buffy summers (thebuffster) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-09-27 13:27:00 |
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Funny how quickly routines became, well, routine. Expected. Sure, Buffy crashing at his place had been out of necessity (there was no way he was letting her stay in her place while it was wrecked), but after over a week of coming back to find Buffy in his bed, it almost felt weird to be shifting back to the status quo of her bedroom. Even if her apartment had the added benefit of no Kaine commentary. Plus her new bed and mattress were ten times better than the standard one that inhabited his room. A whole lot sturdier than her old one too, not that they were trying to ruin the bed this time. The new bed had passed the test with flying colors though and was properly christened. Now a content silence blanketed the room. Breathing leveled out, a sheet pulled lazily up, and pillows tugged under their heads. Sated and relaxed, arms wrapped around Buffy, and legs tangled with hers. He hovered between being fully awake and drifting into sleep, the main problem being that the wheels in his brain started to gain purchase and turn. Which wasn’t anything new. Really wasn’t anything new. There were some days that he wished his brain would just stop for an hour. Just an hour. Especially since getting drunk didn’t work as nicely as it did for ‘normal’ people in the brain numbing department. At least he’d never found a good way that didn’t involve hugging a toilet bowl, drowning in a double dose of guilt, or both. He’d like to say that he got good at navigating his thoughts, but those rock bottom times said different. Plus those last few months… well… he’d been relieved of the main late night self-pity-fest from those five years on the road. Only to have it back now… He steered his brain away from those thoughts. Dwelling on them did no good. He didn’t know how to talk about getting demoted back to clone status and it wasn’t like it mattered. It wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t magically give him back what he lost or rather never had to begin with. All he’d get for his troubles would be an extra helping of doubt and a one way ticket to depressed town. The house conversation the night before flitted into his mind before he pushed that away was well. They’d made a decision, that was done, full speed ahead. Resting on that would just stir up anxiety he’d done great at avoiding so far. Getting out of the tower needed to happen. They were making it happen. End of story. Which sent his thoughts meandering to a favorite topic over the past week… He ran his hand fondly through Buffy’s hair, untangling golden strands and twisting them absently through his fingers. They’d both down a good job at ignoring the conversation from the holding cell. Yeah, there’d been awkwardness right after, but very few came off of a tussle like that without some kinks. They were doing fine, but Buffy’s words still tugged at the back of his mind. Not her admission, even if he hadn’t handled that well. He probably should have gone with the moment and said something romantic and reassuring instead of taking the out Buffy had provided him, but the situation had been complicated. She’d been vulnerable from the gas, a gas that made her think she was in an elaborate hallucination with this great boyfriend she created for herself, and… maybe not the best decision but it didn’t feel like the right time, even with that invisible Tesseract timer ticking away and all the carpe diem going on. Especially with the topic that’d come before the admission… “I believe you, y’know.” The words slipped out before he realized his thought process had actually taken control of his tongue. Ok, sure, why not have an awkward conversation now. He pressed his lips together in a tight line, uncertain whether to continue or if they’d be better off just pretending that he hadn’t broken the silence. After years of snuggling up with vampires, it was always a warm surprise when she was with a living, breathing human being. Ben was warm to the touch, and his body made noises that she could actually feel and hear. His heartbeat, of course, was number one, but there were other sounds too. Like, she knew when it had been a long time since he'd eaten (not fed) because his stomach would make a sort of desperate growl, as if there was a bear inside or a dog with its teeth bared. She could tell where she'd dug her nails into his back because the skin was red. All of it just meant that she wanted to touch him as much as he'd allow, to be as wrapped up in him as she was right now. Her fingers idly turned circles at his hip as she let the drowsiness