redshiftrp | @lazarus

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@lazarus | video

[ The video opens on Ben's face. He is looking particularly grim, filming in one of the rooms in the residential section. No greetings or build-up, he just cuts right to the chase, holding up a tiny device between forefinger and thumb. Visible is a tiny lens, and what looks like a small antennae to transmit. ]

PSA. There are surveillance cameras hidden in the lighting fixtures of the bedrooms. I found a creepy tunnel leading to a creepy lair where some fucking creep has been spying on us. Still trying to figure out who is behind it and what they want, but the feeds only show occupied rooms and no empty ones so it's not a coincidence, unfortunately.

[ Ben turns the frame to face the spot where the small camera had obviously been ripped out of an overhead light. From offscreen he says, voice clipped and angry: ]

Anyway. Wanted you guys to know. Hit me up if you need help ripping the suckers out. I'll post again when I know more.

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"Hmmm..."

Ben makes a considering noise, holding up a finger to indicate that Cole should wait while he takes a spoonful, first of the vanilla, then one of the cherry. He deliberates, though there's no real feeling of uncertainty or seriousness behind this show of impartial judgment. Just that radiating happiness, that feeling of sharing and togetherness and friendship, of profound joy at seeing Cole happy.

"I think it's the chocolate. Mint and chocolate was always my favorite, growing up."

For a minute Ben is thinking about those good times. Sneaking out to Griddy's and Luther pointing out to him that they'd added chocolate donuts with mint cream filling to the menu; Five stealing Ben a huge handful of the complimentary chocolate mints from the lobby of a hotel they'd saved from an evil stage magician; Klaus vaping chocolate-mint vapor right through Ben's face when he was acting gloomy on their 20th birthday...

And now, this. Tasting ice cream in the empty kitchen with Cole, seeing the wonder on his face. Ben hops up onto the counter, legs dangling down; he takes another spoonful of the chocolate, savoring it, savoring the entire situation.

"What about you?"

And he nods to the other flavors, encouraging Cole to try with them, too.

Cole basks in the feelings, in the remembrance of fond family moments, of caring siblings and being something like a family instead of a team.

"Cole had a sister," he says softly.

He doesn't elaborate any further than that.

"I know mint. It grows through the forests and in the gardens of Skyhold." The smell fills the yard when people are trying to work through hangovers.

After a moment, he scrapes a tiny bit of the cherry and tastes it, jolting slightly. "It's even sweeter! Not like real cherries, sweeter!"

Ben looks over sharply when Cole mentions that he - well, the original Cole, presumably - had had a sister. He remains quiet, in case Cole is going to say any more. When he doesn't, Ben prompts him gently.

"Well... if you ever want to talk about her, I'd like to listen."

He knows it's a whole complicated thing, that this Cole is a spirit that absorbed memories and that is a whole process he's probably never going to be able to wrap his head around. But as far as he can tell, the stuff that happened to human Cole helped to shape this Cole, too. And he might not be human, but he's a person. He might want or need to talk about that stuff, on occasion, but not be used to having someone he can talk to. Ben wonders if he could be that person.

"I think there's a mint plant or three up in the Agricultural zone."

Could he make mint ice cream? No, that would probably take special equipment and the recipe is probably much too complicated. But he could go back to that abandoned grocery store. Goodness knows those zombies aren't a match for his powers.

And then Ben's grinning again, because seriously, Cole's reactions are just too delightful not to. He supposes that processed sweets like these are very different to what would be available in Thedas. It's interesting, seeing something so familiar reflected through Cole's perspective.

"I'm sure they add a load of sugar. Ice cream's pretty much always super sweet."

Cole shakes his head. Right now is for happy things, for ice cream and sweetness and cold as cold as ice and soft as moss.

One day, maybe, he'll tell Ben about Cole's sister. About their mother and father and the little knife that is as much as part of Cole's self as his feet and hands.

"Once, when I was young, there was a wild bee's nest near the shack. Mother asked the winds of the mountain to come and cool it, but I could feel them respond and we made it cold so the bees would sleep and we could move them. We ate the honey that was left behind and it was cold and sweet, but not like this."

