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He's creepy. I know. Seriously, intelligently creepy. And I like it. I like the way he fills the room with his personality, despite the fact that he's not the largest man in the world. But I'm not the largest girl, and he's agreeably meaty for his size. I like the way he has with animals. I love how he is always ten steps ahead (and to the side of, hiding in the bushes) of everyone else.
I've also always liked rat faced men, with one notable expection in Peter Pettigrew. It's a guilty pleasure, but it's the air of intelligence and cunning in those types of faces that gets me. They always give the impression that they're hiding something, that they're scheming, and that's intriguing. Draco Malfoy possessed that sort of face, and maybe that's why I couldn't help somewhat enjoying his bullying. At least he was interesting to look at.
“Hermione, dear. Coconut?” Benjamin Linius offered me a tray filled with coconut biscuits he just pulled out of the oven, his hand covered in a pink oven mit. Above it, was his ever present smirk, which was curled up into the corner of his mouth in what can only be described as flamboyantly evil. His eyes, likewise, although smiling genuinely at me, lacked something. His mind was elsewhere, even while we were baking together. But really, when Benjamin Linus looks at you, and you see something other than what he is, that's entirely on you, because unlike a real rat he makes no attempt to hide. A plague rat, huge and bold because the pickings are so good.
“Thanks, sweetie.” I smiled back and plucked a biscuit from the tray, snapping off the end with my teeth. My husband watched me intensely, in a way I know thoroughly disturbed most other people. I found it flattering. Viktor did that too, but Viktor was clingy. Ben was not. Aside from his stares, which he can't help, he's really rather normal as a husband and father. Protective, but not nearly as protective as he'd like to be, despite his great power. We happened to be baking his daughter Alex’s favourites, simply because Ben felt like he'd been neglecting her lately.
There was a reason for that. Things were happening on the Island. Rumbling. I spent a good deal of time away from the place, and Ben didn't let me into all his plans, so things were often as big of a surprise for me as for others. This day, this coconut biscuit baking day, proved to be one of the pivotal ones. One of those I was not forewarned about. And to be fair, it was a surprise for Ben too.
I went to make the beds, and, upon hearing hissing and subdued shouting, returned to the front of the house to discover a catastrophe under way. Ben and his frenemies stood around the windows, peering through the curtains while my husband furiously negotiated down a walky talky. I didn't like the sound of it, the tone of his voice, which might have belonged to a man standing on a precipice he imagines he can simply leap over. There was no time to waste talking to the side of his head. He wouldn't listen and he'd resent it, so I cast a disillusionment spell on myself and ran outside, where I found the worst possible scenario - a mercenary with a gun pointed at the back of Alex’s head.
“I don't think so.” I said, stunning the monster, gun arm first. A stun throws the target back, but with his arm numbed, there was no twitchy firing of the weapon. The man landed in the leaves and grass, and I reappeared to the naked eye. I wouldn't kill him, but Ben would, storming out of the house like a miniature whirlwind to snatch up the rifle and unhesitatingly executing the merc with it.
“Bastard!” he said, before dropping the gun and turning to his weeping daughter, the pair of them embracing while I cast a shield around the perimeter. For attempting to negotiate with the merc, I would stun Ben himself later, but for now I let him manoeuvre his most precious possession back into the house.