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Tweak says, "Yummy"

Ram Easthallow (bifoliate) wrote in heureuxlake,
@ 2025-04-29 16:53:00

Entry tags:

Δ threads, → benny carmichael, → ram easthallow, ∞ 2001: 04

RP: Benny returns a favour by cuddling Ram
Who: Ram Easthallow and Benny Carmichael.
What: Sad cuddles.
When: Tuesday 29th April, after work.
Where: Benny's apartment.
Warnings: Mention of past pet death.
Completion Status: Ongoing.

With Frankie C at West Point pretending to be Joe, Ram's anxiety had lost its focus. There was no sleeping Joe lying in Ram's bed to sit beside and watch over, no Donna to maintain an elaborate façade around, no Sam stopping by twice a day to make sure Joe's physical health remained unchanged. At some point (when?), Rick had visited, cuddling Ram under one arm and baby Evelyn into the other, but there just seemed to be so much time. So many hours to fill and nothing to fill them with. Everything, in the house and out, reminded him of Joe, from the VHS tapes of Disney movies to the regular-sized muffin tray to the big clear quartz Frankie M had insisted that he keep until Joe returned. Ram barely even stepped into the garden, feeling like his mood would poison the plants.

The Mighty Horseman hadn't been seeing Ram's best work, but what he'd said to Joe was true: he was so used to focusing while the needle was buzzing that it almost blocked out other thoughts. Even so, he'd stuck to doing flash pieces, his creativity hibernating too deeply to be reached for anything custom. Today, he'd volunteered to do an extra shift, trying to repay some of the kindness he'd been shown. By the end of it, he felt simultaneously as though he'd done nothing and yet utterly exhausted.

Cycling home felt... pointless. Nothing was going to change there. Not until Morwen arrived, and she'd already been denied entry to one flight thanks to the assortment of magical ingredients she needed to bring. Ram had no power of his own to bring Joe back, and he'd called on everyone that he could think of. If his mom couldn't enchant Ram and Frankie C into some joint sleep so that Frankie M could send them back to the void, Ram was officially out of ideas. It wasn't a thought Ram could allow himself to contemplate.

Instead, he trundled his bike through Tarrytown, past The Copper Kettle where Bea would probably have insisted that he eat, until he was outside Benny's building. He hadn't really meant to come, standing at the door a little like Chaos waiting to be let in. Except Chaos couldn't pull out a cell phone to send a text:

Are you home? I'm outside.

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_andthejets
2025-04-30 12:30 pm UTC (link)

After he had spent time washing off the smell of an afternoon in the company of chain-smoking clients Benny had made himself some dinner and was just trying to decide if he should smarten up a bit more and head for a bar when his phone chimed.

He thought it might be Logan messaging to try and organise their delayed ride, but instead he saw Ram's name and shot to his feet, worried something had happened. It turned out it had, but not as he was expecting.

Yes. I'll buzz you in he sent back, heading for the buzzer. He waited a solid thirty seconds to be sure Ram was standing by it and hit the button, and then opened up the door to his apartment. He stuck his head around the door, watching Ram's progress up the stairs once he came into view. He looked tired, and like he was going through the motions. It shot fear down Benny's spine remembering when he had felt like that.

"Hey, come on in. You can ditch your shoes if you like." He was barefoot himself and partly wanted to keep his newer pieces as clean as he could, but also liked the texture. He stepped out of the doorway when Ram was nearly there, but something made him open his arms, Ram's defeated posture just screaming out with the need for comfort.

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bifoliate
2025-04-30 06:41 pm UTC (link)

"Thanks." Ram had said the word to so many people now that it had lost all meaning. Even if he'd been able to repay the endless favours (he wasn't), his friends and Joe's family would refuse to let him try. Usually, the connectedness of it all would've lit Ram up from the inside. Now, it just felt like all that hope and effort was draining into the empty hole where Joe was supposed to be, doing nobody any concrete good.

Not even through the door, Ram hesitated, body shifting side to side. If he gave in and let himself crumple against Benny's chest the way he wanted to, he wasn't convinced he'd be able to pull away to deal with shoes or anything else. After a moment, he stepped forward, hiding his face against Benny's shoulder as his breath hitched. Meeting the way they had, and after everything Benny had been through, Ram trusted him to take the reigns and get Ram the rest of the way inside with minimal input.

