[R] Think Fast! (Jayden/Sydney)

[Syusaki]

It had been a while since Sydney played in snow. By a while, she obviously meant ‘last year’, but to some that was a fairly short time. Some of her classmates, mainly those who had just recently moved into town for reasons only God knew, had never even seen snow in person. Utter blasphemy, thought Sydney. When she saw the first snow of the year, the redhead was absolutely giddy. Snowmen! Snowballs! Snow angels! She wanted to play in the snow so badly.

And yet here she was, stuck shoveling snow off the driveway. Looking more and more like a depressed prisoner with each shovel-full of white powder, Sydney finally stopped. Squeezing her eyes shut, she puffed out her cheeks—turned a light pink from the cold—and rested her chin on the handle of the shovel. A gloved hand reached up to pull down on her green knitted cap while her steady breaths came out in foggy wisps. She scanned the driveway. It was mostly clear now, but another few minutes of shoveling would finish the job for good. She would have vigorously continued with her shoveling had it not been for the usual clicking shut of the front door. Sydney grinned. Someone from inside was outside.

She spotted a shock of red hair as she scrambled to make a snowball with her gloved hands. It was Jayden. Perfect. “Think fast!” Sydney gleefully screeched as she threw the frozen sphere with experienced aim. It had been a while since the two had any fun times together. Probably because the emptiness that permeated the house drove Sydney off the wall. It still hurt inside, but mother wouldn't approve of all the moping either.  

[Fuzzy Quit]

The kettle whistled loudly, causing Jayden to jump, his blank stare out the white window disrupted. No, he hadn't yet again been ponding the last time they had had snow. No, he hadn't been thinking about how his mother used to make them all coco, set on the table, as she would call them in sopping wet from playing. No, he berated himself, he hadn't been moping or depressed.

Sighing, he emptied instant powder into five cups and pulled the kettle off the stove, carefully balancing his cane in the crook of his elbow. He poured each with cation, making sure to full them about two-thirds of the way. He finished the latter bit off with milk and added a few marshmallows. He put extra in the twins' and his sister's mug.

The next task would be a bit tedious. He had to carry each mug to it's recipient. His father was, as always, in his office. He smiled widely and set the coco on the shelf close to him. The twins where playing in their rooms and nearly spilled the cups all over Jayden out of excitement. They tried gulping it down, probably some sort of race, and both cried out when they successfully burnt their tongues. Chuckling under his breath he took slid on a jacket before grabbing the last two cups and making his way slowly out the door.

"Think fast!"

Jayden turned was met with a face-ful of snowball that nearly toppled him over, but he managed to balance himself on the cane. He fumed, "Wot, was th'really neccessary?!"

The snow slid off his hair and landed with a plop into one of the cups of coco. He sniffed, pretending to be insulted, and held it out to her, "Ahn here I was tryin' to be nice for once."  

[Syusaki]

“Yeah! Now you look absolutely dashing,” Sydney squealed in between fits of laughter, her breaths coming out in hasty puffs. She pressed the shovel into the deep snow, planting it firmly so that she could use it as support as she swayed around. As her giggles dampened her smile remained. “Heheheh, eh?” Her expression turned into puerile curiosity as he handed her a hot cup of coco. It was in a dark red cup decorated with tediously-done swirls and snowflakes—her specially decorated mug—and emitted lazy wisps of steam as the hot drink clashed with the cold air.

She remained silent, a feat that was becoming all too common with the excited chatterbox as she stared at the cup. Her mind flashed back to last winter when their mother always, without fail, made them hot coco. Having raised her children for so many years she knew exactly what kind of drink each of them, and it seemed Jayden had remembered well. Sydney’s smile began to fade. To think she had been trying so hard to forget!

But forgetting did not solve the problem.

“. . . did you put in lots of marshmallows?” she quietly asked after a long moment of being mute. Sydney did not bother to make an apology. They were siblings. Jayden wasn’t as annoyed as he seemed about the snowball. She curiously lowered her head to take a sip. Her face twisted into disgust. “It tastes watery.” Considering a small pile of snow slid into her cup of coco, it wasn’t surprising.  

[Fuzzy Quit]

"'Ah put enough," Jayden replied simply, "Sorry, s'not the same as...but better than nothing. Warm y'up at least." He didn't really want to talk about it now, so he just let the end of his sentence drop. He sat awkwardly for a moment and sipped the coco. His face scrunched as the hot liquid burnt the tip of his tongue.

Setting the cup down on the concrete, he leaned back on his cane, "Nice job on th'driveway Siddy. But..." he walked over to a small pile of snow off to the side of the driveway and flicked his cane, causing it to spill over the newly cleaned concrete, "Y'missed a spot."

He stick out his tongue at her and the last bit of snow fell off his hair onto it. He sputtered, but played it off as if he had done it on purpose, nabbing his coco back off the concrete and taking a swig, nearly burning his tongue again.  

[Syusaki]

He paused mid-sentence and Sydney smiled bitterly as she knew the name he had carefully omitted. “Ya, I guess,” she agreed. Sydney slurped up her coco, which had considerably cooled down from the pile of snow that had slipped into her drink. It was watery, but at least she could drink it without burning her tongue. Although it was not as warm as she preferred, her body felt at peace and less chilly now.

She grinned, laughing and sticking her tongue out at her brother. “Like you could do any better?” Sydney teased, “I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart so that you don’t have to hobble around with the shovel, ya know.” Her tone was lightly joking, but there seemed to be some truth underneath.

“So clever, Jayden. So clever,” she mock congratulated as she chugged the rest of her coco. Sydney happily sighed, licking her lips as she ambled over to the front stairs to rest her mug on. “Let’s play a shooting game with snow balls, ya? It’s been a while.” She attempted to sound casual, like their mother was still well and alive. “I can finish shoveling later.” An excuse to run away from her chores was always welcomed, so she bent down and rolled up another snow ball.  

[Fuzzy Quit]

"'Course I could do better, ah'm the King of Shoveling Miss," and he bowed as if he had introduced himself, then laughed. They both knew that he probably couldn't shovel to save his life, but it was a funny thought trying to imagine it nonetheless. Well, up until the face-eating-concrete part.

He watched as she bent down and rolled up a snowball, and quickly scooped some up to do the same. Clenching his can tightly between his body and arm, he rolled the snow as fast as he could. It was a tid bit powdery, so he had some trouble at first, but he managed to get it. At least it wasn't slush. Slush snowballs turned into ice balls and those hurt.

He held the snowball up in one hand, tossing it up and down readily, "A'right, but you'll probably have a bigger mess after this," he smirked.  

[Syusaki]

Her expression turned mock-curious as she cupped her chin and tilted her head, innocently musing, “Well, King of Shoveling, I wonder why you haven’t entered any shoveling contests?” She kindly ignored the fact that snow-shoveling contests probably did not exist.

While Sydney watched her brother out of the corner of her eye, she gathered handfuls of snow and messily packed them together. It was a mess of snowflakes at first, but careful sculpting soon turned the pile of powder into a full-fledged snowball. Secretly she thanked the beings above for reminding her to wear a pair of gloves as she shoveled. Usually she underestimated the cold weather and would be too stubborn to go back for gloves.

She mirrored his smirk, softly throwing her ball from one hand to the other. “Pft. It’ll be a breeze,” reassured Sydney as she stepped back and heaved her snowball with as much speed and accuracy she could muster.