redshiftlogs | Cho's open log for October (and September, if desired)

Entry tags:

Cho's open log for October (and September, if desired)

WHO: Cho, with a few starters for specific people. Also open prompts for anyone else.
WHAT: meal prep/serving/clean-up, walking various random animals through the city, morning five mile runs, reflection on just how flipping weird life is now, and misc.
WHERE: all over, really
WHEN: I'm fine backdating anything into the month of September, as I kind of vanished, and also doing anything through October. Basically, it's a two month spanning open log.

NOTES: I can't stand writing in action spam (takes my head right out of the writing), but I don't mind reading it. (Just please don't use tiny text for your brackets.) So if you only write brackets, and don't mind our styles not matching, you can write brackets and I'll write prose and we can still have some awesome CR.

A - mess hall kitchen
Being a cafeteria cook on an alien planet had never been any part of her ten year plan, but life has a funny way of turning tables on you. Cho has had the rug pulled out from under her often enough to know that the only way to survive it is to adapt. In that regard, her family has done her a huge favour with their neglect and disregard. She knows how to adapt. It's not always easy, mind you, but she can do it.

Making food for her fellow displaced refugees, it gives her a very concrete and tangible purpose. People are hungry, she feeds them. It's simple. It's easy. It's also yielding far more immediate and gratifying results than her work in the fish hatchery and bio-lad with Annie and Finnick, which is incredibly slow going, getting the place even functional.

This work is also putting her in the path of new people. Even if it's only to greet them in the mornings and evenings and ask them which of the hot food selections they'd like. She's learning to put names to faces, and feeling accomplished and appreciated, and it's wonderful. Doubly so when someone offers their time to hep her out, and triply so when they don't just want to clean and chop and fetch and carry, but are interested in learning. She loves teaching. She misses it. And while cooking is a far cry from biology, it's still some form of wisdom that she can impart.

[[OOC: If you want to assume that your character and Cho have seen each other enough to know names and bare basics about one another, feel free. If you would like to assume that they've already been helping her with meal prep and stuff, also feel free to do that. Or have them meet for the first time. Whatever works.]]

B - walkways - exercising animals or running (mornings only)
Cho's various trips to the upper levels while the power was out and her subsequent experiments have not netted her much useful information. What she has ended up with is a menagerie of various random animals who have all become far too comfortable with the idea of being brought their food and kept safe from predators for her to ever feel anything but guilty about releasing them back into the upper levels.

So they are her responsibility now, and while some of them are perfectly content to just stay in their little makeshift enclosures, some of them get fed up with her room, and want space. Which she provides in the form of walks. She really wishes that she had a dog. It would at least be something vaguely normal. Instead, she can be found at random hours of the day with varying combinations of cat, hedgehogs, sugar glider, chinchilla, lizard, and quite a few random bits of fur and fluff that don't quite match up with anything she's used to. High energy, though, hence the excursions at random times of the day, when they seem particularly restless.

---

The animals are not the only ones that need exercising. This place wears and grates and it ends up driving Cho kind of nuts sometimes. She's made a promise to not wander off without a buddy, but that doesn't mean she can't go anywhere.

So, sometimes, there are on animals with her while she goes wandering around the walkways on the safe levels. Instead, it's just her and her earphones, her feet eating up the miles as she hurtles herself through the concrete maze that's becoming depressingly familiar. While she might prefer to work out her excess energy someplace a little more private, she won't break her word, and so her morning runs end up taking her back and forth along the residential walkway, as she racks up the miles by retracing her footsteps over and over again in front of the common areas. At least, this early in the morning, it's fairly deserted.

Of course, if she does ever come across someone doing the same thing, well, they would qualify as not going anywhere alone, and would open up a lot of the rest of Anchor as an option for her workouts.

C - spa
It's not a patch on the ocean, but having a functional and clean large body of water to swim in is still doing wonders for Cho's sense of well-being. Not to mention, getting her hair properly cleaned, and the occasional mani-pedi when she allows herself that much time. She favors the area that looks like a Japanese hot spring, doing a lot of floating silently in the large communal area, her hair fanning out around her, floating on the surface of the water like an oil slick. it almost feels like being home, which usually ends up with a tight prickling in her chest and a lump in her throat, but she fights through that. It's good to miss something. It's far better than having nothing you care about.

Most of the time, she's silent, and anyone else arriving might not notice her for a while. Especially if she's tucked herself away in some corner, sitting in water that's shallow enough for it, but deep enough to leave only her nose and above out of the water. She can definitely see the appeal of this place for fun and relaxation, but most of the time, she's either steaming herself in slightly too hot water for homesickness, or swimming laps with the setting as cold as it will go... not that lukewarm is particularly cold.

D - observation deck
The more random detritus from random worlds that shows up to populate the landscape, the more Cho finds herself inexplicably drawn to the observation decks that look out over the desert. She doesn't have a desire to go and see most of it up close, and not just because she'd be on her own in a dangerous place, but viewing it from this distance is strangely compelling.

