Benjamin was standing at one of the many first-person-shooter game setups in the mall's arcade,... and was apparently quite into what he was doing, taking down alien after alien. What better way to unleash anger than blowing up digital video game characters? Benji had just destroyed his eighth game in a row, ... and even if the game wasn't exactly the most challenging one, it did let off some of the frustration he'd had after that phone call with Keye.

Jerk, he thought, the second he remembered Keye.
Pow, there goes another little green alien.

Benji looked far too big to be playing video games, and,... well, pretty odd, other than that. His height, weird hair, oversized hands, pack of keychains clipped to his jeans... in fact, he was getting stares from some twelve-year-olds who were milling around, but he ignored them.

Stuid jerk, calls and then he- (blows up another alien).
Rrrg.

Taryn doesn't play video games, but she does like to watch them sometimes. Occasionally the graphics are interesting, and sometimes they have mildly entertaining background stories. It's a way to pass the time, anyway.

Thus, she was wandering into the arcade, wondering if there was anything interesting happening, and whether there was someone who wouldn't mind her staring over his shoulder for an hour or s...

Keye?

No, wait, too tall, and his hair was the wrong color. But wow, he looked an awful lot like her friend. (Almost boyfriend? Well, not yet. And maybe not for a long time, either.)

Curiously, she slipped over next to him and watched as he blew up alien after alien.

"Hi."

He turned his head to look at her, revealing a face that she probably knew quite well. He smiled in a friendly kind of way, then looked back at the game.
"Hi there," he said. "If you're waiting for this game, I'll be done in just a sec. I just have to finish this level, then it's yours."

Because what other reason would she have for talking to him, if she wasn't waiting for her turn?

"Nah, I don't play. Just watch other people play."

His mannerisms weren't Keye's, she noticed.

"I'm Taryn."

She's really rather remarkably good at this kind of thing, when she wants to be. Making 'friends' with random people, I mean. Usually, though, she doesn't. She has enough acquaintances.

"Oh. 'Kay," he nodded. Yay, an audience.

He paused the conversation while he destroyed the alien spaceship, then it was game over. He turned and leaned against the machine, and smiled at her. Winning, and blowing up imaginary things always made him feel better. He offered to shake hands.

"Hi, Taryn. I'm Benjamin. Or Benji. Or Ben. Whichever," he said, shrugging a shoulder.

She accepted the offered hand, shook it briefly, and let it drop.

"Nice to meetcha."

Now, how do you bring up something like this? Well, there's always the direct approach...

"This is gonna sound weird, but you look an awful lot like a friend of mine..."

"Weird? No, not at all. You're only the third person to have told me that," he said, smirking. He crossed his arms, looking bemused. "In fact, betcha I've met this friend of yours. Is his name Keye Tomlinson, by any chance?"

Being a relatively easygoing person, he didn't automatically assume that any friend of Keye's would be an enemy to him. And Taryn seemed okay, so as long as she was nice, he would be, too.

"Mhmm. That's him. But you're a little bit taller, I think" And she's decided that from the fact that she has to look up just a little more to look at his face than Keye's "And your hair's a different color. Also, he wears sunglasses all the time" And she knows why, but she won't tell "And you aren't. Who were the others?"

Taryn isn't sure if she likes Benji or not, but his resemblance to Keye actually works in his favor. She trusts and likes (and maybe likes) Keye, and so maybe she can trust and like Benji.

"Some guy named Bo, and a Dr. Barclay," he said. "...Yeah, I'm taller than Keye is, I've met him. And his hair's dyed, or it'd be the same color as mine." He indicated his hair by brushing at it with his fingertips. "I dunno why he wears the sunglasses, though."

He wasn't showing any dislike for Keye yet because, well, it wasn't that he disliked him,... he just thought he was being a stubborn jerk. Benji had something of a low tolerance for those he considered to be stubborn jerks.

"Bo and Dr. Barclay. I'm sorry," she said, sounding as if she really was sorry he'd met them. (Not really, just almost.) She might have blushed a little when she said Bo's name, and blanched a little when she said Alexander's. Guess why.

