saveourearth | A Little Unsteady [Closed Log]

Sadie's dismount of the bike is never as smooth as Ben's, almost tripping as she slides off. It is as she pulls of her helmet and ruffles her hair that Ben trails off and catches her attention. Concerned, she moves closer to him and notices that he isn't facing her.

"Ben? Noodles would be fine..." She trails off and moves towards the blanketed heap. Grasping the fabric, she starts to pull it off, "What's underneath here?"

The sound of his name brings his gaze to Sadie, and he watches her move around to the corner with the blanket. Delayed in responding as he puts the bags back down on the rack, he tries to follow after her as she pulls at the blanket, “Sadie, wait...!” only for his plea to come too late. Gravity finishes the motion, and Benjiro freezes as the pair of silver colored gauntlets are revealed. The armor pieces are long with transition from solid shielding to a double layer of plating with dangerously sharp edges coming to points with the outer layer shorter.

Slower, he steps to stand by Sadie as he explains with unease pinching at his brow and his voice quieted with a tinge of fear, “...they showed up at the river. These were his weapons.”

Edited 2019-02-17 00:26 (UTC)

Sadie's eyes widen as the weapons are revealed, "Oh my..." She tears her gaze away from the wickedly sharp, gleaming metal and back to Ben, shock melting away into concern as she reaches out for his hand.

"Ben... You wouldn't need these, that's not who you are, that isn't the life you have."

His hand flinches at the first touch, but is not withdrawn, eyes not leaving the gauntlets. Should she take his hand after, his fingers close to curl around her own without much pressure as he has a flicker of doubt regarding his control. Benjiro shakes his head at her words, “No...no, I-I know. I doubt I could use them. But I have them. I haven’t decided what to do with them yet is all.”

It would be risky to hide them anywhere else at the moment, as his great aunts have more or less given him control of the shed for a workspace.

Edited 2019-02-17 02:43 (UTC)

Sadie does take his hand, giving Ben's hand a solid squeeze when she feels how loose his grip is in return. There is a heavy, unsaid 'yet' when Ben comments on his ability to use then, and Sadie frowns at the the gauntlets.

"You could send them off for scrap?"

Letting go of Ben's hand Sadie kneels next to the gauntlets and reaches out for one, a claw extended to test the metal and she pauses.

"...They're huge..." Sadie trails off, shocked and concerned at the very visceral size difference that actually having her hand on the gauntlets brings to light. She worries at her lip, and already trying to translate the size of the gauntlets to possible build and height changes for Ben. A concrete reminder that the changes weren't over yet for Ben; a reminder that is like a bolt of electricity, fear and worry for Ben shocking through her and sitting uneasily in her gut.

Edited 2019-02-17 09:32 (UTC)

A light squeeze is returned to her hand, failing to match her strength, so it is easy to separate when Sadie moves down to inspect the gauntlets more closely. Benjiro hesitates a full second to consider the suggestion, having done his best over the last week and a half to simply put the weapons out of his mind entirely, “Maybe, but I can’t identify the metal.” Nor does he know how to explain the reason for having such weapons in the first place.

Focusing on her claw initially as Sadie makes contact with a gauntlet, he feels no surprise when she fails to leave a mark. Then, she’s quiet. He moves half a step closer to peer to her face, and he reads her expression as he hears her remark. They’re huge.

That is when he finally looks at the gauntlet as a whole. Not only the blades, not only the openings for the hand, not only the shaft - all of it as one massive item. He sees her hand on the surface, but moreover, he sees her entire body next to it. The gauntlet is large enough to swallow her lower half inside in both length and breadth, and that piece is only meant to cover the forearm and hand. His eyes widen as his face pales despite the way his heart begins to pump faster and harder to the point of discomfort. He retreats one step. Then a second and third, only to stall when he feels his hips contact a box behind him. Hands feeling numbly at the box as they start to tremble, Benjiro swallows at the nausea bubbling upwards and leaning into his breath. To compensate, he starts to breathe faster while words that try to come out never make it to his throat.

