- Ben lays low at Bryn’s apartment following the Vice Kings mutiny against him
- Ben calls Bryn “Ariel” in his head in SR1 because he doesn’t know Bryn’s name, but he knows Bryn has fiery red hair underneath the shitty black temporary dye/worn out beanie combo he wears at the time
- Ben knows Bryn’s hair is red because he’s seen him with the dye washed out and the beanie off, looking like a sad soaked Elmo as he makes tea after his shower
- speaking of tea, Ben always starts the kettle when he hears Bryn waking up. Ben wakes up around 7, while Bryn’s got a wildly fluctuating schedule
- Brynden doesn’t take care of himself well during SR1. He keeps working himself into exhaustion and going until he literally collapses. In the first week Ben spends at Bryn’s, Bryn passes out hardcore at his home and wakes up in Ben’s car, being driven to the hospital
- Bryn is as about impressed with the situation as you would think. He’s still not talking much, but he does manage to mumble out for Ben to turn the car around
- Ben absolutely does not turn the car around. Bryn finds himself on the receiving end of a lecture about taking care of himself from a Doctor. Bryn drops the facade and tells the doctor that he’s fine, that the dumbass who brought him in panicked, and that he’ll be fine, he just hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep lately
- the Doctor goes mhm and writes him a prescription for sleeping pills, which Bryn balks at because he can write his own goddamn prescription, but takes the prescription anyways because Ben insists they pick it up
- Bryn uses said prescription to drug Price and search his home. Ben only finds this out when Bryn actually starts talking to him following the final attack on Kingdom Come Records
The apartment looked completely different from what Ben remembered. During his time sheltering with the Playa, the place had been well-kept and cozy. Now it looked like a hurricane had hit it.
Papers were strewn over the floor. Mud had been tracked across the scattered pages. The once well-organized bookshelf now sat empty, with the books tossed around the apartment. Every drawer within sight had been yanked open, their contents scattered.
“Guy must’ve finally fell off the deep end. Shame. He was a good kid.” The landlord had said as he let Ben in the apartment. “You got twenty minutes to get whatever shit you want and leave.”
Ben didn’t need twenty minutes. He picked up the books from the floor and gathered them in a cardboard box. He added Bryn’s favorite mug from the cluttered counter and the first aid kit from the bathroom to the box, before fetching the suitcase from the hidden crawlspace in the closet and an oversized gray hoodie off of the hanger. He was gone from the building as quickly as he had arrived.
Alone and in the comfort of his own home, Ben set the box and suitcase next to his dresser, where they would sit for the next four years undisturbed. The only items he removed from the box were the gray hoodie and single book.
Ben wore a white button-up and navy blazer when he arranged for the book to be delivered to the bedside of the comatose Saint. When he went to sleep that night, he pulled on the gray hoodie and held on to the fading scent of Bryn’s cologne. He closed his eyes and tried to chase away the cold, sinking feeling of being alone.
“it’s strange,” i say, “i never thought about you disappearing. “it didn’t mean anything until it meant too much.”
one morning i woke up with your face a centimeter away from mine; you were still sound asleep, breathing peacefully in and out, and it felt right. you fidgeted a little and tried to feel for something around, until your fingers met waist and pulled me in even closer. i could smell you on me, yet, that wasn’t close enough for you, and i thought to myself, ‘i like this. i like this a lot.’
that was the moment it all started to matter.”
brynden stark + benjamin king | relationship through the years
If you tell me anything about Brynden and Ben King I will cry
hi i don’t have a ton of work with them actually typed up at the moment, but here are some excerpts from regicide / legacy, which as of now is an unposted series of brynben drabbles written from the perspective of ben king. i kinda wanted to see if I could pull it off since I never write first person pov tbh.
Most mornings at the Playa’s apartment started earlier than I would have liked. Though he himself was silent, his rituals weren’t, and the walls were paper-thin. The tea kettle would start whistling, and then the sound of oil sizzling in the pan would follow. Something small would be shaken up, hitting against the walls of a plastic bottle. Soon enough, I’d be able to hear the water running in the sink. The click of the locks were faint but present. Only when Apollo had left did I get out of bed.
