fire. Elfroot. Sex." He looks plaintively up at the ceiling.
"Athessa brought some elfroot down to smoke once, and I didn't take any of it. You don't know how fucking hard that was."
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(He has to gear himself up to physically trusting someone, then tell them about this thing and wait for them to process it, consider the whole time that they might decide it's just too much baggage for a casual hookup, and sometimes he wonders if his feelings for Benedict are mostly a desire not to repeat all that work with someone else.)
"Those are...relatable," he decides is the correct response. "I can start bringing food again, but I strongly suspect 'real' doesn't include your, um, secret ingredient."
Magebane. Which gives Colin a thought.
"Don't you Tevinters use glyphs to take away magic? Seems like I saw those when we were rescuing some of our captured."
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"Real just means not lukewarm and soggy," he sighs, "whatever happened to Eshal? She used to bring me things sometimes." There's a loftiness to the question, as if he's not a barefoot wretch shivering in a dank cell, but still the hedonist lordling reclining in a plush salon.
"Ah, well. I won't push my luck."
He raises his eyebrows at Colin, considering the question. "Oh. Um. Yes, sometimes, I suppose. I don't know how it works."
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"They had wards like it on certain places in the Circle as well, to hear the rumors," Colin says. "You, you're cooperative. You eat the food. The next Venatori we capture? I mean, if it were me, I wouldn't eat or drink what I was given."
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He doesn't seem to be taking Colin's thought process too seriously, but then, it's all more or less the same to him in here.
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"Cheeky," he says with no chastisement at all. He makes a mental note to discuss the matter with Flint later, for reasons other than Benedict's comfort. "It would be more economical to have you in a warded cell than to keep mixing up magebane, but that wouldn't be up to me. I'm afraid your poetry will have to be directed toward Flint, should it come about."
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"Go on. Fire back."
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"Colin, you're being mean to me!" he gasps, in what sounds like wonderment.
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"I've never made anything like that before," he continues, "and it works! And it fits! ...getting a bit grimy, though." He glances back over his shoulder to survey it.
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That's the way things are going to go, it seems.
"Maybe," he says evasively, blushing a bit.