So she does, settling herself on a bench, or on the floor with her back leaning against a bench, almost always with the animal carrier containing a cat and a giant caterpillar. Sometimes she lets them out to wander, though the most the caterpillar ever seems to do is hang from the edge of her seat, viewing the world from his strange upside down vantage point.

! WILDCARD

Wandering around in general, hanging out in her room, any other location or activity that you're interested in that I haven't talked about. Feel free to either come poke me to plan something, or to just go for it here and we'll make it work on the fly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cho doesn't have the time to feel jittery about being exposed, because Ben just keeps on dropping all this fascinating information like it's nothing, and she gets swept up in it. Besides, he's not looking at her. Maybe he hasn't noticed. It pushes that feeling of discomfort at letting anyone see her in a less than perfect state, the disappointment she knows her family would be feeling at her slip, to the back of her mind where she doesn't have to contend with it.

"You have an emotional link? An actual empathetic link? That's amazing. How have you seen their world? Are you able to see what they see? They're not built intelligently for--" Cho is suddenly smacked with the perfect recall of a series of articles she read about deep space exploration in a scientific journal, and her enthusiasm bursts out of her in a rush. "Is it space?" It had been only theory for the longest time, but the science made sense. "Do they live in space? In the actual vacuum, I mean? If their body has adapted to move through a single atmosphere of pressure in a gravity free environment with a resistance to the cold, that means they have the potential for practically limitless--" Cho runs out of air mid-sentence and the brief little record skip of her realization that she has to breathe also flicks the awareness of Ben's discomfort. "I'm sorry." Was the makeup wipe a subtle hint that getting clean was what he wanted? She's horrible at subtle hints.

Maybe he's trying to be a gentleman and waiting for her to go first? Of course he'd want to get clean after what happened. "You must be so uncomfortable." Cho's not exactly feeling fresh and perfect, but it's always been easy for her to set aside physical discomfort when she gets on a roll. "Why don't you go first? This takes a while." She waves a free hand at her hair. "I'll come through in... fifteen minutes?"

Or if she hears a body hit the tile. She's still concerned. Can't just shut that off.

Ben is, in fact, very uncomfortable. It's not for the reason that Cho means, he suspects, but it's easier to just pretend that what's really bothering him is the blood in his hair and not being asked questions like this. He is glad, really, that she's not scared of him. Maybe this is her way of dealing with the fear, or maybe her scientific impulses are just stronger than her sense of self-preservation.

He gives a small nod, shuffling towards the door to the decontamination showers. He pauses, though, on his way in, hand on the door. Might as well answer her before he goes in, so he doesn't spend the whole time inside weighing how he ought to say it. He knows he'll just dwell on something else unpleasant, but still...

"I said I think I've seen it. I'm not completely sure. I get these dreams sometimes. So I can't be sure if it's a vacuum. I know it's dark. Completely dark. And - different. Just completely unlike... here. It's too hard to put into words."

And with that he walks silently through the door, and into the showers. He keeps in mind what Cho had said about fifteen minutes, cleans himself thoroughly in that time, as if he could scrub everything bad - physical and not - off him. Then he walks out the other side, reclaims his decontaminated clothes and the bag with all the supplies he'd gotten, and he waits in the next room.

Sounds alien to her. Could potentially be a vacuum. The total absence of light. She wants to ask him if it's cold, if he feels weightless, if he can sense the sensation of needing to breathe, but first she needs to let him get clean.

She waits exactly fifteen minutes before going into the shower room. She does so with her eyes closed, though, counting on her memory to keep her from running into anything. She calls out for Ben, and only after receiving no answer twice, does she open her eyes to the empty room.

Cho doesn't expect that Ben is waiting for her. Cho rarely expects that anyone is waiting for her. So she takes the time to wash her hair twice, stands under the spray until the water runs crystal clear. It takes a while. She doesn't mind. It's a pleasant surprise that all of her clothes are waiting for her on the other side. Even the makeup wipe, which is kind of hilarious, though it's razor thin and falls apart in her hands the moment she tries to pick it up. Removing all the contaminated material basically removed the whole wipe. It's kind of funny. Not funny enough to try and take it with her, though. She gets dressed and puts on some minimal makeup, but leaves her damp hair down to air dry. She walks into the next room with her lipstick still in her hand, so familiar with it that she doesn't need a mirror in order to apply it.

Ben sees her walking in and stands up from where he'd clearly been sitting, waiting for her. She's putting on lipstick, and her surprise at seeing him is clear. He can't remember precisely - the panic had faded in the shower under the spray of water and left everything in a kind of light haze - but he guesses he wasn't too clear that he would wait on the other side.

As explanation, before she can say anything, he offers:

"I said I'd look after you. I'm gonna make sure you get home safe. All the way there."

The Anchor is less dangerous than the outside, it's true, but that doesn't mean it is entirely safe. Ben is not letting Cho out of his sight until they're near the residential area.

Then, without planning on it, he blurts:

"I know you probably have a ton more questions but- do you think they can wait? I think - I think I need some rest, after all that. But you know where to find me, and... we can talk, later."