Ben accepts that refusal without question; he would have to be the universe's biggest hypocrite to try to pry if Cole doesn't want to talk more, when he'd come looking for Cole this evening specifically because he was so upset over having his privacy disrespected. He lets the topic slide away, scooping a little vanilla and a little cherry onto the same spoon and setting it against his tongue, letting it melt there as he listens to Cole's story.

The details are vivid, evocative; Cole's mother must have been a mage, too, taught him little things like how to lull bees to sleep with cold so they could relocate them somewhere safer and further from where they lived. It's like a gift, this memory that Cole shares with him. He imagines it - probably getting a lot of the visual details wrong - and smiles.

"There are a lot more cold and sweet desserts out there than just ice cream. We could try popsicles sometime, and shaved ice, and frozen pies, and we could make milkshakes..."

He's seized with the desire to try all these things with Cole; not today, but over time. And what would he think of hot chocolate? How many wonderful things - and not just food - does Ben know about that Cole has never had a chance to experience? Isn't that a wonderful way of recontextualizing his life; in bright pinpricks of interest, small good things he can share with this new friend of his.

How would he get access to those things? Well, that's just logistics. What's important is he's had the idea, and it's a good one, and he intends to see it through. It will make them both happy, Ben thinks, if today is anything to go by. And what can be wrong with it, if it makes them both happy? If he can introduce Cole to some new things, that he might not have found all on his own.

"No, she wasn't a mage. She was Avvar. They still speak to the spirits, invoke them. Solas called them hedgemages. The Maker's religion never reached into the mountains, never forced their magic into towers and circles and unnatural patterns. She didn't fear Cole's magic, but she told him to keep it hidden. To save him from the Templars."

He shakes off the thoughts, looking to the vanilla ice cream and going once more through the tiny motions. Scrape, lick and there's less outright shock, but he actually goes back for a slightly bigger sample. "It tastes softer. A cool breeze, not a hurricane." The spoonful he gets is still barely anything, but it's easily twice what he's had before.

Ben listens quietly, filing this newest piece of information away. Avvar were people who could communicate with spirits; does that mean that the human Cole was the same? It would explain how a spirit of Compassion could have appeared to him. That curiosity sits in his mind, all the pieces of the puzzle he doesn't have, but it is not a restless curiosity. He wonders, and then lets it go, because he's starting to trust that eventually, he'll see the whole picture. There is no rush, and certainly there's no need to ask Cole to delve into any more of it now. The past can wait; right now Ben is enjoying the present too much.

"So: which one's your favorite?"

They could do this again. They could go to that Whole Foods and take whatever different flavors were left, could scrounge through the rest of the store for toppings, syrups and crumbled up candy and sprinkles, too. Ben wants to know what Cole will think of sprinkles. Wants to share the existence of sprinkles with him.

When he had first come to this place, alive again, with a second opportunity he'd never thought he would have, Ben knew there were possibilities open to him that there hadn't been, before. He wasn't a kid anymore. There were no missions to go on, no Reginald to keep him penned in, no reputation and nicknames making everyone assume they knew who and what he was before they met him. He'd realized it would be possible for him to have friends, in a way he never had before. But that didn't make it a guarantee. Ben still hadn't known if anyone who wasn't his family would actually want to be around him.

And here he is, sitting on a kitchen counter, eating ice cream with Cole, planning on doing so again, even more elaborately. And Cole is his friend. Ben feels certain of that. That certainty is warm and steady and joyful in a way Ben hadn't ever anticipated.

"Cole was a spirit mage. Rare. Untrained." And it was in part what had drawn Compassion's attention. Not a spirit medium, Cole doesn't think, but maybe he was, like Rhys. "I can't do magic because Cole wished for a life where he never had it."

So this Cole had other skills. His own innate magics, but not like the mage. Spirit powers, not mortal ones.

Looking between them, Cole pointed at the vanilla. "It's sweet, but not overwhelming." For someone who doesn't eat and thus doesn't get exposed much to flavour, the other two are very powerful.

