Settling Dust

[Trillian]

Ben was interested in what Kerr had to say about Halen.  He\'d picked up on the fact he\'d pleased the Luminary somehow, but his hopes had been dashed when Halen had ordered his goons to take him out of his room and when Declan had told him he would be his pet.  It had been enough for him to doubt Halen had thought well of him at all.

He\'d sought out another sire.

No.  No, he hadn\'t.  The thing that had taken over his body had sought out another sire.  Perhaps there\'d been some lingering wish of Ben\'s, or perhaps because of the situation Ben had been pushed into, the being that had taken control of his body had come to the same conclusion.  Vampirism.  Why not?  It was a sensible, logical choice.  Obviously Ben\'s memories had been accessed by this thing, and he\'d managed to manipulate Kerr into siring him.  By the sound of it, Kerr had thought he was Ben.

So when had the charade ended?

"You don\'t know me," he said finally, unable to say anything else.  Kerr had thought the thing was him.  Kerr had called it Ben and fallen in love with it.  Now it was free, and it looked just like him.  Really, the transition for Kerr to move to that Jack fellow should be very easy.

Maybe we should go our separate ways
But who\'ll train me?
I\'ll go to the Oligarchy
I\'ll ask for someone there to help me
I\'m a vampire now, so the Oligarch will protect me
Or Halen will
If he liked me enough to give me permission of anyone I wanted
He\'ll help me

"Maybe we should go our separate ways," he said, giving his initial thought a voice.

[Existentially Odd]

"Bullshit," Kerr spat harshly, at being told he didn\'t know Ben.  The latter comment he ignored for the time being because he was too upset about being accused of being a stranger and he bristled.

"I know you better than you know yourself.  I know where you grew up, where you went to school, who your friends were - or weren\'t, as the case was - how your father treated you and how your mother failed you.  I know why you have the cutest habit of folding your dirty laundry when you take it off and where every birthmark on your body is.  I know how long you\'ve wanted to be a vampire, why and how you managed to reach the point you did when you approached me at Risk that night and every man you\'ve ever slept with."

Which you don\'t even know any more, my love.  His expression was a glowering, black mask.  It hurt to be accused of being a stranger and he couldn\'t quite fathom why Ben would do such a thing.  What had he done to deserve that?

"You aren\'t now who you became over the past three years, I\'m well aware of that, but I know you and saying I don\'t is just hurtful and nasty.  The only time I didn\'t know you was when the ritual\'s influence began to take you over a few months ago and when that happened, we did go our separate ways.  Until that point I knew everything about you and you knew me and we were happy, Goddamn it.  It may be different now, your memories may be inside another being but you are still the same person I care about and that\'s all that matters to me.  That\'s what I\'m planning to count on, as we move forward.  If you want to do it on your own, that\'s fine, I can respect that and I will never try to cage you, but don\'t try to fool yourself into thinking we should split up because I don\'t know you, when the truth is that I know you too well and you don\'t want to admit how uncomfortable that makes you.  Denial is so much easier than facing the facts, isn\'t it, Ben?"

His words were a sneering demand, his mouth downturned as he fought off the pain of being pushed away.  Ben might be fragile and bewildered but he knew enough to have held such spiteful comments back and he\'d chosen not to, so Kerr didn\'t see why he couldn\'t bite back.

[Trillian]

Ben thought he could brave such a speech, that he could face it even though it was spoken to him from right beside him.  He couldn\'t, he was weaker than he\'d hoped, and three quarters of the way through it he threw his hands up to his face and covered them.  No more, his body language said, he would listen to no more, he would accept no more.  Once Kerr finished speaking, with that sneering comment the last one made, Ben\'s hands drifted down and settled in his lap, though he\'d drawn himself away at a tilt, not wanting to be closer to Kerr than he already was.

What was Kerr to him but a new friend?  Kerr could say three years till he was blue in the face, but Ben didn\'t feel those years, didn\'t know those years and wanted nothing to do with those years, because he\'d been controlled by another.  He was back now, and what was Kerr to him, but a new friend?

"I think you should leave, now," Ben said, expecting himself to say it with a shaking voice but his voice was steady, refusing to betray the turmoil inside him.  He said nothing more, but the fact he was twisted away from Kerr in order to shrink away from him said more than that short and simple statement.

I don\'t need you

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr flinched as the mental dismissal came at him and he found it hard to understand why Ben was being so cruel.  Apparently, denial was tantamount.  He wasn\'t willing to open himself up to any of the events of the past three years and he wasn\'t going to allow Kerr any leeway for mourning them, either. The sire found it hard to align himself with a boy so coldly determined to shut everything out that he would cut everything in his path down and use none of the resources being made available to him.  He wanted to be an island, untouched and unmoved by anything save water - but even water, given enough time, could erode an island to nothing, didn\'t Ben see that?