He really doesn't want to talk in the future, honestly, but he especially doesn't want to talk, now.

Cho doesn't respond to his insistence that he's going to walk her home, but a bright smile spreads slowly across her face, washing over her features like a sunrise. Surprise and happiness and a touch of amusement. She twists her lipstick down, snaps the cap back on, tucks it into her pocket, all without looking down. "You waited for me." No, she was not expecting that, but she is glad, though it does make her wish she'd done something with her hair.

She's especially glad that he looks a little bit better. Not entirely, but a little bit. Not as pale. She tamps down all the questions that rush back as soon as her surprise fades a little. He wants a reprieve, and she'd have to be a pretty awful friend to put her own curiosity above his comfort. It's been a heck of an afternoon. So, instead, she files them all away for later. "I feel like I should be the one walking you back."

Ben shakes his head, getting to his feet. He picks up his bag before walking through the door with her, back into this strange place they both call home now.

"Honestly, I'm fine. I've had a lot worse."

He seems like he means it, too, that it's not an empty boast. But fortunately, she doesn't ask what that means, and the two of them make their way back to the safer, more familiar parts of the Anchor. When Ben says goodbye to Cho, leaving her at her room, he is glad, she made it back safe. Even if that meant using his powers... it was worth it.

They see each other from time to time after that, just in passing, never really at a moment when they would get a chance to talk. But Ben isn't all that surprised when he gets a message from Cho asking if he'd eaten that day. Ben knows Cho is one of the ones who prepares meals most consistently for the communal dining hall, so maybe she noticed him absent that morning, even though he's usually very regular about breakfast. He texts back explaining he'd had breakfast in his room a while back, and she invites him to come to a particular room - he knows the area it must be in from the numbers and floor, but he hasn't been there before.

Ben just assumes she wants to have lunch together. Unexpected, sure, but maybe she just wants a little company? He's happy to provide it. So he says he'll be over and turns up about fifteen minutes later, in that same all-black outfit as ever, knocking on the door before poking his head in.

"Hello, Cho? It's Ben."

The room doesn't exactly look like a cozy place to have lunch together, but... maybe this is where she works?

She's been doing her best to not crowd him. Her solution to that impulse is to throw herself into work. Ben is her friend, and she's fascinated by his situation, but that hasn't taken away any of the other issues she's been dealing with. Food production being high on that list. They've been lucky so far, but there's no guarantee that will last.

When Cho hears Ben's voice, of course it's at a moment when she can't just rush over to the main door and meet him. "In here," she calls, her hands steady as she injects small does of genetic material into the nutrient goo in a series of Petri dishes. The hatchery might not be ready for a full cycle of fish yet, but the moment it is, Cho wants to be ready to go with the ideal species. "Down the hallway, first door on the right."

When Ben finds her, she'll be bent over one table in the middle of a large lab area, intently focused on the task at hand, and with a slight variation on the clothing he normally sees her in. Her scrubs are a little more functional, but no less comfortable than her workout wear, and they follow in the theme of coordinating colours. "you made good time. I'm almost done with this. Just give me a minute."

Labs generally speaking are not Ben's favorite place to be, but he does his best not to listen to that initial, instinctive whisper of unease in the back of his mind. Honestly, when had he let himself get so biased? Peter works in a lab - or, well, R&D is close enough to one. And it's not a bad thing that Cho is a scientist. She's probably doing important work to make this place a bit more livable. Time for him to grow up and get over his baggage already.

With that little self-critical pep talk done, Ben walks down the hall and into the door indicated, spotting Cho at once amidst the equipment under the bright fluorescent lights. She seems like she's doing something extremely delicate that can't be interrupted, so he moves into the room quietly and doesn't interrupt, coming over to a place where she'll be able to see him and then just leaning his hip against a counter and waiting, arms folded. There's no impatience in his body language, though. Ben had spent 14 years as a ghost. He's pretty immune to boredom at this rate, and patience comes easily.

Cho certainly looks like she knows what she's doing, wielding that tool to... do whatever she's doing to those little pools of goop in the glass containers. Ben watches, keen-eyed but silent, until she is done.

Cho is finished when the syringe is empty, and she stands up, stretching out her back and setting the tool aside. "Hi! How are you feeling? You look good."

She carefully transfers the Petri dishes onto two shallow trays, and then opens the door of something that looks a bit like Frankenstein's interpretation of a countertop convection oven and places them inside. When she closes the door, she does so very carefully, and then leans down to peer in through the thick glass door. "Grow up big and strong, little wigglers. We're going to need you." Yes, she talks to her experiments. Always has. She's accepted that particular weirdness in herself.

Now, well and truly finished, she pulls the nitrile gloves off of her hands and retrieves the syringe, taking it apart with quick and efficient movements so she can pop it into the autoclave, which, coincidentally is on the wall close to Ben. "Sorry, transfer incubating fish embryos. They're kind of delicate at this stage."

He smiles in response to her greeting - it's a small, quiet thing, but it suits his face.

