A follow-on to last week's:

Janni watched Ben's car drive down the street, until it turned the corner out of the neighborhood and was lost to sight. Maybe she should have fought him harder on leaving, but his desperation had been nearly palpable and she wasn't sure that she'd have been doing him any favors to keep him home.

She sat on the couch, bereft. She missed him already. And, oh, yeah, she'd caught the lack of promise to come back, but calling him on it seemed like twisting the knife he already had buried in his chest. She wished--

She wished she could convince him that she didn't care who he'd slept with in prison, or why. The fact that he'd come back to her in one piece was all that mattered.

Well. One piece physically. Psychologically and emotionally, he might be in a worse place than he'd been when she'd found him in the parking lot of the reception center all those years ago. Haunted eyes and a gun beside him on the seat...

Gun. Oh, god.

She checked his sock drawer for the Glock and cried into his pillow when she found it missing. The note he'd left didn't help: Knew you'd look. Not planning on using it. Just in case, honey.

Signed with a heart, with a B in the middle. Her own heart cracked right in half.

Comments are ♥♥♥. And yes, there's some shameless linkspam in this entry.

*evil laughter* I'm not setting it up. Here, just... have it.

Ben sat on the bed with his face in his hands, an overnight bag packed with bare essentials open beside him. He'd nearly bolted before Janni got home from this catering job, but had decided that doing so would be monstrously unfair to her. The shakes had ahold of him, though, and he really didn't know if he'd be strong enough to actually walk out the door.

He heard the garage door, then Janni's voice. "Ben?"

"In here."

She stopped short in the doorway. "Sweetie? Going somewhere?"

He flapped his hand. "I just need...oh, hell, honey."

She was across the room in an instant, kneeling in front of him. "What do you need?" she asked gently.

"To stand on my own two feet for once." He scrubbed the heel of his hand across his face. "The women in my life are amazing. You especially. I have no idea how you've put up with years of this. But I can't ask you to go through it again."

"You didn't ask, I volunteered." She caught his hand before he started rubbing on the handcuff scars again. "So, you're running? This isn't like you, Ben."

"I'm trying to think of it as 'going away to get my head screwed on straight' rather than running." He was still bound up in his guilt over Ange, and rationalizations weren't helping.

"You're not taking much..."

"I'm not planning on being around people. I'll have my phone, and the laptop with the satellite internet." And his Glock, loaded with silver bullets, nestled in the bottom of the bag. But he wasn't going to tell her that.

You know I love your comments. *whines* I didn't get any on last week's...

Monday Maunderings. Because we're in Albuquerque right now and interwebs access is spotty.

They're in the bar, right after this scene (warning: attempted suicide). Long snippet is long. And, go:

"And those are token bite marks, or I haven't been paying attention. When was the last time you actually fed from him? And does he even know he's popped claws?"

Ben made a noise but didn't respond otherwise. "He's having a bit of a rough patch," Ange said, as he struggled to put the claws back where they belonged, because, no, he hadn't known. "We're dealing."

"Not well," Melissa pointed out with her usual lack of tact, as his hands finally went back to normal.

"Och, when does a wolf ever deal well with all this? The fact that he's not snapped like a bloody rubber band is a miracle I'm thankful for every day." He burrowed tighter into her leg, and her hand firmed on his neck, the thumb massaging the tight muscles. "I've got you, puppy."

"Yeah." He wasn't going to tell her he was okay, because he was far from okay, and she knew that anyway. He wished he knew how to stop falling apart, but nothing in his training or his therapy sessions after Afghanistan had prepared him for this. All he could do was try to hold the flimsy pieces of his sanity together and tell himself that things would get better. Not because he thought they actually would, but because he'd really lose it if that tiny shred of hope slipped away.

He was in the shutdown phase right now. And he knew, from bitter experience, that the lash-out phase would soon follow. And it would probably do him the same amount of good in this place that it did in the Afghani caves.

With the extra added bonus that the vampires wouldn't hesitate to eat him. It'd be wolfsbane and needles if he didn't manage to kill himself before they got to him.

