Briony Fells (underyourskin) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2013-01-17 03:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-09-22, briony, daniel |
yes, but does your skin turn inside out?
Who: Briony & Daniel
Where: Amazing Grace
When: After school
Staring at the plastic thing that’d been put in her hand for her -- cell phone, BlackBerry, whatever -- Briony pouted at it thoughtfully, her mind automatically taking apart how it worked and sifting through the names and numbers while Rachel Fells talked at her. At her, not to her. Rachel did a lot of that. Hayden didn’t talk to or at her at all, recently. He shouted sometimes. Mostly when Paul told him he had to or else she wouldn’t know it was time to eat. Except she did because she wasn’t stupid and her tummy started going all growly. Also, they always ate at the same time. And together. Because Airla was dead. Two details that Briony didn’t think really had any relation to one another, but she didn’t feel like arguing about it.
“Listen to your mother, Briony, it’s important.” Paul’s voice had lost a lot of the... the... there was a word for it -- she’d have to ask Daniel or someone -- but he just didn’t sound as important or officially-the-dad like he used to. Which was her fault, and she knew that. She was proud of it even, and way Rachel fussed over him because he was ‘losing weight’ or ‘not eating enough’ fascinated her. Maybe he’d just waste and wither away and die! Then she wouldn’t have to do anything at all about him. “Tell her again, she didn’t hear a word of that.”
“Honey,” Rachel approached whatever subject this was like she was about to drop an elephant on eggshells. Which’d be dumb. “If you’re going to walk all the way to see Pastor Dan--” She was. They all knew she was. If they weren’t going to let her then she was only gonna fly there, so what would be the point in saying no? “--then I want you to stay on the phone until you get there.” Briony’s face slipped into a disbelieving frown. Her shoulders raised in what was going to be a huff but came out a regular sigh. Then she grabbed Rachel’s hand, feeling her own nerve endings spark ‘straight off the bat’, as Paul said. The little demon’s pseudo-mother didn’t need an extra nudge to take the device back and shuffle to a corner well away from the child that was not truly her own. She’d been broken for ages.
With a bright smile and a bubbling “Bye, daddy!” she’d run out the door. It was with a sulk, a stamped foot, and a “Daniel!” that she realised the older demon was not only on the roof of the church but that he’d flown up there like a... well, like a demon. “You couldn’t leave a ladder lying round?” she called, not even knowing if he could hear her as she shrugged off her jacket and climbed up one wall, using her wings to cheat and miss feet at a time. And get herself onto the roof rather than hang off the edge. It wasn’t until she stood and had fallen up one of the peaks twice that she fully realised she had climbed up the wrong side. “Your church,” she yelled, “needs landing strips. Okay?” The top of the peak was as far as she was going. She’d scuffed her knees well and good and she could see Danny-boy anyhow. Sat atop the peak like a strangely adorable but completely untrustworthy sculpture, she grinned and waved. “Boo!” No one ever reacted to that. It was usually what she did next that made them cry. But Daniel should probably have a ‘get out of jail... thingy’ for that.