The corner Ben situated himself in was dark, the whir of the disabled security camera no longer penetrating the silence and allowing him to hear every drop of water, every distant shout or gunshot, every step that his target took as they drew near. They muttered to themselves almost inaudibly, rifling around shelves and pushing aside records and music players in search of ammo, bandages, or, more likely, ADAM. Ben tightened his grip on his handgun, holding his breath as his target slowly rounded the corner, still mumbling under their breath. They didn't appear to see him for the moment, the darkness shrouding him, and he began to slowly rise from his crouch.
Before he could even cock his weapon, a small figure leaped down from the top of a set of shelves, tiny arms wrapping around the target's neck and startling a sharp curse from him as he tried to flail himself free. Ben scrambled to his feet, aiming and firing with a flourish. The target staggered back two steps, crashing into a display and sending merchandise scattering across the floor before crumpling in a heap.
"Blue," Ben hissed tensely, holstering his handgun and giving the girl a stern look as she crawled away from the fresh corpse of Adam Ackbar. "I told you to stay hidden!"
"I was helping!" she insisted, frowning up at him with her lower lip pushed out as she smoothed out her dress.
"I don't need you to help, I need you to stay safe," he snapped, before taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. "You could have gotten hurt," he continued more calmly.
"I could get hurt all the time," she reminded him, crossing her arms.
Ben huffed, pursing his lips at her. "Well yes, but I'd rather not push our luck."
She gave him an equally stern look in return, before glancing at Ackbar's body. "Don't you have to take his picture for Mr. Tarkin?"
Ben knew she was changing the subject - the longer she spent without that slug inside of her, the more she became like a real child, and a smart one at that - but he let it go for now. He nodded, taking the camera slung around his neck and approaching the corpse. Feeling a bit ill, he snapped a few photos just in case Tarkin was picky, before turning away and leaving the record store as quickly as he could.
"Ben, didn't you say you'd never killed anyone before?" asked Blue as she followed close to his heels. "You said that to Armitage."
Ben blinked, glancing down at her as a strange feeling settled over him, almost like he'd forgotten something and had been reminded. "I... I did say that. What... what I meant is that I'd never committed murder. It's different."
He was lying straight through his teeth and doing a bad job of covering it up. He couldn't explain what he'd actually meant. When he thought about if he 'd ever killed before, his automatic answer was "No, of course not, never," but he had taken down plenty of Splicers since arriving in Rapture and... he hadn't really felt a thing for them... or for himself, having taken a life. It felt... well, it felt worryingly routine. And just now, killing Adam Ackbar, a man who hadn't even been attacking him first, he felt next to nothing putting a bullet in his chest. Part of him reasoned that it was because he was worried for Blue that he hadn't thought twice, but... he wasn't quite sure, anymore.
He was starting to understand what Hux meant, about people going funny in the head being in the dark for too long. His gut twisted as he worried for him, remembering what Tarkin had said about limited air supply while a Bathysphere is submerged.
"Where are we going now?"
"Tarkin said Jin Quinn would be in a place called Eve's Garden. Is that near here?"
Blue nodded, grabbing onto his hand and tugging him along. "This way."
Sticking to the shadows and avoiding making much noise got them to Eve's Garden unaccosted, which Ben was grateful for. They were running low on ammo, and Hux was the one who knew the best ways to keep them supplied. Fuck, Ben missed him. He picked up his pace, eager to get this all the hell over with and get Armitage back as quickly as possible. He pushed open the door into Eve's Garden, allowing Blue to slip around him and enter first before following suit. It appeared to be a bar, though he wasn't quite sure what the stage with poles on it in the middle was for other than taking up a bunch of room. He paused near the door, listening for worrying noises and hearing none, before stepping further inside.
"Well, if it isn't the long lost Andrew Ryan."
Ben gasped, nearly leaping out of his skin as a ghostly woman appeared on the stage. She was beautiful, from what he could tell, hanging off of one of the poles almost playfully as she spoke to him. Called him Andrew Ryan.
"I'm-I'm not him. My name is Ben," he said. She didn't respond, as if she hadn't heard him at all. Or maybe she wasn't there, and he really was losing it - he remembered the screaming woman he'd seen just before arriving at Dameron's surgery wing. How Hux had looked at him like he'd grown another head as he told him that no one was there. Gods.
"C'mere, tiger," the woman continued in a sultry murmur, pushing away from the pole and beginning to strut down the catwalk and through a short hallway that appeared to lead backstage. She disappeared around the corner, and Ben was crawling onstage to follow her before he could think about what he was doing.
"Ben? Ben, where are you going?"
