Don't you worry, don't you worry child

[neededlassie]

Who: Shaun Mars neededlassie and Norman Jayden triptoprofiling
Where: the inn in Goldenrod
When: Sunday 10/6, 1800 hours
Summary: Shaun left his sketchbook sitting out when he went to go train. Unfortunately for him, he's traveling with a psychologist.
Rating: PG - PG-13 for themes inherent in Heavy Rain HAHAHA SLAMS A SPOILER WARNING UP HERE AS WELL
Log:

Shaun came back into the inn, his pokemon back in their balls, looking like he had a weight on his shoulders. It was a bad look for an 11-year-old, but tomorrow was a day that he wasn't looking forward to, and this was the first non-rainy day all weekend. He sighed and headed for his room, shrugging off his backpack and digging through it to pull out his sketchbook.

Panic closed over him when he didn't find it. It wasn't there. He upended his backpack on the bed, sending pokeballs and crayons rolling everywhere, but no sketchbook. He looked under his pillow, pulled the sheets back on his bed, looked underneath it.

He let out a sigh of relief when he saw it sitting on the desk, not even realizing that that wasn't where he left it.

Comments

[triptoprofiling]

Seconds ticked one by one as Norman sits quietly in his room. Now, Norman is a quiet man: non-confrontational and very much likes to keep to himself. But then at times (especially when traveling) he loses sight of who he was before. An agent of the United States government for starters but that title doesn't hold much merit here. What he is good at is reading people and all of this time he has kept a close eye on Shaun Mars.

His knee shakes under the rhythm of the clock. As nice as it would be to forget everything he can't. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be right for Shaun. It would be right for Ethan Mars...

I suppose you can consider this the 'calm before the storm'.

And so he thinks... He ponders on how to approach the situation. Norman rests his head on his folded hands. If anyone were to see him now they'd probably think he is in a completely different world right now. One man lost inside of that brain of his.

That is until Shaun finally returns...

His head cranes over by his bedroom door, idly observing the boy settling in. He waits a few more until Shaun enters into his own room. With a short breath, Norman grabs hold of his knees before he stands up to approach Shaun.

It won't be easy. As if it ever was for the two of them....

He knocks on the door.

[neededlassie]

Shaun didn't know if Norman was in the inn or not, and he definitely hadn't contemplated the possibility of the agent having looked through his sketchbook. By the time that Norman knocked, he had settled in at the desk with crayons and was sitting there with the sketchbook open to the last drawing that he'd done.

He picked up the navy blue and was just about to start scribbling in the rain when he heard the knock at the door.

"I'm coming!" he called, hopping off his chair and going over to the door. "...Oh. Hi, Norman." He looked up at his guardian with an expectant and confused look on his face. "What's wrong?"

[triptoprofiling]

He greets Shaun with a small smile though his eyes look tired and full of concern.

"Hey..." he starts. "Can we talk for a minute?"

A brief man to man talk. That's what it should be for Shaun. An opportunity to let it all out and find some closure in all of this. At least that's what Norman hopes for...

[neededlassie]

Shaun wasn't sure he liked where this was going. Sure, they'd had man-to-man talks in the past, but usually Norman waited for Shaun to come to him.

Nothing good ever came of grownups asking if you could just 'talk for a minute'.

"Sure," Shaun said uncertainly, standing aside to let Norman in. "What's going--" he saw his sketchbook still open on his desk, and ran over and shut it immediately, turning around and blocking it from view. "What's going on?"

[triptoprofiling]

"I don't know, Shaun" he says as he walks into his room. "You tell me. You've been real quiet lately. 'Wanna talk about it?"

No cutting around, no adding fluff into this. Just straight and to the point. Norman finds a seat on top of Shaun's bed.

[neededlassie]

"...Not really," Shaun said, sitting down in the chair and promptly taking an interest in the pattern of the carpeting. What was there to talk about?

"It's been rainy."

[triptoprofiling]

"Yeah..." Norman looks up at the window. Clear for the most part but the weather was not in their favor the past several weeks. "Real lousy weather"

His attention turns back at Shaun, watching him stare down at the carpet. "Shaun-- It's okay. You can talk to me. I haven't forgotten about it."

[neededlassie]

Shaun was quiet for a long moment, scuffing the carpet with his shoe. He wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't sure what Norman wanted to hear, and at the moment he was so far from fine that that was a higher priority.

"It doesn't feel like it's been a year," he said finally, his voice quiet and a little lost.

[triptoprofiling]

"No. It doesn't. Feels like a couple of weeks flew by" he leans forward with his hands tented together.

Norman couldn't be one to admit that it feels time has completely stopped here. Everyday it becomes the same ol' routine but it nothing ever particularly different besides the pokemon around here. He's stuck in complete chaotic tranquility.

"Everything before happened clear as day. But I think you see things differently. It...It isn't your fault though."

[neededlassie]

Shaun pulled his legs up onto the chair, holding his knees close to his chest and burying his face into them. He wasn't crying yet, but he was trying to send off as many "I don't want to talk about this" vibes as he possibly could. His chest hurt just thinking about it, but that last sentence popped his resolve like a balloon and he hunched his shoulders miserably and mumbled into his knees.

"I shouldn't have gone with that man. Maybe if I'd just walked home after I got off the carousel then Dad wouldn't be..."

[triptoprofiling]

"That wasn't your fault, Shaun. Another person decided to hurt you and other people too. You had nothing to do with Ethan..."

He pulls back.

"Your dad loved you. He would've done anything to protect you."

[neededlassie]

"I just wanted to find my dad," Shaun mumbled miserably, a hiccup shaking his small frame as he squeezed his eyes shut. He'd gone through stages of this with his counselor, in the months when the wound was still fresh and he was still practically mute about it.

Talking to Norman now, he was right back there, waking up in the hospital and being told that his dad was dead. His dad had rescued him, just like that man said he would. Shaun whimpered out a sob, fingers digging into his jeans.

"I know...I know he did... He came to save me..." He drew a shaky, hiccuping breath, still not lifting his face from his knees. "Why did he have to die?"

[triptoprofiling]

"That doesn't make it your fault though" Norman is well aware that any of this can't be sorted in a short time span. And so he sits there watching the kid overcome his emotional turmoil, fingers laced together sitting on top of his lap.

"There are a lot of things in life that don't make any sense. No matter how unfair they are. And we don't know when and where it's coming from. But what happened a year ago, Shaun--"

There is a brief, pregnant pause of silence.

"Ethan would've done it again if it meant you being alive and well. That's his life."

[neededlassie]

Shaun said nothing for a long moment, just sobbed into the knees of his jeans, right back in the park on that October day, helpless and stuck on the carousel as his dad turned and left the park. That unique fear of separation that bled into your veins and froze you over washed over him now, and he whimpered because unlike then, when his dad had walked off and he was in the park scared and alone, when he was in the well waiting, and the man was telling him his dad would be there soon...

He knew he'd never see his dad again.

"I know," he choked, because that was all he could say. He could still remember his dad telling him never to forget, no matter what happened, that Shaun was the most important thing in the world to him. "I know, but... he promised he'd never leave me again."