013 TEXT LIST TWO/SPAM

[deadliestviper]

Backdated to three days after the Overlook port.

[Locked to Friends (if she's ever told you anything personal, you're on here)]

That port was fucked up for everyone and it hit all of us hard. After going through that I know most of you aren't feeling up to par yet, but when I get anxious, I get antsy. I've laid low to lick my wounds long enough. For the next few hours I'll be playing pool and pretending everything's normal if you've got the energy or inclination to join me.

[Spam, Level 6]

[Rack the balls in the pyramid, set the cue-ball, chalk the cue evenly, line up the shot, break it; Beatrix repeats the pattern over and over again, sinking balls into the table's pockets before starting anew. It's not for practice or any particular love of the game, it's not even for fun. It's just that playing strikes that perfect balance of skilled focus and monotony that allows her to zone out, and the last thing she wanted to do right now was let her mind wander. It was already hard enough to push the images of Sarah and that thing in room 217's bathroom from the forefront of her mind – what she needed, wanted, was someone to talk to, distract her.

But no matter how deeply you repress it, you can't squelch a thought. So by all means, join her, but take care if you point out that she's humming "Love Me Tender."]

Comments

[ Spam ] i'll put on some tea

[deadliestviper]

[Nothing good came of it until you conquered it - but given that, if you asked, Beatrix would be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what Ben is afraid of, perhaps she shouldn't make any assumptions. Now she assumes, after all, that he feels safer back on board, like she does. That he's just relieved to be out of there, away from whatever was playing on their minds.

That he can trust her as easily as he did back there.]

No one has nightmares if they don't sleep. Besides, I feel as if I've spent long enough in bed.

[ Spam ]

[warisart]

If you don't sleep, it's only a different kind of nightmare that comes for you.

[He trusted everything, back there; and maybe Rhade is right, maybe eventually that place would have used his easy trust to lead him into some kind of fatal trap, but it had been so, so comforting while it lasted. Like he had finally done something right, that he had protected people he's beginning to care about.

But he hadn't, he can't; the Barge, the Admiral, whatever is in charge, it does what it wants. At least it's familiar, even if it's not comforting.

Ben taps his fingertips idly on the edge of the pool table, considers pushing one of the balls instead, but makes no move to disrupt whatever game she is, in fact, playing. Instead he glances up to consider her last statement.]

Were you harmed?

[ Spam ]

[deadliestviper]

I sleep, just not much. [There's no order to the game, if you can even call it that. She stopped playing by proper rules ages ago, what's left over is merely the work of idle hands. She watches him, waiting to see whether he'll reach onto the table and play himself. Maybe it shouldn't surprise her that he doesn't.]

Not recently. A long time ago.

[ Spam ]

[warisart]

[He leaves his hand there a few moments longer, but ultimately withdraws it to fold, loosely, behind his back with the other. The first he empathizes with - he doesn't need to sleep much, either, but he suspects he could do with sleeping more than he does; the second makes him cock his head slightly though his expression, or general lack thereof, doesn't really change.]

I remember, possibly. [She'd said about her daughter, about how she'd rather not talk about it to any extra people.] You don't have to tell me.

[ Spam ]

[deadliestviper]

[Every time he pulls back like that, she's compelled to reach out and touch him – to squeeze his shoulder or brush his hair back from his eyes, to give some human indication that he's done nothing wrong. But she doesn't – she's too unsure how he'll react.]

You do, huh? [The kid's smart, she shouldn't be surprised.] I don't mind.

[ Spam ]

[warisart]

[He doesn't specifically behave in such a way as to disinvite being touched, so much as he never learned to invite it; besides, it rarely did him any favors, either. Only silence, obedience, and endurance.

Then there was his unit.]

Would... talking about it... help you? I am equally capable of listening or "pretending everything is normal."

[ Spam ]

[deadliestviper]

[Perhaps it's just her own reservation, then – she never would have reached out to comfort O-Ren or Vernita, even when they fought as comrades – they probably would have slapped her hand away. She'd have done the same to anyone offering the gesture as well, save for Bill.]

It wouldn't hurt anything, but only if you want to listen. You don't have to pretend around me.

It's been long enough that it's part of my normal now. [Which is a lie, or maybe a stretched truth. It's become just another hateful part of her past, but talking about it brings back the sting.] Four and a half years ago I was shot. I spent a long time in a coma after that.

[ Spam ]

[warisart]

[If he were a better soldier, he wouldn't need the comfort; he knows that, he's learned to deal with it as best he can, to the point he doesn't know whether or not he needs it anymore.

She tells him he doesn't have to pretend and he thinks about laughing, but doesn't. Merely waits for her to decide whether they'll do as she specified in her message, or if she'll share with him.

And when she does start, he doesn't hear anything especially hateful; he's been desensitized to violence, perhaps, or perhaps he knows she's standing here so she was obviously, at least, physically alright.]

You've recovered well. [He never forgets about what she said when she revealed her real name, and it's easy to make the logical step.] It was intentional?

[ Spam ]

[deadliestviper]

[True; in terms of comfort, soldiers starve. All they could give is rationed to keep them sane in times of battle, it's not given to others. In that sense perhaps it's kinder for Beatrix to remain removed, but she's still tempted to give it.]

I made it out alive. [There is no thankfulness in that statement. She'd woken into a nightmare, one she would have preferred death to facing.] Yes.

[ Spam ]

[warisart]

[Ben understands that, too; his unit had wished their entire lives to be taken somewhere other than Manticore. When they'd escaped out into it, in the end, he'd wanted nothing so much as to go back to what was familiar. Then it had become a real threat and he'd asked Max to kill him rather than face it again.

He considers her now; hears the words unspoken between the lines, and instead asks,] Is that what was troubling you... in that place?

[ Spam ]

[deadliestviper]

[It was similar, for Beatrix. She had been not only perfectly content with her world, she had grown to thrive in it – she was not just a hired gun, she was one of the five best killers in the world, proud of all her murderous skills and her place at Bill's side as protegé and lover.

Then there had been that little blue line on the pregnancy test and everything changed, but the civilian world wasn't as easy to disappear into as she thought.] No. That was something else entirely.

[ Spam ]

[warisart]

I see.

[He does and he doesn't; it seemed to be something a little different for everyone, and he can't begin to guess at the source or the cause. Or, for that matter, the point. Ben drops his gaze down to the table again, tilts his head. When he speaks, it's with a slightly hollow quality to his voice; he's thought this before.]

I'm beginning to wonder if we're ever meant to get out of this place. The challenges are senseless and in many cases insurmountable.

[ Spam ]

[deadliestviper]

And that's if we have something to go back to.

[She stands and moves over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder – reassuring, please let him see it as reassuring.] Hey. Look at me. Don't let this place break you, Ben. You're stronger than that.

Re: [ Spam ]

[warisart]

[Ben's eyes tick up when she moves, though he doesn't raise his head; he's wary but he doesn't move away nor react really at all when she touches him, though the muscles of his arm are tense beneath her hand.

He lets out a slow breath, doesn't smile even ironically.]

All due respect, you don't know me. I'm not the strong one. [That was Eva, and in the end, that didn't matter for her.]

[ Spam ]

[deadliestviper]

No, I don't. But I know you've made it this far. You're stronger than you think.

[ Spam ]

[warisart]

Perhaps. [It's not in him to argue, and especially not about this; it would involve giving away too much that he's not ready to, not yet. The irony that her evidence of his strength is that he's made it this far, when others insist he's died to get here, when he failed in his world and now he has to be retrained here, doesn't evade him.]

I would still argue the senselessness of the entire process.