#sybelle.

the two are sitting on the couch in front of the vampire. the younger of the two , benjamin , has his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. he's eight to sybelle's , the girl with noise-canceling headphones who gazes at him with wondrous big eyes , almost eleven. her brother -- his stepfather -- is nothing short of a rotting corpse in the next room , but neither he nor sybelle is upset about that. no , fox deserved what he got.

 ❛ ❛    are you an angel?       ❜ ❜

benji grumbled something along the lines of , more like a djinn , but sybelle removes her headphones and does something she doesn't even do with him -- the girl throws her arms around this armand-that-isn't-an-angel-and-totally-a-djinn's waist in a very tight hug. she hates physical contact almost as much as she hates her hair touching her face , or how the way cotton feels on her skin , or most foods at the restaurant because it could taste different.

it almost makes benji want to trust this man. ( he hates the fact he hasn't been able to trust anyone , save sybelle , since he could remember. can't even remember his father's face or his brother. he hates that fox took that from him , just like fox took sybelle's eomma and their father from her. ) he wishes he could trust him. trusting got everyone he loved killed. trusting meant leaving palestine -- while amma often claimed that mumbai was her original home , that she only moved to palestine for his baba -- and leaving anything he knew of safety.

sybelle continues to embrace him. he will be wary , on alert for both of their sakes , but he can lend an olive branch to this supposed protector.