fandomtownies | The Perk

Wilson was in mid flit. He had some more supplies coming to the new clinic as well as paperwork to submit for the School clinic and a desire for coffee.

Not just coffee but jacked up coffee and so with his gingerbread latte complete with five shots of espresso and whipcream in his hand, he started to turn to leave when he saw Ben.

Smiling, he called over to the man, not so much meaning to interupt him but just to say hello.

"Ben!"

Ben put down his book and smiled. "Morning, Dr. Wilson." He gestured to the coffee. "Getting ready for a busy day, I see."

"Lunch!" He chirped, which might make one wonder just how many cups he'd already had. But it was always hard to scold him, as his smile was bright dark eyes twinkling.

"I'm sorry, am I interupting your reading?"

Ben shook his head. "It's just a distraction for me today." His blue eyes took on a decidedly darker cast. "Just using it to clear my head a bit. Last night was...perhaps a little too exciting, for my tastes. Literature is a nice, staid change of pace."

Wilson's smiled softened and he leaned back against a nearby table, taking a sip of his coffee.

"I'm afraid I have to admit to it being a bit the norm for me but I can understand that it was disquieting. All that blood."

He didn't say it to be cruel but rather as a gentle feeler, to see if Ben wanted to talk, rather then hold in an try to internalize what was niggling at him.

Ben nodded, silent for a moment while he sipped his coffee. "Michael was one of the people caught in a bomb blast, few years back. He was hurt pretty badly. Reminded me of that, a little." There was something more, but he held it back. He liked Wilson, but....

"Can I ask you something? Hypothetically, of course. What would bring a man to save the life of someone he disliked? Despised, even?"

"I'm sorry." Wilson said softly in response to the news about Michael, though as far as he could tell, Ben's husband was a bright, open individual so obviously things had come around for the positive.

"Grace." He responded without hesitation. "Hypothetically speaking, of course ... letting a person die, when you have the capacity to help them is purely a reflection on who you are in your soul. It's harder even than perhaps killing them in the first place because...murder can happen from passion, in the split second of a moment. But letting someone die? That's a coldness that could never leave a person because it's a deliberate judgement over that which we have no right to judge."

Though he hadn't been inviting, Wilson moved over to sit across from Ben, so that their hypothetical conversation wasn't broadcast all over the Perk.

"'Kill em all and let God sort them out' it's a bit of a cold phrase but not without it's own wisedom. You're a good man, Ben. Good men don't pass judgement at that level."

Ben blushed and stared at the cup of coffee. He should have known Dr. Wilson would figure it out, and, in fact, was pretty sure that subconsciously, he'd wanted Wilson to do so. Still, it made Ben self-conscious. "I wanted to," he said quietly. "I thought about it." Ben glanced up at Wilson, then back at his coffee cup. "He's the one who Michael..." He couldn't even finish the sentence.

Reaching over, again not intending for it to be a violation of Ben's personal space but cognizant that sometimes a warm touch meant more than words, Wilson closed his fingers around the other man's wrist.

"You wouldn't be human if you didn't. But really...do you not feel just a little bit better that you did?"

Because it was one thing to say you forgave a partner for their transgression, it was another to then confront the other party in that transgression and come away a better man for it. That was where forgiveness also became forgetfulness, putting all shades of the past to rest.

"I'm not sure how I feel." Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I know I did the right thing. I know I couldn't have lived with myself otherwise. But I don't know that it makes me feel better." He sighed. "If it was the right thing, if I'm supposed to feel better, then why do I feel lost, empty?" Ben thought he knew the answer, but sometimes you needed to hear it from someone else.

Taking a sip of his coffee, Wilson gave a rueful little smile.

"Just because it's right doesn't mean it's easy." Sighing softly, knowing he was probably the last person to look to for answers like these, Wilson sat back.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He offered gently.