And again, while she knows why he wears the sunglasses, she isn't going to tell without good reason.

"So, you like him?" Keye, not Bo or Alexander.

He made a face.

"Now, what kind of question is that?" Benji said lightly, but went on to answer anyway. "If you really want to know? I think he's bein' a real asshole, excuse my language. He didn't send you to talk to m- no, no he wouldn't have. Never mind."

"No, he wouldn't, and no, he didn't. But now I'm curious. I know Keye can be really, really stupid, not on purpose, so what did he do that made you so mad?"

And can she help?

Here we go again; Taryn wants to fix things.

"Okay,- I'm going to give you the long-version explanation here, so bear with me. You should know - I'm adopted. Just telling you so the rest of this makes sense," he said, giving a sigh and settling back into the game machine as if this was going to be a looong story. "A little while back, I crossed Keye's path for the first time. It's pretty shocking to run into someobody who looks almost exactly like you, y'know? And then we find out the weird stuff. We have the same birthday. We're the same age. 'Course, never seen each other before."

He sighed.
"So, he did some digging to find out if we're related. Apparently I was abandoned-" he frowned. He hated the thought of it now. "-and he thinks he knows who did it. He knew something and he wouldn't tell. Bastard hung up on me, and when I called him back, he was still like 'get outta my life'. So - I hang up. End of story. He doesn't want me, then I don't want him."

She listened as he told her what had happened, then didn't say anything for a few moments, thinking over what she knew of Keye and the story, and coming to a conclusion that didn't fit with the end of the story.

"... I don't think he doesn't want you..." she said at last, as if she were puzzling things out aloud. "More like... he was upset, and he didn't want to think about what was upsetting him... and that involved you. Or whoever abandoned you."

A tiny smile. "He told me once he always wanted to have siblings."

"I still don't see why he wouldn't tell me. I even offered to meet him so we could talk about in person,- figured it'd be easier than over the phone. He didn't want to. Wouldn't tell me anything. Just randomly yelled 'Fuck you' into the phone and hung up," Benji frowned at the floor, squeaking the heel of his sneaker on it. "He said he wanted siblings? Could have fooled me. Looks to me like that's just what he doesn't want."

"Keye hardly knows you," she pointed out. It was a guess, but an educated one. "There's a lot of stuff that he doesn't tell people, especially when he hardly knows them. I don't think I know all of it, either." She knows she doesn't. Keye doesn't know all of hers.

"Well, okay,... but I asked him to do that research so we could find out a few things, not so he could find out and then ditch me," he said, not realizing that the bit that he hadn't been told had nothing to with the 'research'. If he'd just put two and two together, he might clue in.

"Well, he did the research, right? And he told you, right? Maybe what he found out upset him, or reminded him of things." She can imagine how upset she'd be if she was doing research and was suddenly confronted with something she'd been trying to live past...

"It's really easy to do, you know. It's really, really easy to find stuff that you don't want to remember."

Benji shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

"Okay, I see where you're coming from,..." he said, sounding mollified until he added,
"But did he really have to be such a jerk about it?"

"Maybe not. Maybe he didn't realize he was being a jerk. He actually moved about a month and a half ago, and forgot to tell one of his friends. And then when he realized it, he was too scared to try to talk to Darcy, so I made the phone call for him. Or maybe he was too upset to think about how you would be reacting to the news."

Come on, Benji, try to see it from Keye's perspective, if you can.

"He didn't sound upset. He sounded pissed," Benji said, but he was smirking. And not nastily, either."I dunno what reaction he'd be expecting from me - can't know, since he wouldn't talk... Heh. That was the point when we pretty much bit each other's heads off."

He chuckled a little, tangling his fingers in his hair. The expression on his face was both silly and ashamed. "He told me to get out of his life, - and I called him a whiny bitch."
He laughed again, but quieter. He hadn't told the complete truth - after all, his parting shot had been , 'Who wants to be related to a whiny bitch like you'. Which made the insult quite a bit more hurtful than it might have been.

"It's easier to be angry than it is to be upset. Less draining. And people don't think you're a wimp." Pause. She looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Or a 'whiny bitch,' but I guess it didn't work this time."

