faderift | [open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

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[open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

WHO: everybody who wants
WHAT: (lukewarm) BEACH PARTY (on rubble, in harbor)
WHEN: late Justinian
WHERE: the Gallows, amidst its newly-acquired sea view
NOTES: he's trying

I. Prep

He didn't ask for help overtly, but Benedict is clearly working hard setting up the space he's designated for the company to have their beach staycation: drapings taken from his own stash and salvaged from the Gallows' erstwhile guest rooms are drawn across glyphed-in-place poles to create shade. He's hauled out a table, onto which he proceeds to place a variety of whatever canapés he could afford to procure with his own wages-- it's not a feast, all right-- and beside which he rolls two barrels of decent-ish wine.

From the baths come a stack of towels piled high in his arms, hindering his vision to such a degree that he may crash into someone not paying attention; pillows and the like come next, in armloads that take multiple trips, by the end of which he's visibly out of breath.

Lastly, it's his very own water pipe making an appearance, which he arranges amidst comfortable ground seating mimics how his room used to look: in fact, most of the accoutrements here are his personal belongings.
As such, he knows just how to set everything to create an attractive, if minimalist, space for an afternoon's leisure.

II. Party?

It may not be an all-out bash like their excursion to the sandier shores of the Waking Sea some years ago, but this, if nothing else, is an opportunity for work on the Gallows to pause in palatable increments. One can be clearing rubble or cataloguing property for the morning, then pop over for an hour of sunbathing and a glass of wine; they're all within calling out distance of the courtyard, and the party likely bleeds into the day's work in a manner somewhat more comfortable than if it were sequestered.

That said: the early summer sea water is cold, the sun is out but meek behind occasional cloud cover, and the festivities are on clean-swept stone rather than sand. The view across the water is of mainland Kirkwall, and all that that entails.
But it's none of it so bad, for anyone looking to take a break. A few musicians even show up a bit later in the afternoon, and Benedict provides a bonfire in the center of the party space as the sun goes down.

Anything brought to share is met with effusive thanks from Benedict, who ensures its appropriate placement and distribution. He doesn't spend much time relaxing himself, instead making the rounds with the air of a fussy host, where he's quick to offer refills or alternatives in libations, or diversions for unsatisfactory activities.

[make your own starters, do your thing, go hog wild-- if you have logistical questions feel free to ask on plurk or discord]

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Strange wishes he could trap that moment in amber to examine it from all angles, tilt and back and forth and catch exactly how Benedict did that,

but instead he just reaches out, bemused, to take the frozen drink back. “Well, I’ll just wait; it’s fit for summer and better than making it too-hot. It does make me miss central air and cooling something awful, though. Does Tevinter have climate-controlled buildings?”

Retrieving the cup, he enjoys the sting of the cold on his hands even if he can’t break into the frozen wine just yet. “Like a summer popsicle. It’ll become a slushie,” he says. Does Thedas have even slushies? Maybe it’s time they did.

"It does," Benedict confirms, settling back onto his elbows and lightly crossing one leg over the other, "at least. For the wealthy." Official buildings, mansions, you know,

"it takes a lot of energy, as I'm sure you can imagine." Let's not talk about where that energy comes from!

“Mm.” A thoughtful noise, hedging. “Back home, too. You saw what it’s like on Earth, those miracles of comfort— We’re technically burning up the entire world to do it. Fossil fuels.”

Strange might marvel at the wonders of Tevinter, but he has to remind himself: there’s always a price. He glances over at the other man, fingertips drumming on the edge of the drink.

“I grill you about this a lot. Someday I’ll cut you a break and stop pestering you about the land of your birth. I just don’t know anyone else from Tevinter besides our Lady Arany.”

"The world," Benedict shrugs, "the Fade. People. Comfort has its cost." Not to get political or anything--

"it's all right," he says with a good-natured little smirk, "we're scarce here for a reason. I'm not sure even Vega would be here if she didn't have to be. I wouldn't have been, not at first."

“How did that happen, anyway?” He’s aware this might be delicate territory too — that scar on Benedict’s throat — but he still wants to ask. There’s the sense of a story lurking beneath that breezy surface, and Strange can’t resist an interesting story.

“It seems a long and unlikely road, to cross sides during a war.”

"It... was."

With the influx of Rifters, and becoming personnel officer, Benedict has had to grow more accustomed to sharing details about himself-- but somehow it never seems to get easier, always carries that feeling of standing on the edge of the cliff, unsure as to whether or not there will be a net below to catch him when he takes the dive.

"Both long and unlikely," he hedges, squinting out at the sea. "I first arrived as a prisoner, under the mentorship of someone who had aligned himself with the Venatori."

“You mentioned that the two of you had turned against the Venatori, and been punished for your trouble. Was that before or after you were taken prisoner?”

The question is more straightforward and curious than coddling. Strange might be leaning a bit on the brisk, neutral tone of voice he typically uses for a medical consultation; gently probing for details and facts, not feelings.