take over. It took an instant or two for her to realize that he'd spoken up, and then another to understand fully what he'd said. Buffy squeezed her eyes shut. She'd been hoping they could forget her blunder in the cell. Rushing had never worked out well for her in any respect, and as much as she'd like to blame it on the gas, the gas just loosened her tongue. She'd been feeling it for awhile, every day, her affection for him grew. Now to play stupid or admit that she knew what he was talking about. Buffy wrapped her ankle around his and glanced up at him. She couldn't do it, couldn't make a joke. She sharply exhaled and let her head fall back onto his shoulder. "I thought we were avoiding that topic so well that we deserved an Oscar." “Wait, you can get an Oscar for that? Man, all I ever get are Tonys.” His mouth skewed up and his nose scrunched. Serious conversation, Ben. One that he opened up. Should probably try and put a bit more effort into holding back on the jokes. He could do it, after all he’d managed to ween off of them for a few years there, despite how knee jerk a reaction it was. He puffed out a long sigh before tilting his head to meet Buffy’s eyes. “We can keep on avoiding it, but…” His shoulders twitched up. “My experience says that it just ends up coming back to bite you in the butt. Not that I know how this’d come back all really bad and all, considering it’s not that kinda avoiding and isn’t anything actually bad…” He snapped his mouth shut and his brows pulled together. Ok, that wasn’t really helping any, was it? It certainly was rambling all over the place. Best to just head on back to the original thought. Maybe. “I believe you. Believing it and… accepting it just don’t always line up.” "I didn't - " Her throat suddenly shut down, effectively cutting off whatever she was going to say. That turned out to be all well and fine, considering Buffy didn't know what she was actually going to say anyway. Part of her wanted to do something to distract him from this conversation - a few nice images flashed in her mind - but she was too exhausted from the tumble, and too comfortable to move very much. She gave up on avoidance all together and took one of his hands so that she could play with his fingers. When she was nervous, she tended to do this kind of stuff, she knew, and it was her turn to avoid eye contact. "I didn't mean to say it." That was about as honest as she could get in the moment. "I wanted to, and I've been feeling it for awhile... I just didn't want to say it so soon. And definitely not while I was under fear gas after I tried to slice you and a few other people open." She was feeling braver and chanced a look up at Ben. "I'd kind of been hoping for a, you know, much more romantic moment. Or at least one where I wasn't knocking my head against a wall over and over." Ben couldn’t help the fond look and the finger wiggles at her avoidance methods. Except… He blinked a few times. Oh, they were talking about that part. Oh wow and he’d just said… Granted he had questioned those feelings before, when secrets and the belief that clones didn’t have normal lives occupied all his mind, but this was different. His cheeks tinted red and he cleared his throat. “Ok, wow, I feel like a heel because, I mean, that part I completely believe and accept. Gladly accept and immensely grateful for that and … and feeling the same.” He sighed as his head tilted back to look up at the ceiling. “Even if I’m really bad at saying it in the right way at the right time because pretty sure that tossing in a ‘love you too’ instead of a ‘I’ve never felt the way I do with you’ would have turned that moment nice and romantic, even with the distinct lack of candles and rose petals. Someone should really talk to SHIELD ‘bout that and budget it in. I mean, what kinda cells don’t have some candlelight and roses?” He squinched his eyes shut as he bonked his head back against the pillow. “Er… sorry. Knee jerk, y’know? Tangent, joke, awkward hopefully goes away, right?” Buffy's eyebrows flattened as she thought about what he said. There was some pushing her lips into the corner of her mouth as she realized that he was talking about something completely different than what she was talking about. Wow. Wow, that was just about the most embarrassing thing she could think of. Buffy paled, and her body went completely limp as she rubbed a hand over her face, dropping his hand, and rolling over onto her back. "Oh my god, I feel like a dolt now. Like the doltiest dolt who ever dolted." She squinted, peeking out of one eye. "Can you just knock me unconscious for the rest of the night, cause there is no way I'm gonna be able to live that down." Ben