"I'm good, yeah, how're you?"

It's interesting, watching her work. Ben doesn't know what she's doing - though judging by the location of the place, maybe something to do with fish? - but it's clear it matters a great deal to her. There's something nice about seeing people who care so much about their professions. And from the sound of it, she's growing something? Fish? Is it possible to artificially grow fish eggs?

His guess is confirmed when she says something about incubating embryos. He feels a little pleased with himself, that he had guessed right (sure there were a lot of context clues, but still).

"Looks like it. But it seems like they're in good hands."

Even with the talk he'd given himself about not being so biased, it's still a bit of a relief when she takes the gloves off and puts away that syringe. Hey, it's a work in progress.

"So - what's up?"

She had been the one to contact him, after all, and he doesn't know if she's got concrete plans for lunch or whatever so he just gently prompts.

"I'm good, too, yeah. I think." She smiles, and shakes her head in a clearing thoughts kind of way, and begins loading the autoclave near Ben with the dismantled syringe, and also a few other pieces from a container on the table. "I mean, I had one nightmare about those... things. I was just as scared as the first time, only in the dream, you weren't there. So it didn't get better, it just... and then I woke up right before they-- you know." She frowns a little, and then takes a big bite of the air while making an exaggerated chomping sound. "Didn't like that. Hoping it won't happen again."

Still, dreams can't hurt you. She'll be just fine. "You said we would talk later, and I didn't really know what later meant, but I figured... now is later? Maybe? I've been going over it in my mind. A lot."

A furrow forms between Ben's dark brows, the half-smile slipping from his face as he grows grave. He hadn't realized Cho was so impacted by what had happened that day. But of course, he should have realized. For a normal person, like her, it must have been terrifying. Maybe even unprecedented, coming that close to dying. Being attacked, being covered in blood. Of course she'd had a nightmare. Of course, it had left her shaken and she needs someone to talk to about it.

He sinks down to sit on something - maybe some boxes, maybe a piece of equipment, maybe a chair. All his attention is focused on Cho, now.

"Sure. Sure, of course, we can talk."

It hadn't been the fun lunch he was expecting but he realizes there are certain obligations. If you go through something intense together, you can't just ghost the other person. He likes Cho. He wants to be here for her, if she's having a rough time.

"Right. Well." Cho pulls another high lab chair over next to Ben and sits herself down, though her feet do not come close to touching the floor. "I was thinking more about how you said you'd thought you'd seen their world. I still think it sounds like it might possibly be space. Do you remember it feeling cold at all? Or did you feel a pull of gravity? When you feel what they feel, do you have any sense of needing to breathe? I was thinking, it hurts you so much to let them through, but it doesn't actually do anything to your body, right? Is it at all possible that the pain you're feeling is theirs? If you can feel their other emotions. Maybe they aren't adapted to our environment, and if that's the case, and it was possible to... I don't know, to do something about that. I mean, it's all just theories now, isn't it? But if you haven't eaten in at least six hours, it would be an ideal time to get a blood draw, and maybe that would tell us something? You're not afraid of needles, are you?"

For the second time in just a few minutes, Ben is caught off guard. He had expected the thing Cho wanted to talk about was her own feelings, her fear after what they'd gone through, how she is coping with it now. He'd already started arranging his thoughts for that, how he would reassure her, what he could offer in terms of advice or practical help to make things easier.

But he'd been wrong. The thing she wants to talk about is his powers. And... yes, that makes sense. It was what they'd been discussing, when he told her they should talk later. He just hadn't really expected her curiosity to continue. He'd somehow foolishly dismissed it as an immediate reaction to the panic, something that would fade and not return.

His eyes widen slightly during the barrage of questions, but he tells himself that at least this is better than her asking him then when he was exhausted and bloody and caught off guard. She's curious, and he probably owes her some answers. Especially if that curiosity has been plaguing her ever since. Perhaps this is the best way to help her cope.

Still it's hard to keep up. He stays completely quiet, waiting for her to finish. But as she keeps going, her words shift just from questions to something else. The reason she'd asked if he had breakfast. She wants to draw some of his blood. To... examine something about it. Test it or... whatever.

There's a sudden coldness in his limbs, a numb sort of tingling that had risen up out of nowhere. Should he have predicted this? What is the right thing to do? Talking to Cho is one thing, but her drawing his blood indicates a fascination with his powers that goes beyond just wanting to have a conversation. She wants to do tests. She wants to do science. She wants to figure it out.

Ben is quiet for a moment too long, swallowing. Then, to buy himself time, he starts to at the very least answer her questions.

"The thing is - the things is, I'm not sure if that's... their world. They're- dreams. Maybe they're just... nightmares, and I'm only imagining they are different. It's hard to... remember details like whether it was cold or whether there was gravity. They slip away once I wake up."

He sits back, crossing his arms. Tries to make the gesture look casual. It's nothing wrong that Cho's doing, after all. In a way he knows he should probably find her curiosity flattering. But he holds those arms tightly across his chest, trying hard to ignore the little rustlings of panic in his guts. That's uncalled for. If he refuses to acknowledge those bad feelings they're not happening - that's the rule.