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_andthejets
2025-05-01 11:37 am UTC (link)

The collapse should probably have been expected, but honestly Benny hadn't. Still, he wrapped his arms around Ram so he stayed upright enough to move him to somewhere a bit more comfortable. "Hey," he said softly, even as he kicked out at the door as carefully as he could manage so that it swung shut behind Ram.

Ram hadn't taken his shoes off, but they could manage that later. "C'mon," he said, adjusting his arms so they could be a little more side-by-side with Ram tucked under his shoulder and he could propel them towards the sofa. This would be easier if they weren't awkwardly attached to each other in the doorway.

It did take some moving around the coffee table and being careful not to walk into the other chair, but they made it to the sofa, Benny sitting himself down first and gently tugging Ram down and letting him arrange himself as he wanted. "Want to talk about it?" He had no idea if that would be helpful. He knew he didn't have all that many details himself, but beyond curiosity he didn't think he needed to know them to provide comfort.

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bifoliate
2025-05-01 05:07 pm UTC (link)

Benny was not Joe. The timbre of his voice was wrong, his scent, the slope of his shoulders. But he was close enough to the right height that Ram could tuck himself under Benny's arm, eyes squeezed tightly shut against Benny's collarbone. All his friends had offered physical comfort: Jani stroking Ram's hair in her lap, Giulia and Dagny fussing over him like sisters, Heidi and Frankie M letting themselves be folded into Ram's arms. Given that Frankie C's offerings took the form of knocks to Ram's shoulder, this and Rick came the closest to what Ram needed, even if it could never be the same.

At the question, he nodded, wordless because he didn't know where to begin. With the exception of Donna Russo, he'd lost track of who knew what, tending to assume that Rashmi was keeping on top of making sure the answer was 'everyone' and 'everything'. "He looks like Joe but he's not Joe and it's so -" Ram felt horrible for how much it bothered him. Under any other circumstances, he would have wanted to welcome Frankie, ask him a million questions about his life, impress this other self that lived in Joe's head passing judgement on everything. Especially because he knew Frankie was one of the past lives actually supportive of Joe and Ram together. "It feels wrong." Frankie looked at him through Joe's eyes, but not at all the way Joe looked at him.

Not even to Frankie M had Ram yet admitted aloud that he just wanted Frankie C to go away. He felt guilty for that, too. Frankie had already died once, and now Ram wanted him to give up life again? Joe was always saying that loving Ram was the most selfish thing he'd ever done. Ram was starting to understand that all too well.

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_andthejets
2025-05-01 09:39 pm UTC (link)

It had been a while since he had been in the driver's seat for a round of comfort, but he had been blessed to be on the receiving end of comfort from multiple different people in the last year and he could feel himself switching roles.

He had a hard time imagining Ram's situation for himself, but everything he guessed at felt painful. He rubbed absently up and down the nearest part of Ram's arm. "That has to be so weird." The only thing he could imagine was finding that someone you had known for months or years was a twin and you met them without knowing. "Different person in the same body." Especially when the body was one you knew so well.

He nodded, sure Ram could feel it even if he couldn't see it. He felt somewhat helpless because he didn't think his instinct of a lot of liquor was the right answer. "He's not being..." Being what? Being cruel, being homophobic, being unfriendly?"

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bifoliate
2025-05-01 10:24 pm UTC (link)

Pressing even closer to Benny, Ram nodded again. "Not his fault." None of this was Frankie's fault, and Ram was so, so grateful that it was Frankie and not Domenico or Neil. Ram wished he could just be normal and show Frankie around Tarrytown, find out what karaoke songs Joe's past self would sing, introduce him to Giulia and Cris. He could've rolled out the welcome wagon and showed Frankie a good time. That was Ram's thing. Instead, every time he looked at Frankie, all he could see was everything missing.

Ram didn't know how Benny's sentence had been going to end. His brain, usually buzzing with dozens of possibilities, couldn't even come up with one. So he answered something to the side of what Benny had started to ask. "He calls me buddy."