Sometimes coddling is nice, but it's not always what one receives, as Benedict has learned in excess; and Strange wanting to know the truth isn't a knock against him. He has a right to it, as everyone in Riftwatch does.

"After," Benedict admits, a bit furtively, "and it was... really just. Me. Atticus ingratiated himself quickly."

His lips purse into a flat line as he recalls one of the more uncomfortable times in his life.

"I resisted."

Strange checks on his frozen glass, tilting it in the firelight, and then sips some of the melted liquid.

“Resisted joining Riftwatch? What, when we have such luxuries to offer?” A vague gesture of his hand to the broken towers, the tumbledown wall. It’s a dry stab at humour despite (or perhaps exactly because of) that tension at the corners of Benedict’s mouth; an attempt to smooth the way for the rest of this story, whatever it is.

Benedict smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes-- was it even Riftwatch yet, at the time, or still a branch of the Inquisition? For related reasons, he doesn't even quite remember.

"I," he replies, a bit haltingly, "I didn't know how bad things had gotten. Up north. And down here, the... I suppose you could say the culture was different." His mouth twitches, like he's about to say more, but changes course.

"The Templars who were around then-- they were. Really Templars. They handled things like southern Templars do." Focusing very intently on one small rock by his leg, he distractedly adds, "as far as I know, anyway."

Bleak. Bleaker than he expected, perhaps; this version of Benedict is so different from the carefree version he’s used to seeing.

“And you still felt fine joining, after that?” Strange asks.

If he were a different man, he’d feel guilty for continuing to press on this wound, except that it’s granting valuable insight. Adding context to people’s reactions after Julius’ poisoning, the way he’d heard the young mage described— Noted traitorous coward and weakness of the organisation. It’s hardly the first time his loyalties have been dangerously in question.

Now he knows. He likes to know things.

Benedict shakes his head, his mouth giving a little twitch, like it might shift to a smile or a grimace but does neither.
"After-- everything with Atticus," here he unconsciously touches his neck, where the poorly healed scar lies concealed under light fabric, "I had come to trust a few members of Riftwatch, and they vouched for me. I was allowed to move about somewhat freely, as long as I was helpful. And then, when my mother bargained with Riftwatch to get me back, I thought it was over."

He gives another grim shake of his head, still staring at that rock, as though registering Stephen's presence might make him lose his nerve.

"--but she sent me right back. Punished the Templars, to keep them off me, but insisted I return to join willingly. To make my way, she said, and to learn a thing or two about the world, after I'd failed so utterly with Atticus. I,"

Maker, how long ago was this, and yet how raw it feels, how vile to say it aloud,

"I didn't know she was already aligned with the Venatori. She wanted me to write to her. About what I was doing here." He rests his face in one hand. World's Most Oblivious Spy Has Regrets

Oh. Ah. Hm.

Strange pauses; he really is tremendously bad at the whole emotional part of this. Not just your own country and mentor in bed with the enemy, but your own mother: he doesn’t have the right words to offer, and doesn’t even want to try. But what he does do is drain the rest of his now-comfortably-melted wine, refills it, and then holds the cup out to Benedict. Seems the Personnel Officer needs a drink far more than the Head Healer.

“Well, shit,” he says. He instinctively assumes Benedict must not have turned spy, because that sounds like another trip to the cells and surely they wouldn’t let him go a second time, after that —

But you know what they say about assuming. So instead he asks: “What’d you wind up doing?”

SURELY NOT

Absently, Benedict takes the wine glass and simply chills it again (ironically, the less he's paying attention to it, the more successfully he does so) and hands it back, still avoiding eye contact.

"I was angry," he admits, "I wanted to go home. But there were people here, who..." are mostly gone now, but, "...convinced me to try. To make something of it. I'd been given a chance, so I got a job as the chamberlain, started sort of-- almost-- fitting in. I stopped writing letters home, hadn't done one in over a year when I got a message from Mother."

The small muscles in his face twitch: this is clearly not a pleasant memory.

"She had," he begins, with the air of knowing full well how this sentence will be perceived, "...sold... someone very important to me.
I had to return to Tevinter and speak to her to find out where they'd been sent. To whom. --and I brought a friend with me, who was interested in helping freed slaves. My intention was to purchase the slave from her new master, then bring her back south, but I was stupid. It was a trap."

Another little twitch, and the rapid blinking that accompanies twinges of old pain, his lip curling as he holds back a stronger emotion.

"I mean-- the others made it back. It worked, in a way. I still have no idea where they ended up, where she's living now. My friend was a rifter, and she's -- gone."
In the way that only rifters can be.

"--but I stayed behind, with my mother. I was. Weak, I thought she'd been hurt." That look again, like there's a needle being slowly inserted into his arm, and he's just trying not to notice it.
"She... held me there, for a time. Made herself clearer, what she wanted. And then sent me back here again."

They really don’t fill you in on the deep lore when you saunter in as a rifter, brand-new and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Benedict had been an easy enough thing to overlook, just another figure in the backdrop of Riftwatch, not knowing the full scope of it. It was a scab that Strange picked at sometimes out of curiosity, wondering how do the Tevenes feel over on this side of the war, but he’d never truly had to reckon with the damage done.