"I don't know if it's not doing anything to my body or if the something it's doing is just - repaired once I close the portal. When I feel their emotions it's sort of... muted. Underneath. The pain, um." A hard swallow, then, and he looks away from Cho's curious face. "The pain definitely... isn't."

Ben knows he can't really stall any longer. He could say he was afraid of needles and buy himself time. But that wouldn't change her desire to investigate. And she seems so interested. What would it really hurt? Sure, he's uncomfortable with it. Sure, he wanted to run out the door the minute she said 'blood draw'. But Ben has had a lifetime's training ignoring and invalidating his own discomfort. He now associates ignoring those things with doing what's right so strongly that actually saying no is... well. Pretty unimaginable to him.

He doesn't speak, just stands up and takes off his leather jacket, folding it over his arm and then draping it over the back of the chair. He sits back down again, and pushes up the sleeve of his black hoodie. It's the arm with the umbrella tattoo by his wrist.

This is all fine. It's easy. It's no big deal. He holds out his bare arm to her, offering for her to go ahead.

Cho nods thoughtfully through his explanations, letting him get all his thoughts in a row. He has her full and undivided attention. When he finishes talking, she’s in the process of aligning her own thoughts, and then he stands and begins to remove his jacket. Oh, goodie, blood. Which is an extremely biologist thought to have.

While Ben is peeling off his jacket, she retrieves and pulls on another pair of gloves. She does so with the same care she applies to the rest of her life, not letting the material pull too thin in any area in the process. She had a colleague at home who took perverse pleasure in snapping his gloves loudly onto his hands, seeming positively gleeful if he could make someone jump in the process. Cho has never particularly liked that approach. By the time he’s finished removing his clothing and rolling up his sleeve, she’s ready, with the smallest bore needle that will still be effective for a blood draw, and four empty vials to fit into the vacuum blood collection needle.

When Ben offers his arm, she takes it in careful hands. Elastic bands are useful, and they speed things up, but they’re also uncomfortable, and Cho likes to avoid using them if she can. Instead, she applies pressure with one of her thumbs to make his vein bulge enough that she’ll be able to get it with one stick. He seems… nervous? He must not like needles after all, and yet he's trusting her. As much as she hates the idea of causing him distress, that makes her feel good. She starts talking. "Human bodies are so amazing. Did you know that the components of your skin that allow you to feel pain and the ones that allow you to feel pressure are not actually the same thing? Ruffini’s endings and Pacinian corpuscles register pressure, and they’re extremely common, but there is a pretty big gap between the little clusters of free nerve endings that register pain. Relatively speaking, of course. So if you get, say, a paper cut, you’re definitely going to run over one. But for something like a needle, it’s actually possible to slip it in between the nerve endings so it doesn’t register pain." She’s been very gently applying pressure with the tip of the needle along his vein as she speaks, not breaking skin, just testing, and after one more poke, she sees the reaction she’s looking for. "So if you know how to see the micro-muscular response for pain, and you find a spot where it doesn’t register…"

Now she presses the needle into his flesh and into the vein, and as if by magic, though he should be able to feel the pressure, it shouldn’t actually hurt at all. It kind of is magic, as far as Cho is concerned. The magic of the nervous system. "Ruffini’s endings are also receptors for heat, but not for cold. Isn’t that interesting?" One vial has filled with blood, and she swaps it carefully for another, with practiced movements and steady hands, doing absolutely everything within her power to not jostle the needle at all and accidentally catch one of those free nerve endings she was talking about.

It's all... familiar. Certain details are different - the color of the gloves, the smell of the lab itself, the person holding his elbow and poking at his arm to get a vein visible. Ben tells himself that this is a common enough experience for normal people. People go to doctors, they get their blood drawn. Most people wouldn't think twice about it.

In some ways it is a relief that Cho keeps up a steady stream of talk, because it means that Ben himself doesn't have to speak - he doesn't trust his own voice right now. The break from questions is good, and the things she's talking about are interesting, actually. Of course, with his head in the place that it's in right now, he's mostly wondering whether Grace had been programmed with the knowledge Cho is spouting. She never tried to hurt, when she was putting the needle in. She was always sweet-faced and steady-handed. But it hadn't been a whole process like this. Maybe Reginald hadn't programmed her with that because it would take too much time...

Ben swallows, watching as the vials fill with blood. Probably, Cho will be able to tell from the speed of it, or just from holding his arm, that his pulse is going quite fast, now. But he's keeping all other signs of unease tucked away. They never helped, and he'd learned from a very young age that if he was perfectly still, perfectly quiet, perfectly well-behaved even when his body was screaming at him in distress, that he would get a word of praise or two. Not from Reginald, of course. The best Ben could hope for from him was a lack of irritation.

But that hadn't ever stopped him from hoping it would happen. From thinking and imagining and convincing himself that his father appreciated how well he could cooperate when he put his mind to it.

