[openish] where do you go with your broken heart in tow?

[benhargreeves]

Who: Ben + anyone
What: A catch-all
When: November through December
Where: Anywhere!

[ Poke me at platoapproved#9602 on discord or platoapproved on plurk to plot something, or feel free to leave a starter!]

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[benhargreeves]

[ Klaus might not think it's all that much to offer, but the arm around his shoulder is a huge comfort. Hell, Klaus just being here, helping him talk through this, is huge. Ben keeps his face buried in his hands, but he leans to the side, into that supportive touch. He knows, of course, at least some of the romantic turmoil Klaus is telling him about. He'd seen some of it. He knows it must have hurt. ]

You've always been so much braver than me, Klaus.

[ Brave enough to know who he was and what he wanted from such a young age, and here's Ben, only now starting to wonder, feeling strong enough to peer beneath the surface. Isn't he too old, for this sort of thing? Sure, he'd been full of reassurances when it was Klaus coming to him, having questions about himself based on how he feels for Julie. But he hadn't been starting from scratch, the way Ben feels like he is.

Though there is something, a funny sort of warmth just beneath his breastbone, when Klaus says welcome like that. Ben is going to have to do a lot of thinking and soul-searching to figure out how he identifies and what he wants and all that, but it's nice to feel, at least, that no matter what conclusions he comes to, Klaus will be here for him. Klaus will have his back. The same way Ben had been there for Klaus, when they were young and Klaus was confessing that actually, he really liked boys... ]

I guess you're right. I know all that, and- I don't mind, that he's a spirit. I just don't know if dating's really on the table. There was... a guy he told me about. Somebody back in his own world, who he was really close to, who helped him a lot when he was having a tough time. I kinda wondered once or twice if maybe they were sort of a thing, but I might've just been projecting, I don't know. And we... he seems to like um. Holding hands and hugging and stuff, but I don't know if... I just don't know.

[ All this is pretty radical and open and new for Ben, but articulating anything like a direct statement about sexuality, as it relates to himself, is still a big ask. He's trying his best. His face feels like he's on fire and he's restless with embarrassment, but he's really trying.

When Klaus says he hopes it works out, Ben finally looks up from his hands, face flushed and expression overwhelmed, but with just a tinge of hope in it, now. ]

I... have been really happy. He makes me happy.

[ Ben thinks about the way he has been thinking about things, lately. Not dreading the future or avoiding thinking about it, but looking forward to things. Making plans and feeling happy about what's yet to come. And some of those plans, a lot of those plans, had Cole in them.

He laughs, then, soft at first but rapidly growing uproarious. It's a relief of tension, and there are tears in the corners of his eyes, and he's a little shaky and a total mess. ]

I can't believe I'm having my first crush on a guy and I'm thirty freakin' years old. I can't believe you noticed it before I did. I don't know what I'm gonna do if this ruins everything between us. I - don't know what I'm gonna do if it works out, either. Is it always like this? Is it always this scary?!

[ Ben stops laughing, abrupt, and the sudden silence in the room is all the louder because it had just been so full. He's going through a lot of push and pull, right now, and the elation had given way to the old fears, and he asks, in a tiny voice. ]

What if I hurt him?

[ There's no logical, rational basis for the question. Ben knows that. He knows. But what if...

That had always been there, buried in the back of his mind. A seed planted, intentionally or unintentionally, by their dad so many years back. Saying that Ben was volatile, evil, inherently violent. Telling him that his body was linked with darkness and that if he didn't focus, if he didn't keep himself in check, they would run wild and he would hurt the people he cared about. So much of the person Ben is: his deliberateness, his seriousness, his rigidity, his anxiety, his self-denial, his shyness... comes down to this. The instinctive feeling that there's something rotten about him, and that if he lets himself get comfortable, it will slip out, and lay waste to everything he holds dear. ]

[substances]

[There's not really much to do at this point, except keep his arm draped around Ben's shoulders and watch him while he sorts his shit out, wearing that expression that says he's probably thinking a whole lot of things in a really short amount of time. That part isn't really something Klaus can help with, not really. Ben's gotta get his own head around the big scary life changes that come with actually developing as a person.