Made herself clearer feels like a euphemism, feels like skipping over the pertinent ugly details. Strange should know; he tends to do the same, with big glaring omissions of the things he doesn’t want to discuss. So he doesn’t press on that part.

“And then?”

Being overlooked is, if nothing else, Benedict's greatest strength: that he can be overlooked at all is a testament to the work he's put in through the years, to neutralize a reputation so befouled he nearly lost his life over it.

"And then," he continues, measuredly, "...I hid." He clips off the end of the word like it's a punchline, but his eyes are too tired to carry any amusement. "I avoided everyone as long as I could. And failed, of course. I was found, and persuaded to confess."

'Persuaded' is a diplomatic way of putting it, but that's his division, after all--

"Which... I did. I told leadership everything, including the entire reason I was back here at all. I,"

another pause, like a gag that doesn't quite rise all the way, "I begged for mercy. And thus returned downstairs for a time. Until it could be decided what to do with me."

Edited 2024-09-28 04:41 (UTC)

The surprise flickers across the sorcerer’s face, quick and fleeting but there and visible: so there had been a second occasion.

“Two times downstairs. I’m surprised they let you out at all,” he says; blunt still, but amiable enough.

Looking at him just long enough to catch that surprise, Benedict averts his gaze: it's the first time he's ever laid it all out like this for someone, and he shouldn't be surprised himself that this would be the reaction.

"After," he continues, but with a long pause-- he isn't actually certain how long it was-- "some time, a friend vouched for me. He was trusted, so I was given another chance. I started over. A footsoldier."

More or less,

"...and when Byerly was Ambassador, I approached him. Asked for a job. He made me his assistant." A shrug, more dismissive than the words it accompanies, "and saved my life."

It’s such an odd thing, going about your life at Riftwatch for almost two years and not realising all of this lay beneath the surface. Noted traitorous coward. He should have wondered more.

When Benedict looks away from him, Strange looks out at the sunset instead, the last of the light draining away and leaving the bonfire in its place, darkness deepening. There’s still music in the background, distant chatter, occasional laughter from their colleagues, the splash of someone swimming, and the merriment all feels very far away as he pictures the cells instead.

Byerly. More things to quietly note in the back of his mind about the former head of Diplomacy.

“You’ve had,” he says, “a very interesting career.”

A beat, another splash in the distance, the two of them marinating in the silence a little. “Apologies if I brought down the mood. It’s just—” Saying interesting again feels a bit too rude, treating Benedict like he’s a bug pinned under a microscope, and yet. “I had no idea about any of this. Thank you for indulging my curiosity. I like to understand the people I’m working with.”

"Well."

Benedict's energy seems to have drained from him as silence falls over them at last; he hasn't got any banter in him, hasn't on this topic for a long time. A sense of humor about oneself is necessary, but when the joke is just You, it gets tired. Roi des lâches, he'd been called once-- by a friend, at a party, within his earshot.

"Now you know." A furtive glance to Strange, insecurity creeping through, for all that it matters: he doesn't want to be hated or scorned, but it comes as naturally to him as insects to a spiderweb.

For all that Strange can be dismissive and judgmental at times, what Benedict sees when he looks at him is just solemnity. It might be paradoxical, but hearing all of this about the younger mage makes Stephen respect him more. People are more interesting and relatable with a little wear and tear.

He’s still at a loss for what to say, however — that’s rough, buddy? sorry that happened? — so instead, he winds up cribbing someone else’s words:

“A wise man once said to me: just because someone stumbles and loses their way, doesn’t mean they’re lost forever.” He winces. “And it sounds like trite bullshit when I say it, but I do mean that sincerely. I was on trial at the time— for things I might do— forget it, it’s complicated, but my point is that you can always try to do better than you did yesterday. People deserve another chance, or even two. So I’m glad you got it.”

Is this actually reassuring to hear? No clue. He’s trying.

Stephen might find it trite, but Benedict listens silently, watching the lapping water, and finds himself hanging onto the healer's words.

Even two.

At its conclusion, he offers the faintest twitch of a smile, still keeping his head mostly turned away-- he's never been good at hiding his emotions, one of the myriad fucking reasons he makes a terrible spy.

"Thank you," he says softly, and takes a breath, looks like he's about to say more, but instead chickens out with a second, softer, "thank you." He ducks his head again, touched, and definitely does not wipe his eye.

When all else fails, steal from Professor Xavier. Besides: if the professor hadn’t given him another chance, he too might’ve been dead by the end of it.

Stephen is polite enough to keep his own gaze flitting away, to not look directly at Benedict as he ducks his head. It’s unseemly, being forced to be Perceived when you’re going through it. He understands. So instead: he takes another sip of his wine, sweet on his tongue.

“You want a drink?” he asks after a while. Offering a deflection, a safe out. “You should probably get to enjoy some of the party you’ve put together.”

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[open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

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potential wrap or yrs to wrap?