WHO: Benedict, some other people, you?? WHAT: just a catch-all WHEN: tra-la, it's may, the lusty month of may WHERE: around and about NOTES: If you'd like something bespoke I'm happy to include it!
There hasn't been a lot of time for catching up, all things considered. Perhaps it's a gesture of goodwill that had Benedict inviting Octavius to come and help him spruce up his office in the aftermath of both the Gallows attack and himself being replaced by an impersonator for two months, but whatever the reasoning, he's brought up some things he managed to recover from his demolished quarters with the intent of making the space a little more his own.
He stops dead upon opening the door: what he couldn't find in the rubble is already here, hung and arranged so tidily as to be indistinguishable from his own actual handiwork. He takes a shuddering breath, glancing wide-eyed around the closet of a room. He didn't do this, but someone with his face did: someone who knew his sensibilities exactly, who had access to every aspect of his life.
Octavius has been putting in his hours in the infirmary and in the library (and, with what little time he has left over, into his search for evidence of his father's whereabouts), and so Benedict's invitation arrives as a pleasant break from a lot of very tiring work around lots of people who understandably don't trust him yet. He accompanies Benedict to go poking through the rubble in search of anything that might be his, and eventually follows after him to his new office space.
When the door opens, he peers inside with an expression of benign interest on his face--yep, that's an office, doesn't look nearly as sparse as he'd been expecting, actually--only to do a double-take when he notices Benedict's expression. Immediately he frowns. "What's the matter?"
Pressing his lips together, Benedict sinks back against the doorframe and clutches, like a comfort object, the small pile of gauzey draperies he'd brought up.
"It decorated," he stammers, "it knew I was planning to decorate, and--" And so it did.
And didn't do a terrible job, even, which is somehow worse. He pinches the bridge of his nose in a scowling wince, trying to will away the disorientation of the moment.
"Tear it all down," he suggests. A beat, and then, holding up his hands placatingly, "I don't mean literally tear anything apart, I just meant--" a vague wave of one hand, "--take everything off the walls, off the shelves. Rearrange the furniture. Then we'll put it back up again."
Octavius' voice brings him back to the moment, and with it follows a flash of embarrassment-- to let himself be seen like this, by fucking Tavi Vedici-- but this is just one of many such revelations lately, considering the very same has been looking after him while he recovers.
It's not a great feeling, being indebted to this person. Or to see him so readily jumping in to help now, even if he's right. A nameless disdain lurches out from somewhere deeply buried to mingle incongruously with gratefulness. This little twerp.
"Yeah," Bene agrees with a breathless nod, taking his time to straighten again.
There had been the very beginnings of a little smile starting to form at the corners of Octavius's mouth, but something in Benedict's expression nips that impulse right in the bud. Awkwardly, Octavius clears his throat and drops his eyes to take an interest in the desk, fakes seeing a bit of dust near the inkwell, and sweeps it aside.
"Anyway, um," he begins smartly, "I'll grab what's on the walls, if you want to start with the surfaces."
He sets the pile he's currently holding down onto the desk, beginning to painstakingly remove any knick-knacks or drapings that are already sitting atop it: little gifts from Satinalias past, a coffee carafe, a candlestick he bought in Antiva City. It's so violating-- he has to force himself to think about anything else, lest the office he worked so hard to attain be ruined for him forever.
"Any progress on finding your father?" he asks, beginning to transfer objects onto the seat of the chair so he can rearrange them to his liking.
Octavius can relate, though he thinks better of bringing up his own experience with violation of his living space and his autonomy. (Given, well, Benedict's mother was the one responsible for making it happen.)
He's got a few maps and tapestries in his arms when Benedict asks that question, and nearly catches his toe on a loose brick. "No," he admits, checks where he's going this time, and heads over to the desk to set them down just for now. One quick, neurotic look at the door, but in truth he's given up on the disguise anyway. "It's like he turns into a bloody ghost after he's been at Skyhold for a few months. Did you know they have his phylactery?"
