[ Ben listens without interruption, only moving to hug his legs to his chest and rest his chin on his knee. Kieran knows him well enough by now to know that even if he is silent, he's attentive; that listening quietly and patiently is some of what Ben does best.
It's quite a story. Ben can hear how much Mary-Beth means to Kieran, just from the way he says her name. Like he's afraid of getting it dirty with his voice, like it's some precious thing, to be handled carefully. A few little unanswered questions fall into place as Kieran tells him all of it. This is his friend who loved reading so much; this is at least part of why it had mattered so much to Kieran, when Ben taught him to read. It was something he'd been looking forward to, in a quite different context, before his life had been so cruelly cut short.
There are reminders of how much suffering Kieran had gone through in his life littered through the story. He liked Mary-Beth because she had given him water and spoken to him while he was being tortured. She'd called him no better than the people who ended up blinding and killing him (the ones Ben had dispatched (or at least some version of them) in that awful shift. And just when they had been coming to understand one another, their chance to be together had been taken away.
Ben wishes right then, so badly it's almost a physical ache in his chest, that he could have done something to change it all. That he could do something now to give Kieran some peace, some happiness, a second chance. The way he, himself, had been given a second chance.
When Kieran finally finishes speaking, there is a long moment of quiet before Ben says, softly. ]
I don't believe it was wishful thinking, Kieran. 'Cause I know you, and - I wouldn't say you're someone who assumes people like him more than they actually do. You do the opposite of that. So I think... she must have meant it that way, and had probably been feeling like that for you for longer than you realized.
[ Ben really does like the sound of Mary-Beth. Someone to break the rules to give water to give some small comfort to a prisoner. Someone a little feisty who didn't tolerate then-strangers commenting on her looks. Someone who could recognize when her assumptions about another person were wrong, and amend them. ]
I wish I could have met her. She sounds really wonderful.
no subject
It's quite a story. Ben can hear how much Mary-Beth means to Kieran, just from the way he says her name. Like he's afraid of getting it dirty with his voice, like it's some precious thing, to be handled carefully. A few little unanswered questions fall into place as Kieran tells him all of it. This is his friend who loved reading so much; this is at least part of why it had mattered so much to Kieran, when Ben taught him to read. It was something he'd been looking forward to, in a quite different context, before his life had been so cruelly cut short.
There are reminders of how much suffering Kieran had gone through in his life littered through the story. He liked Mary-Beth because she had given him water and spoken to him while he was being tortured. She'd called him no better than the people who ended up blinding and killing him (the ones Ben had dispatched (or at least some version of them) in that awful shift. And just when they had been coming to understand one another, their chance to be together had been taken away.
Ben wishes right then, so badly it's almost a physical ache in his chest, that he could have done something to change it all. That he could do something now to give Kieran some peace, some happiness, a second chance. The way he, himself, had been given a second chance.
When Kieran finally finishes speaking, there is a long moment of quiet before Ben says, softly. ]
I don't believe it was wishful thinking, Kieran. 'Cause I know you, and - I wouldn't say you're someone who assumes people like him more than they actually do. You do the opposite of that. So I think... she must have meant it that way, and had probably been feeling like that for you for longer than you realized.
[ Ben really does like the sound of Mary-Beth. Someone to break the rules to give water to give some small comfort to a prisoner. Someone a little feisty who didn't tolerate then-strangers commenting on her looks. Someone who could recognize when her assumptions about another person were wrong, and amend them. ]
I wish I could have met her. She sounds really wonderful.