Briony Fells (underyourskin) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2012-03-02 23:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | #solo, 2009-09-01, briony |
welcome to the family & this side of the tracks
Who: Briony, Paul Fells & shop assistant (NPCs)
Where: The mall
When: Right after school
Behind the counter, the shop assistant danced on egg-shells. There was a steady thrum of anxiety running across his skin and it prickled as the hairs on his arms stood up. Every now and then she would make it worse, her technokinesis lighting up a screen that ought to have appeared dead, or setting off a ringtone for just a second. The array of cell-phones on the counter-top was boring. Briony didn’t like any of them one bit. She had picked them all up one by one, her mind picking apart how they each worked, then put them straight back – all the time dealing odd looks to what she could see over the top of the counter. He seemed very nervous. More nervous than her Daddy, even, and he had to put up with living with her. Even had a hand on her shoulder and was apparently watching her examination of the phones the man had picked out with vague interest. No, she didn’t want to be there for his interest. She wasn’t a doll and these – she turned the last phone over in her hands and then slid it back up with the others – were rubbish. The pout that threatened to surface stated very clearly that she was not happy with this turn out. The two men looked at each other over her head. Briony hated that. If she could pull everybody right down to her level all the time, she would.
“I don’t suppose you have any more?” Paul was a well-spoken man, though he was a far quieter individual than he had been in years gone by. His fear – a spring wound so tight it might snap if you apologised and tucked it into bed – seemed to tremble while it waited for the shop assistant’s answer. It was better that he give the right one. Briony couldn’t be bothered with him for too long.
The man behind the counter fixed her with an uncertain look. “N-none suitable f-for children…”
After a moment staring back, her shoulders just slumped. They really needed to think more about small people. Cocking her head to one side, she lifted her chin to eye her adoptive father. “Can I go look for myself?” Pause. “Please.” Because you always had to remember your manners, even if it was only when you were in public. What other people thought of you mattered - especially when you were a nine year old Demon of Fear.
“Of course you can, angel—” Paul side-stepped slightly in what was very nearly a cringe. They had had words about him calling her that. “But I don’t think you’ll find any better than these.” He meant more suitable. Even though after three years of adoption his instincts were telling him otherwise, he still viewed her as little more than a child. But then Daddy wore fear differently to everyone else, Briony had noticed. Instead of letting it crawl and spread all over his skin he let it slowly gnaw at him. Kind of like how she imagined a cheese-grater would on bone. For a moment, blinking up at him and seeing a flash of black in the reflection his glasses showed her, she wondered what his bones would look like when she was finally done with him. Maybe like something had been chewing on them.
“But I don’t want any of those.” The statement was muttered through front teeth that bit down on the inside of her lip, with enough force in her tone to get her point across. She didn’t like those cell-phones. She wanted a different one. She was going to have a different one. An outsider might have looked at her behaviour and called it worryingly bratty and in need of correction. Paul Fells just seemed to deflate a little.
“Sweetheart—” He sighed. “You wanted a smaller phone. So it fit in your hands better. Remember?”
Sweetheart? Ew, he was being all nicey-nice, like Mommy called it. She hated it when they were like that. “Yes. Or we wouldn’t be in the store,” she shot back flatly, annoyed that he was treating her like one of all those other kids. If he annoyed her much more her tail was going to stab him, she just knew it. She always got restless and wriggly before stuff like that happened. “But!” She squirmed out of his grasp and ran to the other side of the store, reaching up on her very tippy-toes to get the one she wanted. It was bigger than all of the other, sure, but at some point that had stopped mattering. “Look!” A BlackBerry. She held it out to show her Daddy, all sweetness and light, and kind of proud of herself for getting it down off of the wall without climbing on anything. “It’s like a mini computer. Nooo, not for you, your hands are too big. For me.” For the first time in a while, he actually laughed. Briony had forgotten how irritating a noise it was. The one she had in her hand hadn’t got a battery in it though. That was just annoying. “Can you show me how one of these works?” She looked up at the man behind the counter whose teeth were now chattering so much she thought they might break and fall out of his head. Haven’t even touched you yet. But I’m gonna. She’d never seen anyone have that reaction to her. Not that fast. Maybe his eggshells had all broken. Except now he wasn’t answering her. After blinking at him for a moment, Briony tilted her head to look at Daddy, confused.
Paul frowned at the young man, then cleared his throat. “Excuse me. – Excuse me, my daughter would like to see how one of these works.” He sounded somewhat authoritative as long as you paid no mind to the fact it was a nine year old who wanted a better look at a BlackBerry and he made no effort to assert his own authority over her. Briony smirked inwardly – and blinked when his voice seemed to register more with the shop assistant than hers did. That was wrong. That was very wrong. She wasn’t at all pleased by it, not even when he brought the right one over. She knew fear did strange things to people – enough horror movies that she was way too young to watch said so – but she didn’t like this kind of strange. It was annoying.
Her fingers curled around the hem of Paul’s coat as she gave it a gently tug. “Daddy, he’s not saying anything.” How was she supposed to know how to use the thing if he hadn’t shown her? Yes, because she was telekinetic, but if there had been an explanation involved – the kind with words said out loud – then people seemed to feel better. Otherwise kids understanding technology was apparently kind of creepy. And something she prided herself on.
“No, he’s—” Paul readjusted his glasses on his nose as though a better look at the shop assistant would make him talk. “Excuse me.”
Briony slid her fingertips across the buttons on the front of the little but not quite Briony-little device and sighed. If he said ‘excuse me’ one more time, someone was going to get hurt. And anyway, she was kind of sure she might have broken the man behind the counter. Which wasn’t her fault. Well, it was, but it wasn’t. The buttons on this thing were like a mini keyboard though. Cool. “I’m going to wait outside with Mommy,” she declared suddenly, sliding the display BlackBerry onto the counter and only pausing to give the shop assistant an odd look. Now he was muttering to himself. That she had seen before. “Don’t forget it’s that one I want, Daddy. Not any of the others.”
“We’ll get you one, don’t worry.” Though by the way he was fidgeting with his glasses, he didn’t seem to think it would happen right now. But it would. It would because she had said so. He knew that was how it worked.
Her red, patent-leather mary-janes clicked together as she stopped to beam at him over her shoulder. See? Their family time didn’t always have to be so tense. Now where’d Mommy get to with their ice-cream?