search within (searchwithin) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-07-20 16:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | #november 2017, brianna, brianna x sebastian, sebastian |
Who: Brianna and Sebastian
When: Early afternoon, Sunday, November 5th
Where: Home, in the backyard
Status: Complete
Since her talk with James the other night, Brianna had been keeping herself busy with work and other projects that would keep her distracted, though it was difficult to concentrate much on everything currently happening within her. As James had said, yes it felt good, and she could certainly feel a change in so many things, especially physically, but she still had to figure out what all of this meant for her, and for her family. Something had happened. Something significant, and it needed to be dealt with. James had told her to take the weekend to think about it, but Brianna knew her husband well enough to know that he would want her to learn magic, whether she agreed to it or not. They were stubborn people, but she feared James would be the successor in this argument.
She spent most of the morning working in her office, avoiding her family. She doubted they would notice, or care, but at some point she heard the mower start up in the backyard. Sebastian, she thought. Honestly, she was a bit surprised he was even home, with how busy his social life generally was. Phee was probably holed up in her room with a book, and James… who knew where her husband was right now. Brianna stared at the double windows in her office for a moment before she stood and walked over to them. She could see the top of Sebastian’s red hair below, where he had begun to mow their lawn. They had enough money to hire people for that particular job, but giving their children some household chores invoked a sense of responsibility in them. At least that’s what the parenting magazines always told her. Brianna had never wanted to raise spoiled, entitled children, and she felt like she and James had done a pretty decent job with the three of them.
Brianna watched her son for a few more moments before she turned and left the office to head downstairs. It was a gray day, but Brianna was comfortable in jeans and a soft sweater, and she didn’t bother with shoes as she stepped outside into the backyard. She walked around the pool, aware that it would need to be cleaned and emptied soon, before the snow started. James would hire someone to come do that for them. Brianna walked to the edge of where the stone patio ended and the steps led down onto the grass. She sat on the top step, her arms resting casually on top of her knees. Like with James, Brianna could feel something different about Sebastian. Something that had always been there, but out of her reach because she had never attempted to trigger her own abilities. Shunning magic had always been to protect herself, and then to protect her children, but now it was there and there was nothing she could do about it. What would happen now? Were they all in danger?
She sighed, well aware now that if she felt Sebastian’s magic, he could probably feel hers, the way James had. Certainly they weren’t as powerful as James, but magic was magic, and you couldn’t bury it once it had been awoken. Brianna waited until she was sure Sebastian spotted her before she lifted her hand to motion for him to come see her.
While Sebastian had actively avoided his mother on Thursday evening, since then he’d just been busy enough that it happened on it’s own. With school, then the pep rally, then the football game on Friday, he’d barely even said hello, and then Saturday he spent working on college applications, then going to the movies with Hunter. He’d seen Brianna in passing, just long enough to know something was different, but it wasn’t until later that he realized he could feel her magic for the first time. Even though he knew that magic ran in her family, it was still startling to feel it there, like it had been missing before. He thought about asking her about it, but decided against it for now, certain it would be a long conversation that led to a lecture that he’d rather avoid.
He put off doing his chores as long as he could, but then dragged himself outside on Sunday afternoon, hoping to get it all done so he could go hang out with Greg later. Basketball would be a good distraction and he needed the practice if he hoped to make the team again this year. He had just finished with the lawn when he saw his mother, sitting on the patio steps, up by the pool. Sebastian waved back and started her way, but his mind was already racing around what she might want. Greg was probably right-- he was keeping too many secrets and it was making him paranoid. “What’s up?” He asked, giving her a little smile as he headed up the steps.
"Why don't you sit with me for a minute," Brianna suggested, patting the step beside her. It had been awhile since they had spoken, and Brianna knew it had been a mixture of avoidance and just general busyness. Their family was extremely adept at pretending problems didn't exist within it, but this felt too big to ignore. She and James kept their not-so-secret secrets from one another, but Brianna didn't want that to be the case with her kids. "I think we should talk. Quite a bit as happened over the past few days, and it doesn't make any sense to ignore it at this point." Brianna had to admit that she was curious about Sebastian. She had been harboring suspicions about him for awhile, going so far as to snoop through his room for any clues as to what he had been getting up to, and now this happened. She couldn't say for sure if it was a coincidence or not, but she needed to try and find out.
