versusnurture | twenty-seven ♢ video

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twenty-seven ♢ video

[The video cuts on with Abigail ever-so-dubiously holding the camera, selfie-style. A wave. Hello, Barge, someone's here with bad news.]

So, um. I feel like we should really have a pre-formatted broadcast about this ready, a kind of fill-in-the-blanks-here style thing, but, well . . .

[She pans the camera back, revealing that she's in the clinic, and directs it towards Scott. Who is asleep halfway out of a kennel, his head resting against the bars. He's drooling a little. Some cute puppy snores are happening, too.]

I need help getting Scott to the infirmary. Or, you know, wherever you people want him.

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I'll come and get him.

I'll be waiting.

[She can totally help carry his feet :E]

[It doesn't take him long to make it to the clinic. He doesn't come here a lot, but he's visited Scott a handful of times. In some ways it's too much a reminder of Deaton's clinic back home, and he's not ready to think about that. He moves over to the kennel -- which, really? -- and sighs softly, resting a hand on his best friend's back. Sure enough, he doesn't move. Stiles has gotten stronger since he got here, but he's still not sure he'll be able to carry Scott back to his room without the assistance that Kira and Allison offered.

Pathetic. Then again, they have supernatural strength on their side. He glances over at Abigail.]

I'd ask if he crawled in the kennel on his own or not, but I'm not sure I wanna know.

Excuse me?

[She gives him a deeply offended look.]

He was cleaning it out and just - just fell asleep halfway through.

[It sounds sincere and genuine, but, well, that's kind of her schtick. It's a little bit of a girl who cried not-wolf situation. In this case, she honestly did not put him in the kennel, but she also did videotape him in the kennel, so. If it's not one thing it's the other.]

[Still. Rude.]

[He's gonna have to have a talk to Scott about the irony of him crawling into a dog kennel to clean it out and then passing out while he's inside. As soon as he wakes up, Stiles is going to tease the hell out of him. The humor of the thought is fleeting, because his stomach is a knot of tightly wound nerves.]

Hey, it was just a question. [He shrugs, not really sounding all that apologetic. He hadn't meant it to be rude.]

Can I help you with him?

Yeah, of course. [He smiles but it's faint, grim, and doesn't reflect in his eyes.]

[She gets it. She really does.

Determinedly,]

What do we need to do to help take care of him while he's asleep?

[(Whatever it takes. But there are probably specific things that will need doing.)]

[He rubs a hand over his face, and shakes his head a little.]

Mostly just having somebody with him around the clock. We don't have to worry about feeding him or anything. I don't understand it, but the comas that happen here -- they're not like comas back home.

Seconded in the helping department, if you need it.

[Her voice sounds pretty steady, and her eyes are dry...but they're also blazing, Beta gold, and she can't seem to make them change back.

She's trying, though...she's really, really trying to keep her cool.]

Thanks. I think I'm gonna have to take you up on that.

[He pauses, hesitates when he sees her eyes are glowing.]

If you're sure you're up for it. [Because she's still new at this, and it isn't that he doesn't trust her, but...even Scott had tried to kill him a few times when he'd been new. And he and Scott had been brothers since they were four.]

I have to be.

[Her Alpha needs her...Scott needs her, and if he's not here...

She has to be okay. She has to be strong. She can't let him down.]

I have to be--I am. I'm up for it...I'm coming, okay? I'm probably strong enough to carry Scott myself and all...I'm coming to help.

[He gets it and he nods.]

Okay. Then I'll see you when you get here.

[It's almost like the first days, except there aren't many left around from the first days to notice, and anyway. Ben has always been strange, right?

He doesn't answer on the network. Instead he turns up at the clinic, watchful and quiet, searching Abigail out to speak with her in person rather than over communicators.]

[The pack has come and gone by now, clucking and fussing and - well, it was all very sweet in its way, but Abigail doesn't have the patience for it for long. She wonders how people with large families manage; she thinks she'd have a nervous breakdown.]

[Now that they've gone, she's cleaning up a few odds and ends that got scattered when Scott fell, things he was in the middle of doing, that kind of thing. She looks up from straightening a stack of legal pads when Ben comes in, and manages a tired smile.]

Hi, Ben.

[Ben often wonders this about those that choose to dwell permanently in cities. So many people crushing so close, no room to think or breathe or relax.

There's no one else in the clinic, though, and Ben cocks his head to study the smile she gives him. He breathes out slowly, the gentle relaxing of his ribcage huddled protectively around his innermost organs, pulling his lungs with it.]

Hello, Abigail.

Do you require assistance?

Assistance?

[She seems to ponder it for a long moment, then shakes her head.]

No. I just wish things made more sense sometimes, that's all. [The flash of a smile.] But I don't think you can help me with that, can you?

[Ben can't make sense of the whims of the Barge any more than he can make sense of what Hannibal did. Does. Did. Whichever.]

[Well. That's sort of creepy, coming in the wake of his own coma.]

...God, I hope I didn't drool on anyone.

[Normally he might not say anything but he's still weirded out about having just been dead to the world for weeks and it makes him want to talk to people. Like proving he still exists or something.]

I don't know. I didn't visit you.

[Mean? Maybe. But she didn't, and she doesn't know, and she doesn't feel like lying is going to change those things any.]

Everybody needs to just cut it out, though.

[Hey, don't worry, he didn't really expect she would have. Why would she? They're not close, even if they have things in common.]

Tell that to the ship. Or the Admiral. Or whatever weird thing makes it happen. It's not like people choose it.

Fine, maybe I will.

[She said pointlessly. All in a huff:] At least you're up.

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twenty-seven ♢ video

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