"Ew," Benedict intones, with more breath than voice, turning to look at Tavi in mild horror, "no." It's one thing to keep phylacteries, a vile enough practice, but to keep Atticus' phylactery?
"Why don't they just track him down like a Southern mage, then?" he asks, drawing up a tapestry from the pile Tavi just set down, to get a better look at it. "They're hardly above that."
Shoulder bumps shoulder as Benedict catches up to Abby in the Gallows courtyard encampment, where he's been a bit scarce lately, but only for reasons she already knows (which is to say, staying with Bastien and Byerly).
"How're you?" he asks lightly, in that I-totally-don't-care-but-super-do-actually way, with a little toss of his head. "I hope you weren't too, you know. In the thick of things."
Abby rolls her eyes because she assumes he's doing this to try and get a rise out of her. Unfortunately she has very few rises left to give; last night was the first one spent in that three-person tent, side by side by side with Clarisse and Ellie. It was weird. Abby didn't sleep much.
"Fine," she grunts, bumping him back with more force than intended. "How're you?"
He's bumped slightly off-course with a little grunt of surprise, rubbing his shoulder as he corrects.
"Fighting fit," he mutters, with a hint of annoyance: look, just because she can kick his ass doesn't mean she should. "You look tired." It's not intended to be an insult.
Oh, right. Shit. Abby reaches out and steadies him, gives him a little pat on the back. A silent apology. Rubs her knuckle into her eye.
"I am tired." No offense taken. She sighs dramatically. "I'm sharing a tent with Clarisse and Ellie." It felt like a good idea at the time. It still is a good idea — she'd rather have them both close where she can keep an eye on them — but that doesn't make it any less weird to sleep in a tent with somebody who used to want her dead.
A little appreciative smirk, and he refrains from picking at her; Abby's clearly going through it, as are they all.
"Are they," he pauses a moment, thinking on how to most tactfully phrase this, "quite busy?" Rooming in close quarters with a couple, and getting little sleep as a result, has its implications.
Maybe it’s her delivery, or the realization of what he’s actually asked, but Benedict bursts into laughter in response. He has to pause to steady himself.
Abby can't really keep her affronted face on for long as he starts to laugh — pretty soon she's laughing too, though still looking at him weird. She says, "Don't," but it's a very half-hearted protest. She says, "I'm trying, okay."
Because she is. Very hard actually, and things are... more or less working out. It's weird, that never happens to her.
Benedict hasn't been down in the dungeons since that time, and based on how he loiters around its entrance, he's in no hurry to do so again, or to be there alone. He's lit a cigarette for himself to pass the time, glancing about with a skittish air until his focus lands on Isaac, to whom he offers a tense little smile of greeting.
A brow lifts in response, mouth clamped around its own twist of paper. Hasn't done anything for his mood. The smoke reeks of mint and - cabbage? - whatever cheap leaf he’s cut the tobacco for. Even the habits of thirty years require occasional,
"Temperance," It tastes like ass. "Is often emphasized in Chantry practice."
He juggles cigarette and a great glass jar, alive with motion.
"Which we’ll endeavor not to hold against it." The jar thunks onto table, sending a dozen spiders scurrying up its insides. "The effects we work toward are needfully contained. Press too hard at sleep, and you may as well club a man."
All the uncertainty of duration, damage, included. Fingers splay over the lid. A spider twitches, falls,
"Different purposes ask different pressure." Putting down a templar takes one fuck of a club. "I’d like to see how lightly you can work."
Though he catches a whiff of what Isaac is smoking, Benedict is polite enough (and almost certainly too nervous) to remark on it, his own tobacco-and-elfroot blend thick in his nose and keeping him calm: it does well to block out the worst of the mildew, the damp stone, the all too familiar miasma of dried sweat and blood and piss from prisoners over the years-- including, of course, himself.