Another pause.

"I think you should talk to him."

"I- I dunno..." he frowned, biting his lip. "In case you didn't catch that last bit, we pretty much told each other 'go away and I hope I never see you again'. And I'm not calling him."
He paused.
"Not that I won't talk to him. Just, not by phone."
He let go of his hair and began toying with the keychains clipped to his jeans. "I mean, we prob'ly do need to talk. But I'm not gonna go find him if he really doesn't want to see me. Seriously, we haven't considered that. What if he really doesn't want me around?"

"Well, I could talk to him. I'll ask him." It isn't as if she hasn't done it before. "I could call him right now, even, if I had a cell phone or something."

And she's certain that he didn't mean to chase Benji away like that, because she can't imagine Keye wanting to do something that potentially hurtful. Because he's really quite a sweetheart.

"I have my cell," he offered, slowly and somewhat reluctantly removing the phone from his pocket and flipping it open, then holding it out to Taryn. "But he's probably still angry - I know I still would be. If he's got caller ID he might see my name from the phone, and not answer...."

"Well, we can try. And if he doesn't answer, I'll call him from my dorm room, later." She should really see about getting an apartment; the dorms aren't so great for longterm stays, despite that being what they're for.

"Okay," Benji nodded. "Well,... go for it."

He really hoped, for Taryn's sake, that Keye wouldnt pick up the phone and start yelling right away.

She took the phone and dialed Keye's number, hooking one finger over her lower lip and swaying from one foot to the other. Despite her assurances that of course Keye wanted a brother, she wasn't so sure he would answer the phone if he saw who was doing the calling.

Ring, ring...

Luckily, Keye isn't in the habit of checking the number before he picks up the phone--he can count the people who call him on one hand, and he isn't used to Benji being one of them.
"Tomlinson here."

"Hey, Keye? 's me, Taryn. Um... so I kinda met somebody today." She's not quite sure how to go about this, unfortunately, but she'll do her best.

"And I don't want to stick my nose in where I'm not wanted, but I don't think I should leave this alone, 'cause, well, it wouldn't be right if I did, and..."

Get to the point, honey.

"Uh..." A long moment, while Keye racked his brains for what she could be talking about and came up with nothing. Slow on the uptake, remember? "Um, sorry, Taryn, but...um, what're you talking about?"

"Benji." She paused, and then she went on as quickly as she could, hoping that he wouldn't get upset and hang up on her, or something. (Hopefully, her status as his friend would make him more inclined to listen...)

"I mean, I kinda ran into him, here at the mall, and he told me sort of what happened between y'all two" Funny how she slips Texan slang like that in when she gets in a hurry "and I thought that maybe I could help you talk it out and understand each other and stuff. Like, mediate, you know?"

"I..." suddenly, his voice lost its energy completely. "I don't wanna talk to him...and he doesn't wanna talk to me..."

"He's willing to talk." There was a slight, unintentional emphasis on 'he.' She didn't mean to be manipulative, but she was pointing out that Benji was willing to try to mend things.

"C'mon, Keye, please? We can meet somewhere neutral, like, I dunno, Keaton, or something. My place. We don't have to explain more than will help him understand..."

"I dunno, Taryn..."
Darcy had suggested that he talk to Benji, explain at least why he wouldn't explain.
But.
"I...I'm...scared."

"I know. I'll be there, Keye. Nothing's gonna happen, 'kay? I won't let anything happen. If stuff starts getting bad, I'll throw him out." She glanced at Benji, hoping that he wouldn't take offense at that, but keeping her tone calming, soothing, as if coaxing one of the feral cats back home over to her for a petting session.

"It'll be okay. Come over, please?"

A long, breathy sigh from the other end of the line.
"Okay, I guess. I'll go."
Another long, uncomfortable pause.
"I was such an asshole."

"It's okay, Keye. We'll straighten it out. Promise."

Brothers fight. It's one of the things they do; though, granted, most brothers don't have quite as many things to fight about as Keye and Benji might, but they can usually find them anyway.

"So, let's meet now, okay? See you there, right?"