Certainly, he and Ben had never fought like this as early on in their relationship as they were now, but Kerr found it incredible that months spent with Declan had changed the blonde so much.  He wasn\'t willing to fight, to ease his mind by venting, wasn\'t prepared to listen and, most of all, he wasn\'t interested in communicating.  Things were hard, but they weren\'t that fucking hard on Ben\'s side of things - he didn\'t even know what he\'d fucking lost for Christ\'s sake! - so Kerr didn\'t get why he was playing the martyr and pushing him away.

It hurt, sure, but more to the point, it was stupid.  Again, he fought back, but his argument was much simpler this time and delivered mentally, so as to show Ben how vulnerable he really was.

Oh really?  You don\'t need me?  Where are you planning to live when we get back to the city, then?  In fact, without me, how are you even getting back to the city?

He was watched from glittering brown eyes and a body that didn\'t care how much Ben leaned away, he wasn\'t moving.  Some things just needed to be faced and although he didn\'t resent it, Ben was dependent upon him for many things.  Would his fledgling be willing to face any facts, though?

And what about a victim?  The hunger is burning at you by now, gnawing your insides like a fire; I can feel it, you can feel it.  You\'ve never fed before, though... do you need me to help with that or are you more interested in retaining your independence and just tearing the throat out of the first hotel maid you walk out the door and find?

Kerr\'s mental voice was as calm as his physical one had been, but as relentless in pointing out the flaws in Ben\'s categorical refusal of the way things had been, were and would have to be from now on.

[Trillian]

When Ben was told - no, threatened - by Kerr that he had to rely on him for a place to live and for a means to return to the city, he was horrified.  This vampire that he\'d known for six days, who\'d told him really cool stories and fed from him and slept with him and let himself be kissed by him, had taken him to a hotel and was now saying Ben had nothing but him left.

Well.  Fuck that.  Fuck if Ben was going to give into someone who talked down to him and wanted to keep him as his little fledgling slave.

Ben shot up off the bed, heading for the door at a stormy pace, and when he opened it, the second wave of thought struck his head - about needing to feed and accusing him of not knowing how.  Ben had managed to turn the knob and open the door before he turned to look at Kerr, hatred glaring at his sire.

He wanted to say something witty

I\'ll figure it out
I researched your kind for my whole life
I\'ve been fed from myself
I know what to look for
I don\'t need
don\'t want
you
You\'re not who I thought you were
I made a bad choice picking you at Risk

"I\'m not yours," he said, thinking back to something Kerr had said, about his not wanting Ben to be someone else\'s.

Before Ben had been with Declan, he\'d always run away from confrontation.  Before Ben had been with Declan, he\'d isolated himself from friends and family.  Before Ben had been with Declan, he\'d prided himself on his independence, on managing to get by on very little.  Before Ben had been with Declan, he\'d taken risks.

This Ben was not Kerr\'s Ben.  He was the Ben Kerr had first met.  It was this Ben that opened the door the rest of the way and sought an exit to this room, this hotel, hoping to hitch a ride with someone to the nearest city where he could find a job and a cheap place to live.  It was like running away from home at sixteen all over again - and it was only three years ago, by what he remembered.

[Existentially Odd]

"Ben!  Wait, please!" Kerr beseeched him, following even more quickly and closing the space between the two of them fast enough that he could be there to grab Ben\'s arm to stop him from storming out of the room - but gently, he didn\'t want to hurt him or be even more domineering than he already was being.
 
"I didn\'t mean it like that," he said hastily.  "I don\'t own you, I\'m your friend and I\'m your sire, that\'s the only way I meant it.  Don\'t leave like this, please.  I want to teach you, I want to help you, I want you to come back to the city with me and live with me so I can train you, please don\'t walk away with a misunderstanding between us!"
 
The words left his lips so rapidly that it would have been difficult to make out one from the other for anyone with less exceptional hearing, but he was talking fast because the panic in him was beating faster.  He had to stop Ben making a mistake, no matter how sour the pleas tasted in his mouth.  He would happily let Ben live on his own when they got back to the city if that was what it took, but he did need him nearby.  Grovelling was worth that.

[Trillian]

Ben was still angry and pulled away from Kerr\'s grip as hard and violently as he could.

"You just told me I had to rely on you to get home!  How else am I supposed to take that?"