Edited 2019-02-17 10:53 (UTC)

Sadie doesn't initially react to Ben moving about, focused as she is on the gauntlets and the potential for issues that the Echo was going to continue to bring into their lives. Ben knocking against the box startles her from her thoughts, and prompts her to turn away from the gauntlets.

Sadie is up like a shot, grabbing the blanket and and covering the gauntlets back up. This was bad, so much worse than when Ben's teeth had started to come through and Sadie could feel her heart breaking at the panic overtaking Ben.

"Ben, it's going to be alright. I've put them away but I-I need you to not try to talk for me okay?" Sadie could hear the slight shake in her voice as she quietly talks to Ben and internally curses, "Let's get sat down okay?"

Her touch is slow and gentle as she reaches up to his shoulders and gently presses down, a physical prompt to emphasise her instructions.

Although his words fail to come free in those paltry attempts, his thoughts rush in a spiral. Gaze locked on the gauntlets as Sadie covers them with the blanket, Benjiro cannot get the stark contrast of size out of his mind. His memories of the terrapin creature had given him the impression of stature, but closest to others like him in open settings, he had not interpretted his size nearly to the proper scale. His eyes drift upwards as he builds a rough framework based on forearm length, and his lungs empty in wheeze as he breaks well passed 200cm.

No. No no no nononononono - he can’t do this! He can’t be Something that monstrous!

He hears his name, and his eyes snap down in a startled blink to Sadie right in front of him. He had lost track of her in that moment, and seeing her worried expression makes the nausea swell enough to make him start coughing. Bowing his head to avoid coughing into her face, he doesn’t quite understand her instructions until she begins pushing down on his shoulders. That gentle pressure meets his rigid frame, knees locked, but moreover she can feel the solid fibers of his muscles under her hands. Then, as comprehension sluggishly translates to compliance, his muscles ratchet before he simply drops out from under her hands to the concrete floor of the shed. On the floor, he starts to whisper choked words, “So-rry, sorry, Sadie...! I-I di-...s-sorry!”

Sadie doesn’t need this from him right now. His panic is unwarranted. He knew from the beginning that his changes would be severe and he could deal with this appropriately if he could calm down enough to think - yet he can’t reign in the burning thoughts. Will she even be able to stand being close to him? What if he hurts her? No, when. How long until he hurts Sadie?

He buries his head in his shaking hands as he tries to breathe but his lungs are starting to burn and a lightheaded feeling is setting in as hyperventilation starts to impinge upon his understanding of up and down.

Edited 2019-02-17 14:06 (UTC)

Sadie can feel her heart start to race at Ben's rigid posture against her hands, suddenly very aware that unless Ben actively moves there is nothing that she can do to move him as if she wasn't worried enough already about him. She is suddenly very self-conscious of the weight of her phone in her pocket if she cannot help Ben beat back this growing panic attack then calling for more professional might be her only course of action which she definitely doesn't want to do.

"Shit." She yelps at his sudden collapse and feels her chest start to burn at Ben's whispered apologies.

"Oh-oh Ben, darling, please, please don't apologise. Let's get you better." She drops down next to him and starts to firmly stroke up and down his back, "Breathe in for me," Her hand moves down, "And breathe out. Nice and steady with me. In. And out."

Lacking in sufficient volume as they are, his rapid breathing manages to still accumulate behind his face mask in sickening heat that feeds into it all. Clawing at the mask, he tears it away with one hand with a gasp exposing his sharp teeth in the shelter of the shed, and drops it to the floor as his hand stills against his head after. The relief is mild, and slips away in the collapsing thought.

Benjiro hears Sadie, and he sees her transition to join him on the floor. He feels her arm move around his back, and as the stroking begins, he vaguely recognizes the vast difference between the slow motion of her hand and his shallow breathing. The first commands pass unheeded, but repetition gives him a chance to work towards the new rhythm. Shutting his eyes and dropping his head fully forward, he curls smaller to brace against himself as he starts to work to slow his breathing. The pace starts to ease, but then-

How long until he never feels her touch again?