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_andthejets
2025-05-02 09:48 am UTC (link)

"No." It absolutely wasn't the fault of the man who had been drawn here from Joe's group of past lives. And wasn't that the weirdest sentence he'd had to contemplate for a while? "It's not his fault, but he's not Joe and that's who you want." He wanted to say that it wasn't Ram's fault, but he honestly had no idea where the blame was supposed to land. Ram certainly hadn't caused this on purpose, but if it had been an accident of whatever magic thing he had tried to do to bring Joe back. "I'm sorry." The words almost felt empty, but he still had to say them.

The thing with not knowing how to end his sentence anything but awkwardly trailing off or being blunt meant Benny had no idea how Ram was going to interpret it. Instead he answered a slightly different question which could only make him wince. His instinctive response probably came from a very sassy twinky friend from home. "Oh, bitch, no!" He scrunched up his nose at himself and hurried to follow up. "Fuck, I don't know where that came from, but really. That's so... painfully straight."

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bifoliate
2025-05-02 05:37 pm UTC (link)

This time, Ram's sad nod was accompanied by a distinctly tearful sniff as Benny succinctly summed up the situation. Ram wanted Joe, and he had no idea when (not if) he would see him again. "Beltane soon." Thursday? Friday? It wasn't quite Ram's last hope, but it was something to cling to. Something that hadn't been tried yet and might help. "Maybe he'll come back?" When magic was boosted and specifically love and connection were in the air.

Ram's snort wasn't exactly a laugh, but it was something, Benny's response strangely note-perfect. Frankie was trying so hard to be friendly, it was just that painfully platonic nicknames were not what Ram craved from anyone, let alone somebody who looked like Joe. "I keep wanting -" There were too many things Ram wanted to be summed up in words. To stroke Joe's hair back, to feel Joe's reach for his hips and pull him close, to curl their fingers together. "Have to sit on my hands." Not that Ram really wanted to touch Frankie, but his body was so used to reaching out for Joe's that his instincts kept misfiring.

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_andthejets
2025-05-02 09:46 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah?" Benny said. If he looked it would be marked on his work calendar for the witches who followed the traditional cycles, but he had utterly failed to study up on what each holiday meant. "Remind me what Beltane's about?" he prompted gently. He figured Ram had learned this stuff early enough that it would be an easy question for him to answer.

Honestly Benny was glad that Ram couldn't see his face because he doubted how much pain he was sure was written across it would help. As it was his fingers scrunched helplessly into the fabric of Ram's top for a few seconds. "You can grab me as much as you like." They had been far more intimate than this, but he didn't expect Ram to start any sort of inappropriate grabbing, but he was so tactile most of the time that it was so obviously painful to not be able to have that level of touch with someone he was used to being able to touch almost anytime he liked.

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bifoliate
2025-05-03 12:02 am UTC (link)

Benny was right, asking Ram what Beltane was about was like asking about Christmas or Easter. "Love," he breathed. "Connection, sex, renewed growth." The latter was less relevant to Ram's quest to return Joe to the physical world, but it had been on Ram's mind in other years. "Last year, I went clubbing in a flower crown." This year, he'd wanted to spray paint roses for Joe's hair and sneak into the gardens of Fina's fancy gala to see if they could find a tree to make out against. "Maybe Aphrodite will be listening. Or Freya." He'd already wrapped Frankie M's crystals and set them aside as gifts for the goddess.

On some level, Ram had known that, despite Benny's traumatic experience, he would be okay with Ram clinging to him. Maybe it was because there was nothing sexy about Ram's rumpled t-shirt and missed barber's appointments, or just that Benny knew how to look after people, and how to draw the lines between sexual and not. Without really looking, Ram finally toed off his shoes, lifting his legs up onto the seat with him, turning himself into the smallest possible bundle as he burrowed against Benny's chest. "Wish I could be a cat." Maybe Frankie C would've taken pity on a little pink-nosed kitten. Or maybe Ram would be able to simply slip into the void to be where Joe was.

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_andthejets
2025-05-03 05:34 pm UTC (link)

"Well I see why you say that might be the time then." He might not understand magic, but being unable to see the connection between love and sex and Joe and Ram would make him totally oblivious. He tried not to be totally oblivious. "We just have to get him back and I'm sure he'll help you make up for the holidays you missed having together." Not that Benny had any clue of how to get him back, but he was confident better placed people than him were working on it.