Ben gave a wry smile. "Easy has not been a part of my life for a while now." The smile faded as he leaned foward. "I have spent so long hating Yazoo -- even starting a fight with him -- that I never thought I'd lose the anger. Now it's gone, and I'm not exactly sure why or how. There's just a void."

Leaning back again, he gave a resigned sigh. "I blamed him for what happened so I wouldn't blame Michael. But both were to blame, really, and Michael still cares about him, at least some. That set me off too, for a long time. But now..." He shrugged. "I can't get angry at Michael for caring about people, because that's what I love about him. But now, I can't even bring myself to be angry at any of it, like the anger just burned itself out and left a hole. That's something I'll have to adjust to."

Wilson eyed Ben thoughtfully for what might have seemed to be almost five minutes, then he did something, that probably seemed down right counter productive to what one might expect.

But then again, you were talking to a doctor who used the most toxic elements known to man to help cure one of the most deadly diseases so perhaps Wilson's unorthadox approach wasn't so surprising.

Grabbing a napkin, he tugged a pen out of his pocket and uncapped it. Then he shoved both across the table towards the writer.

"Write it. Right now, stream of consciousness just go." Dark eyes were kind but at the same time intense. "I'll tell you when to stop."

Ben stared at him a minute, then picked up the pen and took the napkin. He put the pen to the paper and took a deep breath, trying to open up the spigot to let the words flow. After a few moments Ben put the pen down and shook his head. "I can't." He looked up at Wilson. "I haven't written a single word in weeks," he confessed softly.

Wilson was going to be lucky if he didn't get decked as he urged gently but intently at the same time.

"You're overthinking. Just, write the same word if that's what comes...but write, something."

Ben let out what might have been something akin to a growl, or maybe a groan, but he picked up the pen and tried again. Instead of sentences, his normal unit, he groped for words, base words, elemental, monosyllabic. Fear. Rage. Hurt. Pain. Loss. Blame. He stepped up to polysyllabic. Anger. Hatred. Abandonment. Betrayal. Barrier. Distance.

Another breath, and he wrote more. I hate Yazoo with every inch of my soul. But I can't act on it. Because of Michael, because of Hunter, because I couldn't live with myself if I did. And the hatred consumed me. So why isn't it eating me now? Ben almost put down the pen, but he pushed on. Because I love Michael, more than I could ever hate anyone. And because I can finally accept that he loves me, regardless of what happened.

Wilson just quietly watched and sipped his coffee. He was very still, careful not to do anything that might distract Ben once the words started to flow.

There is a hole where the anger used to be, and it is filled with confusion now. The fact that I saved Yazoo's life means that I can't have hated him as much as I thought -- or at least that the hatred was tempered with something else. Ben paused, shook his head, then kept going. I hated myself, as much as I hated him. Because I was not enough for Michael, because I wasn't the perfect man he's always pictured me to be. I think now that I have shown myself capable of compassion, even for Yazoo, that perhaps I can forgive myself for not being perfect.

Running out of steam as well as napkin, Ben put the pen down and pushed it and the paper a little ways away from him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly in a whistling sound between his teeth.

Making no move to reach for or otherwise disturb the napkin, Wilson continued to be quiet company, letting Ben work through his own thoughts at his own pace without trying to nudge the man in any particular direction.

He was pleased to see the ink on the napkin, however. A writer, a true writer tended to be happiest when the words were moving through them, even if the words weren't happy, fluffy bunnies. It was the way they tapped into their emotions and bottle necking one, tended to bottleneck the other.

Ben sat back, filtering through his thoughts. He didn't much like what he was hearing from himself, but he turned to a meditative state of mind: acknowledge, then release the thought. He noted that Wilson was being quiet, and it unnerved him a little. He gave a short, mirthless laugh. "I think I'm discovering just what a monster I've been, these past few months." He frowned. "Poor Michael."

"Maybe letting that part go isn't such a bad thing then?" The young doctor said with a rueful little smile.

Taking a deep breath, Wilson seemed to ponder something before he gave a little fatalistic shrug and made his decision.

