versusnurture | seventh ♢ private + spam

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seventh ♢ private + spam

private, thursday } ben

[She wasn't lying or exaggerating or being overdramatic: she meant what she said. To Ben, and to everyone. She needed time. She did understand, does understand, the differences between there and here. She knows that Ben is on her side.]

[It's just that she needed time to remember the Ben who came before the one who let other people hurt her, the Ben who is kind and doesn't like being called a good person. She remembers him now. And, true to her word, she gets in touch.]

[The video clicks on to reveal her on her bed. Everything is tidied now, a good indication that she is at least stable, if not necessarily stable in a good place. She's holding the teddy bear he gave her, making it kick its little feet.]

I bet you've never carved a pumpkin before.

spam, saturday } nathan

[Abigail doesn't realize she's affected. Not yet. After this, she's going to go hole up in her room and pretend she's invisible until the urge to be super super nice goes away. But for the moment, she's going to do her job.]

[Which, right now, means re-organizing everything that exists in the art room. All the paintbrushes go in cups by order of size. She finds herself thinking fondly and only fondly of Hannibal, for the first time in a month, of the way he keeps things perfectly tidy, and wonders if he would be proud of the work that she's doing here. The oddness of that thought doesn't occur to her.]

[Whenever Nathan shows up for his shift, or she happens to notice him, she gives him one of her brightest and most genuine smiles, the kind she ordinarily saves for the known-as-damaged, for Harvey or Ben or Arkin. For Elena.]

Hi.

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[It counts. To her, it counts, and she smiles tentatively in return.]

My room.

[She can, at least, set out newspapers on the desk.]

Acknowledged.

[There's more of it, the not-smile in the splitsecond between when he leans over for the communicator and when it actually clicks off; he doesn't waste time after that.

Abigail cut off just before she told Ben about pies, but the truth of the matter is that he'd been collecting some of the pumpkins from around the ship just before they disappeared, intending to see if Riddick cared to experiment with baked goods and breakfast foods. He realizes when he arrives at the kitchens that he knows what to look for in a food item for the ideal, but not a pumpkin to carve for decorations.

In the end he decides the standards must not be too far off, selects two, and carries them to Abigail's cabin. He doesn't bother being anxious. She's decided she's at least willing to try to be around him again, and he will trust that.

Hands full, he calls through the door instead.] Abigail.

Edited 2013-11-10 07:34 (UTC)

[Here is one thing about Abigail: when she makes a decision under her own impetus, with no outside influence, she makes the decision completely, thoroughly, and doesn't back down. She also doesn't change her mind lightly. She wouldn't have contacted Ben if she wasn't sure.]

[So she opens the door without hesitation. In the time between when he hung up and when he appeared, her smile has barely faded, and it comes back in full force when she sees him with a pumpkin in each hand.]

Ben!

[Another tiny shrug of happiness. She's not surprised to see him, obviously, just pleased. She holds the door open.]

You can put them on the desk if you want.

[A beat, and then, because she shouldn't hug him, she shoves all of her enthusiasm at seeing him again into:] Also, hi.

[He's mildly startled by the greeting he gets, and it shows in the way he breaks discipline and ducks his head slightly, shying into the room somewhat sideways before looking back up at her again, features bright.]

Hello.

[He hesitates several long moments, unsure if he should say or do something else. The answer is that he probably should, of course, but he doesn't know what so he clears his throat gently and glances around. He does put the pumpkins down on the desk, less because he wants to and more because she indicated he should; that and he recognizes what the newspaper is likely for as soon as he sees it while marking the other differences in the room.]

Is one each sufficient? There are three more in the kitchens.

Edited 2013-11-10 07:58 (UTC)

No, that's fine. Two is fine.

[She realizes as she says this that she doesn't know what she wants to carve anyway, so having several would probably be silly. Besides, her desk isn't big enough for more than two, and Ben said he had something to tell her, too.]

[Perching on the corner of her bed, she looks up at him eagerly.]