Sebastian stared at his mother for a beat, then took a seat, opting to turn sideways and stretch out on the step below so he could face her, rather than sit beside her. There was a lot he could say, but he didn’t know where to start and he was pretty sure that he’d just end up giving himself away, especially when he didn’t know how much she knew. Did she know about the weird from last Wednesday? Did she know their dad had agreed to teach them? Did she know he knew she was a witch? And if he could feel her magic, his dad definitely could. Had he known all along? “What do you want to talk about?” He asked, hoping that might prevent him from revealing his whole hand from the start.
Brianna huffed a tiny laugh as she looked out around their yard. He probably wouldn't appreciate hearing it, but Sebastian reminded Brianna a lot of herself. Never give too much away in an answer until one knew the reason behind the question. "For a few weeks now, I've been feeling as though you've been hiding something," Brianna began, her green eyes ticking back to Sebastian. "I remember being your age and being curious so I couldn't have blamed you if you were going through the same growing pains I had." She paused and searched his face, looking for any sign of deception or discomfort. "Were you practicing magic?"
God, he hated direct questions. They were the hardest for him to respond to, sure that if his expression didn’t give him away, his poor excuse for a lie would. Even worse if he started blushing. He huffed a sigh, pretty sure his mother could read the answer on him without him having to say a word. “I dunno, depends on when you’re asking. Were you?” He asked, turning the question back around on her. He knew she hadn’t been before, but now he could feel it, his own element repelled by a fire that had to be hers.
"Sebastian," Brianna said, only a hint of the annoyance she felt slipping into her tone. His non-answer was essentially an answer, one that caused Brianna to want to rage at him and blame him for whatever was happening to her now. Had this been what her mother warned her about? If one of them practiced magic, something terrible would happen? Was this terrible? It didn't feel that way. It felt intoxicating, even now, several days after the fact. She didn't appreciate him turning the question around on her, given she was his mother. "You know how I feel about magic," she continued, sounding a hell of a lot calmer than she felt. "There were reasons for leaving it alone. Something's going on, and I need to figure out what it is and how it happened."
“I already told dad, I was in my room, doing homework,” Sebastian snapped, quickly rising to his feet. He did know how she felt about magic. He also knew that she couldn’t control him his whole life. He was almost eighteen. Once he moved out, she really wouldn’t have a say. Besides, this couldn’t possibly be his fault. He was ready to stop away and find some chore to work out his frustrations, something more effective than cleaning the pool. That had always soothed him. “So was Phee,” he added. “Why don’t you call Trip and accuse him?”
Brianna's brows drew together in confusion as Sebastian got to his feet. She slowly rose to join him, not ready to let him stomp off in a fit just yet. "What are you talking about? What exactly do you think I'm accusing you of?" He was defensive, which told Brianna he must have done something. Or something happened and he didn't want to take the blame for it. Brianna was struggling not to lose her temper. She had never been the most patient of women, but while she might have kept certain things from her family, it felt like things were being kept from her now, and she did not appreciate it, not in the slightest. "What happened, Sebastian."
Sebastian froze, just on the verge of losing his temper, yet aware that he was making things worse. How did she not know what he was talking about? Didn’t she just say that she knew something was going on? Was she just fishing and he’d fallen for it that easily? “Wednesday night, things went-- it was like they exploded. And now I can tell that you-- Why didn’t you tell us? I always thought you were weird about magic because you couldn’t do it, but if you’re a witch, why?” That’s what he couldn’t wrap his head around. She wasn’t just denying them out of safety; she was denying herself.
Exasperated, Brianna ran through her hands through her hair before they fell onto her hips. Wednesday night had been when she felt the same sort of magical explosion inside of her and ran off the road. It had happened to Sebastian too. And probably Phee. "Practicing magic has its consequences," she snapped, her own temper rising far too quickly for her to control it. "And it's dangerous. There is a reason why my family stopped practicing, why I was never allowed to. Reasons that you are still far too young to truly understand. But something happened, Sebastian. Is Wednesday night the first time you felt your magic? You hadn't been experimenting prior to that evening?" If he hadn't, then it had to have been something else and Brianna needed to know where to begin.
“What do you mean ‘the first time I felt my magic’? I’ve been feeling it since I was thirteen!” Sebastian said, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “How could you not feel it every time you lit a candle? Or built a fire in the fireplace? Do you really think I can swim, or even take a shower without feeling it? How did you bury it so deep that you couldn’t even feel it? I can’t. And I don’t want to. I’m sure it can be dangerous, but it can also be good. Your family might not have taught you, but it was your choice not to learn. You can’t stop me forever.” He was breathing hard by the time he finished, angry and frustrated enough that he hadn’t even realized he was standing up to his mother for probably the first time ever. But at some point, she no longer had a say. She couldn’t tell him what he was ‘allowed’ to do once he was an adult. If she’d let her parents continue to do that to her, that was her own fault.
