[closed] can't we give ourselves one more chance?

[benhargreeves]

Who: Ben, Cole, Ami
What: Cole and Ami need to Talk™ and Ben is there to mediate and make everybody feel safe and copacetic
When: October 7
Where: The library

He had agonized over where would be the best place to do this, once Ami had given him the heads-up that she felt ready. (Maybe throwing that party was good for her mental health, she felt steady enough in herself to face all this). His first thought had been the library, but then he'd doubted that, questioned it. Is that just where he feels safest? That's not important here. What is important is making Cole and Ami both feel comfortable and safe, helping them to hear one another and overcome their fear of one another so that they can help each other out.

But he'd listed all the other options he knew in the Anchor, and each had its own set of drawbacks. In the end he'd returned to the library again - it's brightly-lit and quiet, with comfortable chairs, nooks if either need a moment of privacy, but not convoluted enough that the space will pose an issue.

So he picks the time - late morning - and brings in some snacks (such as they are). That's definitely Grace's influence. Ben wishes briefly she were here, that he could ask her if there is anything he is missing, how to be sure he is helping and making them both feel okay.

He arrives before either of the others; he'd come fifteen minutes before the time he'd told both of them. He had also said, to each, to reiterate, that he ws there for them, there to help, and that he wouldn't let anything bad happen, while he was around.

Comments

[livingdeadgirl]

Yeah, it's way creepy. Especially when you know you're the one who put it there.

Ami shakes her head. "No, never. This is the first time. I couldn't even see it before I left to meet you guys."

And she's not sure why, either. Nothing's immediately sparking her memory. But it's got to be something that happened between then and now, right? And the only thing she can think of is...

"Is it... because of that memory?" she wonders aloud. She looks over to Cole, or at least where she thought he was. "What do-" Ah, where'd he go? She glances around for a second and finds him again, not far off. "What do you think, Cole?"

[killedwithlove]

Cole has drifted to a wall, fingertips pressing to it, eyes heavy lidded and head tilted as if listening to whispers.

He reaches. Into the meanings and the connections, into a vast pool of interconnectedness that didn't make sense and simply was.

"Tick, tock, tock t0ck k0tc, c is c and t is t but k is g and 0 is a gattaca, tagc, gact, it's a code, the code has so many secrets and whispers and it's not your code, or my code but it's a code for something bigger and more, more than human, more than troll, it spirals on itself, twisting and zipping and she knows it, she knows the code but she can't see it until she remembers-"

He wrenches away from the wall. "I- I don't know what it means."

[benhargreeves]

Ben drifts slowly towards Cole as he's speaking, but he doesn't interrupt him while he is doing his thing. Meanwhile he tries to sort through what Cole's saying. Something about that phrase, gattaca, is familiar, but he can't quite place it...

As soon as Cole reels back, moving away from the wall, Ben sets a hand on Cole's shoulder, steadying him. There's a deep furrow between his brows.

"So... it sounds like what you can and can't perceive definitely has to do with your memories. And I guess this is some kind of a code?"

He looks over to Ami, asks:

"Any idea what it might mean?"

And Ben turns to Cole immediately after, adding, more quietly:

"You okay?"

[livingdeadgirl]

It doesn't make much sense. Gattaca is a movie, Gackt is a musician, and she's pretty sure Cole does not mean either of those. It's a code, and the answer lies in her memories. Not hers, hers.

Ami squints at the wall. It's code. Come on, she can actually see it now! So why can't she remember? Code for what? What kind of code only has four-

Her face slackens, the determined gaze turning into a blank stare. After a few seconds, she blinks slowly, past and present briefly overlapping in her consciousness - and she murmurs, softly, like an echo of herself.

"An incomplete fragment consisting of four symbols. In the soot of my ruined hive I scrawled my part of the code, completing the phrase of legend, the persisting sounds said to accompany the ultimate demise of the tyrant less an arm and an eye..."

[killedwithlove]

Cole draws back against Ben. Aradia's presence, even the ghost of it, is still threatening to him, a small spirit sharing space with a much bigger and more powerful one and not being entirely sure that it won't turn predatory.

Faith often has little space for Compassion.

"It's a code to make an ancient thing," Cole whispers. "I want to leave now. I'm not very comfortable."

[benhargreeves]

Part of the reason why Ben and Cole get on so well is that he's comfortable with some weirdness. There's a baseline of bizarre and (to other people) unsettling shit that really doesn't bother him. Maybe it's because he grew up in an environment that was so removed from the normal. Maybe it's just... who Ben is as a person. Either way, when Ami's gaze shifts and goes unfocused like that and she starts to speak in that soft, poetic way, he is only a little bit uneasy.

Most of his unease has to do with Cole; he's tense and Ben can feel it, because Cole is standing so close. This is why he's here. To make sure that things don't go off the rails, the way they had last time. To keep both his friends safe from alarming one another.

So the moment that Cole says he wants to leave, in that tiny voice, Ben acts. After all, Cole doesn't ask for things for himself. Almost never. He wants to leave, they're going to leave.

But Ben isn't going to do so without even saying something.

He looks into Ami's eyes, not sure she's even seeing him, and interrupts her.

"Ami, Earth to Ami. Cole and I are gonna go now. Text me later if you want help with the code or - if you wanna talk."

And then, protectively steering Cole so that his own body stays between him and Ami, Ben gets them both out the door, shooting one last glance over his shoulder and giving a little wave of goodbye and a small smile, if she's in any state to see and recognize it. Things had gone well. So much better than he'd anticipated, honestly. And he's pretty sure this is the best way to keep it that way. He had been useful, after all. The minute things started to get uncomfortable, he separated them. And now, next time they meet, hopefully it will be a little easier still, and then a little easier still. It is progress, and the beginnings of an answer to the mystery of the writing on the wall...