"Stay here," Ben called over his shoulder, "And shout if you need me, okay? I'll be right back."
"Ben-"
Blue's voice grew quiet as he followed the ghostly woman's path down the catwalk and backstage, the lights dim and flickering. There were a few doors along the walls as he went, some of them labeled dressing rooms and the others having numbers. He wasn't sure what those were for either - maybe the people who worked at the bar slept there? He blinked when the woman appeared again, standing at the end of the hallway with her hip cocked and beckoning him with long fingers.
"I thought you'd forgotten about poor Leia," she purred. "But I'm so glad you didn't."
She continued to sashay down the hall, before she disappeared through a door at a dead end. Ben followed quickly, reaching for the handle before he heard her again - this time, she sounded much more real, as if she really were behind that door, and he froze to the spot at the frightened waver in her voice.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Ryan," Leia whimpered, slightly muffled. "I didn't know Snoke had anything to do with it, I swear. I didn't-what is that? What are you- no, no don't please! Please, no, I love you! Don't! DON'T!"
Ben threw the door open, his handgun pointed into the room.
"Get away from her!"
He blinked, lowering his weapon when he found the room empty. In the center lay a bed covered in blood and, looming on the wall behind it, a blown up poster of a beautiful brunette woman with a dark beauty mark above her lip. The name Leia Organa was written in swirling script underneath her, and no sooner had Ben finished reading the name that a vision flashed across his eyes of his mother on the farm. He stumbled, gasping and rubbing his eyes until his vision cleared again. His heart raced, and an uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. After a moment of blinking and catching his breath, he straightened again, trying to shake it off. Just had to get out of Rapture. Then, strange things would stop happening to him.
Well, it appeared that whoever this Leia woman was to Ryan, he'd murdered her here. She was clearly someone who worked at the bar, and the two of them were involved, but... Ben wasn't sure what to make of the rest of it. He walked the perimeter of the room slowly, searching drawers and cupboards and shelves. A little black journal, so small he nearly passed it up, caught Ben's eye on a near-empty bookshelf. He grabbed it and flipped through the pages, finding it to be Leia's diary. He located the most recent entry, hoping that there might be some clue as to what the hell had happened to make Andrew Ryan murder her in cold blood.
That creepy Dr. Phasma said it wouldn't be a real pregnancy. They'd just take the egg out once me and Mr. Ryan had done the deed. I shouldn't have done it, but I needed the money so bad. Mr. Ryan's going to suss it out that I wasn't being careful, though, I just know it. He's going to be so angry with me. I'm so afraid of him lately, you know. He's not right anymore. It's in his eyes.
Ben frowned deeply, that unsettled feeling washing over him again. So Ryan had killed this woman because... he got her pregnant and she sold the egg to Phasma? There were far too many questions that he couldn't answer, and he swore softly as he realized he'd just wasted at least fifteen minutes of Hux's breath on this mystery that had nothing to do with either of them. He closed the diary, hesitated, then stuck the small black book into his pants pocket for reasons he couldn't really explain, even to himself. Another cursory glance for anything helpful, and he turned to leave the strange bedroom covered in blood.
"BEN!"
"Fuck," Ben gasped, before breaking into a sprint back down the dim lit hall. "Blue! BLUE!"
He skidded onto the stage again to find Blue in the clutches of an unsteady man, a masquerade mask obscuring his eyes though it was lopsided and hung off of one ear. He appeared to be drunk, holding Blue with one clumsy arm and holding a pistol in the other, stumbling as she fought him.
"What does it take to get some fuckin' service around here?!" he slurred. "Who the hell does Tarkin think he is, huh? He'd be nothin' without me! I'm the only reason people even came to his fuckin' gallery!"
"Jin," Ben assumed, nodding a raising his hands when the man locked eyes with him. "Put the girl down. We're just-"
"Just on an errand for darlin' Moff, right?" Jin Quinn spat, laughing blackly when Ben couldn't think of a response. "I knew it! Piece of shit never wanted to do his own dirty work."
"Put her down," Ben said more firmly. "Now."
"Or what?" Quinn sneered, pressing the gun tight to Blue's head. Ben ceased all movement. "What's it matter, anyway? These kids are already dead, y'know."
Ben opened his mouth, but was interrupted by Blue letting out a feral scream. She took her syringe in both hands and jabbed it backward, piercing Quinn's stomach before yanking it back out again. Jin dropped her like a sack of potatoes, coughing and gurgling as he fell to his knees. After a few long moments, he went limp, blood beginning to pool around him on the floor.