"I've been in his shoes. More times then I'm proud to admit and I have no desire to go back to being that person because ... the ... lacking, if you will? It wasn't with my wives, well except for my third wife whom we will never discuss but...it wasn't them. It wasn't anything they did or didn't do they were amazing women, putting up with me. It was something in myself."

Ben raised his eyebrow at the doctor's confession. It surprised him; he did not picture Wilson as capable of being someone like that -- although as Wilson indicated, that was not the person he was, anymore. "Michael's actual... transgression... was brought on by a spell cast on him." Ben's voice slowed to almost a drawl. "At some level I know that it only brought out something that was already in him. He is very determined not to let it surface again. Maybe it is in him, but I can't help but feel like..." Ben fidgeted. "Like it's me who is the root of the problem. Because I'm positive, because I'm not always well, because I'm an insecure writer, because I tend to be more of a dominant personality. He looks at me sometimes like I'm the most perfect person who has ever walked the earth, but I know I'm far from that. It makes me feel guilty that I can't be what he needs."

Leaning his elbow on the table top, Wilson watched Ben with kind eyes and a genuinely thoughtful expression.

"Ben? Do you realize how many times you've said the word me or I in the past few minutes?"

His brow furrowed as Wilson moved carefully, hoping he wouldn't offend the man, which he certainly did not want to do.

"I used to practice at a teaching hospital, Princeton-Plainsborough in New Jersey to be exact. One of the most important lessons and one of the hardest to get across to the young doctors, especially the good ones was the idea that they needed to learn when it was time to let go of a patient, accept the terminal diagnosis or the passing. A lot of doctors feel that they're some how... failures if they don't hold on to those feelings of guilt and remorse, their conversations become... 'I should have done this...I should have tested earlier, if I had looked at the lymph nodes sooner, I failed to order bloodwork fast enough, what's wrong with me that I ...'"

Taking a slow breath, Wilson sipped the coffee, he was almost finished with it and pushed on.

"Their grief and their self recrimination is genuine but it is underlined by a basic selfishness... a desire to punish themselves for what they ultimately have no control over because it's the one thing in the situation they do have control over. But eventually, it will eat them up, burn them out and destroy them."

Rolling the cup back and forth between his fingers, Wilson watched Ben's face.

Ben remained silent at the rebuke, staring into his coffee. He could feel the heat rise in his cheeks in a heavy blush. He wanted to be angry with the doctor for saying what he said but all Ben could feel was the painful singe of the truth, down to his core.

Seeing that his point had been taken at face value, Wilson backed off the pressure, smiling a little ruefully.

"And I'd hate to have someone I consider a friend go and burn out on me. It's not often I make friends, rather protective of the ones I've got."

Ben's smile was wan, but there. "I appreciate that you consider me a friend." He leaned back and sighed. "And I appreciate that you've been willing to lend me an ear today. I'm sure there are better things you could be doing with your time."

Wilson smiled brightly and his laugh was soft.

"Is that a polite way of telling me to take myself and bugger off Mr. Bruckner?"

Dark eyes twinkled with a friendly sort of warmth that pulled any heat from the playful words as Wilson polished off the last of his coffee and prepared to leave Ben to his book.

In spite of himself, Ben grinned. "I don't know that 'bugger' is the word I'd use..." he replied playfully. "Honestly, though, thank you."

Returning the grin, Wilson studied Ben a moment longer then nodded and exploded into motion, coming up to his feet in one, graceful long limbed movement.

"It has been my pleasure! Give my regards to Michael and I will probably be down to the Emporium sometime soon to hunt up some magazines for the waiting room. Tell Michael if he has any in particular he thinks would be good waiting room material, to hold them behind the counter for me."

Turning to pitch the now empty coffee cup, Wilson shoved his hands in his pockets and smiled at Ben.

"Have a good day, Ben. I hope to talk with you again, soon."