They're good ones. [Well, they're okay. But she's not that picky about pumpkins, frankly.] Which one do you want?

[Ben is looking between Abigail and the pumpkins and back again as she settles, curiosity plain in his gaze. The praise pleases him, relaxing the line of his shoulders, and then he fetches up soundly against the question.

If Abigail doesn't know what she wants to carve, Ben has no clue what he's even supposed to be imagining. Faces, yes, or something else, he doesn't understand fully what falls into an acceptable category and what doesn't; in turn, he thinks for a moment of requesting criteria by which to make an informed decision, but he understands this is meant to be recreational.

Cautiously, he looks back at Abigail.]

I do not have a preference.

[It's less that she sees his confusion and more than she feels it. There is something instinctive in her understanding of Ben now. What she lacks is a comprehension of her own functionality. What he lacks, often anyway, is an innate comprehension of things that are perceived as ordinary by people like her. People who have lived wholly different lives.]

[So she doesn't hesitate. She just pushes up off the bed and leans over the desk again. It's easier to pick for someone else than it is for herself. She chooses the one that's a little heavier, seemingly more solid, and turns to put it closer to Ben on the desk.]

That one's yours. [Firmly and irrevocably his. She doesn't give him an option, because she thinks this choice is okay for her to help him with. If not, he'll correct her. She's pretty sure of that, too.]

I don't know if the knife you gave me will work. We'll have to take turns, if you're all right with that.

[It's okay. In fact, he seems relieved when she acts so decisively, focusing his attention instead on the pumpkin he's meant to be working with. Glancing between the two gourds, he can't discern what exactly makes this one more suitable for him than the other, but he doesn't argue. He catalogs, and when he's finished observing, he reaches out with his hands to investigate the surface of it.

His fingertips are light but deliberate as he explores the smooth, almost waxy skin, marred here and there by the rougher warts and imperfections of anything that grows in the dirt; the sandpaper, almost-painful spurs of the stem; the irregular regularity of the grooves running vertically down the sides. She mentions the knife and, after a tentative rap of his knuckles on the pumpkin underneath his hands, he blinks at her.]

Likely not. [Then, realizing she had detailed more than just the single step - carving, there isn't only carving, there's something inside, seeds and something "squishy" - he presses his lips together.] What tools will we need? I will retrieve them from the kitchens, if they are there.

[For a moment she lets herself just watch him explore the pumpkin, like a child tripping across a new and exciting animal that it's never seen before, certain that it won't bite but unsure how to handle it. This is one of the other things she loves about her warden: that he pays close attention to things that other people gloss over, the quiet beauty in the world that, for him, is a luxury to experience.]

[She'd like to think she's learning how to do that, too. But, she knows, she has a long way to go.]

[The question registers after a short delay, and she glances from Ben's hands up to his slightly consternated expression.]

Um, a big knife to cut out the top. A couple of smaller ones to do the carving. And - big spoons for the insides. Probably some towels too. And a bucket?

[Ben waits until she catches up to him, gaze steady and intent. He wonders, sometimes, what she's thinking about when she falls behind like that. He knows what it looks like in himself, how he's taking the time to process, to repeat what's being told him or what he's extrapolating again and again in an effort to remember it. She doesn't have to work as hard at the context, though, he knows.

So he wonders, but he doesn't ask. Instead he listens to the list and then steps away.]

I can do that. I will be back as soon as I can.

[And he is. He leaves, heads up to the kitchens for the majority of the items, and ends up retrieving the towels from his own cabin. Everything is neatly rolled, stacked, and secure in the requested bucket when he returns, the big French knife and the pair of smaller paring knives folded deliberately into the towel to avoid the sharp edges being dangerous to transport. He places the bucket on the desk between the pumpkins for inspection, glancing expectantly at Abigail.]

[While he's out, she fiddles with the gramophone. She only has one record that she can play on it, but she's played it over and over, so that she knows exactly where to set it to get what part of the waltz.]