scrubbed his hands over his face and up through his hair before he twisted towards Buffy. Propping himself up on an elbow, he offered a reassuring smile as he captured her hand in his. “Hey now, no taking my title. Unless doltiest dolt who ever dolted is one of those court titles and has a king and queen, then by all means keep the queen title. I look horrible in heels.” He leaned in and nudged his nose against Buffy’s cheek, trying to coax her other eye open. “Buffy, it’s not- I mean, I hope it’s not that embarrassing. It was a really high emotional situation, y’know, and I do appreciate what you said.” A squeeze of the hand. “And I wasn’t just spouting out whatever I could when I said that I haven’t felt how I feel around you before. It was the truth. Or maybe just the really chicken way of saying that I think I love you too. Pretty sure I love you.” That one eye of hers stayed trained on him. When she was sure that it was safe, she opened the other eye. In the dark room, she could really only see the brightness of his hair, but she could feel him. And god, that feeling was overwhelming. She hadn't felt like this since... well, since before her 17th birthday. In retrospect, she knew that Riley had been the rebound - he had been everything that Angel wasn't - and of course, Spike had been there for her during a period of her life when she tried every way to end it. This relationship with Ben? It was so different than all of her other relationships. There was a sense of normalcy that she didn't get, even from Riley Finn. She never had to play her strengths down - or up for that matter - and for the most part, everything had been easy. Until she'd tried to kill him, of course. Buffy swallowed, turning her face to nuzzle his. She touched the side of his face, tenderly. Her lips brushed over his as she answered, "Well, nobody's perfect. I'll take the heels." His weight sank heavier into the bed, the tension easing out of his back. Possible crisis averted, right? He at least hadn’t made it worse. That was a good sign. He leaned his face into Buffy’s caresses before turning to brush his lips against her palm. A smirk quirked his lips. “You just want to steal all the shoes. Take over one closet at a time. All the heels’ll be yours,” he teased, kissing her hand one more time before returning to her lips. Distracted for the short time, Buffy didn't reply to that. It was clear she was a shoe-aholic. Her mind, instead, began to wander back to what he was originally talking about. She entangled herself with him once more, barely breaking away from the kiss. Curious, she kissed his earlobe, then down his neck as she asked, "So what did you mean?" She didn't stop her lips assault on him. "You believe what?" His eyes lulled closed and a content murmur rumbled in his throat. Ben tilted his head to the side to give Buffy more room to explore his neck. A very pleasant exploration. Enough so that his brain didn't want to re-engage with his unfortunate blurt out moments ago. He should go back to that. Sort that out like the misunderstanding on the I love you front had been sorted. But instead... Evasion. "Mmmm, I believe you're a great kisser and have a very talented mouth." Somewhere along his collarbone, she forgot she'd been talking about anything at all. She was glad to get the clarification, and of course, she thought it deserved a reward - a mutual one, of course - but then there was the realization that he would let whatever he had been talking about go, and with a whiny groan, she inched off him and onto her elbow. The sheet was dragged up and between them. Of course, that didn't stop her hand from dragging up and down his side with the dull side of her nails. "Ben, come on. You were saying something. What was it?" Ben whined softly at the decrease in contact. He rolled his head towards Buffy, his lower lip sticking out a bit. “And you were doing something. Are doing something.” He reached to tap his fingers against the hand that was doing the something. “Distracting somethings. Very distracting somethings that inspire more somethings that are not the talking kinda somethings. Just saying. Doing somethings and saying somethings don’t line up.” Puffing out a sigh, he shifted against the bed, turning a bit more towards Buffy. Focusing more on the distraction would be easier, but… well, couldn’t let her steal all the embarrassment for the night, right? “You said it hurts you when I’m down on myself,” he said very quietly. “That it makes you feel like I don’t believe you.” He ducked his head slightly as his shoulder lifted in a shrug. “That’s what I was talkin’ ‘bout.” Okay, so he didn't say anything about playing with his hair, so while