To be or not to be

[brandedfirst]

Brando has been busier than ever. There is always some crisis or another that needs taken care of either here or in other places, but he realizes that there are people who probably need to talk to him in the basement

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[worseforfears]

She should talk with him, really. About... lots of things.

She doesn't really want to, though. And she gets the feeling she'll try to lie, despite that being a very bad idea, if he asks how she is and what's going on.

So there's a skinny 19-year-old angel of death curled up in a chair as far away from the fire as she can get. But she's in the room.

And her head is rather loud.

[worseforfears]

Becky wants, oh so desperately, to be scooped into someone's lap, held like a little child. Just so she can cry and feel safe. Her mom used to do that - when her first boyfriend dumped her for one of her friends (she was almost sixteen, then, and it's one of her last vivid memories of her mother), she did it, and then they had ice cream and watched sappy movies together for two whole days. She'd stayed home from school and her mom had stayed home from work, and it was perfect.

But she's too grown up, now, too fucking grown up for a nineteen-year-old, too grown up to ask someone to hold her like she was five. So she just rests her forehead on her knees and tells herself not to be a cry-baby.

[brandedfirst]

Luckily for Becky. She doesn't have to ask. Not with him.

The memory, the want is vibrant enough in her head that Brando sees it and after a second he lifts her up so he can sit in the chair and he holds her as if she were his child.

His broken, hurting child.

He holds her like his arms can protect her and save her and make everything better.

[worseforfears]

It's surprising, needless to say, and Becky's first reaction is a startled frown, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

But then he's holding her and he's strong and warm and smells like she always thought fathers should smell like - aftershave and musk and something intrinsically safe - and she just... breaks a little.

She starts crying. Years worth of tears, since she learned to hold them back when she was sixteen. Tears for everyone she'd seen die. Tears for everyone she hadn't been there for. Tears for her mother, her friends, the father she never knew and probably never would know.

Tears for herself.

It's scary, and it's too open, too vulnerable, just asking to get hurt worse, but she can't stop now that she's started. So she just clings to Brando's shirt and buries her face in his chest and sobs.

[brandedfirst]

Brando places one hand across the back of her head and the other on her back. Strong and protective. The irrational feeling of anger fills him, but quickly dissipates. He's learned to calm irrational feelings with logic. There is no one to center his anger on. No one to stand in front of Becky to protect her from.

So he holds her tighter, allowing her to cry and cling as much as she needs. Trying to help her feel less afraid in her vulnerability.

[worseforfears]

It takes probably close to thirty or forty minutes for her to mostly stop crying. By that point, it's mostly brief shudders and hiccups.

She's pretty much completely limp against Brando, in danger of just... passing out from the amount of emotion that her body just dealt with.

[brandedfirst]

The charade can then continue as he picks her up, brings her to her room, and tucks her into bed, kissing her forehead softly and wiping the hair from her face before he leaves.

"Sleep well, my child." His voice is soft, but it carries as always.

And he doesn't go far away.

He's listening more intently to everyone in the basement now. Pushing all else aside and focusing on his children for tonight.