Ben feels a pang of sadness, hearing that last part. The human Cole had wished he never had his magic; Ben had wished he never had his powers. He wonders if that is why he feels so at ease around Cole. Even if this Cole is different, he still has those memories and the emotions.

Even though he is thinking about all that self-loathing and shame he'd carried all those years, Ben isn't feeling it, now. He is just reflecting on the fact of it; that isn't a thing he's been able to do in... well, maybe ever. He reaches over and scoots the vanilla closer to Cole, an invitation. And then he scoops up the container of chocolate, digging in with his spoon, set on finishing it off.

There's a smile curling at the corner of his mouth, because vanilla isn't just vanilla. It's all linked up with connotations of being bland and boring and Cole is anything but that.

"Vanilla. For now, anyway, until we get some more flavors for you to try. Could get that title usurped, you never know."

Then, more quietly, he adds:

"Thank you. For... this. I needed this, today."

Cole might already know his gratitude, but Ben still wants to say it. There's something important about saying it.

Cole looks at the container and he can tell Ben's offering for him to eat more, but he's still hesitant. "But what if someone else wants it? What if it would make them happy and it's gone?"

Cole doesn't eat for a lot of reasons but a shortage of food has always been part of it. Never willing to take what someone else might need.

He leans into Ben's space a little as he asks, trusting Ben will be honest with him.

Ben's first instinct is one of clear and pronounced surprise at the question even being an issue. Cole deserves that ice cream as much as anyone else. So what if it might sometime make some hypothetical person a little bit sad?

But he bites his bottom lip. That wasn't the question Cole had asked. Ben pauses, and considers. Tries to look at it objectively, past his partiality for Cole and almost, by this point, ferocious desire for him to be happy.

"It's not impossible. But the food in this fridge is all communal. Nobody has their heart set on any of it being there when they come back, or they would put their name on it. And besides, look at the other two flavors and how much less of them there is. People have been eating the other ones and avoiding the vanilla. Chances are good nobody's that attached to it."

Then, even though Cole didn't ask and even though he must have already felt the intensity of Ben's initial reaction, he adds, gently, "You deserve things that make you happy, too."

There are no exceptions to that, as far as Ben's concerned.

Cole looks at the ice cream, then the other two tubs, and then the fridge, weighing up the words and the logic. "But... I don't need it. Solas reminds me that all I need is people to be kind to each other. I don't need things mortals do, like sleep and food."

It might sound like Solas is unkind, but it's not. He just wants Cole to be the rare spirit that he is, not like the mortals he doesn't particularly like.

"You make me happy. More than the ice cream. How much you want me to have what happiness does make me happy." He looks up at Ben. "But... maybe I could have a little bit more."

Well, if Ben had had any doubts about Cole not needing to eat or sleep, now he is sure. It is not as strange a thought to him as it might be to others. He remembers what it was like, to not need to eat or sleep. And he remembers still wishing that he could do either of those things. Cole might not be a ghost and miss simple pleasures like eating ice cream, but that doesn't change much.

"You don't have to need it. I don't need ice cream right now, either. I ate plenty earlier, I just wanted some because today sucked."

Sure, food might not be as plentiful in this place as it could be, but none of them are starving at the moment. That grocery store had shown up, and a truck later, and people who are farm-inclined are planting things. If Ben had learned anything from dying, it is that putting off good things for the future sometimes meant never having those good things at all.

But before he can start to articulate any of that, Cole is saying Ben makes him happy, even more than the ice cream. And Ben had just seen how happy that ice cream made Cole. He feels his cheeks flushing; it's so wonderful, this feeling! Making people happy! Not just that - making Cole happy. A grin breaks out on his face and he ducks his head, unable to stop smiling. Some reflex in his mind tells him that he shouldn't let himself be this happy, that he ought to check it, restrain it, question it. But for once, he doesn't. He just thinks I made Cole happy and lets himself be awash in the joy of it.

"You can, if you want to."

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@lazarus | video

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