I figured it was best not to fuck with his alone time. Apollo didn’t seem to get much of it.
Ben King, Regicide: The Rise and Fall of the Vice Kings, Chapter 12.
Living with Brynden was a lot less lonely than the alternative.
Once I had hidden away in his shitty little apartment in the Red Light District, keeping my head down and the targets off of my back. Once I had stumbled into his life like a bull in a china shop, and he’d simply shrugged and let me stay. Now I was back, carrying with me all of the memories of our quiet nights together from before.
When I went back to Brynden, I’d expected those days to be long gone. Brynden had stepped away from being Apollo and playing his role as Julius’s war dog. He was the Boss now; he lived in a penthouse, had more money than he could ever ask for, and possessed the kind of charm that made people forgive him for the other three things.
I expected him to ignore me.
Apollo, while quiet, had never ignored me. Brynden wasn’t going to either.
Ben King, Legacy: An Unofficial Biography, Chapter 3.
Apollo was silent. The Boss never shut the fuck up.
Brynden… Brynden falls somewhere in between.
He can go on forever if I get him talking about something he’s passionate about. Once, I spent my entire morning listening to him criticize the American health system, and then the rest of the afternoon listening to him explain exactly how he would fix it. I’ve learned a lot more about modern medicine than I ever expected to know just from Bryn thinking aloud.
I don’t mind helping him work out problems by talking at me. He’s brilliant, but blinded. If he gets stuck, he’ll explain what he’s stuck on to me. Most of the time, he’ll have figured out where exactly he went wrong halfway through talking.
“I’m an idiot.” He’ll whisper, shaking his head and laughing at himself.
“You’re my idiot.” I’ll tell him.
Brynden half-asses a groan of protest.
While hearing him think is fun, I believe our best moments are spent together on calm and quiet nights. They’re rare these days. When we do have them, we try to make the most of it. Brynden will put on some random channel and we’ll watch some lady argue with her husband about granite countertops. It’s the kind of stuff we used to do when neither of us could sleep.
We don’t have much trouble sleeping these days. Brynden’s arms are a lot warmer than the bed he once gave up so I could sleep comfortably.
Ben King, Legacy: An Unauthorized Biography, Chapter 42: Epilogue.
Brynden/Ben fic i promised lol. ~1750 words, nothing really explicit about it.
if you’ve got eye issues and struggle with reading it on my theme, here’s a link to the google doc copy of it
dunno if im gonna put it on ao3 yet we’ll see.
note: bryn’s just gonna be referred to as the Playa for most of the fic, but it is 100% bryn lol. takes place during sr1 after Ben is rescued from the VK coup and up until the boat explosion.
The “Playa’s” apartment was comfortable, if not exactly homey. It was quiet most of the time, with the owner absent and Ben left alone. It felt much more like an abandoned military outpost than an apartment. The place felt… empty.
Ben vaguely wondered how the Playa trusted him purely on Julius’s word (if he even did trust him, really) enough to leave him alone in the apartment. Trusted him enough to let Ben take his bed and sleep on the couch instead, at least. Trusted him not to leave, as the lock on the door had been broken long before Ben took up residency and remained broken even now. The Playa didn't have much in the apartment worth stealing, he supposed.
He supposed, and didn't complain. The Playa made him breakfast. The Playa made sure the bathroom door locked. The Playa gave him his space. The Playa brought back takeout and didn't interrupt him.
He was good.
“The best friend I've had in long damn while.” Ben had said over lukewarm chicken fried rice one evening.
“And I don't even know your goddamn name.”
The Playa smirked and cocked his head aside, silver eyes twinkling in the dim light. As per usual, he offered no reply. He poked at his food.
---
Ben found the Playa’s leftovers in the fridge the next morning; barely touched. The styrofoam box sat right beside the almost-empty bottle of scotch. On the shelf above sat Ben’s lunch, with a note from the playa in deceptively elegant script, asking him to put the clothes in the wash and letting him know that the “lift” was out. There was money on the counter for Ben to buy pizza with. If he wanted delivery, he'd have to go downstairs and pick it up.