he talked, she let her fingers stroke through his hair. If he was going to be embarrassed and have to be honest, well, maybe this would help. Her head rested on the pillow, facing him but then she had another thought. Hell with that, she scooted in closer so that their noses were touching. "It hurts more that you don't believe in yourself. That you honestly think you're not a good person," Buffy told him, lowering her voice to match his. "I wish you could see you through my eyes." A pause, then a beat. "Maybe not the smutty parts through my eyes, but everything else." “Yeah, let’s leave out the sexy parts…” Ben breathed out. “Just need to crawl past a few key windows to get that kinda show.” He sighed heavily as he closed his eyes and buried his head into the pillow. She was right. He knew it. But the straight-forward compliments always were hard to take, especially when they started the doubts spiralling in his head. Maybe he was just too used to Jameson and everyone always putting him down. Or just putting himself down for five years… Old habits were hard to break. He should just brush it away with a joke. Smile and show he was ok. But this had to go both ways. He needed to remember that. His hand shifted up to his torso, fingers tracing over the faint scars. Months old, less prominent than the newer batches he’d gotten in this world, and not even the killing blow, but they were the most lasting mark from those last injuries he’d ever get in his world. “I know…” he said softly. “But I could be better….” "You're always trying to be better. I see it. Peter sees it. Everyone sees it, but you." Her eyes shifted to his chest where she watched him finger the scars. She knew that he died in his world, but he hadn't gone into detail. Of all the people in the world, she couldn't blame him. She did not want the third time to be the charm - not these days. "Which is what makes you amazing and wonderful and the best person I know. Not everyone does that. A lot of people just sit on being good enough or this is how I am and don't try." She reached her hand out, letting her finger trace over the scars as well. "What happened?" “Not always,” Ben pointed out softly. “There were plenty of times of me trying to do the exact opposite.” But then most people’s ‘this is how I am’ wasn’t his situation at all. It was a bit harder to swallow and follow through at times when ‘this is how I am’ was some other person whose role was already taken. He puffed out a sigh as he shook his head. “Which is where the whole skepticism over me being the best person you know comes from. ‘Cause there’s gotta be people you know who’re better.” He shifted to look down at Buffy’s hand against his skin. “That one? Pumpkin bomb.” He snorted in amusement. “Flash of all people came back to make sure I wasn’t playing hero. He was trying to help, but ended up setting the bomb off instead. I…” He pressed his lips together, knowing that he was just giving her ammunition for her argument. “...I tackled him out of the way and took the brunt of the blast.” Buffy didn't have to say anything; she already knew by the expression on his face that he realized where he was going with this. Her fingers finished tracing the outline and then stilled. Another few seconds, and she removed it all together. "Pumpkin bomb?" She waved a hand around; it was right there on the tip of her tongue. "That's the - uh, the guy with the mask - and the flying thing - Willem Dafoe - Harry's dad - oh Green Goblin guy, right? He's the one with those nasty little bomb things?" It occurred to her that Osborn had a big skyscraper here. It wouldn't be the same as Ben and Peter's Osborn, but it probably wasn't far off the mark, huh? "Where'd it happen? A lot of people around, I'd bet." Ben raised an eyebrow and pushed himself up slightly with his elbow. "Willem Dafoe? Really? Guess he does have the creepy down well, but really? I'm kinda scared to ask who Harry was. You mentioned him, that means he was in the movie too right? That is what we're talking 'bout here, yeah?" Which really wasn't what he should be focusing on, but it was easier than the other topic. Maybe. Not that other world representations of the Osborns was a cheerful conversation... Breaking concentration for something that seemed trivial was one of Buffy's specialties. She didn't miss a beat as she nodded, with a thoughtful mock frown. "Yeah, Dafoe. Creepy guy with the mouth and the eyes and the - " A mock shudder ran through her. "But Harry was played by… what's his name - Frankie? Franco? James Franco! He's pretty famous now, not so much then." "Yeah, the Oz guy, right? Huh... So that's their Harry..." Ben flopped into his back to stare up