"There are reasons my family didn't teach me," Brianna shouted, unable to keep her simmering emotions from bubbling over any longer. "That's what you don't understand! Do you think they just ignored their abilities for the hell of it? Because they were scared of the power or they felt it was an abomination? No. It was more than that, Sebastian. I wasn't trying to control you, I've been trying to protect you." Breathing hard, Brianna turned, one hand on her hip, the other at her mouth. She hated losing control and lashing out, and it felt harder to rein in her emotions lately. Inhaling deeply, Brianna turned back toward Sebastian, trying to speak more calmly now, even if her voice shook with tension. "Our family, my family, had been hunted for years, decades even... by someone, or something. They realized they were being traced through their use of magic and the only way they were able to stop it was to stop practicing and turn off that internal GPS. It wasn't an easy decision, but when you want to survive, you sacrifice. If our magic has been triggered now, I don't know what they means for me, or for you, or Phee, or Trip. This wasn't a decision I made lightly, do you understand me?"
“Maybe they were being hunted down because they cursed people to death!” Sebastian snapped, his own voice rising to match hers. It wasn’t until he said it that it clicked, an internal switch that he’d been doing just about everything not to flip. What if they’d broken the curse? What if that was what he felt Wednesday? It was his blood they’d used, but it was Baron blood they’d needed, magic that ran through him and Ophelia and their mother. Sebastian paled as his skin prickled, a sudden urgency to confirm seizing him, but this would be a horrible time to text Reagan Kelly. Sebastian swallowed hard. “If you could fix it,” his voice now calm and quiet, but still determined. “If you could stop the cycle and save lives, would you do it? Or would you keep hiding because they told you to?”
Brianna stared at Sebastian, her brows drawn together in confusion and curiosity. "What are you talking about?" she asked. She would have had to have been blind not to see the way his expression changed, how his skin seemed to pale, as if something triggered in his memory. It made her pulse quicken and an uneasy feeling began to form in her gut. Brianna stepped forward, closer to her son, her voice lower now. If James was home, he might have heard them shouting, but she didn't want her husband to hear any of this. "What do you know, Sebastian. What's going on? Don't lie to me." She had to force the last few words out, fighting back to the urge to shake him. He knew something. This wasn't just coincidence anymore.
Sebastian glared at his mother and crossed his arms over his chest. He couldn’t decide if she was bluffing or if she really didn’t know and had just been blindly doing as her family told her to for years now. Would he have done the same if he knew they were being hunted? He didn’t know, but being told it was a ‘danger’ clearly hadn’t been enough. “I know you’re a descendant of Abigail Baron, a witch who put a curse on two other families centuries ago. I know that their descendants have been dying because of the curse. One or two people, every generation. And that they needed a Baron descendant to stop it.” It was a story that had run on repeat in his mind between finding out they needed his blood and actually giving it. It would have been one thing if they’d needed him to perform a spell himself, but all they’d needed was his blood. He could give them that, couldn’t he? Even when he thought it was something far more grotesque, he’d been willing. He couldn’t stand to think that someone might die because he refused to help.
Brianna's confusion didn't dissipate, if anything it grew deeper. Sebastian had clearly been talking to someone. Another witch, probably. It infuriated her that he had sought someone else out, or perhaps they had sought out Sebastian. A surge of protectiveness overwhelmed the anger and she realized there was someone out there who could have hurt him. How had they discovered who he was? Who they were? Was it his magic? Someone who was clearly filling his head with ridiculous lies and it frightened her, because Sebastian sounded so sure of himself. "Who on earth told you that?" Brianna looked flabbergasted, shaking her head slowly as she studied Sebastian. "That's not true, Bastian. Why... where did you hear this? Tell me."
He immediately began to shake his head. No way was he telling her who it was. If he still wanted Reagan to teach him, he didn’t need his mother marching into her shop and causing a scene. Or worse, he didn’t need his father getting involved. But then James had offered to teach them as well. That said something, didn’t it? That his dad didn’t think it was putting him and Ophelia in danger? He didn’t know who to believe, but he was confident Reagan and Caius hadn’t been lying to him. They’d seemed too desperate, too surprised when the spell they were doing was triggered by his magic. If it was a lie, it was the most elaborate one he’d ever seen. “They had no reason to lie to me,” he said, still shaking his head, unable to believe Reagan’s intention was to hurt him. She’d helped him. Hell, she’d saved Hunter’s life. “They were just trying to help. They did more than you would’ve.”
