When you were here beforeHis body is here, his head is not. I've been watching him for days now, wishing I could help. But I know the best way to help him is to just listen to what he asks me for, and to do no more and no less than that. I learned that a long time ago. Long before I fell in love with him. No matter what he asks for. Even if I hate it.
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
His hands shake. He fires up cigarettes like they're lighting a pitch black path for him to walk. He lights them like they're an afterthought. Hands with the merest of tremors that push forth his vulnerability and leave it there. He tries to brush it off. Fatigue. Cold. Too much coffee. We let him. It serves no purpose to correct his efforts to be normal. There is no normal here.
Ben has let his hair grow out again. It's long and in his eyes. There are some incredible strands of grey now visible that weren't there the last time I saw him. His beard is back. He is hiding behind it. His skin is paler than pale. Vampires are always a hot ticket so no one notices that much anymore though. He has lost a little weight, not a lot. Clothes are neat though. Fingernails kept neat for playing guitar, as always. Weight of the world balanced neatly, heavily, on his shoulders. His big brown eyes mildly bloodshot, glasses on so he can be Clark Kent or Dallas Green or someone else as long as it isn't Ben. Tattoos. Tattoos everywhere. Full sleeves, neck, knuckles visible from here and more underneath his clothes. So beautiful. He has no idea.
What the hell am I doing here?He used to be so laid back. The endless party boy. Never gave a fuck about anything. Cared about everyone but made great pains to hide that fact behind a flippant asshole persona that always put him in last place. I knew he wasn't that person. Always. And now as he gets older and life scrapes past him leaving glacial scars I see the real Benjamin. The worrywart. The tense, ruined man who wants to be pulled together but can't manage it at all. Walking doubt. Walking try.
I dont belong here.
And he succeeds. Bad luck has a way of following Ben around like a lost puppy and he'll feed it and scratch it behind the ears. That encourages it to stick around but he doesn't think about that. He only figures that if he doesn't have it someone else will, and that someone might be Bridget and she's had enough so he'd better take it. He's taken all the hard jobs when it comes to me and we've fucked up and made mistakes and wondered as recently as two days ago if we were just prolonging the inevitable and then suddenly we'll start to speak and say the same thing and the pieces just fall back into place again and we're sure. One hundred percent sure.
See, when Ben is away Lochlan starts in. And he has my interests at heart. An easy life. No worry. No fear. No stress. No one will blame you, just take the escape and don't look back. But I can't do that. I spend a lot of time looking back. And this time when I looked back I saw two ghosts and I saw Ben, who is not a ghost but a living, breathing representation of my heart. He is stronger than he feels. He feels more than they give him credit for. But he doesn't care about them, just about me. He stands back there and never knows what the hell to do, he only trusts one thing in his whole life. His feelings for me. Always living by that even though it's usually been a poor choice to make.
I can put my hands on his fingers and they stop shaking. Instantly. And I wish Ben could just stay here forever. Even if his head is somewhere else. It's extraordinary to me how fifty percent of Benjamin is better than one hundred percent of everyone else.