Ben Hargreeves | Number 6 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dial6forhorror) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
umbrellajackassery2019-04-12 11:38 am
dial6forhorror) wrote in umbrellajackassery2019-04-12 11:38 am
01: i spend too much time ghosting [ota]
In the name of avoiding everyone and everything until he had sorted out the chaos in his own head, Ben had gone into hiding.
He hadn't left or gone anywhere else, he could still feel that tether drawing him back here, but that was where it got messy. Ben had several truths in his world. Even death didn't stop the Horror. Being dead sucked. He knew where Klaus was.
He was sixteen when he died, just shy of seventeen. And ever since then, nearly half of his existence, he always knew where Klaus was. It was always just a thought and he was right near him, usually in the middle of whatever chaos Klaus had caused.
But there wasn't a Klaus.
He was sure he'd seen at least three by now. One of them was definitely not the Klaus he thought of as 'his', because he had a Ben with him, a living, smiling Ben. And he was fairly sure he'd seen another version of himself, silent and invisible and lurking in a corridor outside a door.
But he wasn't sure which one was his and it was overwhelming and frightening, in a way that the world hadn't been for him for a long time. Which was why he had decided to go to the place he hated most and he knew the others would mostly avoid.
He went to Sir's office and sat down in a corner on an antique chair that they never would have been allowed to touch. He sat and rubbed his stomach where the Horror roiled, unsettled by his own discomfort.
He hadn't left or gone anywhere else, he could still feel that tether drawing him back here, but that was where it got messy. Ben had several truths in his world. Even death didn't stop the Horror. Being dead sucked. He knew where Klaus was.
He was sixteen when he died, just shy of seventeen. And ever since then, nearly half of his existence, he always knew where Klaus was. It was always just a thought and he was right near him, usually in the middle of whatever chaos Klaus had caused.
But there wasn't a Klaus.
He was sure he'd seen at least three by now. One of them was definitely not the Klaus he thought of as 'his', because he had a Ben with him, a living, smiling Ben. And he was fairly sure he'd seen another version of himself, silent and invisible and lurking in a corridor outside a door.
But he wasn't sure which one was his and it was overwhelming and frightening, in a way that the world hadn't been for him for a long time. Which was why he had decided to go to the place he hated most and he knew the others would mostly avoid.
He went to Sir's office and sat down in a corner on an antique chair that they never would have been allowed to touch. He sat and rubbed his stomach where the Horror roiled, unsettled by his own discomfort.
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She shook her head then, "Hope I just fade out again before that kind of thing happens. Seems like the worst sort of fate."
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Ben is scared to move on. He isn't really interested in doing it, not while Klaus is around, but he doesn't know what will happen to him or his guests. "I think it's like dementia. When you're that deep in it? You don't know. It's not awful for you, maybe even soothing. It's better than reliving your death over and over. Or just being caught in that trauma. I've been dead a while, you learn a lot about other ghosts when your brother is a medium."
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"Bit like how people say you can't really be crazy as long as you're still asking if you are, and if Cassie had found someone sensible to teach her about her heritage, I might have learned something useful like that as well. Witches and mediums and psychics kind of fall in the same boat when it comes to this sort of thing, I think."
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Ben has no idea about witches and psychics, not really. Just Klaus. "Maybe just anyone. Like, knowing about yourself and having someone help you with it is a pretty fundamentally human thing. It's just more difficult to find that help and information when you've got things very different about you. Like seeing ghosts. Or being host to eldritch horrors."
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She suspected it would be particularly difficult now, with Cassie out of the picture she didn't really have any kind of touchstone anymore.
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He usually tries not to think about it like that.
"Klaus might make it easier for you. We've been working on him being able to make me tangible, or even just visible to others. He might be able to do it with you?"
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Her brow creased a little further, trying to think of other things, "Oh, and I can change clothes if I want to, though they do have to come from a dead person, otherwise it's the same problem as trying to touch something living, I just can't do it."
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Ben's face crumples a little before he gets control of himself. "I can't interact. Not unless Klaus puts effort in. Sometimes he randomly conjures things, mostly books. Once a pink ball gown, but I don't know if he knows he did that. I learned to sit on furniture, eventually."
Eating is out of scope. He wanders through doors if he needs to, but prefers to let Klaus open them.
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A little flicker of a smile followed, "There's still the problem of not being seen, so even if I'm moving things around, I have to be careful not to get caught at it."
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His anger didn't lead to rampaging monsters. "It's a problem I could live with, I think."
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She shook her head, "Probably wouldn't even try unless someone was being an unforgivable wanker."
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He sits back in the antique chair, perching on the edge. "My training was pretty much just to tear apart people I was told to."
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He deserved a good swift kick as far as she was concerned, but that wasn't likely to be a possibility, which was something she could only be glad about for the sake of everyone in the house.
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They knew it wasn't like other people, but they weren't like other people, as Sir liked to remind them constantly. Ben hadn't needed the reminder, his reminder pushed and strained when he got anxious.
"We knew other people's families were different. Most people don't get bought by their father and raised by a robot and a chimpanzee with a better education than a lot of professors. But most people also don't see the dead, or have the ability to bend kinetic physics to their whim."
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She'd had a crash course in a few major comic players a few years back because the girl at the shop had been cute and Thelma had thought she had a chance.
"I mean, not that you had a say in it, obviously. Which kind of makes it all worse, really." She shook her head, flapping a hand in front of her face as if to wave that away, "Don't listen to me, I'm obviously not saying anything you don't already know."
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He gives her a slight smile. "It would've been nice if it sucked less, yeah. Maybe... maybe I would've survived my powers if we'd been loved, not simply raised."
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He wasn't like any of the other ghosts she'd dealt with before, and it made her curious, especially as it seemed they were still hanging around for similar reasons. Namely, looking out for a loved one in the oncoming apocalypse.
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"I don't think I'd want to see Klaus's dreams. I already know what's in them, I don't need to get up close and personal with them."
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