Disclaimer: Intelligent Systems is almighty. I am not.
"Brady! What are you doing?" his mother's strict voice cut across his ears. "It's not proper to be kneeling in the dirt like that! Come, stand up tall and straight now, just like I've taught you."
He jerked away from her, shielding his face. "It ain't nothing, Ma! Just leave me alone!"
She harrumphed, pointing her parasol dangerously close to his face. "Is that any way to speak to your mother, young man? I had hoped that you would be more distinguished. I see now that my future self may have neglected addressing quite a few things in your upbringing."
His voice quivering tremulously, Brady shouted at her. "I thought I told you it ain't nothing! …An' I can't even remember you from the future," he mumbled as an afterthought. The effect was ruined, however, when the arm he held in front of his face muffled his voice so thoroughly that she barely even heard the first half.
"Brady dear!" she gasped. "Are you crying?"
He sniffed. "An' so what if I am?"
"There there, Mother's here now." Picking up her skirts and daintily picking her way through the mud to where he squatted, Maribelle stood beside him and patted him on the back. "Now whatever is the matter?" she asked.
He opened his mouth to deliver another entreaty for her to leave, but before he could, she caught sight of what he had been sobbing over.
"My word!" she exclaimed. "Is that…" she sniffled precariously.
Brady looked up at his mother, wide-eyed, embarrassment forgotten. He'd never seen her lose her composure to anything other than annoyance or anger before.
"That poor, delicate little flower!" she burst into tears, sobbing ungracefully. "Look at how it struggles and blooms in such harsh conditions! Such bravery! Such admirable persistence!"
"Aw, Ma!" Brady exclaimed. "Ain't nobody else ever understood my sentimentalness!" he bawled while rubbing the tears from his eyes. "But I can't help feeling sorry for that little guy, sticking it to the man."
"Brady!" she admonished between sniffles. "The word is sentimentality! And please, for propriety's sake, stop using those double negatives."
"Ma…I can't help it!" he replied. "I done spoke like this my whole darn life!"
She pouted and conceded defeat. "I suppose it would be rather strange if all of a sudden you started speaking properly."
It was silent for a while as they contemplated the flower.
Brady grinned, his boyish grin marred by the tears spilling down his face. "I bet we look right like two goofs, sittin' in the dirt and bawling our eyes out over a silly little flower."
It was that very moment when his father decided to walk by. "Erm…hey, Twinkles, this isn't a bad time, is it?" he cocked his head questioningly.
"What do you think?" she cried, turning her tear-stained face towards him. "Is this a good time, Gaius?"
He took stock of the situation – his son and wife, sitting in a pile of dirt, crying all for the sake of…a flower? "…my first guess would be no," he replied. "So…I'll just leave you two alone for the time being, okay?" he chose his words carefully, slowly treading backwards. "Give you some nice…mother-son bonding time, eh?"
After he had retreated back to the safety of his tent, Gaius decided that he would never understand that particularly quirky trait of the family.
A/N: So apparently in my mind, Gaius is Canadian, eh? Brady's speech style is super hard for me to pin down x-x. …Done with letter K!