His breath hitches at the thought and several seconds pass with the air lodged between his mouth and lungs. He succumbs to a heavy coughing fit when his autonomic system kicks in and he bows from the waist, shrinking even further down under the weight of the terror.

Sadie watches Ben like a hawk, eyes flicking between tracking his breathing and his expression, or at least what little she can see behind his hands as she continues to rubs his back in time to her instructions. In and down. Out and up. Sadie relaxes, her heart settling as it seems to start working until suddenly it isn't. Ben freezing completely, his breathing stopping completely has Sadie scrambling for her phone with one hand and moving her hand from Ben's back to his cheek.

"Please Ben, you need to try and focus only on breathing! In and out. I know it's hard but you can do it!"

She leans forward to rest her head on him, close without overcrowding and making the problem worse. The second her forehead touches Ben Sadie grimaces as a sharp pain lances just behind her eyes, not dissimilar to a terrible migraine, and Sadie can't help but hiss as in that second she feels disconnected from her body. Just like during the Echo.

A small dark room. Dim white light of street lights leaks through drawn curtains at the window while the door is cracked open with a golden toned light coming through, the contrasting light sources illuminating the space enough to make out the bedroom of a young child with a desk set in one corner and toys arranged in an orderly fashion on a set of shelves. The toys there are outnumbered by books that take up most of the space. One toy, something mechanical, lies disassembled on the desk with a few small tools at rest beside it, and a page with scribbles that vaguely resemble the parts with lines drawn between them. The walls are plain save for some posters.

The occupant of the room is present, laying in his bed on his side with his brown eyes focusing on the covered window as a clock ticks mounted on the wall above his bed. The boy appears to be of asian descent by the shape of his features and no more than six years old, black hair trimmed into a soft feathered cut with strands swept from the right side of his head. His hand rests on a stuffed dinosaur toy beside him, a finger gently moving rhythmically against the soft fabric before he sighs and looks down at his pillow.

Strangely, he doesn’t seem aware he has company.

This... This wasn't right. Sadie stares at the room in front of her wide-eyed. With Echoes it was like she is Q'uila, she had no control and, she looks down at her hands, she was certainly never in her own body. Sadie clenches her fists, this has happened at the worst possible time. She needs to get back to Ben!

To add to her understanding that this wasn't her Echoing Q'uila was the room, far too modern for where Q'uila was from. Though this must be a memory as the young boy on the bed hadn't reacted at all to her appearance, as if she wasn't really there.

So why was she seeing this? Now of all time? She wanders over to the desk to see if the notebook could give her any clues.

The notebook has no clues while laying open, but next to it, Sadie may notice a pencil case decorated with a dinosaur design. On it, a name is written that should be familiar - 'Benjiro'.

Suddenly, the boy in the bed looks up from his pillow when he hears the distant sound of a phone ringing from another room. The voice of a woman answers it, cordial and polite. The conversation is audible enough to hear the initial greeting to another woman named Evelyn, but the sound of a baby crying rises from the next room over. Frowning at the crying, he reaches to fold his pillow over the side of his head while he shuts his eyes in an effort to block out the sound.

The patience of a child however, is quickly spent. So after nearly a minute passes with no change in the sounds coming from outside the room, Benjiro releases his pillow and rolls to sit up. Sliding off the edge of the mattress, he walks over to the door and pulls it open to enter the hallway. Outside his room and visible down the short corridor are several half filled moving boxes, and from the layout, it is readily apparent the family is living in a two-bedroom apartment.

Benjiro...

Sadie's head whips round to look once more at the little boy on the bed. She-she could kind of see it, in the shape of his nose and his brow. Possibly the eye colour too although it was hard to say with how dark the room was. Ben was adorable is the ultimate conclusion she comes to, although settling with that being Ben... How was she seeing his memory, if this even was his memory, and why? A far more troubling set of questions to ponder though she has no time to as a baby starts crying.