at the ceiling as he turned that over in his head. Another face to piece together this odd movie world, which- "I know this is preaching to the choir , but man that's weird. The whole 'oh yeah that Green Goblin dude' thing. I mean, Osborn seems to make a big enough name for himself later that far more people are in the know in our world than before, but still, really weird." He took a deep breath and wooshed it out. "Which means, um, yes. Green Goblin. Harry's dad, Norman. Good ol' fuckin' Norman..." He shook his head, circling back to the other question. "Not that many people there when that bomb went off. Told everyone to get the hell out of dodge as soon as I tore the door open. That was all at the Bugle." "How did you know there was anything there? Osborn stupid enough to announce it?" With him on his back, Buffy tucked her chin against his chest. She couldn't quite see his face, and maybe that would make this whole thing easier. Pillow talk was weird when you were had super powers sometimes, and Ben had a lot of hiccups when it came to talking about this stuff. "So he planted a bomb - or a few of them - at the Bugle, you found out and…?" Ben pressed his lips together in a tight line. "Actually... it was more gloating than stupidity considering the whole victory speech, I've beaten you to a bloody pulp, now let me tell you how I'm gonna torture Peter part..." A heavy tired sigh before he reached a hand up to idly play with her hair. "More than a few... At least ten I think... I wasn't really counting when I was picking 'em up... But, yeah, whole place was set to blow sky high with all of our- Pete's friends in it. But I got 'em out ok..." His brow furrowed in confusion. "I think they all got out ok..." He'd never asked Peter about that. He just figured... They'd gotten out. Flash had been knocked out, but the bombs were all gone. They had to all be out of the building if he'd made it to wherever Pete was to save him... Pete would have mentioned something if it hadn't gone well... Right? "I will never understand why the bad guys tell you their plans. Like, come on, guy, as long as I'm alive? I'm gonna find a way to stop you, you know? Don't tell your plan until it's already happened." Buffy huffed out a breath before she shrugged. His fingers in her hair were too relaxing, and she let her eyes droop a little lower. "Then again, if they didn't do the gloating thing, we may not get to stop them, so never mind. It just makes them look stupid." A pause, and then. "What was the hardest thing you've ever had to do - in the line of duty, I mean?" “Well, y’know, if we don’t know the plan, then there isn’t that possibility of trying to stop it and failing and all that angst and torture of ‘I stopped you, you failed, you suck’.” Ben shrugged. “Then you just get that delayed shock of ‘wait what do you mean that explosion over there just killed all my friends’. And the disbelief. I mean, how often can you actually believe that what they said they did is really what they did. It’s all about the tricks and all sometimes with that crowd. Plus they’re batshit crazy. Not sure the full logic is working with ‘em anyways.” He kept playing with her hair as he thought over her question. It was tough. He had a lot of hard fights. He remembered a lot of hard fights, but he wasn’t sure that’s what she was going for. Hard decisions, fights he almost lost, fights he did lose, regrets. But so much of it was just part of the job. Fight the good fight, keep fighting until you had nothing left, and then fight some more. Some fights were tougher than others, pushed him too close to the breaking point, left him passed out for days afterwards from exhaustion, but that wasn’t the same… They’d all been the right thing to do in the most direct way possible. He worried his lower lip for a moment, still churning the question over in his head. “Leaving,” he breathed out, keeping his focus on the ceiling a few more seconds before tilting it to look down at Buffy. “You?” There were way too many things that had been hard for her. Giving up her personal life, giving up her life.. When she was 16, it was the hardest thing in the world. She'd been terrified of the pain, thinking about how her life was so short, how she'd never even gotten to fall in love or lose her virginity or just graduate high school. As time went on, it was easier to say goodbye. By the time she sacrificed herself for Dawn and the rest of the world, it was the easiest decision she'd ever made - once she realized that it could even fix things. Buffy sucked in a breath and exhaled as she answered. "I don't know. I'd say that leaving was, but honestly, that wasn't in the line of duty. I did it because