[Ben is completely unconcerned about his feet; his boots are more than capable of protecting him from the glass detritus and he's sure-footed besides. Nonetheless he picks his way carefully further in, taking a quick mental catalogue of all the ways the room has changed. The things that have been thrown and broken.

A muscle in his jaw jumps, and he looks over sharply.]

Ladd Russo does a lot of murdering. Lua is... you're close?

We were inmates together. [She's his friend, yes.] We went through some difficult times together.

Killing for sport has always been something I loathed, and it's something he revels in. I would have hated him even without this. This just makes him an intolerable specimin of the genepool that should be-

[His own jaw ticks and he clamps his mouth shut. No. Not to Ben. Don't do that to Ben. He takes a deep breath, and just starts calmly sweeping up the remains again.] He's a terrible person. Avoid him if you can.

[He doesn't finish but Ben, sensitive to this particular fear, hears it anyway; he stiffens and pauses where he'd been trying to work his way around the mess deeper into the room without making it worse. He doesn't ask how the sentence was going to end, but rather looks down at the growing pile, and steps back to put his back against the nearest wall.

Out of the way.]

I have, ever since I spent time with him in Zero. He is unruly and out of control.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. [More evidence that he needs time. More time than the Barge can give him. He starts focusing on making sure everything is brushed up and disposed of. The wet spots dried.]

[Ben is watching, uncertain what to do with himself now that there is no immediate crisis, and Rhade has already clearly made up his mind. He reminds himself he'd been warned about this before, and that he'd known then it would come to pass. He'd hoped not, but he'd known.]

It's a truth I've known my entire life, sir. [He says it dully, in the manner of one already dismissed; it's true enough. He folds his arms to keep himself from falling to attention, not because Rhade would require it, but because it's his default. He watches, stays out of the way.]

I'm sorry. About Lua Klein. When will you go?

Don't... don't call me sir. It's Gaheris. Or Rhade.

[His expression is creased with hurt for a moment.] Tonight, I think. [He really is a failure, all around.]

I'm sorry, Gaheris.

[Ben is silent then, even his breathing quiet, his body motionless; he recognizes the hurt, feels it twist in his gut where the old protective, helpless anger used to live.

He steps away from the wall, cautious; tilting his head and then craning his neck in watchful, mild anxiety.]

I... understand if you must. But I would also like to say that I wish you wouldn't. I dislike that it has become necessary.

I dislike it, too...

[He brushes off his hands and goes over to the desk, and picks up the picture of Anisette.]

Have you ever actually held an infant before? [He realizes that Ben may have not.]

[Ben, at length, follows. His pulse is still loud and fast in his ears, there are all kinds of emotions he doesn't know what to call or how to process swallowed down in his gut, but he's not focusing on any of them right now. He can see that Rhade has already decided, but a part of him still thinks what he thought every time he knew Zack was about to leave him alone.

If Ben can just be good enough, be calm and useful enough, he won't go.]

No. I avoided them. Their parents are very protective and I was a stranger everywhere. [Never mind Manticore.]

They're calming. Something that's never said an ill word, had a hostile thought. It's hungry, it's small, it needs care. It's a blank slate, and what you do while you're holding it is the foundation of every thing that's going to be formed there. [He sits down and rubs the back of his neck.]

I'm going to kill someone if I stay here, Ben. And then I'll be an inmate again. At least this way I have a chance to come back and be a warden. But I spent my entire time as an inmate falling apart. I can't let that happen to me again.

Edited 2013-02-11 03:51 am (UTC)

I see. [He doesn't, not really, it's not sinking in much; but he's at least capable of recognizing that he understands all the concepts present in what Rhade has said and, when he's calmer, he can work the rest of it out.

Rhade sits down and Ben circles wide, but ultimately perches on the edge of a chair nearby, too, intent on his warden. And friend.]

I... understand. And you warned me before that you might decide to do this. I remember.

It's not an easy thing to decide. [He can say that with honesty.]

You've met Lua. You've seen her, how gentle she is. Someone killed that, and she thought she was safe with him. She loved him and she trusted him and he killed her.

[It makes him sick, and the nausea becomes evident on his face. He's never had that kind of devotion from... anyone.]

[Ben doesn't flinch, though he feels the twinge that would do it for him if he let it. Then Rhade is talking about Lua and although the X5 hadn't paid much attention to her either way, he knows enough to be able to verify that it's true enough.

He thinks if she trusted Ladd, she was a fool, but then Max had trusted him. She'd turned her back on him and he wouldn't have hurt her, wouldn't have killed her, but he knows what he won't say. Ben looks down.]

He would be considered a Nomlie, at Manticore. Flawed. Uncontrollable. He would be decommissioned and disappear.

[Rhade nods.] Among my people- in my time, there were standards Nietzscheans had to meet. Our families are a part of us, and in the pursuit of self-interest and continuing our ideals, we needed to appreciate our families. We had to honor our wives and our matriarchs, because they gave us life and give us children.

[He swallows as he puts the towels in the laundry, trying to remember if he has cleaning solution here or if he has to go to the closet.]

He murdered his wife. He murdered a woman that would like to be a loving mother. I don't... [He has difficulty expressing this. Normally he's never short on words. But with Ben, he needs to take care.] I don't think he deserves to have a legacy. But I can't start thinking I can force my own ideas of the future on people again. That's what got me here in the first place.

[Ben licks his lips instead of nodding, turning inward as he listens. It makes a kind of sense - the most that he's aware of, having never had to think about families in that way before. In species that reproduce naturally, the female is the source of it; they would be worthy of protection, for more reasons than that.

The X5 glances up without raising his head when Rhade cuts off, blinking at him.]

Then what of his own world? How would he be punished if he were there?

It depends on the Pride and how they deal with their own blood. He would have married into her Pride, therefore he would be accountable to them. Which could either end in someone sent to a private prison or executed.

Or possibly neutered, but even being able to carry on one's ideals is a form of longevity.

He's not a Nietzschean, though, he's a human in the 1920's. [Which means lynch mobs and hangings.]

[Rhade is doing that thing again, speaking in terms of society and longevity and legacies; Ben can't follow him when he does that so he waits for it to make sense again, feels the familiar stir of frustration when it doesn't, not really.

He says the next thing on his mind anyway, because this line of conversation is going nowhere he likes.]

You'll ask your Captain to be responsible for me while you're gone.

I'm asking several people to be responsible for you while I'm gone. [He cants his head at Ben.]

[Ben has fallen back completely on his inscrutable setting, features carefully, studiously blank, eyes dull. He'd like to say he doesn't want anyone else, he'd like to say he doesn't trust anyone else, but neither of these will gain anything at this point. Rhade needs to go. Ben needs to let him.

It's familiar.]

I will continue to report for all assigned tasks in your absence. [He's already shifting his weight to straighten, to move, from where he'd fetched up near the couch he seems to like to perch in best.]