axilet
in
dn_contest
Week #102 - Abandoned
Title: Priorities
Characters: Light, Soichiro
Rating: G
Word Count: 530
Summary: In the dark, the boy waits for his father.
Notes: Yes, I am so original.
The boy waits. The candles have long since been blown out, the cake put into the refrigerator for the next day. In the dark the debris of the party skittles along the floor like strangely-shaped mice, and their whispers turn into half-formed words in the boy’s too-imaginative mind. The clock chimes in every now and then in clear, crystal tones. Every time lights pass the door, the boy will jerk out of his light doze, hope in his eyes; only to slump down again in something that is very nearly disappointment.
(He is a big boy now. Only babies cry. He will not cry.)
Of course he will be fast asleep when the right lights glare through the door this time, and his father’s heavy boots thud down on the step. But he stirs, and wakes, when his father lifts him gently in his strong arms, and bear him towards his own bed and the softly snoring sister that lies not far away. “Dad?” he whispers, and feels the steady steps stop, just a moment-but not the heartbeat, beating reassuringly beneath the warm shirt.
“I’m sorry, Light,” his father says, quietly. “I wanted to be here-”
“It’s okay,” the boy says in his clear, beautiful voice. “I understand.”
And really, he does. There’re more important things that his father has to do. More important than some stupid birthday that comes round every year, anyway, and time and thieves running away wait for no man.
And so like a big boy he suffers his father’s kiss with a certain smile that children start to acquire around their parents after a certain age, and lets his father tuck him into bed. And like a big boy he turns his face to the wall and has to swallow past the lump in his throat, rub at his itchy eyes, long after his father’s feet have gone away down the corridor.
It isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last; as the boy understands it, Crime Does Not Sleep, and so for a long time neither does he, staring at the blank greyness of the wall and wondering; of the criminals stopped this night, the criminals born this night, and the deeds that never changed but for the hands that committed them. He wonders how many his father has put in jail. Not enough, it seems. Never enough.
Where do they all come from?
Finally, he sleeps; and in his dreams he looks down upon the city with a wise and benevolent God-eye, and picks up those who have gone bad; boxes them up carefully, in grey and featureless cells, so that they can never escape and harm anyone else again. When he stacks them up they form a tower that nudges against the sky, and here he laughs in childish delight as the men within shake their tiny fists at him in rage. All who pass look upon him and his tower in wonder, and among them is his father, waving and laughing, for once out of his uniform, and his face is young and unlined.
“I’m so proud of you, Light,” he calls.
In his sleep, Light smiles.
-end-
Characters: Light, Soichiro
Rating: G
Word Count: 530
Summary: In the dark, the boy waits for his father.
Notes: Yes, I am so original.
The boy waits. The candles have long since been blown out, the cake put into the refrigerator for the next day. In the dark the debris of the party skittles along the floor like strangely-shaped mice, and their whispers turn into half-formed words in the boy’s too-imaginative mind. The clock chimes in every now and then in clear, crystal tones. Every time lights pass the door, the boy will jerk out of his light doze, hope in his eyes; only to slump down again in something that is very nearly disappointment.
(He is a big boy now. Only babies cry. He will not cry.)
Of course he will be fast asleep when the right lights glare through the door this time, and his father’s heavy boots thud down on the step. But he stirs, and wakes, when his father lifts him gently in his strong arms, and bear him towards his own bed and the softly snoring sister that lies not far away. “Dad?” he whispers, and feels the steady steps stop, just a moment-but not the heartbeat, beating reassuringly beneath the warm shirt.
“I’m sorry, Light,” his father says, quietly. “I wanted to be here-”
“It’s okay,” the boy says in his clear, beautiful voice. “I understand.”
And really, he does. There’re more important things that his father has to do. More important than some stupid birthday that comes round every year, anyway, and time and thieves running away wait for no man.
And so like a big boy he suffers his father’s kiss with a certain smile that children start to acquire around their parents after a certain age, and lets his father tuck him into bed. And like a big boy he turns his face to the wall and has to swallow past the lump in his throat, rub at his itchy eyes, long after his father’s feet have gone away down the corridor.
It isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last; as the boy understands it, Crime Does Not Sleep, and so for a long time neither does he, staring at the blank greyness of the wall and wondering; of the criminals stopped this night, the criminals born this night, and the deeds that never changed but for the hands that committed them. He wonders how many his father has put in jail. Not enough, it seems. Never enough.
Where do they all come from?
Finally, he sleeps; and in his dreams he looks down upon the city with a wise and benevolent God-eye, and picks up those who have gone bad; boxes them up carefully, in grey and featureless cells, so that they can never escape and harm anyone else again. When he stacks them up they form a tower that nudges against the sky, and here he laughs in childish delight as the men within shake their tiny fists at him in rage. All who pass look upon him and his tower in wonder, and among them is his father, waving and laughing, for once out of his uniform, and his face is young and unlined.
“I’m so proud of you, Light,” he calls.
In his sleep, Light smiles.
-end-