He'd never been as sore in his life as he was when he woke up the next morning.
He suspected a lot of it had to do with the rickety old couch, alongside carrying Blue on his shoulders everywhere they went. Ben sat up, rubbing his face wearily and stretching his arms over his head. His spine cracked in a couple places, and he followed it up with his neck before swinging his legs over the edge of the couch.
The bed was empty, Armitage either awake or never having actually gone to sleep. Ben was starting to wonder if the man was human, the way he was fueled by pure determination and, probably, a bit of spite. It was both extremely attractive and incredibly irritating. He shuffled out, yawning behind his hand, and stopped when he found Armitage in the living area, facing away and looking out of the window at Rapture. His shirt was still removed, the bandages wrapped around his torso showing no signs of bleeding through. Ben couldn't help his eyes trailing, very briefly, over the slender curve of his back and shoulders before he cleared his throat.
Armitage jumped a bit, whirling around relaxing when he saw who he was. "Gods above, dear. Don't do that."
"Sorry," Ben laughed a little, coming to stand beside him. "Feeling jumpy, Armitage?"
Armitage hummed lowly, not smiling and casting his eyes around the apartment. "Something like that."
Ben quirked an eyebrow at him. "Are you okay? Is something wrong?"
"Nothin'. We need to get movin'. This is takin' too long already. And we need to dump that damn little one."
Ben huffed, pursing his lips at him. "I don't think you actually hate her as much as you pretend you do."
"Ha!" Armitage scoffed, giving Ben an incredulous look. "And how would you know that, dear? Got me all figured out, have you?" He stepped closer to Ben, trying to intimidate him into shutting up by getting closer, no doubt. Ben just tilted his head down and held his gaze, unimpressed.
"I've got some of you figured out, at least. Mostly that you aren't nearly as scary as you think you are, Armitage."
Armitage narrowed his eyes at him, backing off a bit. "Listen," he said shortly. "You might have a bleedin' heart, but I don't. I don't care how normal you try to make it look, that thing ain't a child. And the longer we have it with us, the more Splicers we're gonna attract. So let's just get her into a hole in the damn wall and leave it at that!"
"She won't go!" Ben retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "You saw her. We tried to make her go and she wouldn't. The only way we can get her back to Phasma is to bring her right to her ourselves. Besides, she's been more help than she's been trouble. Or did you forget about the first aid kit and the hiding places already?"
Armitage's nostrils flared and he spluttered for a moment as he tried and failed to come up with a sentence. "That ain't more help than trouble!"
"Regardless of how you feel about it, we're stuck with her," Ben said smugly. "So might as well wipe the sour face and get over it."
They stared each other down for a long minute, Ben clenching his jaw in the face of Armitage’s glare. Eventually the latter huffed and relaxed, shaking his head and running his fingers through his red hair.
"Fine. Alright," he muttered, "but no gettin' sidetracked, you hear me? And no more picking up Little Sisters."
Ben smiled, relaxing himself and unfolding his arms. "I can agree to that."
"Can y'now? Glad there's at least one agreeable bone in your body."
"Just the one."
With that said, they swiftly gathered their weapons and supplies and prepared to get moving. Blue woke amongst all the shuffling around, and Ben smiled as she came out of the bedroom having dressed herself. The smile fell a bit when he also caught sight of the glinting syringe in her hand, but he buried the discomfort for now. Hopefully, soon, she would shed the need to carry that ghastly thing around, as well.
Ben wondered, as they continued further into the belly of Rapture, following signs leading to Arcadia, what Rapture had looked like in it's prime. Specifically, if it was always this damn dark. The blue light had been beautiful at first, but now only made him jumpy as it cast thick and long shadows all around him, made the colors of the world blur together until everything could be a threat lying in wait. He trusted Blue or Armitage to alert him to danger that he couldn't see himself, they were citizens of Rapture, where he was only a visitor.
"So," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "Is Armitage your real name?"
Armitage glanced up at him, then forward again. "It is, now."
"Ugh," Ben groaned, letting his head fall back dramatically. "You're so cryptic! Why are you like this?"
He could have sworn he heard the man snort quietly. "I ain't cryptic. It was a code name that stuck, alright?"
Ben hummed quietly, watching him out of the corner of his eye as they walked. Blue was several paces ahead, humming cheerfully to herself.
"Interesting code name," he said eventually. "Armitage. I read that it means solitude and was used when someone had great knowledge of war. Is that why?"
Armitage seemed almost bewildered as he blinked at him. "How would you-...yeah. That...it's...it doesn't mean anythin'." The red tinge on the tips of his ears betrayed his words. Ben smiled a bit.
"Mhm."
As they rounded a corner, Ben's eyes caught on a brightly colored propaganda poster: a likeness of a man, red hair, white shirt, and suspenders. Hands on his hips, a deep frown settled on his brow, his face cast in shadow.
"WHO IS ARMITAGE?" emblazoned over his head.
Arcadia was a living juxtaposition, organic and synthetic pressed up against each other in a way that tried and failed to seem natural. Trees loomed over their heads, and grass compressed beneath their shoes. Between each, the shine of metal and steels bolts peered through, the truth behind the veil. Were the smells of leaves and wet dirt real, or being filtered in through the vents? Ben couldn't be sure.
"Through here," said Armitage, nodding toward the winding path through the man-made forest. "There's a bathysphere in the Rollin' Hills that'll take us straight to Ryan. Then we kill him, and get the hell out of here."
Ben nodded, though heart thumped uneasily. "Armitage. What if I...can't?"
"Can't what?"