"You'd make a pretty outsize cat," he said, amused despite the terrible situation. He did have to shift his leg slightly because of the way Ram had curled up, mostly because he didn't want it to be dead in ten minutes. "Sorry I haven't been over much." He had visited, but he wasn't a great cook, he had no magic, and in a crowded house he didn't exactly feel like he was a small presence. "I can do this though." He squeezed Ram briefly tighter.

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bifoliate
2025-05-03 09:27 pm UTC (link)

It was impossible to think beyond getting Joe back. Ram couldn't focus on their future holidays together, on what they might do for his birthday, Joe's birthday, their one year anniversary. Time might as well be frozen, every day agonisingly the same. "Mom's coming too," he said. That, like Beltane, was another reason to hope. Just as Ram had described Jani in ways that made Joe think she might be a 10 foot Amazon, his Mom was the most incredible, most powerful witch as far as Ram was concerned. It wasn't strictly true, she didn't specialise in curses or Greek gods, but at least working with Frankie M she ought to be able to send him to sleep.

Ram hummed, picturing himself as simultaneously the little black kitten and some kind of big cat shifter. "Yeah," he mumbled. Either smaller or bigger would work, but his current size was just useless. Lifting both hands, Ram dragged his fingers through his hair, viciously enough to make him wince. Why couldn't he help Joe? Why wasn't he magic enough to make a difference on his own? He was so grateful that everyone wanted to help, but waiting until they could was painful.

He let Benny's apology give him something else to focus on. "It's fine." Honestly, Ram had no idea whether Benny's last visit had been yesterday or three weeks ago. And maybe it had been for the best that Benny hadn't been around when Donna was. Ram had given Rashmi his tightest, most grateful hug when she'd chatted to Donna about how she and Ram had dated. "Need this more." More than another person leaving food in the kitchen, or spiriting clean clothes into Ram's room.

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_andthejets
2025-05-04 01:01 pm UTC (link)

"That's good," he said. He hadn't met Ram's mom, but he had vaguely heard that she had been at the party where they met, but Benny had been rather more interested in drinking and then making out with her son at the time. He couldn't imagine doing that now, even in times where Joe was awake the two were clearly so devoted to each other that he suspected all ideas of polyamory had gone out of Ram's head.

The hand running up and down Ram's back stilled as Ram pulled at his hair. "Hey, none of that," he said, gently taking Ram's hands and removing them from the position that caused him pain, and replacing the hand in his hair with his own, smoothing it back gently. He ran his fingers gently through the dark strands, digging his blunt nails into his scalp and allowing the slight scratch to try and soothe the need to hurt himself.

"You can call me or come over whenever you need it. Even to the office if you like." If his clients couldn't cope with him hugging a distressed friend for a few seconds he might need to reconsider how invested he was in their status as his clients.

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TW: Past pet death

bifoliate
2025-05-04 02:55 pm UTC (link)

Even as starry-eyed as Ram's admiration for his mom was, he'd had to learn when one of Morwen's familiars had passed that she couldn't fix everything. He just had to cling to hope that she could fix this, or help Frankie M to fix it, or find someone else among her contacts that would know something else to try.

Briefly, Ram struggled against Benny's hands, giving in with a full-body slump and a frustrated exhale. "I hate that I can't do anything." Ram might not really have been helping by sitting at Joe's bedside, but at least he'd felt like Joe might somehow be able to sense his presence. Now that Joe was Frankie? Even that tenuous link had vanished and left Ram feeling completely unmoored. The scritch of Benny's nails did help, if only by giving Ram something physical to focus on.

Ram managed a small huff at Benny's inclusion of the office. That was good, because Ram's ability to be sure what time of day it was, or what time normal people worked, had eroded completely. "Just don't buy me cat treats," he mumbled, the end of a chain of ideas he had only fully articulated in his own mind.

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_andthejets
2025-05-04 08:38 pm UTC (link)

There was something so destructive in Ram's attempt to pull his own hair that hard. He recognised that from when he had been feeling helpless too. He had been destructive to start with when he had split up with Leo and then after Gabriel just lost. "I know," he said. "Feeling helpless is never fun." Kink being set far aside. Far, far aside. He kept scratching.

He laughed. "I mean I still have some around, but I've got far more human treats. Everything from tiny carrots to Cliff bars and candy." He hadn't seen Chaos in weeks and assumed that his fluffy visitor was spending far more time trying to keep Ram comfortable than bothering to visit him given how well he'd been doing recently.

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