faderift | [open] I feel calamity whisper

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[open] I feel calamity whisper

WHO: Benedict & you
WHAT: livin' that wartime life back on the home front
WHEN: Solace, over the course of the modplot
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: feel free to request specific prompts if what's here doesn't suit you!

I. Diplomacy office

Receiving, sorting, answering correspondence; following up on important dates, of which there are seemingly countless these days; making and delivering coffee; taking dictation, recording meetings, making lists; cross-referencing names and locations as requested, labeling markers on a map; there's hardly time to breathe.
It's been some days now since Benedict has had a proper sleep or sit-down, spending his days and nights scrambling after Byerly, seeing to the many minuscule needs of a Diplomacy office when its Forces and Scouting counterparts have fallen off the face of the world.
He doesn't begrudge Byerly-- in fact, for the first time since starting to work for him, Benedict is as quick to snap to his needs as a seasoned valet.
When not hunched over his desk in the office itself, he can frequently be found scurrying to and fro with this or that missive, list, or directive, if not just the latest pot of coffee.

He'll stop for a few moments to chat, but only if it's important.

Ia. for Byerly

With the Diplomacy office's activity having thinned out for the day, the room looks like a hurricane hit it-- this likely includes its denizens, although one of them has stepped out to retrieve more coffee, despite the darkened sky and the guttering candles.
It's an automatic motion, setting the cup on Byerly's desk, but Benedict actually looks at him for the first time in a while, and furrows his brow.

"...how long have you been here, today?"

II. The Off Hours

Going to bed just isn't cutting it anymore. Benedict can lie facedown on his mattress for the hours he's able to take to himself, but amidst the racing thoughts and the day's anxieties, sleep just isn't happening.

It's at these times that he drags himself out of bed and ascends the tower to the room where his hookah lives, long abandoned by either Athessa or Colin, but he can't let himself think about that. He smokes, and lies there staring at the ceiling, and sometimes he sleeps.

After a while, he can be found there nearly every night, either unconscious or trying to be amidst the haze of elfroot smoke.

III. Wildcard

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It makes no difference to me, I’m just telling you the price.

Well, I'll pass. I lived in Orlais for many years. I heard every thing that could ever be said about my homeland.

I suppose there will always be things you don’t know.

Please. You're not going to surprise me.

But you’ll never know for sure.

You're like a little puppy finally learning how to play.

But people like puppies, at least.

Is that the relationship you crave with others?

[Damn, right for the throat.]

...to be liked? Maybe.

[ His specialty. ]

Hm. I've always found it a detestable state of affairs. Being liked.

Why's that?

[The obvious joke of How Would You Know occurs to him, but Bene holds it back. For now.]

[ Easily, breezily: ]

Because as soon as someone likes you, that's when they're set up to be disappointed by you, of course.

Well that's bleak.

[If true.]

Why assume their expectations are that high in the first place?

[ He arches a brow. ]

Dear boy, a man can still fall short of low expectations.

[ Then, an easy shrug. ]

It's rare that a person sees you when they look at you. Most people, instead, look and they see some shadow of some other creature they've known. Flint looks at you and sees the magisters who denied him his power in Tevinter. Yseult looks at you and sees a cringing coward. For me - most people look at me, with all my saucy ways of being, and see the villains of a hundred stage plays, and they see a menace or an accomplice. If someone just likes you, like that - [ He snaps his fingers - ] Without knowing you - Then what they like is your outline, the shadow-puppet you resemble. And when they get to know you, and they see you have your own shape, well, they are disappointed.

[ Another shrug. ]

All of which is to say: You should not give a shit whether someone likes you unless they've proven they can actually see you.

[Say what one will of Byerly, the man has the power to suck the wind from one's sails as quickly as he can put it there, and that in itself makes him an effective diplomat.

Benedict's smile has dwindled to nothing, replaced by a nauseated, haunted expression as he gazes past Byerly.]

What about you? [he asks uneasily,] what do you see?

A dangerous question. You should only ask that if you want to know the answer. Especially given - [ He taps the corner of one beautiful, velvety, long-lashed eye - ] Just how uncharitable my vision is.

[ But: ]

I see a kid. Kids are fuck-ups as a rule. When I was your age - [ A cracked little laugh. ] Well, I'd done worse, truthfully, than you've done. Just no one held my feet to the fire because I wasn't powerful enough for my fuck-ups to be noticed by anyone righteous enough to care.

[ A shrug. ] I see someone who's desperate for a place. Someone who's terrified. Someone who's trying very hard. Someone who shouldn't have been locked up for months.

[At some point he'll have to stop heaping punishment onto himself, but by now Bene is so used to it that it seems only natural. He barely flinches when Byerly prefaces his assessment, and is quiet all the while, absorbing it with an increasingly wearied expression.

It's not inaccurate. Part of him wants to puff out his chest and insist he isn't desperate and terrified, but he's learned enough about Byerly to know how transparent the attempt would be. Instead he just gives a silent nod, crossing one arm over the other to grip it self-consciously.]

[ That expression, and that silence, earns Benedict a rather pinched look and a heavy sigh. ]

You asked. You know that I don't actually like to feel like I'm kicking a little kitten, right? Again, even though I have the mincing gait of a villain, I don't entirely have the heart of one.

I know.

[Spoken quickly, apologetically, and he raises his eyes to meet Byerly's.]

...sorry. I was just thinking. [He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear and rests his chin on one hand with a little sigh.]

And I know you're not a villain, for fuck's sake. [An exasperated little smirk flickers back onto his face.] If I felt ill-used I'd go do something else, keep working in the garden or kiss the Seneschal's arse or something. [Maker forbid]

[ A bitter little smile. ]

Ah, unless I was villainous enough to make you afraid. Because I have power, you see. A fellow can't count on others' trust when he has power.

But you haven't been. ...at least not for a long time.

[He taps his index finger against his chin.]

It seems to me you can think anything you like about yourself, but nothing matters except for what you actually do. And it appears an awful lot like you've been forgoing sleep to keep this operation running, which-- I could be wrong, but-- doesn't strike me as something a duplicitous piece of shit does.

And, you know. [Quietly,] it takes one to know one.

[ A scoff. He can't let that pass without comment. ]

You aspire to duplicity, my guileless little kitten.

[grumbled,]

I'm not a kitten.

[Has Byerly been talking to Astarion? Either way, it's not a moniker he appreciates.]

An adolescent cat, then. One of those ones with ears too big for its head.

[ Then, a sigh. ]

Sleeplessness doesn't make me a good person. If it did, I'd have been an angel before I was twenty.

[This earns Byerly another sullen look, but the topic has moved on.]

Sleeplessness working for the cause, on the other hand, [he sighs, gesturing as though to wave Byerly away.]

I'm not going to try and convince you you aren't a monster. Neither of us has enough hours in the day.

[He turns back to his desk at last, glancing over what he was last working on in hopes the focus will return to him.]

You'll just have to take my word for it, I suppose.

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