"What if I can't kill him? I've never killed anyone before."
He felt an odd tug in his stomach, almost like...guilt.
"Well if you don't, I'll sure as hell take him out for you," Armitage snorted. "Don't worry 'bout that, Ben." He kept his eyes forward as he spoke, leading them through the long, dark shadows cast by Arcadia's foliage.
"Daddy," said Blue, her nose wrinkled up.
"Call me Ben, remember."
"Ben," she amended, before putting a hand over her nose and mouth. "Something smells funny."
Ben frowned, sniffing briefly and grimacing at the sharp sting of chemical. "What the hell is that?"
"Fuck knows. Let's just-" Armitage paused, stopping in his tracks so quickly that Ben nearly ran into him.
He was about to complain, until he followed Armitage's gaze upward, to where plumes of mist were emanating from the vents and settling on the forest around them. Slowly, everything green began to wilt, sagging and shrinking and browning until all of Arcadia was bare in less than a minute's time.
"What the hell?" Ben breathed, staring around in horror. The grass was now brown and crunchy beneath his shoes.
"Ryan's killed Arcadia," Armitage snarled, grinding his teeth. "That son of a bitch. He's gonna kill us all. The trees are the only source of damn oxygen down here."
Blue clung to the hem of Ben's shirt, her wide eyes beginning to sparkle with fearful tears. "We're going to die?" she asked shakily.
Ben did not miss the odd look Armitage gave her; an almost perplexed frown. As if he hadn't expected her to be capable of fearing death.
Ben turned away from him in favor of kneeling so he could look Blue in the eye. "We won't die," he promised firmly. "We're going to fix it. Right?" he asked, looking up at Armitage nervously.
Armitage sighed heavily through his nose. "We can try. If it's possible, the person who'll know is Langford. She created the place."
"Is she spliced, or can we speak with her?"
"She ain't stupid enough to be spliced," Armitage snorted, nodding to a door to their right. "Her office is this way. She's holed up in there these days. Fuck's sake, we don't have time for this." His eyes kept flitting to dark corners above their heads, swiveling left to right as if searching for something in the shadows.
"Armitage, are you alright?" Ben asked softly, frowning in concern as he rose to his feet again. "You seem... on edge."
"Course I'm fuckin' on edge," said Armitage, his tone clipped. "What is there not to be on edge about? I've got a Little Sister shaped bullseye on my arse and now a limited amount of oxygen. Ugh. Let's just get this done, Ben, and get a move on."
With that, he spun on his heel, drawing his shotgun as he stalked away from them. For someone so beautiful, he really did walk like he had a stick up his ass - and not just the metaphorical one that was undeniably there. Ben held out a hand for Blue, and smiled when she stepped into it instead of holding onto his fingers, her new shoes digging into his palms a bit. She clambered onto his shoulders, clinging to him tightly and holding her syringe outward so it didn't poke him. When she'd settled, Ben followed the sound of Armitage's footsteps, the man already a decent distance ahead of them in his haste to not talk about his feelings.
He frowned when he thought he heard voices up ahead, picking up the pace in case Armitage had run into some Splicers.
"-know it was you, Armitage, you and your master will stop at nothing to-"
"Calm down, y'old hag, it wasn't me."
"Well, what other explanation is there?!"
"Gee, I dunno. Maybe the bastard who's been runnin' this place into the ground since day one?"
Ben rounded the corner to find Armitage glaring at a screen mounted above the bulkhead door, a woman scowling right back at him on the other side. Her mouth was set in a severe line, her eyes hard behind her spectacles and her hair in crisp roller curls.
"You must be Langford?" Ben offered.
"Dr. Langford to you," she sniffed. "And just who are you, for that matter?"
"My name is Ben."
"He's with me," Armitage huffed.
"Oh, that's encouraging."
"Yeah, well bite me."
"And I see you've got a Little Sister with you as well," Langford scoffed, giving them both an incredulous look. "And you think I'm just going to let you waltz in here with a crazed rebel and Splicer catnip in tow, Ben?"
"If it would make you more comfortable, I can come in alone," Ben suggested, ignoring Armitage spluttering indignantly.
Langford stared him down for a long moment, leaning a bit closer to the lens as if she could see him better that way. The screen was briefly encompassed by only her eyes and the bridge of her nose.
"Very well," she agreed briskly, backing off again. "Only you. The abomination and the terrorist stay outside."
Ben carefully lifted Blue off of his shoulders to the tune of Armitage grumbling what he was sure were colorful curses.
"I'll be right back, okay?" he told her, smiling encouragingly.
She did not look convinced by the reassurance. "I want to come, too."
"I know, but Dr. Langford would feel better only having one person in her office at a time," Ben explained gently. "It'll be okay. Just stay with Armitage, alright?"
Blue gave Armitage a shifty side eye, quirking one of her dark little eyebrows. "Um, alright. I guess."
Armitage looked even less thrilled than she was. "Just get in there, get the information, and come back. Don't let her talk yer ear off, she loves t'listen to herself."
"I heard that, you know."
"Good. I can say it louder if you missed anything."
Ben sighed, giving him an exasperated look. "I'll be right back."
"Fine. Go on."
Ben straightened, taking a deep breath. As the bulkhead unlocked, he glanced over his shoulder, flashing Blue one more reassuring smile as she stood as near to Armitage as she was likely to get - a couple of feet away, it seemed. He made brief eye contact with Armitage, and was almost sure that he saw a flash of anxiety there. Probably imagining the worst possible scenarios.
He stepped through, and into Langford's office, the door closing with a heavy thud behind him.