Honestly, he was almost relieved that it was nearly over. He felt bad for Ange, having to watch, but he couldn't do anything to stop this slide and was exhausted from trying. He wrapped the arm not over his head around her thigh. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Have a snippet. Yeah, no, I'm not setting it up.

"We were talking, the night I got taken. About a client with a cheating husband. Kidding around, like you do. And she said 'You know I'd kill you, right?'" Stopped. Swallowed. "And I told her I'd hand her the gun and bare my chest against the muzzle." The conversation, the last one he'd had with Janni, was seared into his memory.

"Oh, puppy."

"So, in the dream, I give her my Glock and strip my shirt off and stand there. Waiting. And she just...looks at me. And then she drops the gun, turns, and walks off without a word. Like it's not even worth her time or energy to kill me."

"Shh." Ange stroked his hair. "She wouldn't do that."

His arm tightened around her waist. "Are you kidding? I shouldn't even be doing this, let alone--"

"If we didn't do this, you'd have shattered like a porcelain teacup long before now. You have anyway, a few times."

"Yeah. But there used to be this bright line, you know? The one that never got crossed under any circumstances. I've not only crossed it, I've obliterated it. The difference between right and wrong, sane and crazy? I don't know what that is anymore." Shaking. "And I'm just not sure that letting you put me back together is the right thing to do."

"Leave you shattered? Send you back to the lab? I'm physically incapable of doing that."

"I know. I also know that if--fuck, when, dammit, when--" Squeezing his eyes shut, he took a second to get ahold of himself. "When she finds me again, she's going to hate me. With good reason."

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Poor Ben. No, I'm not setting it up.

I have some new folks on my flist *waves* so, for you guys, all you have to know is that the guy in my icon is a werewolf, he's been tossed in vampire prison, and he's been losing his mind (he thinks) for about... two months now. He's fragile anyway, so, yeah.

Warning: attempted suicide follows. If this is a trigger for you, don't click the cut; if you came here via direct link, click away now.
( Read more... )

In lieu of a picture of my workspace (because that's just laughable, although I do love my Tony Stark CosBaby), here's a screenshot of the desktop I use while I'm writing this... thing. The MS is zoomed to 85%, so it's still halfway readable, and squooshed over to the side. And yep, that's Ben. Glaring at me with a gun in his hand a a cigarette in his mouth. Even though he doesn't smoke. I've considered having him take it up, though, on the basis that, at least while he was smoking, he'd remember to breathe. And he's a werewolf, so cancer doesn't factor into it, at least not in my 'verse (other 'verses may vary).



( Bigger image under the cut, where you can read some of my Deathless Prose™... )

I'm heading out to Borders with a 40% off coupon and the netbook in a little while. I leave you with a snippet. Early days in the prison, West has been tormenting Ben, and go:

Ben made a noncommittal noise and grabbed a pair of jeans. "If I asked you to kill me," he said, too casually, "would you do it?"

Angeline busied herself at the stove with a steak, her back to the room. She didn't want him to see her jaw tighten, and tried to keep her tone light. "Och, haven't you already asked me to?"

"Yeah, but the first time I was still on the table and the time after that wasn't long after you brought me home." Oh, god, he was keeping track.

"You keep thinking you're at the end of your rope, puppy, but then you find more of it." She turned the steak over and spiced it. "If you really want to die, I'm fair certain you could find a way to do yourself."

"Yeah. Came close, a couple of times."

Her heart crawled up her throat and tried to choke her. "What stopped you, then?"

"Dunno, really." His voice had a dreamy quality. She looked over her shoulder to see that he was slouched down with his eyes closed, rubbing the scars on his wrists. Again. He'd put the jeans on but not bothered with a shirt. "Maybe the idea that Janni's looking for me and she'd be pissed if I offed myself before she found me."

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Also, for the writers (and Neil Gaiman fans) on my flist, this is the most awesome thing you will see today. Or possibly all year.

Dude, I don't even know. I was torn between twisting the knife in Janni's heart or showing Ben in Tactical Mode, and I think...