He heard a door open further down the corridor and could almost feel another pair of eyes peering at him.  He didn\'t know who they belonged to, whether it was his lookalike or a stranger who was worried about the noise, but he didn\'t really care.  He was still horrified that Kerr had threatened to leave him here if he didn\'t do as told.

[Existentially Odd]

"You\'re supposed to rely on me to get you home because it\'s my fault you\'re here," Kerr insisted, not answering the question because it wasn\'t his focus.  Frankly, Ben was reliant on him to get home but if he wanted it to end there, then so be it; the way he was feeling at that moment, it might well be a relief.

"Once we get there, you can do what you like, I just want to be sure you get there safely."  His expression was imploring.  He took a deliberate step back, so that Ben had space to return.

"Why don\'t you come back in and tell me what you want?  I\'ll abide by it, n matter what it is, anything you want.  A solitary flight back, a commercial flight back, a car and hotel stays to drive back - whatever you want, it\'s yours just please come back in and tell me."

[Trillian]

He was feeling more and more self conscious as the minutes ticked by.  He looked up the corridor to see who\'d poked their head out but all he saw was a closing door.  He\'d missed whoever had wanted to watch the show.  Feeling helpless and stupid, standing at a door and undecided as to which way to progress, he gave in to Kerr\'s pleas and sat himself upon the armchair supplied in a nook in the room, near the small breakfast table.

He watched as Kerr shut the door before looking down at the carpet, pressing his lips tightly together - for he didn\'t want to ask for anything and didn\'t know how to begin otherwise - and with his arms folded.  He looked like someone who didn\'t want to share his thoughts and feelings, though now that Kerr had brought his attention to it, he could feel the gnawing and burning desire in him.

It was like craving steak.  Only it was like craving not-steak.  Something like it but deeper, richer, less available.

Blood.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr was beginning to realise just how much Ben had grown up in the past years and to mourn that, too.  Looking at his fledgling sitting at the table with his arms folded like a petulant child only exasperated the sire, making him wonder why he was bothering and whether any of it was worth it.

His own blood echoing back at him from the body of someone he cared deeply about told him it was worth it, though.  He\'d already sacrificed his dignity (though he had managed to stop himself from pointing blame at Ben for starting their discussion in the first place) by begging Ben to return, it surely couldn\'t get any worse.

The Irishman was feeling weary from all the talking and the chasing - and he still hadn\'t even called his pilot! - so he took a moment to find another chair to sit across from Ben, leaned back into it with his legs crossed, right ankle resting atop his left thigh.

This had all gone wrong about the time he\'d told Ben too much information about why he\'d sired him, on reflection.  He really did have to limit everything to the most minimal answers possible, or Ben\'s fragile ego, or mind, or soul - or whatever the hell it was causing all this tiptoeing - would pucker up and prepare to kiss him good-bye.  Any sign of trouble, Ben\'s strategy was to cut and run.  Not only was it immature but it sucked royally, because Kerr was never going to be able to relax around his fledgling - not until he grew up a little, anyway.

"Ben," he stated calmly, much like a doctor would open with a patient\'s name when she was about to tell said patient that they had terminal cancer, "I don\'t want misunderstandings between us.  I also don\'t want you upset.  I do want to train you and I do want to have back in the city near me for that to happen, but beyond that, I have no demands.  You need time and space to figure that out - I get it.  I\'m currently living in a very, very large house by the beach where you are welcome to stay and where we will only have to have minimal contact, if that\'s what you want.  You have your car, we can bring it to the house so you have freedom.  The house is big enough that you can have your own floor if you want it," he smiled, trying to sound encouraging.

"If you really do want to have no contact with me, that\'s also fine.  I can assign another vampire to train you, someone good, who you\'ll work well with.  I can buy you somewhere to live, you can stay in our apartment - your name\'s on that lease and it\'s legally part yours anyway, plus it\'s completely set up to be daylight proof - or you can work on getting your own place, if you\'re too proud to accept money from me.  I really don\'t mind," he promised sincerely, lowering his right foot to the floor and leaning towards his fledgling, elbows resting on his spread knees and hands clasped loosely in the space between.

"If you don\'t want to see me again after we get back to the city, I\'ll accept that.  I\'ll worry about you and I\'ll want to protect you, but if you\'re determined to do it on your own, I\'ll also respect that and leave you to it.  I just want you to feel good about yourself and to be able to pick your life up and make sense of it.  However you do that, it\'s fine with me... but please, just give me a hint about which way you\'re leaning so that I can begin making arrangements one way or the other."  He blinked once more as he stared levelly at Ben, finally falling silent.