He puts in a huge amount of effort, to get his dry voice to sound neutral when he says, quietly:

"Sorry... my answers are so vague. About the dreams."

Ben wants Cho to know that he's not being deliberately uncooperative. It's important that she knows that.

Cho assumes that the elevated heart-rate is to do with nerves. No accounting for phobias. They hit people randomly and often have no real basis in logic. They just happen. No one's fault. "You have nothing to apologize for. A lot of people find it difficult to remember dreams." They're just going to have to figure out a way around that. Cho starts making a mental catalogue of what she has available to her. There's no way to record dreams, but there must be some way to boost retention...

When she's finished collecting blood, she applies a cotton ball over the needle site, and very very carefully withdraws it, smiling encouragingly at Ben. "There we go. All finished." She bends his arm so that the cotton is pinched in his elbow to keep the blood from flowing. "That wasn't so bad, right? You did really well. Actually-- hang on!" She scampers over to her bag, which is on a table far away from all the equipment, as she takes off and discards her gloves. When she returns her smile has grown, and she is holding out a closed fist with several lollipops clenched in it. They are all shaped like different fruits, and have the slightly mottled look of high quality organic candy. "Best part of going to the doctor, right? I never actually went to a normal doctor as a child, but every pediatrician I've ever seen on television has given out lollipops."

It's so strange, the way Ben's mind is at war with itself. Some part of him, rational, steady, above the rising water-line of his emotions, can tell that Cho is being very patient and friendly, almost cutesy with him, as if he were a lot younger than he is. He doesn't mind, really; it's a little bit odd, being treated like that, but not unpleasant.

Then there is the other part of his mind that is beneath the water, that can't see or hear right through that haze of it. The part that curls in on itself in fear as she repeats, in such a cheerful voice, echoes of things he'd heard too many times before. Reginald, already turning away, saying crisply: We're finished now, Number Six. Done with him, and dismissing him from his presence. Or Grace, patting his cheek, smiling her bright too-wide smile and whispering That wasn't so bad, was it? when Ben submitted to whatever it was, that time.

Ben doesn't know himself well enough to see what is starting to happen and hit the brakes on this. He knows that he doesn't feel miserable. He doesn't feel much at all, apart from a sort of... hollow slowness. He takes one of those lollipops - a greenish one shaped vaguely like an apple - and says:

"I didn't, either."

Ben tucks the lollipop into the pouch of his hoodie, adds: "Thanks."

"We had a really nice family doctor. I don't know if he had a normal practice. He lived in the city closest to our-- house. Still, he was always on call for us. It doesn't seem like it would have left him much time for anything else." Cho has taken a pop shaped like a strawberry for herself, tucking the others into her pocket and tearing off the wrapper so that she can enjoy a little hit of sugar. If Ben doesn't want his right now, she won't insist, but he should still eat. Cho will bring out the lunches in a minute. First she wants to get a proper bandage on his arm before she gets caught up in something else.

There's also still the problem of Ben not being able to remember his dreams. Cho smooths down the edges of the medical tape. "You know, We can't do anything about dreams, but we might be able to do something about your sleep? It's a pretty well accepted theory that if you wake up while still in the REM cycle, you'll have much better dream retention. Maybe we could use something from here to monitor your brain activity, and attach it to an alarm?"

Ben hears that little hesitation before she says house, and he isn't in such a haze that he doesn't get it. Probably 'mansion' would fit better, Cho had made it clear her family were really high-status and rich. Or maybe it was a compound or something? Who knows.

He thinks about telling her about Grace. Swapping stories about their childhood doctors like normal people do. Klaus could make it an amusing anecdote, no doubt. Oh yes, didn't I mention our mother who was also a robot who was also the entirety of our medical care all our lives? But Ben doesn't have whatever it is in Klaus that makes it so he can just talk even when things are awful. That wonderful, beautiful resilience of his, that made it so he could survive so much and still find a quip to say. Right now, every word feels like an effort to dredge up. So he doesn't ask about this doctor who tended to her family or talk about his own past. He just nods.

Cho doesn't seem to mind his quietness, which is always such a relief for Ben, to meet people like that. He holds still as she bandages his arm, fingers idly moving over the medical tape after her hand moves away as she is talking more. About his sleep. Telling him you remember dreams better if you wake up during them. If she had paused, given him a minute, he might have said that usually, he woke up terrified from these dreams mid-way through, anyway.

But then she is talking about setting up something to monitor brain activity. Attaching things to him while he's asleep, set up to alarms, so she could find out more details from the dreams.

It's a reasonable suggestion. Nothing unethical or painful about it. It absolutely should not be a big deal. Ben's mouth is dry as he makes the sounds to say.

"Okay."

Agreeing to it, for the same reasons he'd agreed to the blood test. Because saying no is unimaginable, and he's sure she would ask why, and then he would have to lie or tell her things about his past that are depressing and gross and that she won't want to hear, and he doesn't want to bother her with any of that when it should all not be a big deal at all...

