Ships in bottles

Who: Ben and Rebekah
When: early morning
Where: behind their houses

It was cold in the house. That was something she probably ought to appreciate, considering what her future had in store. Rebekah was walking through the rooms for the ten thousandth time, barefoot with a linen skirt brushing around her calves. Her eyes wandered, memorizing again every inch of the place that was now "home". It was strange to think, but the room she'd had in the mansion had been more home-like. Perhaps it was just a matter of time. She could decorate this place maybe, rearrange ... though what would be the point, ultimately? They'd given her all of her art supplies, neatly stacked in the extra bedroom, but she had yet to touch them, aside from assigning them places. Being secluded in that room ... it had ruined her, gotten her out of her own rhythm, broken her down.

Her steps eventually took her outside, through the back door and into the small yard that was behind the house. She stepped down off of the concrete steps and onto the dying grass, feeling it crunch just a little under her feet. There wouldn't be time to try and grow anything before winter truly came. It was on it's way. Rebekah walked out a few paces into the yard and stopped, arms hugging her thin frame. She looked out over the fences, down the row of houses, wondering who else occupied them.

The house right next to hers? Well, it was occupied by a familiar face, though one she hadn't seen in quite some time. Ben hadn't changed in the time since he'd last seen Rebekah; his beard a touch bushier, the paunch on his stomach a bit smaller, but still quintessentially the same man. He was parked down on the ledge of the back door, legs dangling out into the yard and a guitar cradled in his lap, his eyes squeezed shut as he felt along the neck by memory.

Ben was trying, trying to readapt to this new space, trying to once again go through the soundboards and DAT tapes that were his life's work, but it was too much to do at once. And even beyond that, he was trying to remember all of Kaylin's advice. She said you could do it. Go slow. Going slow meant being willing to have an open door, to see the sky but know the ceiling was just behind him if the panic welled up in his throat.

The soft crunch of grass underfoot made a hand twitch, fingers jangling across the strings of his instrument as his head snapped around. His eyes were wild and alert as he looked across the top edge of the fence, catching his first glimpse of Rebekah in quite some time. "You," he said simply in greeting, struggling to remember her name.

He'd almost blended in with his own steps to her, until the guitar made noise and caught her attention. She recognized him, it was hard to forget a Biblical beard like that one, though his name wasn't coming to her right away. She turned and took a step or two toward the fence to see him better, though she still didn't get too close. He'd spoken, she should likely speak to. Outside of the dozens of confusing questions from her "rescuers", it was something she felt like she hadn't done in a long time. "Yes," she said quietly, as it was the word that came to her first. Yes, she was herself. "Ben." There it was, his name.

Ben nodded slightly, keeping one hand on the guitar's neck as the other delved into his beard to scratch anxiously. What was her name? His brow lined in thought as Ben stared, eyes burning with concentration. He could remember the fireplace, a talk about the things people regretted, about impurities... "Rebekah," he rumbled at last with a self-satisfied nod, "Still alive? Still stuck. Neighbors on a nice block of Tartarus, little backyard view of nowhere we want to be."

She stared back at him just as hard, going through her own muddied memories of that conversation. Funny how one could live in a single house with people and not have talked with them very much. Though that covered the majority of the housemates, for her. Former housemates. The wonder cropped up again if Adam was in this place somewhere, and she shoved it away. Rebekah gave him a single nod. "It feels almost worse. Even more isolated," she said, hugging her arms tighter. Not that it mattered. All their fates were bleak.

Ben gave a rough, grunting laugh of agreement, glancing back over his shoulder to the door to his house as if to make sure it still existed. "Not almost. Used to be twenty sardines in one can, steel key to roll it open and see them all. Now we're each a ship in a bottle, bottles in a row we can't see on a shelf on a wall in a house that's empty except for us." His brow lined deeply as he cut off the ramble, shifting the guitar to let it hang from the strap around his body. "Us and new people, new secrets in their houses. Don't like it, almost want another fire to burn everything clean again."

Rebekah's scarred arm began to itch immediately. "I am done with fire," she said softly, almost to herself. She retucked her arms so that her right one was under the other. She could vividly see his analogy, and thought it made perfect sense. Ships in separate bottles. Even though she'd ever felt even remotely close to the people who shared the house with them, there was something to be said for communcal living. As opposed to this. She looked down at the dirt on her bare feet and had the overwhelming urge to lean down and finger some off to put in her mouth. Bekah's hands fisted up in her sweater.

The little shifts in her posture and poise weren't lost, though Ben couldn't even guess at what they signified. "Done with fire," he murmured in echo of her, his gaze breaking from Bekah to run the span of his fence. "Think so. Want to be, same as you. No fire, no frost. Just white fences now? Pride and prejudice of being a homeowner?" Ben was still genuinely puzzled over what he was supposed to do while being kept here. Was he to try living a normal life? Mow the lawn and shop for groceries? Cookouts with the neighbors? Some lucid, undamaged part of his mind laughed at the thought of himself and Bekah having a social hour like nice neighbors.

"I may, I might, I definitely do..." Ben started, frowning as the words came out. "Do... breathe better with familiar faces." Which was his abstract way of saying it was nice to see her after everything they'd both been through.

She'd never lived in a house like the ones they'd been placed in. The farm was wide open and spread out, with no neighbors for at least a mile. And in her apartment, she was close to people, but it was box-living, it was different. She'd never spoken to a neighbor over the fence before this way. It was strange, and she found herself wondering much the same thing. What they were meant to be doing. She didn't know how to be 'normal' for them. She was tired of trying, honestly, she'd done it a long time in her public life back home. Rebekah's head tilted back and she squinted up at the sky. "They say adjustment, but it feels to be more of the same," she said. "Different setting, different props ... as though the whole of life is one big ant farm." She trailed off into silence for a moment, then refocused on her new neighbor. She almost told him that she was glad to see he'd survived, but she wasn't sure if that was true or not. "I appreciate you not being a stranger," was what she settled on instead.

Ben's gaze had drifted skyward as Bekah spoke, almost wondering if he could see the lid of the metaphorical ant farm, and it took a long moment after she was done before he looked back. He was tired of that exact feeling she had described, he'd lived with it for far too long. Intensive therapy, psychiatric care, physical therapy, his parents, the first experiment... it was enough to bundle together into white-hot frustration in Ben's throat. He bit it back, his jaw tensing furiously at the corners as he breathed deep through his nose and counted in his head for a long moment to try for control.

"Shouldn't be barriers," he rumbled in the back of his throat, keeping his eyes off of Bekah as his hands settled on the fence. "Not for people who know more than just their own name, their own time surviving... shouldn't be bottles or glass to hold the ships and sand and ants. Not even for strangers." For a heartbeat, the rage swelled up inside of him; the urge to tear this fence apart, but Ben hadn't missed his medicine lately. He could control this. "I have to go," he blurted in a tenuous bid for control, wrenching his hands away and turning his back on Bekah. "Door's near yours, knocks slip through, try it sometime if you're a skeptic," he added with more certainty, gaining the confidence from not seeing her directly.

Rebekah had watched him, blue eyes ticking here and there on his face even as he wasn't looking at her. Through his nonsense, she heard some truths that resonated with her. It had been that way the last time they'd had a conversation as well, she remembered. She didn't blink or flinch at his abrupt turning away. She did it enough herself, she very much knew the feeling of having to get away from something. So there was no calling him back. Or even an answer, or reciprocation of the quasi-offer. She just watched him mount the porch steps and then turned back toward her own house, padding back across the dried grass to go inside. Perhaps she'd feel like sculpting something.