"Gods," Ben breathed, taking a running leap off of the stage and skidding to his knees in front of Blue. He pulled her into a tight hug, grabbing the dripping syringe out of her hand and tossing it aside before petting her hair nervously. "Are you okay? Are you alright?"
"I'm alright," she said quietly, and when he pulled back to look at her, her expression was strange. She couldn't seem to avert her gaze from Jin's body, her brows pulled down over her eyes but her face otherwise blank. Ben swallowed, cupping her cheeks with both of his hands and turning her gaze toward him, instead.
"Hey," he murmured. "Stay with me, kid."
She nodded, her eyes haunted and her little shoulders tense. He pulled her in for another hug, because he wasn't sure what else to do. After a moment, he felt her trembling, and then he closed his eyes as a loud, broken wail burst from her tiny throat. Her fists clenched his sweater and she nearly crawled into his lap so he pulled her the rest of the way, letting her latch on like a koala as she screamed and cried and shook so hard he nearly dropped her.
"I know, I know," he whispered hoarsely, pressing his cheek to the top of her head and closing his eyes again as they burned. "I know, Blue."
Eventually she stilled, hiccuping and gasping as she caught her breath. Ben pulled away only to wipe her soaked cheeks with the sleeve of his sweater. She stared up at him with her wide blue eyes shining and red at the edges, her cheeks splotchy and her chest still hitching every so often. Carefully she reached out, and wiped his own tears away with the heel of her palm. He smiled shakily, brushing her hair out of her eyes.
"You ready?" he asked quietly.
When Blue nodded slowly, Ben got to his feet. He took the camera in his hand, snapping a few quick pictures, before holding out his hand for Blue. After a moment of looking at it, she stepped into his palm and crawled carefully up onto his shoulders. Once she was secure, Ben took them both out of Eve's Garden.
It seemed that Darin Maul didn't want to be found by anyone at all, not just Tarkin. Ben and Blue searched Poseidon Plaza top to bottom and found no trace. Ben was tense as they headed back to the Fleet Hall to deliver the photos they had managed to get, predicting that Tarkin would not be patient about the setback.
"You need to stay back a bit and hide when I go give Tarkin the pictures," he said, his hands secure on Blue's shins to keep her safely balance on his shoulders. "Just in case."
"He's going to get angry that we didn't find the last person."
"Probably," Ben nodded, sighing heavily. "I don't know what he'll do. You remember what you promised me, if anything happens?"
Blue's knees tightened around his head. "Please don't die, Ben."
"I'll try not to. But you remember, right?"
Blue sighed. "Yes."
"Good. Okay."
They took a shortcut back through Poseidon Plaza, coming upon a back hallway whose door was cold to the touch when Ben opened it. He blinked as he found the hall before them was coated completely in ice, the temperature dropping significantly and his breath visible in front of his face. He paused, debating taking this route, and held more tightly to Blue's legs.
"I wondered when that old fruit would send an errand boy."
The voice in his ear startled Ben so badly he nearly knocked Blue off his shoulders, steadying her at the last moment and whirling around. Before he could move another inch all of his muscles seized, his skin going freezing cold as ice formed over every inch of his body. His heart rate increased as he realized he was frozen in place, and a man wielding an ice plasmid was standing before him, plucking Blue off of his shoulders with ease.
"You're coming with me, sweetheart," he drawled, holding tightly to Blue's wrist. "My own little ADAM gatherer, eh?"
Ben thought Blue might be about to deliver the same fate to Darin Maul as she had to Jin Quinn, but then she reared back her tiny foot and slammed it straight into the guy's balls instead. Maul wheezed, letting her go and doubling over. Blue ran toward Ben instead, using her syringe to hack at the ice holding his limbs in place. She was stronger than she looked, chunks of ice coming away easily. As soon as his arms were free, Ben snapped, a burst of flame melting the majority of what ice remained and freeing him completely.
"Well done, little one!" he said, marching over to Maul and grabbing hold of his throat. Darin snarled, lifting up his ice hand again. Ben grabbed it and twisted, pinning it behind his back as he pulled his gun with his other hand. He pressed it to Maul's back, firing twice before letting him slump to the ground. He didn't waste any time, his lip curled back with an anger he couldn't quite put his finger on as he snapped a picture and immediately grabbed onto Blue's hand.
"Come on," he said lowly, leading her along and keeping her close as they made their way for the Fleet Hall. "Let's get this the hell over with."
Tarkin was waiting nearly exactly where they'd left him, admiring the gallery wall and the newly filled frame that held Fitzpatrick's likeness. He glanced over his shoulder when Ben drew nearer, a devilish grin spreading across his face.
