A Little Unsteady [Closed Log]

[warped_replica]

Date: February 20th
Characters: Benjiro and Sadie


The quiet sound of the engine cuts completely as Benjiro pulls off the street and up the drive of his great aunts’ house. Rolling up to the door of the storage shed, Benjiro plants his feet on either side of his motorcycle to steady it as he waits for Sadie to dismount from behind him. He follows after, sweeping his foot to pull out the kickstand and lean it to rest momentarily. He reaches up to unlock the strap under his chin, and pulls off his helmet with a shake of his head to free his hair from sticking down after the drive. Helmet under one arm, he walks over to the shed to pull up the door, then rights his bike to walk it inside.

Motorcycle parked for the night, he hangs both his helmet and Sadie’s, and then moves to unstrap their bags from the back rack. As he starts to undo the straps while speaking to her, his words trail off briefly as his eyes fall on the blanketed heap in the back corner left untouched since they visited the mouth of Moss River, “So, for dinner, do you want....um...” He shakes his head and finishes as he picks up the bags, “Sorry. A-anyways, I was thinking noodles.”

Comments

Magic....

[warped_replica]

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.

[dragoonrouge]

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.

[warped_replica]

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.

[dragoonrouge]

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.

[warped_replica]

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."

[dragoonrouge]

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.

[warped_replica]

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.”

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie settles down into dissatisfied growls at Ben's mother, she had no idea that Sadie was there, all she was doing was riling herself up. Flipping the bird at the awful woman, Sadie turns to shadow Ben. She watches from the hallway as Ben appears to head back to bed, only to watch him double back and head towards Emiko. And dear god that was both upsetting and wonderful; seeing the care and wonder as his presence starts to settle Emiko is so heartwarming, but the fact that Ben is having to do this whilst still a child himself has her growling again.

She hated his mum, and if they ever met it would certainly be a struggle to remain polite towards the woman.