He had hated it, but in a lot of ways, things had been easier when he was a ghost. So much of emotion is wrapped up in the body, and he hadn't had one. So even though he felt things in stressful situations (Klaus ODing, his siblings fighting, Vanya's book...), he didn't have a heart to race, a stomach to churn, a body to go cold all over. Coming back to having a body again has been a learning process. And even though more than a month has passed, it still catches him off-guard sometimes, how intensely the physical effects of emotions can hit him.
All that is running in the back of Ben's mind, distantly, as Cho comes closer to him, touches his arms and delivers her impassioned speech about how his mother's death hadn't been his fault. At first he tries to shut it out, invalidate it silently, telling himself that she doesn't know the circumstances. That if she did know, she'd change her mind and say he was the exception. But as she keeps talking, she makes it clear that no matter what the situation or complications, she wouldn't think it was his fault.
That throws him. He thinks, from the ferocity of her conviction, that she must have some personal stake in this, too. Her family sounds traditional: had they blamed her for being born female, like she said? Was her mother infertile after her, barring any future sons? But whatever her own experiences, they don't take anything away from her words.
Ben's heart is thudding away, his arms pressed so tight to his chest that it's like he's trying to keep himself from flying apart. He swallows, little flashes of pain crossing his face without him really realizing it, even as he bites the inside of his lip and does his best to stay stone-faced. He doesn't know why, exactly, it hurts so much to be told this. That it wasn't his fault. He had just assumed that it was, and that anyone would agree. Cho insisting, over and over, that it wasn't his fault, feels rather like being stabbed. He'd never been told that by anyone apart from Klaus, and Klaus is so close that Ben almost forgets sometimes that his brother is not another piece of himself.
It isn't until she says that she's sorry his mother isn't here that Ben actually starts to cry. In his head he blames a million things - sleep deprivation, all ambient post-traumatic garbage that had already screwed him up from being around those rodents earlier, something he ate, some kind of odorless emotion gas in the air... But no matter the catalysts, when she calls him the kind of person who wants to take care of others and says she's sorry Ben's mother couldn't see him like that, he has to reach up and quickly brush hot tears from the corners of his eyes.
He gives a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of his head. He doesn't know anything about his mother. Not her name, how old she was, what she looked like. But he is sure that no possible mother - except one that had been programmed specifically to do so - would look at his life with anything resembling love, or pride. All the people he'd killed... all the blood he'd been steeped in over the years, while he was still a child. One of those children that Cho, because she is a good person, probably thinks are as innocent as babies.
"So... you don't think... anyone is just- born evil? By nature?"
His voice is thick with emotion and held-back tears, and it's only too clear this is what he's thought, about himself. That, if her guess earlier was correct, he had been taught to think about himself. Evil down to his bones, in his cells, fundamentally. Full of a darkness that needed to be contained, because the second that he came into existence, he started to hurt people.
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All that is running in the back of Ben's mind, distantly, as Cho comes closer to him, touches his arms and delivers her impassioned speech about how his mother's death hadn't been his fault. At first he tries to shut it out, invalidate it silently, telling himself that she doesn't know the circumstances. That if she did know, she'd change her mind and say he was the exception. But as she keeps talking, she makes it clear that no matter what the situation or complications, she wouldn't think it was his fault.
That throws him. He thinks, from the ferocity of her conviction, that she must have some personal stake in this, too. Her family sounds traditional: had they blamed her for being born female, like she said? Was her mother infertile after her, barring any future sons? But whatever her own experiences, they don't take anything away from her words.
Ben's heart is thudding away, his arms pressed so tight to his chest that it's like he's trying to keep himself from flying apart. He swallows, little flashes of pain crossing his face without him really realizing it, even as he bites the inside of his lip and does his best to stay stone-faced. He doesn't know why, exactly, it hurts so much to be told this. That it wasn't his fault. He had just assumed that it was, and that anyone would agree. Cho insisting, over and over, that it wasn't his fault, feels rather like being stabbed. He'd never been told that by anyone apart from Klaus, and Klaus is so close that Ben almost forgets sometimes that his brother is not another piece of himself.
It isn't until she says that she's sorry his mother isn't here that Ben actually starts to cry. In his head he blames a million things - sleep deprivation, all ambient post-traumatic garbage that had already screwed him up from being around those rodents earlier, something he ate, some kind of odorless emotion gas in the air... But no matter the catalysts, when she calls him the kind of person who wants to take care of others and says she's sorry Ben's mother couldn't see him like that, he has to reach up and quickly brush hot tears from the corners of his eyes.
He gives a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of his head. He doesn't know anything about his mother. Not her name, how old she was, what she looked like. But he is sure that no possible mother - except one that had been programmed specifically to do so - would look at his life with anything resembling love, or pride. All the people he'd killed... all the blood he'd been steeped in over the years, while he was still a child. One of those children that Cho, because she is a good person, probably thinks are as innocent as babies.
"So... you don't think... anyone is just- born evil? By nature?"
His voice is thick with emotion and held-back tears, and it's only too clear this is what he's thought, about himself. That, if her guess earlier was correct, he had been taught to think about himself. Evil down to his bones, in his cells, fundamentally. Full of a darkness that needed to be contained, because the second that he came into existence, he started to hurt people.