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

[ Ben has had a rough few weeks of it. So many stressful things have happened. Getting swept away to that awful dungeon with Cole. Kieran being blinded and those horrific monsters he'd had to fight off. Klaus getting so sick and being so Klaus about it...

It's no wonder, really, that he's having nightmares. He wakes up from a particularly bad one, body quaking with terror, sweaty and overheated. Ben sits there for a few moments, face pressed into his hands, just trying to calm down, to remind himself that it hadn't been real. But even if it was just a dream, he feels queasy and awful and he can't just sit there any longer.

He makes a snap decision, propelling himself out of the bedroom, pausing only long enough to pull on a hoodie and shove his feet into some shoes. He's never really been to the hot springs and sauna, before, despite all the good things he'd heard. Ben can be wary of new experiences, and he's not exactly the least modest person in this place. But surely, no one will be there, now. He could wash away the lingering wretchedness from that nightmare without being disturbed.

It is so quiet, at this time of night. Most of the robots are still off at the medbay, dealing with the outbreak. At first the quiet is welcome, but then it starts pressing in on Ben. In the hush of just past two in the morning, he feels like he's the only person in this place.

He feels like a ghost again. The way he had been in that nightmare, helpless and insubstantial as the people he cares about were torn apart by some kind of living darkness. Ben had tried to help them, to claw the stuff off them, but his hands passed through it. Somehow in the dream, they could still see him even though he was a ghost, and they'd all plead and sobbed and screamed and he'd failed them.

Ben shudders, reaching out and pressing his hand against a wall, reminding himself. He is alive. He's tangible. It had only been a dream.

But he wishes Klaus hadn't been gone from the quarters when he woke up. He wishes anyone were still awake, any of his friends, just so he could see them and know that they were still alive, that it was nothing more than his mind tormenting him for no particular reason. ]

[ As per usual before any kind of earth-shattering conversation, Ben's got no idea that tonight is any different from other nights. Allison is tucked away in her room for a quiet night (Ben knows that he and Klaus can be a bit much sometimes and she needs a little solitude to unwind), and he is just getting himself ready to head out. He and Cole have fallen into something of a routine, lately. Ben goes out to meet him in the evenings, and they go on walks together, or sit together in the park while Ben reads to him, or visit the spa if no one else seems like they're around.

They're friends. This is what friends do, right? They spend time together.

Ben isn't really aware of it. How often he's been bringing Cole's name up in conversation. How often the two of them are together. He'd never had friends before and now he has them - so many of them, and Cole just happens to be the one he's closest with, the one he thinks about the most, trusts the most...

And Ben just happens to be bringing Cole a little gift - a tiny sprout of a plant that Klaus had actually helped him to pick from the Agricultural area, that is supposed to not need any sun at all to survive. It's pretty dark in that store room where Cole stays, but Ben just thinks it would be nice, if he could have some nice things in it. ~~HE JUST WANTS THINGS TO BE NICE FOR HIM~~. After all, Cole talks to trees, sometimes. So all in all, a perfect gift. Which is a normal thing to give a friend.

When his brother walks into the room, Ben looks up, smiling faintly. ]

Hey, Klaus. I'm heading out in a sec.

Ben arrives first, to the place that Allison had specified - just an unused set of rooms in the living area. He and his sister had briefly discussed just doing their little makeover in their quarters, but the realistic likelihood that Klaus would be able to restrain himself from heckling (in a loving sort of way) seemed so low that this option was better. Besides, in a way it is neutral territory. A blank canvas, where Ben doesn't have all the trappings of his life and the person he thinks of himself as all around, making him hesitant of change.

He is nervous as he waits there for his sister and his friend to arrive. Ben has really very little experience having friends. It's something entirely new, the process of introducing a friend of his to a sibling, and introducing some of his family to one of his new friends. It doesn't help that he keeps thinking about the inequality of how much they will come in knowing about one another. He'd told Allison about the fact that Cho is a marine biologist, that they'd bonded over getting attacked by zombies, that her family were super rich and had a fish corporation (well he hadn't worded it quite like that). As for the other side, Ben had tried to do the same amount of giving basic biographical details: that Allison is a super-famous super-glamorous Hollywood actress, divorced with a daughter named Claire, and he'd of course warned Cho that Allison would be using her device to communicate while she's healing from an injury to her throat.

But, of course, that's not all Cho knows. There is plenty more that she will probably be able to guess and infer, because Ben and Allison are siblings, and Ben and Cho have had some fairly intense conversations about his family and upbringing. So Cho will be coming into that room also knowing Allison had been bought as a baby, that she has powers, that she was a part of the Academy, that she had been raised in the same isolated, loveless, abusive situation that Ben was.

So he is thinking about that, and also about how much he's going to be the center of attention for the next however long. That's never exactly been his favorite thing. But it's just Allison and Cho. That's not so bad, all in all. And he is at the very least sure that neither of them are going to try to pressure him into wearing something he hates.

for cole

for klaus

for allison & cho