DETERRENT - Apply Fic

12

For the first time, Benji does not join them for dinner.

He left no instructions, no explanation of his absence. The other farmhands are loitering around near the farmhouse. Typically, Benji drives them off the farm, somewhere, usually an hour before dinner is ready. Halfway through their meal, Eurydice catches a glimpse of movement out the window. She keeps her head down, watching, waiting.

No one opens the door though. Benji doesn't come.

"When..." Gale trails off than clears his throat. "When should we get worried?"

"About the farmer?" Norbu looks up then almost laughs.

"Pretty sure he can take just fine care of himself," Faris says. He looks to Harvey, hoping or expecting a response of some kind.

"Hopefully his stupid truck crashed into a wild animal," Eurydice snarls.

Harvey shakes his head, "don't get your hopes up."

They sit around their empty plates.

"Where do you think he goes?" Norbu looks at Cosmia and Calath. "You guys have been off the farm. What's out there?"

Their first evening is hazy, overexposed flash from the bright sunlight. Cosmia thinks back to the ride in George Rooney's truck to his fruit farm. His orchard was much larger than this lot, populated with teenage and child workers, and the occasional older folk. Trees in perfect rows, grass while manicured. Sweet air, smelling of fruits Cosmia remembers from when she was a child, when her siblings still lived.

Calath doesn't remember. They were focused on the bumpy ride, eyes closed, hands resting on the metal and counting every twitch from every petal.

"We drove like, ten minutes most, but didn't pass anything along the way," Cosmia shrugs. "We weren't driving fast though."

A fly lands on Benji's plate. Harvey raises a hand to brush it off but then stops, hand half in the air. He could kill the fly, probably. He could let it fester. He reaches forward and grabs his water glass. The bug flies away, buzzing loudly by Harvey's ear.

"There's a trading post somewhere," Titus says. "It's where he gets the flour. Apparently there's an internet café too, but I don't know if that's near the trading post or even farther."

"Looking for a job, Ace?" Eurydice snorts. "Even a North Marcadian wouldn't higher you."

Faris gets up from the table, taking his plate and bringing it over to the sink. Eurydice looks at Kae, and winks. Kae shivers.

"We're having a bonfire," Rhiannon Rose says.

"She speaks," Eurydice rolls her eyes. "Was beginning to think when you passed out the farmer cut out your tongue too."

Rhiannon Rose straightens her back. It's painful, after the five days of farmwork, but then she's taller. Her ginger hair is frizzy from the hat, fly aways from her hair tie sticking straight up in the air like flashes of lightning. She turns her nose up.

"Only imbecilic need to hear their own voices to remember they have them," Rhiannon Rose says. "I speak when I have something worth saying."

Just at the shift of her posture, Titus shifts too. He sits up straight, in her voice hearing the snap of his father's belt against his back. Be quiet, upright, perfect and prim. Titus hadn't realized how relaxed farmwork made him. The physical grueling labour, somehow a relief. Is this how Caius feels? In Underpass City, with a ceiling so low that his brother's shoulders are hunched? In the MFZ, listening at night to make sure organ sellers or worse don't snatch him from within a sleeping bag? Does he feel free too?