Thankfully, Klaus has a whole hell of a lot of experience with those sorts of moments. He's had a lot of them, not just in Nam or at the end of the world, but in Hadriel and now Anchor. A lot has changed, and even if he'd never been the one to buy in to what Reggie taught them, Klaus still remembers all the emotions that came with the fuzzy, hazy time after he'd left when he stopped believing any of it and realized Reginald Hargreeves was just a sad neurotic cruel old man who shouldn't have been allowed to have children. And that he didn't know shit about the children he had.

Liberating. Terrifying. Remembering what it feels like means Klaus knows Ben probably just needs him to hang here and keep his arm around him and be with him and be on his side and listen while he talks about how happy he's been around Cole, that he doesn't mind Cole being a spirit but is worried about whether romance is a thing Cole wants at all. Klaus gets it. There are parallels in that to liking men and how dicey and dangerous it seems to change any friendship and take it to the next level like that. The fear of rejection and not being wanted, it suuuucks.]

I mean, yeah, yeah yeah I totally get that, but you can't just...hunker down and ignore all this stuff just because you're scared, right? Ben, you're alive, and Reggie's not here and you should live a little. You have to take a risk sometime, man.

[But he falls quiet again as Ben keeps going on, about being thirty and having his first crush and not realizing he has it and what if he hurts him and why is it so scary, and Klaus gets it. Oh god, he gets it. Klaus has been poison to everyone he touches for as long as he can remember, so he knows how it feels.]

Okay, circling back around to that whole 'it's not like we're normal' thing. I mean, dad had you convinced you were...you know. When you're not. At all. And we were like, totally isolated from everyone for a really long time, and then you were dead for another really long time. I think maaaaybe you have an excuse or two for not having a crush til now, so don't beat yourself up over that.

[A shrug, and he glances over at Ben.]

I mean, that's the rub, or whatever they say in Shakespeare, right? Any relationship is gonna be like that. Someone's gonna hurt someone, and then if it's a good relationship they figure their shit out and get on with it. It's all that risks versus rewards shit, you know?

[He rubs Ben's back, between his shoulder blades, smiling over at him, tired and fond.]

But, I mean, out of all of us you've always been the diplomatic one. Pretty sure you can handle this, and I'm pretty sure that things are gonna work out just fine. And hey...I'm always going to be here, no matter what.

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben is grateful for it in ways he wouldn't even know how to start putting into words, that Klaus stays with him, near and quiet and listening. Everything that he says back, too, comes from a place of knowing Ben so well, understanding him and his fears and what he needs to hear.

Ben's really glad he has a brother like Klaus, right now.

Klaus does know him too well - that impulse in him to hide, to ignore the things that frighten him and hope they merely go away. Ben feels a twinge of guilt when he tells him not to do that which, yeah, Ben might have otherwise been tempted to do. And Klaus is right, too, about why Ben is on a different timeline than most people.

Until, that is, they get to the last part. And all Klaus's advice is sound, and good - probably being with Dave had taught him that. But he's missed the mark. Ben curls forward, running hands through his hair, fingernails digging into the back of his neck, his distress eloquent even without him saying a word. ]

No, I mean-

[ It's a conundrum, because Klaus is the person Ben is closest to in the world, but also, he's his sibling. Not that that had ever stopped Klaus from being perfectly blunt about his own sex life, but it's another matter, for Ben. Still he manages: ]

You know I haven't. Been with anybody. What if - he is into me, and things get- y'know, and we're- and something goes wrong, and I. Hurt him.

[ Ben presses a hand into his stomach, over the portal. If Ben were thinking more clearly, he would remember that Cole has been able to communicate with the creatures on the other side of the portal, is on good terms with them. He would recognize this as an irrational fear. But it's an old irrational fear, stuck deep in his mind like a splinter. This is new territory. What if it turns out he's a monster after all, and this is the way he finally finds that out for sure?

He turns, meeting Klaus's gaze, eyes wet with tears that he's stubbornly managing not to shed - but only just. Reggie might not be here, like Klaus had said - but in a way, he still is. The echoes of him are there in Ben's mind, telling him he is a nauseating, unnatural creature that doesn't deserve happiness. ]