[She plays it now, because it makes her feel happy, and because it's fun to do things with music playing. It's right as Ben comes back that she realizes how long it's been since she did anything purely for its own sake, because it makes her happy - since long before her father's obsession with protecting her became violent. She did things for other people, to save face, to cope with the tension and wrong-feeling-ness of her own home, but not just because.]

[So she seems a little off-kilter when she catches Ben's expectant look and steps toward him hesitantly, but catches herself on the upbeat (-two-three), smiling at him by the next bar. She's doing things for herself now.]

[She takes the French knife and lays it next to Ben's pumpkin, then points a vague circle around the stem.]

You have to cut the lid off. Like the lid of a jar. Not gently, but carefully.

[Or you'll ruin the meat.]

[The gramophone and the waltz it's playing is a pleasant surprise upon his return, and he glances at it curiously. It's a good sign, he thinks. Music, he thinks, always is. Music serves no practical purpose, not in and of itself; music is nourishment for the same part of people that Ben's stories speak to, he thinks. He hopes.

She smiles, and his theory remains unchallenged to his knowledge. He doesn't smile back, but only because he doesn't smile. She's off kilter, but he makes a note of it, and thinks they all are. Thinks it would be worse not to be.

He picks up the knife when she puts it down, eyes tracing the path her finger sketches, fingers loose and comfortable around the handle but without intent.]

I understand. It's hollow. [After a moment he pulls the pumpkin closer, sets the point against the waxy skin. Presses it through, carefully and smoothly, until he feels it give and starts to cut the circle as instructed. His attention remains on what his hands are doing, pressure and counter point, the harmless preparations of gutting a vegetable.] This is something all civilians do? This is... normal?

[She watches him carefully, attentively, ready to correct him if he does something wrong. Her smile is thin, not because she isn't happy but because that's as big as she can smile right now. His understanding is correct. It's hollow. It's normal. One or the other, or both.]

It's something that people in the United States do at Hallowe'en. It's something my family did. So it's . . . [She worries her lip and then settles on:] Common.

[But nothing her family did could really be classified as normal, even if it appeared normal on the surface.]

It's expected.

[That seems closer to the truth. It was a thing they were supposed to do, so they did it. For most of her life, they even wanted to.]

You're doing it right, anyway.

[Ben accepts the corrections to his phrasing with directionless attentiveness, making note of it for the future. It will, he thinks, come up again - the distinction between normal, common, and expected.

Put that way, he understands exactly why there is such a difference.]

What are your designs of choice for such a project? [It doesn't take him long to close the initial cut, nor to set the knife down and carefully lever the lid off using the stem. He's distracted for a moment, peering inside, startled by the scatter of seeds strung together in flesh webbing. He pauses, eyes tracing everything he can see, before he sets it down carefully and reaches to touch the bits of pulp sticking to the underside of the piece he pulled off: this is why the bucket, he understands immediately, and glances up at her.]

[She's silent for a moment, leaning forward on her hands a little to watch Ben pry the lid off. He's so careful, as though his hands are likely to break every little thing they touch, and maybe they are. Maybe that's how he manages gentleness so often, through caution.]

[When he looks inside, he seems surprised and then blooms with understanding. It makes her grin, and she peers inside, too, even though she knows what's in there, maybe getting a little too close in his personal space but too excited to register it.]

Gross, right? Sticky. But like I said, the seeds are good. And pie.

[She backs up at the question, frowning and trying to remember.]

I . . . used to make faces in the pumpkins. Scary ones or mean ones. My mom always made them smiling, but I thought that was dumb. You're supposed to be scared on Hallowe'en.

[A small, bittersweet smile.]

Maybe she was right, I don't know. I think I might just . . . make designs this time. Something pretty for the light to show through.

Perhaps I'll ask Riddick if he would make something with them, or Ned once he takes up baking again. Or both.

[Ben doesn't really react to her lean, except that he waits until she's backed off again to move himself. Now that he can see the interior of the pumpkin, several of the items she requested make a lot more sense and he's moving: he strips off his field jacket to keep the long sleeves clean, twisting to hang it on the back of a chair instead. Down to his t-shirt and BDU pants, he glances over at her as she speaks.]