of something I had to do in the line of duty, but I did it because I couldn't handle it." Losing her mom had been the hardest thing, but it wasn't in the line of duty. She turned her face so she could lay on his chest. "I know I should say that fighting my best friend was the hardest, but I couldn't even fight her. Not really. I just needed to stall her. Angel… on the other hand, he was going to suck the world into hell. Losing everything - my mom found out who I was and couldn't deal, she told me not to come home, Kendra died, Miss Calendar died, Willow was in a coma, everyone else was hurt badly, I'd been expelled from school - I just flipped out. If I could have killed Angel after he turned - when I had the chance - none of that would have happened, you know? All those innocent people… All because I couldn't stick one piece of wood in my ex-honey's heart." “Line of duty is kinda a big shady area of gray. No real border between normal life and the superhero life, right? I think it can count. It’s an offshoot.” Ben sighed as he ran his hand over Buffy’s head, pushing her hair out of the way before trailing down over her shoulders. He’d fought Peter and Kaine enough to know that feeling. But killing Peter had never been a requirement to saving the day. Really it’d always been the opposite temptation. There’d just been that once with the Jackal’s programming and well luckily MJ’s plan worked and it never got past some stalling. There had always been hope. “You knew he was capable of good. You’d seen him be good. It isn’t so easy to give up on people, especially when the option you’re given’s so final.” He craned his neck to nudge the top of Buffy’s head with his nose. “It sucks, yeah. It always does when you lose people and I know I can’t change the guilt tune, but would you feel perfectly ok if it’d been the other way? If you’d given up on him without a fight? Just tossed out all your feelings and done what they told you that you needed to?” "I don't know. Looking back, I really wish I'd done it when I had the chance. Don't know what I'd think if I had. At least it would have just been me hurting." It felt very strange to be talking about Angel and her feelings for him while in the arms of her new lover. It felt wrong, but he'd asked, and Buffy wasn't really a fan of lying. She wasn't good at it, anyway. "I thought that maybe, somehow, we could get his soul back and - " And she could have her boyfriend again. Sure, she was selfish from time to time. She was more than selfish sometimes. "- and he did. A few minutes too late. Just, like, five minutes earlier, and I wouldn't have had to - but you know, Slayer luck. Or Buffy luck. One of the two." She wanted off this subject though, and it showed in the way she shifted uncomfortably. She couldn't keep still - hands or feet or eyes - were roaming around. After a beat, she added, "Why'd you leave?" “Hey, Buff, you’re doing that thing again,” Ben said with a warm, fond smile. “Where you’re a lot like me. Or I’m like you. Still not sure how that works over the alternate universe barrier.” He nodded as his head lulled back against the pillow. “There was still hope then. I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I’m not sure I would have been able to do it at all…” His hands moved over her shoulders, trying to ease out the twitchiness. Or maybe to distract himself. Or both. It was so long ago and simple fact, but he hadn’t really talked about it with anyone. He talked to ‘Aunt May’ of course, gave Jess the cliff notes version, and then there was reassuring Pete that it’d been for the best, but that wasn’t really going deep into it all. “There weren’t that many options. Stay and fight or… or leave. Only one spot open for Peter Parker and the casting agent didn’t even give me a call back. There was no life there for me. No friends, no family, no job, no classes, no apartment. None of it was mine. I didn’t exist.” His shoulders lifted. “It was the right thing to do. He was the real Peter Parker. It was best for him if I just disappeared.” Buffy frowned in thought as he spoke. Her hand slipped across him to find his, her fingers going back to toying with his. She traced his knuckles, the bones in the back of his hands and over again. She turned his hand over and smoothed the flat side of her hand over his before entwining her fingers with his. "But you did exist. You do exist. Maybe not in a conventional way, but you're just as real as anyone else. Okay, maybe the memories you have aren't actually you in them, but that doesn't make them not real. If we're all the sum of our memories, then they were just as real for you as they were for him." She sighed and rose up from his