Ben had been idly smoothing that bandage with his palm, but now he is gripping at it, at his own elbow, hard enough his knuckles are white. Even though he had agreed, some of that hollowness he's been feeling this whole time had gotten into his voice. A little of that hauntedness had gotten into his eyes, and no matter how much he keeps telling himself it's not a problem, his body has decided it's time to disagree. Ben's pulse is racing now and his breaths come too fast, thin and small.

How old had he been when he first realized that electrodes and finding the right position to lie in not to get all tangled in wires was not a normal part of every child's bedtime ritual? Had one of his siblings told him or had he realized it on his own from reading books? Ben remembers the rare few times Reginald had come to get him all hooked up himself, instead of sending Grace or Pogo. How sometimes he had felt ready to burst, from what he saw as a sign of favor. How other times he felt confused shame, sure it was because he'd done something wrong and he was not being trusted.

Ben's control over hiding any external signs of his distress are slipping, badly. It's rather like a ball rolling downhill - once it's out of his grip, it all builds momentum at a startling rate.

Edited 2019-11-20 02:31 (UTC)

Cho is focused on tidying her space and marking his blood, getting the vials into a refrigeration unit after extracting a small amount from one to make a few slides and inject into a much smaller vial to spin in a centrifuge. So by the time she looks back to him, he's already gripping his own arm so hard that she's afraid he might break skin.

"Whoa, hey." Curiosity is suddenly doused by a flood of concern, a tidal wave, leaving everything in its path submerged and inaccessible. Cho closes the gap between them quickly, placing her small hands over the top of Ben's, attempting to curl her fingertips around him and lessen the pressure he's exerting on himself. Her face stays steady and reassuring and open, features full of understanding and concern, and an offer of acceptance. "It's all right. It doesn't involve any needles. The needles are gone. They're not coming back. It's just a little adhesive pad. Ben. Look at me. It's all right. You're all right. I'm right here. I won't let anything bad happen."

She means in the lab. She means that, in here, he is safe with her. The same way he can watch over her in a fight, she can watch over him in the pursuit of answers. "I know it can be scary, being in places like this," she says, not sure what exactly he's used to, what it is about doctors or hospitals or scientists frightens him. "But I'm right here, and I'll keep you safe."

That strange numbness means it takes a moment for Ben to even feel the pressure of Cho's hand on his, but once he does he notices the tightness of his grip, how she is trying to gently urge him not to squeeze so hard. He lets go, hand falling limp into his lap. He can see he's scared her badly. That look of concern on her face is just like it had been the first time they met, when he had completely embarrassed himself just bursting into tears.

But self-consciousness and not wanting to seem like an emotional wreck aren't impulses strong enough to stop this momentum. His breaths only get quicker and louder and more unsteady as she reassures him, but not quite in the right direction. She thinks this is, relatively speaking, simple. That he hates needles and all she needs to do is explain the procedure.

The problem is that he knows the procedure. Probably better than she does at this point.

A part of Ben is tempted to get up and grab his jacket and just run out the door. Make his excuses later, perhaps by text. Keep his walls up and reveal nothing. But that would be cowardly, and cruel to Cho, who really hasn't done anything wrong and who is trying to be so kind. Ben thinks about the little things he knows about her - how she cares about people, how she worries about talking too much, how passionate she'd been in insisting that she would never hurt any of the animals in her care.

He feels caught, trapped, and the only way out is to talk. If only talking didn't feel like the most calamitous options to him right now.

"Places like this are where I grew up." His voice is so soft it's only just audible. "I'm not afraid of needles. I'm used to needles. I'm used to all of—"

Ben doesn't quite make it to the end of the sentence before his voice cracks and he lapses back into silence, hanging his head. Cho is standing so close and he can't bear to look at her. His head is aching and if he's not careful he's going to cry and he's already cried in front of her once and he cannot let that happen again. But there's no putting a stop to the trembling going through him. Stress chemicals or adrenaline or who even knows what is causing it. Cho would probably know if she took a sample of his blood.

He wants to say more. To explain he knows she wouldn't hurt him, that he trusts her, and that's the only reason he'd stayed this long in the first place. To tell her he's sure she doesn't let anything bad happen to people she's doing science on and this is not at all about her.

But something shifts in his chest and all he can do is gulp and gasp for air, and it never seems like it is enough. It's so stupid, why can't he just switch it off? He used to be so much better at forcing himself to switch it all off and sit patiently and quietly and do what he was told and be a model member of the Academy. So why can't he get over this stupid whatever when this perfectly sweet, harmless scientist lady is just trying to make him feel better?

"It's all right. You're safe here. It's just the two of us. Just you and me." His hand drops to his lap, and she leaves one resting on his forearm, the quickest little flicker of a glance to check that he hasn't started the blood flowing again. "If we can't even out your breathing a little, you're going to make yourself very lightheaded. You might lose consciousness." She moves her free hand slowly, telegraphing her movements, and places her palm flat in the center of his chest. A contact point, a connection. She can feel his heart racing beneath her fingers. That's not good.