He takes great care not to even look in the direction of the cell where he'd spent the better part of a year, wondering if this place would be the last thing he ever smelled.
Instead he looks at the spiders, wrinkling his nose in a look of anxious distaste and giving a preemptive shudder. Everyone here has seen the big ones in the caves, but somehow the little ones are still worse.
He nods stiffly, cutting his gaze to Isaac. His turn?
"Let's aim to put only," A finger peels away in number. "One of them to sleep."
Isaac steps back - breathing room, but not so far he can't spy. Leaned against the clammy wall, hands folded before him, he looks rather more at home in the belly of this place.
With the slightest bit of hesitance approaching the jar-- what if they get out, what if they touch him-- Benedict extends a hand, takes a breath, concentrates.
The spell works, if nothing else, but it sends every single spider dropping lazily to the bottom of the jar. He sighs through his nose.
"Not bad," It’s not entirely sarcastic - "I’d an apprentice once knock himself out."
Benedict's well ahead of one pasty apostate. They've a moment or two before the creatures inch back to action, and they may resume the time-consuming process of trying again. So,
"How did that feel, when you reached for the spell? What were you thinking of?"
A wry smirk back at Isaac-- it's true, at least he didn't knock himself out-- and Benedict steps back, folding his arms as he waits for the spiders to come to.
"Uh," he considers, clearly searching for the right word to not sound like an incompetent fool and largely failing, "...making them fall asleep?"
"And how do you think of sleep?" Fingers dip in motion, still folded. "What senses, memories, does the spell evoke?"
Half rhetorical, he's still talking:
"Certain teachers and tomes will associate gesture, phrase, with effect. A reliable pattern to reach for, before one may produce a reliable result." As Benedict likely knows for practice. "You're an adult. It's innate to you by now, but revisiting those metaphors, unpacking them - there's no shame in a shortcut to get the job done."
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for Octavius
He stops dead upon opening the door: what he couldn't find in the rubble is already here, hung and arranged so tidily as to be indistinguishable from his own actual handiwork. He takes a shuddering breath, glancing wide-eyed around the closet of a room. He didn't do this, but someone with his face did: someone who knew his sensibilities exactly, who had access to every aspect of his life.
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When the door opens, he peers inside with an expression of benign interest on his face--yep, that's an office, doesn't look nearly as sparse as he'd been expecting, actually--only to do a double-take when he notices Benedict's expression. Immediately he frowns. "What's the matter?"
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"It decorated," he stammers, "it knew I was planning to decorate, and--"
And so it did.
And didn't do a terrible job, even, which is somehow worse. He pinches the bridge of his nose in a scowling wince, trying to will away the disorientation of the moment.
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"Well. Shit." What else do you say to a revelation like that? Octavius redirects his frown towards the rest of the office, then steps across the threshold like being the first to do so will help neutralize some of the bad vibes, or something. He turns about in a slow circle while taking in the décor. Hm.
"Tear it all down," he suggests. A beat, and then, holding up his hands placatingly, "I don't mean literally tear anything apart, I just meant--" a vague wave of one hand, "--take everything off the walls, off the shelves. Rearrange the furniture. Then we'll put it back up again."
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It's not a great feeling, being indebted to this person. Or to see him so readily jumping in to help now, even if he's right. A nameless disdain lurches out from somewhere deeply buried to mingle incongruously with gratefulness. This little twerp.
"Yeah," Bene agrees with a breathless nod, taking his time to straighten again.
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"Anyway, um," he begins smartly, "I'll grab what's on the walls, if you want to start with the surfaces."
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He sets the pile he's currently holding down onto the desk, beginning to painstakingly remove any knick-knacks or drapings that are already sitting atop it: little gifts from Satinalias past, a coffee carafe, a candlestick he bought in Antiva City.
It's so violating-- he has to force himself to think about anything else, lest the office he worked so hard to attain be ruined for him forever.
