"Okay," Ben said, with a nod. "That's good. Good." It was good, of course for the surface reason that it wasn't ideal to have people out looking for you. More than that, though, it meant that this hadn't been going on that long, because if Art had been ten galleons in debt for a year, or something, someone would have been looking for him by now. On the other hand, ten galleons over a year would have been a significantly less dire sort of problem — it made Ben wonder again whether he was catching Art on the upswing of this whole situation or whether they were still somewhere in the middle. There wasn't any way to know until they were on the other side of it, was there? And past experience would be no indicator — the last time Art had gambled everything away, he'd only stopped because there hadn't been anything left. He wasn't going to do that now, not with a home and a wife and a kid. Ben couldn't let him do that, so they had to be on the recovering side of this.
(He would have lent him the money even if they weren't, though — even if Ben didn't believe Art was better yet, or was capable of getting better, he would have given him the money because he would have wanted Art to believe that it was almost over, that he could get better and that someone believed that he could).
"I can do five, I think," Ben said, tapping one finger on the edge of his pint glass. "And then we can figure out the rest of it. You can pay me back later," he added; he was sure that Art was going to refuse, at least at first, and this statement was meant to preempt that whole dance where Art refused and Ben insisted and they eventually clawed their way back to the original offer. It wasn't necessarily something Ben believed, but it didn't really matter whether he'd ever get the money back.
(He would have lent him the money even if they weren't, though — even if Ben didn't believe Art was better yet, or was capable of getting better, he would have given him the money because he would have wanted Art to believe that it was almost over, that he could get better and that someone believed that he could).
"I can do five, I think," Ben said, tapping one finger on the edge of his pint glass. "And then we can figure out the rest of it. You can pay me back later," he added; he was sure that Art was going to refuse, at least at first, and this statement was meant to preempt that whole dance where Art refused and Ben insisted and they eventually clawed their way back to the original offer. It wasn't necessarily something Ben believed, but it didn't really matter whether he'd ever get the money back.
MJ made this <3