He has to calm down before he passes out. Cho knows from experience how disorienting that can be, and she doesn't want that for him. "No one here is going to hurt you." Though someone clearly has. No child should be so familiar with a lab space like this. The man who was his father, but not, who treated him like a curiosity. The man who should have protected him, not been the thing he needed protection against. "That's all far away. It's just us, you and I, and no one else can reach us." No one can perform experiments on him that he can't escape. "We're safe here, and every breath we take in, one two three, brings good clean air into our bodies, and every breath we exhale, one two three, carries away all our anxiety and our pain." As she counts to three she inhales loudly, and exhales just as loudly, as applicable. "We breathe in the positive energies of the universe, one two three, and we exhale the tension from our bodies, one two three."

Cho's own reasons for needing to know how to be mindful of her breathing to stave off a panic attack are incredibly different from what is happening to Ben right now, but she really hopes that the general theory is the same.

Even though he saw it coming, Ben flinches a little when she sets her hand against his chest, but he does not move away. He knows she's right; he can feel his head swimming already. He's hyperventilated so much that he passed out, before. Mostly when he was very little, and not as good at managing his fear. Control yourself, Number Six. It had never been an issue all those years he was a ghost. All he'd had to do then was worry when it happened to Klaus, talk him through it, as well as he could. He can tell that is what Cho is doing, now.

Her words so help, piercing through the haze of fear that has no place here anymore. His father is dead and in another world and no one is keeping him here. He could walk out the door if he wanted, but he shouldn't have to, because Cho isn't going to hurt him. He knows that, even at the same time that every part of him is stuck in that remembered feeling of paralyzed helplessness. Ben screws his eyes shut tight, curling forward, pressing his forehead against his knees. It makes him feel safer, makes it easier to breathe along with Cho's words, instructing him, helping him through it.

Cho knows, now. He's past the point of no return; he's having a panic attack and he knows she can tell, that she's familiar with what that is. She must be, to know what to say and how to tell him to breathe and all the rest of it. So Ben... gives up. As soon as he's breathing slow enough that his head isn't spinning any longer, the tears start to fall. Cho might not see them, with how he is curled up, but she will be able to hear it, to see the awful way the sobs wrack through him. It's all so much more intense than he would have thought. The same way his reaction to those cameras was more intense - the same way even that his response to her on that first encounter was more intense than expected.

Ben doesn't get it. Has he gotten weak, in his old age? Or is it something to do with how completely he could avoid processing any of his bullshit as a ghost when he could always simply leave or fade away? Is it having a body again, now, in a place that's safe enough that he can start to actually deal with all of it?

Even as he's crying, he manages to choke out:

"Cho, I'm really really sorry, I didn't mean to — I wasn't gonna do this!"

He hates himself for this awful display, for all of it. And now that the words are coming, he wants to make sure she understands at the very least that this isn't him being afraid of her. That she's not responsible. Because that would make him a pretty shitty friend, if he let her think that. After all, she'd done nothing to him and he had acted like she was some monster, cowering like this.

"It's not you. I kn-know you're not gonna hurt me. I know you don't hurt the- the things you study. I just—"

But how could he finish that? What could he say, to make any of it make sense. He'd been monitored in his sleep a lot as a child and had his brainwaves and a dozen other things collected and recorded and analyzed as data by the same person who'd put him through some other, much more horrific experiments, so he could collect and record and analyze data?

(What would Reginald think about this data point? Ben Hargreeves, a broken mess, can't even get his blood drawn without spinning out? He would be so profoundly disappointed, and convinced that this was just Ben's weakness, his overemotionality and his inherent lack of anything good and worthwhile).

Sniffling wetly, Ben manages:

"I d-don't really - w-wanna do the sleep test. Can I- please. Not do it - after all?"

"Hey, hey, you have nothing to apologize for," she assures him, not for the first time. She can't feel his heart under her hand any more, and instead is rubbing gentle and even circle against the center of his back. She's kept her other hand on his forearm, though, and while it's a little more difficult to feel so far from his wrist, she's still getting a general idea.

All she wants in the world right now is for him to calm down, to stop hurting. "You haven't done anything wrong." More than that. "There is nothing wrong with you. You're not going to make me angry, or upset me, or disappoint me. You're not a subject to study, Ben. You're my friend. I care about you. Even if you decide that you never want me to even mention anything to do with biology around you ever again, you are my friend. That isn't going to change. We're not doing the sleep test. It's all right. I'm never going to make you do anything that scares you. I'm never going to make you do anything you don't want to do, and I'm never going to be mad at you for changing your mind. If you'd changed your mind the moment before we did it, I still wouldn't be mad."

She keeps rubbing the circles against his back, occasionally pausing in that to stroke his hair, and between all of her actual words, she makes soothing murmuring sounds at the back of her throat. "Let it out. It's all right. You're safe here. This is a safe place. You don't have to keep it all bottled up inside you. Just let it all out."

She isn't going to hurt him. She doesn't hurt any creature under her care, though they've already been over that, and at least he believes her. Their first sticking point. He'd been so firm on that issue, just like her. He's got such a good heart.

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