That must be Emiko. She watches Ben cover his ears and moves towards the door, frowning when it becomes clear that Ben and Emiko's mother isn't going to do anything. Which causes one of the singularly most disturbing experiences as tiny Ben steps through her and heads towards the room with the baby in. Shuddering, there is nothing else for Sadie to do but follow.

Benjiro stops short in the hallway, looking into the dark room with the door half open next to his own from where Emiko cries. He looks down the hall, back to the room, then down the hall as though giving one more moment to see if his mother would be coming, then huffs softly and walks towards the kitchen rather than the bedroom. Benjiro seemed very set on going to his mother, but as he nears the end of the hallway, he slows and stops just beside a stack of boxes that keep him hidden from view of his mother as a look of uncertainty crosses his face. He stalls there, and listens as his hands come together to fidget.

His mother, a woman with black hair bundled neatly with a shorter stature, is standing at the counter with her back towards them, talking on the phone as she tends something on the stovetop, "-absolutely agree. It won't be much longer before we ship out to the States after all. .... Oh the packing is going well. I've been getting through quite a lot while he is busy at work getting all his projects transitioned to someone else. We're quite excited! .... No, I don't think so. Nothing ever phases him. I don't think Benjiro cares about anything except his books. .... Oh I remember. I was so relieved by the test results. If it weren't for that I was almost ready to sign him over."

Benjiro goes very still as he hears this from his mother, brow furrowing down as his hands tighten together. He blinks more quickly, looking at the carpet under his feet as the conversation continues.

The woman laughs after a small pause to listen, "Mmm you say that but I remember a certain someone talking about leaving her kids and eloping! .... Now that I understand why he's that way it's so much easier. He'll be able to do good things and make us proud. He'll just be one of those geniuses that stays alone and lives for his work. Which, well, that much will be his father's influence."

The child wilts at the shoulders and lingers as the conversation moves on to the logistics of the upcoming move to another country. It's a strong wail from Emiko that gets his attention off the floor, and he rubs at his eyes before he turns the corner around the box to call to his mother.

"Kaasan?"

To that, his mother turns to look over her shoulder, "Evelyn, just a second. - Benjiro, it's passed your bed time."

"But Emiko is crying and-"

"I can hear her. Be patient, and she'll quiet down. Just think about your math tables."

"But-"

"Bed. Now."

Benjiro closes his mouth in a hurry at her commanding tone, and he scurries from the kitchen quickly back towards his room.

Behind him in the kitchen his mother continues on the phone, "Sorry. Emiko is still uh..what's the word...a little colic, and Benjiro was complaining."

Edited 2019-02-18 18:09 (UTC)

Following Ben, Sadie is curious about what this was all about almost despite herself and knowing that she cannot be seen here makes it all the easier to want to poke around. The way the child pauses and fidgets with his hands just makes her all the more certain that this somehow a memory of Ben, it was something she had noticed that Ben still slipped into on occasion whenever he was nervous or worried about something. The fact that it was his own mother that he was nervous about was like a rock in her stomach.

Not a rock, a gasoline canister. Sadie hisses at the unbelievable sentence that just came out of that woman's mouth, and as Ben freezes, Sadie snarls and growls, the volume growing in crescendo as Sadie steps up to Ben's mum.

"How bloody dare you say that about your son?!" Claws prick at her palms as she snarls at the shorter woman, "How could you be so damn cruel about a child even when he isn't supposed to be around to hear it?! Be lucky that we've never met in real life because I will not stand for this!" Her growl drowns out Emiko's crying and her next snarl does not come out as a snarl but instead a roar.

It is only Ben fleeing the room that pulls her away from Ben's mum and planning her bloody murder, Sadie shoots one last dagger-filled glare at Ben's mum before quickly following the child form of her boyfriend.

Edited 2019-02-19 00:38 (UTC)

The snarls and roar may drown out the crying for Sadie, but the reflection of the past continues as it once had for Benjiro in the memory. He hears his sister even as he leaves the light to return into his dark room. His hands slap down on the mattress with the apparent intention to follow his mother’s direction, but instead, the boy halts still standing at the side of his bed once he reaches it. Slowly his arms relax to rest on the top of the bed, and his eyes search the fabric of his covers as his attention stays snagged on the sounds of his sister.