Yeah, Tactical Mode wins. I've woobified the poor guy so much, now it's time to show him being awesome. Er. While still woobified. Because, damn.

Therefore, without further ado:

"He wants to hurt you where you live, puppy. Killing you outright would be too easy."

"Oh, god," he said again. "I am so, so sorry."

Her arms tightened around him. "Stop it. Lots of things look good on you, but self-flagellation isn't one of them. This is no one's fault but Rutger's." She continued to pet him. "Tactical mode, Ben. You have to think, because I'm out of options." Maybe she could push him into remembering his army training.

"My brain hurts. Everything hurts."

"I know. I'd take the pain, but I can't because of the sodding garlic. Easy does it."

He was silent for awhile, his breathing labored. She nearly thought he'd gone to sleep and was getting ready to shake him, when he said, "Game is rigged. We're losing. Change the game. Change the rules."

"Aye..." she said, hesitantly.

"I'm dying, Ange. I don't come back from this. The silver and the wolfsbane have finished me. All I can do--"

"Oh, puppy, no..."

"All I can do," he said, relentless, "is get you and Janni out. Ostheim wants me. Take me out of the equation, and he lets you two go."

"Do not ask me to kill you," she said, her voice low. "I can't do it. Not again."

"Not kill."

What he was getting at hit her like a sledgehammer. She felt dizzy. "Turn you?"

His gaze was direct. "You see any other way out of this?"

"Saints preserve us. You hate vampires, Benji."

"Present company excepted. But, been a vampire before. Wasn't bad. Could do it again." He winced, but his voice firmed. "Flatlined last time. They all thought I was dead, even the doctor. Might fool Ostheim long enough. And then if he's in the room when I wake up..." He bared his teeth. "Let's just say I wouldn't want to be him."

Of course, I still need to come up with an actual good reason that my villain would put an unrestrained Ange in the same room as a helpless Ben. For several hours. I can have him get unexpectedly called away or something so that they're alone for a lot longer than the guy thought, that part's easy to handwave, but I need why he'd put her there in the first place. Because I don't like writing stories where the plot turns on a character being stupid.

to say there's no possible way I can catch up with my flist. If I missed anything, I'm sorry, but I'm getting to the point where skip=100 is about all I'm willing to do anymore.

The novelthing continues in fits and starts. I'm at the point where I'm writing the actual climax, and it's coming hard, for some reason. So I've been going back and tweaking a bit here and there, vastly improving Ben's death scene by the substitution of a single line, and scaring the crap out of Ange. Good times.

Here, have a line, because I like to share:

"Ben?" she squeaked. Nothing of "puppy" was left in this terrifying stranger.

Still need to come up with a plot for my graveyard story. Gaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Also, my charming ISP is going wonky on me yet again. I'm currently accessing the internet via someone's unsecured linksys router. /o\

Have a snippet.

Janni knelt in front of him, trying to stay calm. "It's real, and you're safe."

"Can't be. Ange killed me. Don't know what you are, but you're not Janni. Don't fucking touch me."

She pulled her hand back. "What do you see?"

He sneaked a peek under his elbow. "Janni. Horns. Supposed to be over. Guess it's not."

"I'm real. The horns aren't. You're hallucinating, sweetie. The wolfsbane is having a bad effect on you."

"Wolfsbane. Rafe. Wants out. Can't. Hurts." Gasping. She wanted to breathe for him. "Make it stop. Please. I'll do anything you want. Just...stop being her. I can take anything but that. Please," he whispered. She reached for him again, but he flinched back as far as the wall would let him. "Nngh. Don't," he said between his teeth.

Where was the line between what he wanted and what he needed? She used to know, but didn't anymore--all she had were her instincts. And her instincts were screaming at her that he needed someone to touch him, hold him. She ached to gather him into herself, but settled for running the backs of her fingers lightly up and down his forearm. He shuddered at the contact, and she almost expected him to lash out, but he didn't. He just kept whispering "please" over and over again.

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