I don't understand why anyone would choose to be scared. [A statement of fact, not any kind of judgment. Simple, honest. He looks at the pumpkin in front of him even as he reaches to move the bucket, begins to spread out a towel under the one he's already cut into. Then he picks up the knife again and reaches for the second one, more confident this time but no less careful.]

Unless it is because of the certainty of feeling safe despite it. Of knowing whatever caused the fear is not a viable threat. I think I would like to make a design as well.

[One of the things Abigail doesn't always realize she appreciates about Ben is the way he helps her deconstruct the weird things that people do from the outside. She could never have done that without him. He's right, too - it's weird. Why choose to be scared? Being scared is awful.]

I think that has to be right. Unless you know nothing can hurt you, being scared is - it's the worst thing.

[She pulls the pumpkin he already opened up towards herself and starts tugging out the insides, dumping them in the bucket. Besides a curious look sideways at Ben, she focuses most of her attention on feeling the cold eeriness of the inside of the gourd, the way it squishes between her fingers.]

[It's fun. She's having fun.]

What design are you going to make?

I know.

[Also simple, honest, his voice gentle in a way he normally isn't. They both know down to their core that being scared is the worst thing. Being powerless and choiceless. Ben doesn't stop, now, to acknowledge it more than that on either end, letting it stand for them both. His eyes never leave the work of his hands.

Soon he's setting down the second lid beside the first and, gazing sidelong at Abigail a moment after her own glance, watching what she's doing. He picks up the other spoon he brought and begins mimicking her, careful at first, then with more confidence.

He is learning. Ben likes to learn.

Constellations. [He states it definitively enough, but then there's a knife-quick glance up as if to check if that's right, if it's okay. He lifts his head then from his work, and leans to look more closely at hers.] What is the goal of the next step?

[At the warmth in his voice, Abigail ducks her head and smiles. She moves a little closer to him, too, not enough to make him uncomfortable; it's just that she wants to feel the solid protectiveness of him close by, the attention of his posture, the attentiveness of his gaze. She missed him so much. It hurt.]

Constellations. [She says this with some wonder: it's an excellent idea, and she's never considered it. But his question confuses her, and she looks up at him for clarification.]

The carving, you mean?

[Ben lets her come closer without protest; he's okay with proximity without expectation. It's only when he feels like he doesn't understand what it means, or that it might mean something different to someone else than it does to him, that he becomes anxious. He missed her as well, even if he was confident he would not lose her completely. Waiting was hard, not the least because he has spent so much of his life waiting for others to come back to him.]

No. [He holds up the strings of pumpkin guts, trailing off the end of the spoon and over his knuckles.] How much do we remove? What is ideal?

Oh.

[She grins at him. He looks silly, just holding the pumpkin's soft parts like that. Like a friend, but better than a friend. A friend who knows all your awful secrets and holds them in the warmth of his hands with no fear, no flinching.]

As much as possible. The more that stays in, the more quickly it goes bad. And you want it to last a while, so you can look at it for longer.

Acknowledged.

[He feels awkward just sitting there, but she's smiling at him, happy, and that makes him happy too.

He smiles back by dropping his eyes away, turning his head slightly, glancing back up. Away again to his task. Two spoonfuls more of seeds and innards make it into the bowl beside his knee, then he looks up again from craning his neck so he can see better down inside.]

Did you have somewhere in mind to display them?

[She is almost done scooping her own out by now, working more efficiently than him because she's used to this task, able to easily catch up. His question is a good one, and one which she hadn't really considered before now; she just wanted the doing of it, but now that she thinks about it, they ought to be displayed. They're going to be perfect and beautiful, after all. Obviously.]

Maybe the art room? If that's okay. I would say the CES but they might disappear, and someone might accidentally kick them off the deck into space. Like a soccer ball.

[Soccer gourd. These are serious concerns.]

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