chest to look at him. "Dawn is just as real to me as my mom was. Sometimes even more so, because she was made from me. Literally. They took bits of me to make her." “I took up space, but…” Ben blew out a sigh as his eyes flicked down from gazing at the ceiling to where Buffy perched. “They might have made her from you, but they made her to be herself. To be your sister. She wasn’t made to replace you.” He twisted his hand around in Buffy’s, so he could squeeze her hand gently. “Buffy, I…” His eyes slid closed. “I believed one hundred percent that I was Peter Parker. If I hadn’t been the one who ‘died’, I would have been the one who went home and gone on with my life like after every other obstacle we’d faced. But that’s not how it went, so… I couldn’t exist how I was.” "That's not your fault, though. You know that, right? It's not like you created yourself and went out and implanted his memories into your head, Ben." Buffy could understand why someone would feel insecure, if they were real or not. She'd lived through Dawn's self-awareness (such a bad way for her to find out), and never, not for one second, thought Dawn was any less real just because of how she came to be. "You were doing what you knew. What anyone would do: go home to what you know. If anything it's whatshisname - the guy who made you - it's his fault. Not yours." “Jackal,” Ben ground out. The easier villain to focus on instead of the possible mastermind. Osborn never did say just how involved he was, just that he was pulling all those strings and, yeah, better to just focus on the simple straight forward revenge scheme as opposed to the one years in the making. “I know it isn’t and boy do I dislike the whole ‘guy who made me’ thing. The whole ‘gee thanks Mr. Evil Scientist for having a super duper revenge scheme and creating me’ isn’t really very ego boosting. Which just leads to the ignoring of that whole aspect and kinda doing what you just did whenever Kaine goes on ‘bout him…” He puffed out a heavy sigh. “And even if it’s not my fault, doesn’t mean that I didn’t get stuck with having to deal with it.” Buffy heaved herself up until she was leaning over him. Her fingers plucked through his hair as he talked. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like to find out that he was a clone, and not the real person from his memories. She wanted to tell him that she was glad Jackal had made him, but it seemed like such a weird thing to say, given the circumstances and the conversation. "Everyone gets stuck with dealing with something. Your "dad's" an evil jerk, mine's a deadbeat. Peter - and you - lost parents and Uncle Ben. Everyone just kind of picks up the pieces when they can, and do the best they've got with 'em. I'd say you're doing a damn good job with that, Ben." Ben’s jaw tightened. “He’s not my dad,” he shot back. Ok, yeah, he joked about it, but that was joking. Poking the elephant enough so that it’d go away or lose its importance or something. Otherwise, all a negative knee jerk reaction. Maybe because whenever Jackal showed up, he picked at that scab. Always referred to them as his boys, his sons, and he was daddy dearest. “Because, yeah, he’s an evil jerk that manages to keep coming back to mess with us considering that he really did abuse that whole ‘hey, I can make an infinite number of clones of myself, I can live forever!’ aspect of the situation.” He blew out a sigh, waving the topic off before reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind Buffy’s ear. “I was having a good run back home.” He smiled warmly. “Having a pretty good run here too.” Note to self: don't call Ben's creator dad. Buffy gave a sheepish look before deciding that they needed to move on from the heavy topics. He'd told her a whole lot about himself tonight, and they'd gotten a few things cleared up. She felt more relieved that she had for the past few weeks, with all of this off her mind. For a second, she leaned into Ben's hand, turned her face to kiss his palm, and then grinned deviously. "Hey, wanna have an even better run?" she asked as she leaned down to nuzzle the side of his neck, pressing tiny kisses to distract him once more. The tension eased out of Ben with a whoosh of breath as he tilted his head back again. The talk was winding down, right? Minus his outburst. They’d sorted things out from after the whole fear thing, so a little reward wouldn’t be that bad right now. He slid his hands down over her back, pulling her closer and shifting her further on top of him. “Mmmm… Oh, oh, that type of run,” he teased warmly, letting all the thoughts from the conversation before slip away. “Now that’s the right kinda exercise to get the blood pumping.” |