He looks over his shoulder first. Then lifts one hand. His second hand falls from the bed as he starts to step away from it, and he walks towards the door with steps shortening across the distance. Peering around the door left open enough for him to pass, he looks with wide eyes down the hall. His mother has not left the kitchen and is still talking on the phone as she laughs again.

Benjiro creeps from his room and over into the next dark room, which is illuminated better than his own by a night-light beside the crib. The crib is set in the master bedroom, one that speaks of two adults that keep awareness on their presentation to others by the looks of the arrangements for him and her. That however, may not be worth exploring as Benjiro approaches the crib where his sister lies crying with her voice starting to crack from strain. He steps up to the slats of the crib and reaches his hand through, feeling around as though looking for something near her as he speaks, “Emiko, she doesn’t like that.”

Sadie has the vantage point that would allow her to spot the pacifier on the far side of Emiko that Benjiro is after, but when he starts to try to reach over her, his hand brushes where she can feel it. Shaking as she is, Emiko responds to the touch with eyes opening, and a momentary delay of her next bar to come. His hand slides under her arm, and before he can withdraw it to check her other side, her hand catches his finger. Benjiro is too surprised to retract his hand forcefully and he watches as she undergoes a diminuendo to less strenuous cries accompanied by whimpers and whines.

He simply stares, bewildered. The pacifier is usually what has such an effect, even if this is not as dampening to her cries. Inquisitiveness replaces everything else for the boy, and he reaches his other hand in to lay over the top of her head. More contact. And again she quiets a little more. He has done nothing for her, no bottle, no change, no pacifier, and yet…she seems to be calming down from his presence. His captured hand settles on her chest, and he leans in to rest his head against the slates as he starts to brush his hand on her head in mimicry of what he has seen others do.

Minutes of this, and Emiko has quieted down, looking at Benjiro while her big brother stays fixated on her. He smiles at her, and she kicks her feet with a happy squeak. That prompts a bigger smile from Benjiro, and he whispers to her, “I can’t sleep here, you know.”

Edited 2019-02-20 16:28 (UTC)

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dragoonrouge - 2019-02-24 13:29 (UTC) - Expand

Slipping under his wrist, her hand finds his cheek as his coughing fit starts, and he turns his head from her hand even as he bows through his back. Her touch at his face limits the fold of his body to a slouch jarred by the harsh effort to clear his airway. A deeper inhale follows after the coughing ceases, and he falls back into ragged breathing as another murmured apology slips breathless from his lips, “...s...rry...sorry.”

Then Sadie moves closer to him, leans to him, only to react with a pained hiss. His eyes snap open behind the cover of his hands, and those hands tremble as he draws them from his head to look towards her in disbelief and horror.

Did he already hurt her?

Edited 2019-02-18 01:48 (UTC)

What Ben sees when he looks up is Sadie grimacing, eyes closed. This only lasts a second or two as the grimace softens out and Sadie opens her eyes, her gaze is unfocused as she blinks and focuses back in on Ben, eyebrows and lips dropping in concern.

"Ben you need to keep trying with me again. In. Then out."

She begins her instructions as before but this time does not break eye contact with with Ben, making a visible show of breathing in and out now that he's looking at her. Shuffling a little closer, Sadie makes sure to try and press her chest against him so that, after a moment of two when she starts to purr, Ben can feel the full effect of the deep, rumbling vibrations. Another thing to try and ground him and hopefully calm him down.

Paralyzed until after she starts to speak, conflicting explanations arise in his mind as he tries to understand the reaction he witnesses in Sadie. Whether he had done something but he wasn't moving only coughing or she went through an Echo a new memory? or was suffering from something else had she been hurt at the river after all? he could not differentiate.

This is not the time to be doing this, she doesn't need to deal with his issues...!

