You are not openly accusing Benn Beckman of orchestrating anything.
You are not pointing fingers or demanding answers or even narrowing your eyes in his direction.
You are simply sitting on the edge of the bunk with a brutal hangover, wearing a ring that perfectly matches the one on his hand, and trying to understand how your evening ended in what looks suspiciously like a legally binding commitment.
Meanwhile, Beckman is sitting across from you with a steady posture and a cup of coffee that somehow does not even steam. He looks rested, alert, and entirely in control. It is the kind of composure that makes your headache worse, because you strongly suspect he has been awake long enough to judge you for your current state.
You feel half-dead.
He looks like he just finished a morning jog.
And you are not accusing him of planning this outcome. Of course not. You are simply reviewing the facts.
Fact one: you have never once seen Benn Beckman drunk. Not tipsy or unsteady or loose with his words. Not even a little. He drinks with the precision of a man performing a delicate experiment.
Fact two: you have never seen Beckman unaware of anything. He is the type of man who hears a cork pop on the other side of the ship and immediately knows who opened it, why, and what emotional state they were in at the time.
Fact three: you both woke up with matching rings and he does not appear particularly bothered by this development.
You look at him, waiting for some sign of surprise or confusion or even mild concern. You get nothing. He takes another sip of coffee, sets the mug down, and says in a calm, steady voice, “It seems we had quite a night.”
You wait for the rest of the sentence. There is no rest of the sentence.
He does not explain, he does not apologize, he does not even blink at the situation.
He simply observes you with the same ease he uses when evaluating battle plans, as if waking up married is a mundane footnote in his morning routine.
You tell yourself you are not accusing him of anything. You are only observing patterns and making reasonable conclusions based on available evidence.
Because there is simply no version of reality where Benn Beckman, with his discipline, awareness, and absolute refusal to lose control, accidentally ends up in your bed wearing a ring that matches yours without having at least some idea of how it happened.
You are not saying he orchestrated it.
You are only noticing that he has made no move to remove his ring. And you are noticing that he has not asked you to remove yours either.
I’m a big fan of this troupe, if you can’t tell