"Any progress on finding your father?" he asks, beginning to transfer objects onto the seat of the chair so he can rearrange them to his liking.
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He's got a few maps and tapestries in his arms when Benedict asks that question, and nearly catches his toe on a loose brick. "No," he admits, checks where he's going this time, and heads over to the desk to set them down just for now. One quick, neurotic look at the door, but in truth he's given up on the disguise anyway. "It's like he turns into a bloody ghost after he's been at Skyhold for a few months. Did you know they have his phylactery?"
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"Why don't they just track him down like a Southern mage, then?" he asks, drawing up a tapestry from the pile Tavi just set down, to get a better look at it. "They're hardly above that."
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for Abby
Shoulder bumps shoulder as Benedict catches up to Abby in the Gallows courtyard encampment, where he's been a bit scarce lately, but only for reasons she already knows (which is to say, staying with Bastien and Byerly).
"How're you?" he asks lightly, in that I-totally-don't-care-but-super-do-actually way, with a little toss of his head. "I hope you weren't too, you know. In the thick of things."
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"Fine," she grunts, bumping him back with more force than intended. "How're you?"
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"Fighting fit," he mutters, with a hint of annoyance: look, just because she can kick his ass doesn't mean she should.
"You look tired." It's not intended to be an insult.
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"I am tired." No offense taken. She sighs dramatically. "I'm sharing a tent with Clarisse and Ellie." It felt like a good idea at the time. It still is a good idea — she'd rather have them both close where she can keep an eye on them — but that doesn't make it any less weird to sleep in a tent with somebody who used to want her dead.
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"Are they," he pauses a moment, thinking on how to most tactfully phrase this, "quite busy?"
Rooming in close quarters with a couple, and getting little sleep as a result, has its implications.
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Boy, what.
"It's just — weird, that's all!"
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Because she is. Very hard actually, and things are... more or less working out. It's weird, that never happens to her.
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for Isaac
He's lit a cigarette for himself to pass the time, glancing about with a skittish air until his focus lands on Isaac, to whom he offers a tense little smile of greeting.
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"Temperance," It tastes like ass. "Is often emphasized in Chantry practice."
He juggles cigarette and a great glass jar, alive with motion.
"Which we’ll endeavor not to hold against it." The jar thunks onto table, sending a dozen spiders scurrying up its insides. "The effects we work toward are needfully contained. Press too hard at sleep, and you may as well club a man."
All the uncertainty of duration, damage, included. Fingers splay over the lid. A spider twitches, falls,
"Different purposes ask different pressure." Putting down a templar takes one fuck of a club. "I’d like to see how lightly you can work."
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He takes great care not to even look in the direction of the cell where he'd spent the better part of a year, wondering if this place would be the last thing he ever smelled.
Instead he looks at the spiders, wrinkling his nose in a look of anxious distaste and giving a preemptive shudder. Everyone here has seen the big ones in the caves, but somehow the little ones are still worse.
He nods stiffly, cutting his gaze to Isaac. His turn?
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Isaac steps back - breathing room, but not so far he can't spy. Leaned against the clammy wall, hands folded before him, he looks rather more at home in the belly of this place.
(A big one, a cave.)
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The spell works, if nothing else, but it sends every single spider dropping lazily to the bottom of the jar. He sighs through his nose.
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Benedict's well ahead of one pasty apostate. They've a moment or two before the creatures inch back to action, and they may resume the time-consuming process of trying again. So,
"How did that feel, when you reached for the spell? What were you thinking of?"
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"Uh," he considers, clearly searching for the right word to not sound like an incompetent fool and largely failing, "...making them fall asleep?"
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Half rhetorical, he's still talking:
"Certain teachers and tomes will associate gesture, phrase, with effect. A reliable pattern to reach for, before one may produce a reliable result." As Benedict likely knows for practice. "You're an adult. It's innate to you by now, but revisiting those metaphors, unpacking them - there's no shame in a shortcut to get the job done."
"I often think of threads."
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