"They," Brianna repeated. More than one. She inhaled deeply, aware that she could find out who they were if she really wanted to. She could certainly keep a closer eye on Sebastian, that was for sure. "What do you mean they did more than I would have? What did they do? If you believed this insane story, why didn't you come to me? How do you know they're not lying, did they show you proof of any of this?" Brianna's eyes widened a touch. They needed a Baron descendant to stop it. "Oh god, did they want something from you, Sebastian? Did they ask you for anything?" Her suspicions had been right. He had been up to something, only she had been too late to discover what it was. She was asking a barrage of questions, but her mind was working overtime now, trying to figure out exactly what Sebastian had done, if maybe he was the one who had caused those magical surges Wednesday night.
Nope, nuh-uh, no way was he answering that question. If it had freaked him out, his mother would die. He’d be grounded for life. Sebastian went another route, flabbergasted at the idea that he might go to her. “You don’t want to hear it! You want to snoop around my room when I’m not there, and accuse me of bringing home something that might have a spell on it, like all magic is dangerous and all witches are evil and out to get you. I’m not gonna let you make me feel guilty for being what I am,” he said, and the statement hit home so hard he had to take a breath. “What we are. We can help people. And I’m tired of being helpless. If I’d asked you, you would’ve told me no, so I didn’t bother asking.”
Brianna's jaw tightened as Sebastian spoke. He was a young man, but he was still a child in so many ways. If he had come to her and told her all of this, who knows how she might have reacted. She might have tried to figure out the truth behind it. Instead he had kept secrets and was talking to other witches about her family. That wasn't okay. "I have no idea what you've done, because you won't tell me. But you've done something," she said, her tone low now. "And if you're not going to cooperate with me, Sebastian, I'll figure it out and deal with it on my own." Brianna turned away from him and walked up the step to the porch so she could head back inside. "Until then, you're grounded. If you're not at school, you're here, do you understand?"
“You can’t ground me for maybe doing something you might not approve of!” Sebastian yelled back at her, angry that she got the last word just because she said so. He knew intrinsically that that was how it worked, that she was his mother and she made the rules, but it seemed unfair to punish him if she didn’t even know why. “Ask them,” he called out, so mad he was shaking as the wind swirled unnaturally around him and condensation prickled on his skin. “Ask this-- this family that won’t even talk to us if we’re descendants of Abigail Baron. Someone has to know.” And if not, he could prove it… Right?
Brianna stopped and turned to face her son. She felt it too, the heat inside of her, flowing out to her fingertips and her toes. There was no way to control it, so she tried to breathe to keep it in check. "I already know who we're related to. I know a lot more than you think I do. Who we're related to is not what's in question here." Storming toward him, she clenched her hands to resist pointing at him. "I don't care how angry you are right now, you do not shout at me. I'm your mother, whether you like it or not. And you're not grounded for maybe doing something I don't approve of. You're grounded for not being truthful with me."
“If you knew about the curse, you would’ve let them die?” Sebastian asked, his heart clenching as he tried to accept that reality. How could she do that? How could their whole family give up magic just to ensure that they weren’t found, that the curse kept going? He’d seen the desperation in Reagan’s eyes, the relief that they might’ve found a cure. That was real. “I haven’t lied to you,” he said, quieter now, hands balled into fists at his side. “That was you. For years. Great example.” If this was what it meant to reveal secrets, he was better off keeping them.
"You don't even know if this curse is real," she pointed out. "You're taking someone's word for... well, I don't know why. You won't tell me who they are, or what they wanted from you." Brianna studied his face, a lot of her boiling anger settling into a dangerous simmer beneath the surface. Children always thought they knew better than their parents. Her secrets had been to protect her family. Sebastian's secrets might have just put them all in danger, but no, he wouldn't think to recognize his role in all of this. She took a breath, her expression calm now but for the heat in her eyes. "Grounded," she repeated simply before turning to head back into the house. "And if you say one more word, Sebastian, I'll turn off your phone too."
The anger in Sebastian’s eyes simmered down, leaving such raw emotion that he tore his eyes away from his mother. Who could he trust at this point? Someone was lying to him and he didn’t understand why. The manipulation stung, as did the implication that he’d done the wrong thing, something he couldn’t take back, that he was too young and too foolish to know what he was doing. He didn’t say another word, not wanting to risk his phone, and let her leave before sitting down on the step and dropping his head to his hands. What if he’d made the wrong decision? If he’d somehow doomed his own family, how could he live with that? There had to be a way to fix it.