Judging from the increasing cracks in the windows and the Playa’s already proven cooking proficiency, Ben figured the money could be better used on other things.
He bought pizza anyways. They shared it over the last dregs of scotch and shitty beer.
“If you didn't waste cash on pizza and booze, you might be able to afford to fix those windows.” Ben said casually, just barely watching the shitty hallmark movie on the old box TV.
The Playa snorted.
The woman in the movie grew visibly angry. “This is not a home!” She snapped. “This is not my home!” Her fiery red hair was whipped around by the fierce winds of winter.
Ben didn't quite know why, but he chuckled. The Playa did too.
“Her dye job is almost as bad as yours.” Ben laughed.
Something sparked in the Playa's eyes. It almost looked like fear. The glimmer of it lasted a breath, then left as fast as it had come. Had Ben been looking, he might've noticed. When he finally did look up, the Playa had pulled his hood up over his greasy black locks. Ben stomped down the whim to ask him when the last time he had showered was.
---
The Playa showered the next day, though Ben suspected he wouldn't have if not for the sudden and overwhelming smell of gasoline and rotting fish that lingered on him and his clothing. When the playa emerged from the bathroom, wrapped only in a towel, his greasy black hair had changed back to a blood red. So blood red that Ben had felt a brief moment of panic smack into him like a train at the sight of it. Only when the Playa shook out his shaggy mop of hair did Ben feel his heart rate drift back to normal.
“You'll need a new dye kit.” Ben observed.
The Playa glanced up at him with the eyes of a kicked puppy and then nodded cautiously.
“Relax, Lisbeth Salander. I won't tell anyone your dirty little secret.” Ben chuckled.
The Playa cracked a smile, and pointed towards the first aid kit on the counter. Ben handed it over, noticing the gash on the Playa’s stomach for the first time as he did so.
---
If Julius was going to send Ben to the doghouse for weeks over a little bullet wound, then of course it made sense he'd send the Playa back too for the knife wound. Ben never considered that the Playa might've made the choice on his own. This was, after all, the man who had taken on a daredevil mission to save a gang leader with only a motorbike and a handgun. He had to be advised once in awhile.
While the Playa was in the bathroom re-dyeing his hair, his cell phone lit up with a text.
Julius: Where are you?
Five minutes later, the Playa’s cell phone rang. Ben picked up.
“He's recovering, Jules. Give him a day. Yeah, knife wound, I think. He's fine. I'll let him know you called.”
This was also the man who had thrown him on Johnny Gat’s desk and successfully patched him up on his own, no hospital required. Perhaps he didn't need advice after all.
---
Ben's newest friendship was built on beer and shitty Hallmark movies. He supposed there were worse ways to make friends. He supposed that spicing things up and watching melodramatic hospital shows with his new friend counted as developing their relationship. For two days while the Playa rested, that’s all the two of them did.
That's all Ben did.
The Playa read, mostly when Ben was asleep. Ben wasn't sure the Playa slept at all, but then again Ben wasn't sure about much when it came to the Playa. What he did know was that when he woke up, the bookmark had gotten closer to the end of the novel.
When the Playa left again, his copy of Dorian Gray was tucked neatly on the DVD shelf filled mostly with other tattered books.
---
Ben woke up shaking. He hadn't done that in a long time. As he caught his breath, the warm hand against his back almost made him lose it again.
The Playa looked him with concern in his eyes. “We can start tomorrow.” He said, in the gravelly tone that was rarely heard and barely sounded right on his tongue. “You've healed up enough.”
“What about you?” Ben asked, still shuddering.
Snorting, the Playa shrugged. He offered up the glass of water from the end table.
---
On the last night Ben spent at the Playa’s apartment, they had homemade pasta and cheap boxed wine. Ben went to bed early, only feeling slightly guilty that he had displaced the Playa from his bed for three weeks.
With the sound of spraying water from the shower came the rise of a soft voice. At 2:01 in the morning, unable to sleep and sparking with nerves, Ben pondered the irony of a man who never spoke but sounded like an absolute angel when he sang.
---
Standing at the shattered glass and looking down, Ben felt a sigh settle in his soul. With Tanya fell his empire. With his car Kingdom Come burned.
The Playa placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. Ben always forgot how tall he was until the Playa stood directly behind him, at perfect height for Ben to tuck his head against his collarbone. Ben stepped away, and fished his keys from his pocket.
“I don't have much use for it now. Get her patched up, send her to the dump, I don't really give a damn.” Ben shrugged. “Thanks, Playa. For everything.”
“I'll get her fixed.” The Playa replied, the gravelly wrong-voice dropped and replaced with a distinctly smoother and much more Irish voice.
“And it’s Brynden. The name.”
Ben paused until the silence between them became as awkward as a middle school dance.
“... What the fuck kind of name is Brynden?”
The Playa’s silver eyes glinted with the reflection of the fire. He offered a grin. “‘S my name.” He said.
“... Oh.”
“And-” the Pl- Brynden dug into his jean pockets and pulled out his own key. “Something in return. In case you ever need to lay low again. Don't be a stranger.”
Ben cocked his head aside. “So now you get the lock fixed?”
Brynden shrugged. “Until it breaks again. Best of luck to ya, Mr King. It was a pleasure.”
He trotted off into the night, carrying himself much more regally than usually.
---
No one else knew his name. The papers called him a gang member. The ladies at the coffee shop called him “a handsome devil, likely not so much though after that.” Ben called him Brynden, and Brynden was as good as dead.
Ben choked on his coffee and spat it out against the paper. He had to toss it out and nab a new one. A new one confirming he hadn't been seeing things. There on the front cover, a story that froze Ben to the core.
Alderman Hughes Dead In Tragic Boat Accident. Full story on page 4.
Brynden was a second thought, a barely mentioned nobody who died and was in critical care in the Stilwater Prison. He was the probable perpetrator, caught in his own plot.
But his grainy little picture, said to have come from a “friend” showed unmistakable silver eyes and a trademark horrendous dye job.
Ben threw the newspaper in the nearest trash bin.
---
The Playa's apartment sat as still as it had in all the time Ben had stayed there; the eerie quiet of the rooms even more noticeable with the lack of the Playa’s presence.
The lack of Brynden’s presence.
Ben exhaled shakily and sat back on the worn leather couch. He shook his head and took in the empty living room, ran his eyes over the box TV and the cracks in the walls and the books-
One was missing from the shelf. The others had slipped down in its absence. Ben found the missing text in the kitchenette, bookmarked and already gathering dust.
On the bookmarked page, a passage from a poem was highlighted in neon yellow.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Send me “ff+” and a character name and my character will react to finding and reading a graphic and sex-filled fanfiction of themselves and that character.
There were certain perks of living in the limelight as a celebrity… “Philanthropist,” and Brynden still wasn't sure whether or not the fan stories were one of them. Sure they could be entertaining. On occasion they made good blackmail material. But overall?
Brynden hadn't spent ten years of his life in med school to read about people using spit as lube, yet here he was. With every paragraph he read, Brynden felt a year of his life being shaved off.
Of course he'd read Regicide. Of course he knew how Ben has described him in it. Of course he was aware of how much the-Mothers-Against-This-and-That-and-They're-Mostly-Just-Hateful-Really had protested against it.
Of course he knew Ben was probably crushing hard on him, he'd have to be blind not to know.
Still. Reading the fan stories about him and Ben made him wish he was blind.
How had Matt even found these in the first place? And why did he care? And who the hell was R4gn0r0k? And why the hell was Nyteblade of all people trying to get Ben to confess his undying love to Brynden via a musical number?!
Brynden sighed deeply and placed his head in his hands. So distracted be his brooding, he failed to notice Ben walking up behind him and leaning over the couch. Ben stared at the laptop, squinting. “What the fuck?”
“I wish I knew.” Bryn exhaled. “They describe my pubes as ginger, Ben! Ginger!”