[Trillian]

Reasoning with Ben this way was the right path to take.  The more Kerr spoke about Ben\'s options - all of them - the more Ben was able to relax and not feel trapped into something he\'d never agreed to.

He considered his options for a very long moment.  Kerr would no doubt hear mental snippets of Ben weighing pros and cons of each suggestion Kerr made.  Eventually, after a good ten or so minutes had passed, Ben had arrived at what he felt was the most logical solution.

It was obvious, too, that he\'d calmed down a great deal while he\'d been thinking everything out.

"It makes sense for you to train me, not somebody else, because you\'re my sire," he said slowly while peeking at Kerr through his lashes, for his chin was downturned and nearly touching his shirt.  "I want my car back too," he added, for his car was his only possession and something that wouldn\'t have changed over the space of three absent years - or so he thought.  "I don\'t need a whole floor, I just need a room."  He lifted his head to look Kerr squarely in the eye.  "I don\'t want anything else."

Once I\'m caught up on my training
Once I can survive on my own
I might have to rethink

He hoped Kerr couldn\'t hear these last few thoughts that drifted in his head, unbidden.

[Existentially Odd]

"Fine," Kerr breathed agreeably, nodding his head in acquiescence.  "And what about travelling back tonight?  Are you ready for that or would you like some more time?  Do you want to do it alone or with the group?"  The sire stopped talking then, because he was beginning to feel like he was patiently questioning a two year old, and Ben wasn\'t that bad.

[Trillian]

Might as well travel back tonight
Nothing for me here
Nothing for me there either
But at least I\'ll know the city

Ben nodded, unfolding his hands and placing them on his lap as he looked at Kerr.

"I don\'t need special treatment," he said, though it was obvious from his behaviour (and by his situation) that he did.

[Existentially Odd]

Nothing for me there either?
Really?
Well fucking thanks, love

Kerr gritted his teeth as Ben\'s thoughts echoed into his head and seemed to reach down his throat to squeeze his heart.  Everything his fledgling said seemed designed to do that specifically, even though Kerr told himself it couldn\'t be intentional; Ben simply wasn\'t that mean.  He was quite self-centred, though... but Kerr chastised himself for thinking such petty things about his fledgling too, after the trial he\'d been through.  Of course he was self-centred, the boy had lost three years of his life!

"Okay, I\'ll just make a phone call and then we should be set to go and get you something to drink," he said as cheerfully as he could, reaching in to his inner breast pocket and withdrawing his phone so that he could call his pilot and have flight plans posted.  Since it was an inter-continental flight, they should only need to wait about an hour - plenty of time for nourishment and notifying Jack and Samuel that they should pack.

Plenty of time, also, to steel himself for a couple of hours\' worth of flight home with the two men that used to be the whole of his world... but which somehow didn\'t seem to add up to even half of it any more.

~*~

Half an hour later, they were back inside the hotel.  Kerr had helped Ben feed from three victims in exactly the same way as he once had, mesmerising them into supplication and quietly instructing Ben on what to listen for and how long to drink.  He deliberately didn\'t give too much advice at first, because he wanted to see if Ben\'s body at least would remember how it was done, but it hadn\'t been flawless the first time.  Oh, well.

Once his fledgling was flushed with nourishment, they headed back to their room to pack, but Kerr stopped by Jack\'s room on the way. When the door was opened to him, he entered and told Jack to get ready, they were heading to the airport as soon as possible, so that they could go home.  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, however, he frowned, wondering if that had been the right thing to say.

"You do want to come home tonight... don\'t you?  You and Samuel?  With Ben and I?  That won\'t be a problem... will it?" he asked cautiously, belatedly giving away the fact that he thought it might... but that it had only just occurred to him.  Ben didn\'t seem to have a problem with being on the same aeroplane as Jack, so he\'d doubted that it would work in reverse... but maybe he was wrong.

[Trillian]

"Of course," he said to the first question, "it won\'t," he said to the last, acknowledging the ones in between with a nod.  There was an eagerness to his tone that had been nonexistent with his twin.

Where Ben had wanted to remain untouched, Jack was the polar opposite, getting close to Kerr at all times, reaching out to hold his hand or play with his fingers or stroke his back or side or face, whatever was handiest.

Samuel had very particularly made himself scarce, disappearing into the bathroom with an excuse for showering the instant Jack had thrown a look his way.  The unspoken command had been followed immediately.

"I\'d rather be with you than without," he added cleverly, hoping to take advantage of Ben\'s rejection he\'d overheard.