Her guidance comes through with the demonstration, and the whisper of breathing starts to deepen. He breaks eye contact as tears well up in his eyes over the narrowed field, dropping his gaze with struggle visible in his expression while he wrestles with the myriad of emotion underlying the sense of panic. One hand gripping his head as the other covers his tears, he inhales sharply through his teeth as she comes against him, but does not try to retreat.

In. Out.

He feels her breathing, hears her words, and soon feels the vibrations of her purring carried into his own body by the contact between them. Painfully slowly, his breathing follows suit. The process is disrupted several times with momentary accelerations, and dotted by apologies, but Sadie's methods are effective over a span of minutes that feel dilated to hours. Tremors persist, yet he finally manages to bring his hands downwards with one arm coming around Sadie to hold her as the other locks to support against his leg.

Sadie continues her hawk-like watch of Ben as she continues to try and coach him into a more normalised breathing pattern. Every little movement comes to the attention of her eyes as she hyper focuses in on him and maintaining her purring and the precise rhythm of in and out.

"Come on Ben, there we go. You've got this." She keeps her voice quiet, almost a whisper between the two of them. Sadie is so very thankful for the rhythm of in and out and having to purr because as soon as Ben starts to cry her chest tightens and it is the only thing that stops her from crying too, especially whenever his breathing picks up and he starts trying to apologise. When Ben finally wraps one of his arms around Sadie does the same to him, wrapping her arms around him properly to bring them closer together.

"There we are. I've got you and we'll stay here for as long as you need...I love you so much, Ben."

She shouldn't.

The bitter thought pierces deep, making his stomach knot, but the vile notion is expelled from his thoughts as he curls into her arms where he feels her warmth, hears her voice, and can breathe her in. Head lowered fully to her shoulder to hide his face as the trails of tears dry in the air, Benjiro continues to shiver faintly as fatigue sets in the wake of the panic. It absolutely drained him, and he sounds it as he replies to her with more control over his voice, "I love you too, Sadie..."

As much as he would like to never move again, he is aware that in time, one of his great aunts will come out to check the shed.

Sharper inhale drawn, he holds it purposefully then releases it in a rather slow exhale before speaking with edges of nervousness creeping into his voice, "I'm really sorry about...this, I didn't-... I've been distracted and I didn't sleep much last night or before. I've never...never done that before, I don't know why- I... It was absolutely unnecessary and I'm so sorry-" Such rambling will continue until she speaks up.

Sadie lightly presses a kiss to the side of Ben's head as he starts to ramble, gently squeezing him as she goes to cut him off.

"Ben...You owe me no apologies, how much of a hypocrite would that make me when you've been so patient and caring of me when I've broken down?" Another kiss, "Nothing about what just happened was unnecessary. It-it just happens sometimes. Everything builds and builds and builds; worries, stress, upset, nerve, and god knows I haven't exactly made things easy with stuff like what happened the river..."

Sadie sighs, "I'm the one who should be saying sorry, for not noticing how spread thin you've been. I haven't done enough to help unburden you and for that, I am so sorry. I've been relying so much on you and it's unfair of me with what you're going through."

The first kiss and the squeeze of her arms has the intended effect of ending his stream of jumbled apologies with relenting exhale as the last of his prepared breath is released. Benjiro listens from her shoulder at first, turning his head to start looking upwards. Second kiss received, and he stays until she starts to shift blame onto herself. At the mention of the river, his brow pinches together, and as she tries to extend an apology, he lifts his head to look at her directly.

Benjiro slowly shakes his head, lifting his hand from his leg to reach up and cup her cheek, "No...no, you didn't do anything wrong, Sadie. Please, please don't think you didn't do enough. You have, you've been there for me every single day." Thumb brushing across her cheek, he leans his head forward to touch his forehead to hers as he tries to prevent the guilt from settling in her, "I've taken on a lot, I know, but it's not about what's happening now..."

Hesitation snares his words, eyes drifting in the direction of the blanketed weapons, but he turns his gaze back as he swallows a little roughy and draws out the thread common between his thoughts in his panic, "...it's what will happen."

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Correction: *outer layer longer.

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Magic....

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And back at the shed

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