Ben nods. "I'll tell him. You have a good day too."

Inara comes into the Perk, orders herself a chai tea, and takes a seat.

Coming into the Perk for his appointment with Inara, Geoff stops at the counter for an espresso and looks around the room. Spotting Inara, he grins and heads over.

"My lady Inara, it's very good to see you again," he says, offering his hand.

"Mr. Chaucer," she takes his hand with a smile, "I'm just as pleased to see you. How are things?"

"A rough patch there for a little while, but getting better. I'm looking forward to the new term at school, and really the new year in general." He kisses her hand and releases it, smiling as he sits down. "And how have you been? Well, I hope."

"A little cold," she indicates outside the Perk. "But otherwise very well. The same for you, I presume? It must be quiet for you during this time - the semester break."

"Very quiet." He nods, sipping at his coffee. "I've taken a couple of trips out of town, but otherwise...mostly I've spent the time writing." With a somewhat rueful smile, he adds, "Or worrying about people who keep disappearing or getting themselves hurt."

Shrugging his shoulder, he says, "So, tell me what you have in mind as far as a business arrangement between us."

"You mentioned you were looking for someone with artistic talents," she said. "I'm not much of one for delicate painting or portraiture, but I have a strong calligraphic hand and a good eye for decoration." Her smile turns wry, "Or so my old House Priestess used to say."

"That sounds good, actually. I'm not really in the business of portraiture, although I'm willing to let anyone I take on do their own commission work on the side. Sonia was an artist, and she put up some of her work at the shop in addition to doing work for me. But calligraphy and decorative work sounds perfect, actually. I mostly offer poetry and coat-of-arms work, so your skills would fit right in."

Geoff takes another sip of coffee and looks contemplative. "I'll want to see some samples, of course. But if you take the job, you'll have a space of your own to work in at the shop if you like. If you wouldn't mind opening up a day or two a week, that would also be a big help, but it's not required."

[ooc: {Pretty much it's what Geoff just explained. :)]

Inara smiles. "That sounds perfect. A day or two a week I can manage. I'll just schedule my usual clients at another time.

"I'll get samples out to you tomorrow. But are there any particular styles in which you specialise?"

"I personally specialize in English poetry and European heraldry. But I'm more than willing to expand what the business offers if you come on. I know you mentioned when we spoke before that you also do Oriental poetry, and I think it would be wonderful to add that."

Geoff grins, looking excited at the prospect. "If you could...do calligraphy work for me, take commissions for your style of poetry now and then, and maybe occasionally do some decorative illustration work -- for instance, if someone wants a poem drawn out decoratively rather than just written -- I think that would be perfect."

His enthusiasm is infectious. "That sounds like something I would enjoy doing," she says, pleased. "And the extra money is always a help."

She takes a sip of her chai tea.

"Which days would you want me to open the shop?"

Geoff sips at his coffee and considers. "Well, I have classes on Monday and Tuesday. Would either of those work for you? Otherwise, I'm very flexible with my schedule. I'm hoping to possibly hire a second person...Paige has mentioned some interest as well."

He grins. "You'll get first choice at the schedule, though."

"I don't think that will be necessary - Mondays and Tuesdays would be fine for me. I can schedule the shorter appointments for Sunday and Monday."

Her eyes twinkle, "It looks like this is going to be an excellent arrangement for both of us, Mr. Chaucer - or may I call you Geoff?"

"Please, my lady, I would very much like for you to call me Geoff."

Grinning, he adds, "Classes begin next week, would that be too early for you to start?"

"That would be fine." Inara grinned. "So, back to the regular mayhem of school, then? It seems like they just finished last semester."

Laughing, he replies, "Yes, it does. I still don't have my lesson plan finished, and already we're almost at registration for classes. But I'm looking forward to it, really. I wasn't so certain about all of this, when I first started teaching -- I'd never taught before -- but I find that I'm actually very much enjoying it."

The Perk

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject