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Highkey suicidal Benson who talks about it all the time, barely disguised as jokes. Minor inconvenience? "I'm gonna fuckin' kill myself." Burns his hand on the grill? "This time I'm really gonna do it." Someone tries to make small talk, asks what he's doing on his day off? "Might mow the lawn, might eat lead, we'll see how it goes." He has plans, he's just too chickenshit to go through with them or whatever. Some days he sits on his bed with that gun in his hand for hours. Stares it down, willing it to come alive and do it for him. Maybe he puts it on his tongue, just to feel it cut up the roof of his mouth. Something he can tongue at for days after, shredded tissue and copper, a reminder. He could do it if he wasn't such a fucking coward.

Lowkey suicidal Randy who never, ever talks about the way he wishes he would just not wake up someday. Wishes the floor would open up and swallow him whole, leaving nothing but his work hat behind. Gazes out through the window at the treeline and thinks about walking into the woods, never to return. Maybe he could survive. He's not sure if he wants to. But either way, it would be the death of his life as he knows it, and he yearns for it in his bones. Sometimes he sits behind the wheel of his car and thinks about driving away. Past the refinery, past BBB, past the faded "Y'all Drive Safe!" billboard at the edge of town. Some days his imagination takes him somewhere new, somewhere nobody knows his name or that he's only pretending to be a person or what he did to Ms. Beard. Some days that road just fades into the horizon and he fades away with it. But he won't. He'll start his car and drive to work again.

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AS ABOVE, SO BELOW (2014) dir. John Erick Dowdle

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thinking about autistic randy bradley who refuses to eat unless it's one of the four Randy Approved items

mac and cheese, plain cheeseburger, pancakes and syrup, or vanilla ice cream

benson literally begging randy to eat ANYTHING else, because randy was starting to look a little sickly (even more than he already did)

randy crosses his arms and shrugs

benson digs his palms into his eyes

"you know... my mom used to give me supplements and vitamins..."

long story short, they make a trip to walmart and purchase dietary supplements and vitamins. they also compromise with vanilla ensure shakes (benson says it's close enough to ice cream, randy is less convinced of this)

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Parallels

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My personal favorite.

I fucking love the bitchy side glances Randy throws towards Benson. Like yes, keep mentally beating him up, twink!

Randy being kidnapped and still having the balls to glare at Benson.... that is actually really fucking brave.

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benson and randy not being friends but they like working together.

once someone (chris) accidentally toggles the power switch for a smaller freezing unit and they have to take temperatures and throw everything in there out that has a too low core temp. they're not talking except coordinating the process once at the start. they work in silence, but it's not awkward or stilted, nor is it companionable, it just is. the process is smooth, the strokes of work are following each other seamlessly. it is actually the most fun either of them has had in a while; the joy of seamless efficiency. randy is almost sad at how well it works, because that means it's over faster. he likes benson, he has decided. and no one is picking on him here, it's actually just about work. benson is just glad he can get the job done with some fucking peace and quiet where he can hear himself think, with someone who can tell their ass from their face.

now, when something needs to get done, in an unspoken agreement, they pair up. hardy says it needs to get done, they quietly, individually detach from the group and get to it.

when benson is gone and randy works with other people somewhere else, he still thinks about what working with benson was like. and for a moment a hollow ache fills his chest at what he lost and how he's never found someone like that again.

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✨Hairball✨

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he’s real and he’s gonna get you.

also look who i ran into downstairs.

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haha okay so there's this man im in love with..

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hey youve got something on your face hold still

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you know when you try to get your abducter to approve of your ex-girlfriend? no? wdym no other hostages do that?

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randy the type of guy to have a trampoline in the backyard that no one uses and benson the kind of guy to have always wanted a trampoline growing up so he jumps on that bitch like a mother fucker. yo randy they used to call them jumpolines before ur mam jumped on em. HA! and then he falls off the side because the netting is old and rotted

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me looking for where Benson said Randy's a waste of space

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So I'm a single parent to a neurodivergent kid with behavioral challenges. He went through something severely traumatic when he was 4. I'll never know what was caused by trauma and what wasn't, but that's not necessarily important here. The point is, he went through some shit and he's neurodivergent in a world that isn't always friendly to that, and it comes out of him as rage, and severe anxiety, and elopement, and aggression.

And it's fucking exhausting.

Last week was a good week. I was present. I was fun. We played a lot, we hung out, we engaged with his interests. And I'm exhausted. I want to cry. Coming into this week, I'm dissociated to hell and back. I can't stay present for anything. My mood has tanked, and I'm staring at this week's to-do list in my mind wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole. I want to crawl into bed and never come out.

But I can't. Because bills have to be paid. Food has to make it to the table. The house needs to be cleaned. Appointments need to be scheduled. I have to make sure he gets to bed on time, gets to school on time, gets out for some sun and air. We're out of groceries, gotta get to the store. He wants to go to the pool. Somehow, somewhere in all of that, I have to find time to sleep, eat, take care of myself. Most days it's easier to just ignore my needs.

And I'm thinking about Benson's Ma.

I'm thinking about how checked out she looks in that brief moment we get to see her. I'm thinking about how her house doesn't really give me hoarder vibes, more like the mess and clutter overwhelmed them. I'm thinking about Benson's forehead kiss and the way she smiles up at him, small but genuine.

I'm thinking about how she's wasted away. About how she probably spent most of her adult life neglecting her own needs. About cigarettes and a few nibbles of cinnamon bun. About curlers in her hair that she probably set in a rare moment she was feeling up for it, now forgotten because that moment passed as quickly as it came.

I'm thinking about how Benson went through something horribly traumatizing as a child, maybe something she learns about afterwards and maybe not, but something outside of her control. Something someone else did to her baby. Something that most certainly led to behaviorial struggles in a growing boy.

I'm thinking about all of this happening in the 70s or 80s when mental health wasn't widely understood or accepted, when parents were singularly blamed for how their kids came out. I'm thinking about Benson getting suspended when he acted out, because schools weren't equipped or willing to deal with it. The pressure Ma was under to leave work early and pick him up, figure out childcare for him because she couldn't afford to miss even that half of a shift, let alone three full weekdays. The guilt of leaving him to his own devices, but what other choice did she have? Bills have to be paid. She had to get food on the table.

I'm thinking about them fighting. Screaming at each other, especially as he gets older. About Benson taking his hurt and anger out on his one and only safe person. I'm thinking that maybe she'd try so hard not to snap at him, because she knows deep down this isn't about her, but god dammit, Benny, why can't you just behave? Why do you have to make this harder? And the guilt and self-hatred that follows, because he's not trying to make her life harder. He's not. She knows that.

Something's wrong, she feels it in her gut, but she has no language for it. No resources. No articles on the internet, no support groups or Reddit threads of people going through the same thing. Just blame, from the schools and her neighbors. Just judgmental stares from strangers in the grocery store while she tries to handle the list and his meltdown without breaking down. Just frayed nerves and a never ending list of shit that needs to get done and the crushing knowledge that she is barely hanging on.

I'm thinking about Ma watching her Benny grow up without an engaged parent. I'm thinking about guilt, and shame, and heartache. I'm thinking about exhaustion, bone-deep and all-consuming. I'm thinking about the toll chronic stress takes on the mind and body. I'm thinking about drowning in the deep-seated belief that she failed him.

Benson deserved better. All children deserve a stable home, a present parental figure. All children deserve to have their needs met without strings attached, without feeling guilty for asking.

But capitalism doesn't give a fuck about any of that. The bank doesn't give a fuck. The power company doesn't give a fuck. The government doesn't care about your struggles, and if you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail. You can't pay for groceries with effort.

So she does what she can with what she's got for as long as possible. And she hopes to god that Benny will turn out okay. And when they come to tell her he's dead, I hope her mind is already too far gone to understand. I hope she's lost in memories of the good times they had together.

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Against all odds, and maybe as a fitting punishment, Benson survives the pigs.

He gets thrown in jail and just kinda floats there for a while; one foot stuck in his last day as a free man, the other here, just wanting it all to end, waiting for it, itching for it.

But he was never gonna do it himself, could never bring himself to. It's why he did what he did in the first place, so someone else would do it for him.

He gets pulled back down to Earth by force, when he's thrown out of jail after some years.

He's let out a lot sooner than he expected, which was never. Turns out, jails are crammed, and since he barely utters a peep, they're apparently not scared of him anymore.

So, he goes back to the house he shared with his ma, even though she's no longer there.

He stays away from fast food, goes into manual labor instead. He enjoys the burn, the hurt, the stretching himself so thin, that he can be nothing but exhausted.

He's perusing pasta options at the local supermarket when he feels something tug on his pant leg.

He has nieces and nephews (that he sees more often now), so he knows what would be the cause of that, and he looks down to find maybe the most adorable kid he has ever seen.

She can't be older than five. She has wet greenish blue eyes and messy dusty blonde hair that's pulled into pigtails adorned with white ribbons. She's wearing long white overalls over a lime green shirt with a daisy pattern.

He frowns at her and grunts "Are you lost?"

The kid tilts her head and tugs on his pant leg again, says "Are you angry?"

He scoffs, "Where are your parents, kid?"

She excitedly launches into a hurried answer, "My Daddy is getting cheese and he said we could have noodles tonight and he said we could come choose the noodles right after cheese, but he's taking too long getting the cheese, he always changes his mind and-"

As the kid goes on, Benson looks around the deserted aisles in front of him, not a soul in sight.

He takes two steps back to the edge of the aisle they're on and leans back to look both ways. No one around.

When he walks back, the kid is saying "My Momma is not here anymore. She went away, so it's just me and my Daddy, and my Gramma and my Auntie H-"

He interrupts her as he drops into a crouch in front of her "Kid, where is your dad?"

"He's getting cheese!" she insists, drawing out the syllables in the last word like she's annoyed that he hadn't believed her.

Benson's frown deepens, his heart has been steadily picking up its pace; this kid's father is either an idiot or worried sick. He's debating whether to try to find the guy, or just wait for someone to call her on the speakers.

"What's your name?" Benson asks, so he'll know what they'll call if the dad goes asking for help from the staff,

"It's Cecil-"

"Cee cee!" she's interrupted again, now by a panicked voice that startles both of them.

Benson's heart stops, his stomach turns and he can't tear his eyes away from the little girl in front of him.

She runs and bounces, calling "Daddy! Noodles! Noodles, Daddy!" and Benson stares after her.

He doesn't move a hair. Ice is slowly spreading inside his veins.

As Cee cee reaches her dad, Benson's eyes shift and get stuck to the pair of beat up sneakers that are walking his way.

"I'm so sorry, was she-" the voice trails off, Benson blinks in a haze and the little girl sings a song about noodles, circling them.

"B-Benson?"

Always stuttered his name like that.

Benson looks up, his eyes lock into a pair of greenish blue eyes again, a head of messy dusty blond hair again.

Of course Benson had thought she was adorable. Shit.

"Randy."

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First time sketching Law... he was surprisingly really hard to draw

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They’re looking at you…