Ben's Briliant Idea (open to the F4; Crystal later)

[eastside_thing]

Ben Grimm stared at the black brew for longer than he’d like in the same living room where Luna had appeared. The problem wasn’t that he gotten to bed or fallen asleep easily enough. Almost as his head had touched the pillow he was out and pretty much was that way for six hours. Which was not enough sleep unless if the end of the world was

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[eastside_thing]

Ben walked into the communication room with a rather sour expression on his craggy face. Leave it to Sue to know how to guilt trip him even more. There WAS a reason he got over her. He settled himself down in front of the monitor and leaned back in the chair, putting his hands behind his head and took a deep breath. “You can do it Benjy…”

He removed his hands and switched on the monitor and watched the idyllic imagery of clouds and seascapes as he waited for Crystal or one of her family members to pick up from the Moon’s end.

[crystal_element]

Crystal was a wreck. Though she'd tried to sleep and had planned on making calls first thing in the morning, sleep really hadn't come. A couple of hours from sheer exhaustion, yes, but no more than that.

"Ben?" she asked, rubbing her eyes. She was certainly not looking presentable in the way that Attilan royalty was supposed to...but Ben was her friend and wouldn't care about something like that. Especially once she told him what was wrong.

[eastside_thing]

Of course Ben cared. The poor kid looked exhausted and Ben felt extremely guilty seeing the princess’ face. But then, he had only chosen the action he thought would have been best at the time. Ben cracked a weay smile at her, he didn’t look quite much better though his excuse was much more petty than Crystal’s.

“Heya doll, I got some good news fer ya, we got Luna and Lockjaw here. They’re sleepin’ like babies.”

[crystal_element]

Or at least, Ben wouldn't care that Crystal's appearance was improper and not groomed in the way royalty was supposed to be groomed. That's what friends were for.

Relief, all the previous distress that she'd been holding onto, and a plethora of other emotions all mixed in, and tears started streaming down Crystal's face.

"Oh, thank Agon!" she exclaimed. "I was terrified...she left a note that said she felt unwanted. I don't know how she could ever feel that nobody here loved her..."

[eastside_thing]

"Knew somethin' wuz up when she told me that." Ben sighed and shook his head. "Didn't entirely believe the implications, 'course. You'll adore her, so I wus figurrin' that somethin' else wuz the case."

Ben paused and looked at the distressed face. "Luna's sleeping away, though she did say somethin' about Karnak, nothin' bad but him acting funny." Funnier than usual, anyway.

[crystal_element]

"Well...Karnak admitted that he'd gotten a little cross with her," said Crystal with a nod. "Luna has been getting into the vents, and skipping classes...I don't know what's wrong, but whatever it is, she won't tell me."

[eastside_thing]

Ben rubbed his chin and nodded at this. "Figured one of you guys are workin' ta get to the bottom o' this, right?" He nodded to himself. "Crystal, I can keep an eye out on Luna and Lockjaw for a bit. Franklin could use the company, he don't get outside much for reasons ya might know."

[crystal_element]

Crystal nodded. While she didn't want to reward Luna for doing a bad thing, she did think that perhaps people at school had been upsetting her. After all, if it was only boredom that made her skip classes, she had the work that Karnak gave her, and could do that instead.

"We've been trying, but there's only so much we can understand without watching her twenty four hours out of the day. I suspect that other kids are excluding her at school...it might be good if she spent some time with Franklin."