"Ah, there you are, my moth," he said. "Did you finish your errands?"
Ben lifted the camera from around his neck and held it out, his jaw clenched. "Here. It's done."
Tarkin accepted the camera from him, then took hold of his hand. "Oh, you are not a moth at all," he declared, delicately kissing Ben's knuckles. He left behind a smudge of old, red lip paint. "You're an angel! I've never painted an angel." He paused, tilting his head at Ben and steadily tightening his grip on his hand. "Maybe I should."
Ben tensed. "You have your pictures. Now give me Hux."
A strong hand was wrapped around his throat before he could blink, and Ben was glad he'd left Blue hiding in a cubby in the wall outside. He gasped weakly, grabbing onto Tarkin's wrist fruitlessly.
"Pictures," Tarkin snarled. "You're a doubter, just like the rest of them. Aren't you?!"
Ben shook his head weakly, trying to save his breath. Tarkin tightened his grip, before relaxing all at once, releasing Ben's throat and smiling.
"I apologize for that outburst," he said pleasantly, unperturbed by Ben gasping and rubbing at his neck where he could feel bruises forming. "You'll have to forgive an old fool his artistic temperament."
Ben swallowed around his sore throat, taking several steps back and watching him tensely. "So can I go?"
Tarkin considered him for a moment, then nodded, turning back toward the gallery wall and waving him away. "You have fulfilled your part of the collaboration. I will release Armitage, and you will find your path is clear. Send Mr. Ryan my love before you kill him. Now, get out," he added more sharply, his gaze darkening as he turned his eyes on Ben once more.
Ben hurried from the Fleet Hall before Tarkin could change his mind, feeling the man's eyes on him the entire time. He jogged back to the nook in the wall that he'd left Blue in, crouching down and peering inside.
"Blue?"
Blue stuck her head out of her hiding spot warily, before crawling out when she saw it was really him. She got to her feet and dusted off her dress, the material already dirty and flecked with blood, and frowned when she looked at him properly.
"Did you fight with Mr. Tarkin?" she asked anxiously, pointing to his neck.
Ben grimaced, covering what he was sure were ugly bruises with his palm. "No. It's fine. Hurry, now, let's go and get Hux."
Once Blue was secured on his shoulders, Ben headed straight for the exit of Fort Frolic, more than glad to be rid of the place. The door to the bathysphere station was already open when he arrived and, as he marched down the walkway to the docking station, the bathysphere was already slowly emerging from underneath the surface of the water. The sounds of crashing water echoed in the towering ceilings, and hydraulics hissed noisily as the door slowly swung open. Ben held his breath, clenching his fists, then released it when out stumbled Hux, looking a little dizzy but no worse for wear than they'd left him.
"Thank the Gods," Ben sighed, hurrying toward him. "Are you-"
He blinked when Hux grabbed his shoulders, pulling him into a tight embrace. Ben froze, his arms hovering in mid-air, but Hux was holding him out at arms length before he could properly respond.
"Are you alright?" Hux asked roughly, his eyes wide. "Are you hurt?"
Ben shook his head, stunned. "No. I'm okay."
Hux frowned, brushing his fingertips over the bruises on Ben's throat. "Tarkin."
Ben nodded, swallowing and suppressing the shiver. "Yeah. But it's okay. He's letting us go."
Hux didn't look overly comforted, but he nodded anyway, searching Ben's eyes. Ben opened his mouth to speak, then blinked when he was interrupted by Hux's lips pressed firmly to his own, a calloused hand cupping his jaw and keeping him close. He nearly melted into a puddle at Hux's feet but managed to stay standing, wrapping his arms around his back and pressing closer. For all the times he'd imagined kissing Hux since they'd met, he hadn't thought it would be so soft, warm, and gentle. After a few long moments Hux pulled away again, his eyes half lidded and flicking down to Ben's mouth, his own lips parted as he caught his breath. Ben's face was absolutely on fire, but he didn't pull away.
"Ew."
Ben blinked down at Blue, smiling awkwardly when Hux snorted.
"You're still here, then?" Hux asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.
"Yes, and so are you," she retorted, giving him a dry look right back.
"You two get along, now," Ben scolded fondly, smiling widely to himself as Hux released him and allowed him to crawl into the bathysphere. He reached out a hand to help Blue over the ledge, then turned to see Hux still standing where he'd left him, looking thoughtful.
"Hey. Come on," he said, smiling and holding out a hand for him, as well. "We need to get going."
Hux just stared at him for a moment, his expression unreadable, before nodding and taking his hand in a firm grip.
"Aye. Let's get goin, dear."