Dark
Canon one-shot. I can't say I'm extremely proud of it, but obviously I'm okay with it enough to post. Meh. It's kind of sporadic and non-coherent.
Ennis del Mar is afraid of the dark.
He is coming on forty-five years old. He has two daughters, for whom he vanquished monsters under the bed countless times. He has five grandchildren, who all see him as the most fearless man to ever live. He works with animals that could crush any one of his bones with a wrong move, and he doesn’t bat an eye.
And yet he sleeps with a light on every night.
He doesn’t fear the boogeyman or robbers or goblins. It isn’t even the ghosts that bother Ennis-no; the one ghost he knows lingers around him doesn’t bother him at all. He welcomes the company.
Ennis del Mar is afraid of his memories. Or, rather, he’s afraid of forgetting his memories. With every day, he loses a little more of the man he let slip away. Piece by piece, drop by drop, a little Jack Twist fades out of Ennis. And it scares the life out of Ennis.
The daylight is good for Ennis. The bright blue sky is Jack’s eyes; the sun is the twinkle of his laugh. The dark is when things get murky. The dark doesn’t hold concrete reminders of Jack. Ennis can think of plenty of things he and Jack did in the dark, but he can’t see Jack’s face in the dark. Night is cold, and Jack was not.
Ennis sleeps with a light on so that when he wake in the night, whether his pillow or his sheets be wet, he doesn’t even have to turn his head to see the only piece of Jack he can hold in his hands.
And he has to be able to see that.
The dark twists those shirts, morphs them into something shadowy, something menacing, something completely different from Jack. Jack, with the easy smile and the bright eyes and the smart mouth and the warm arms. No, Ennis can’t tolerate the dark.
Just one more thing to add to his list of irrational, irreparable fears.
Ennis del Mar is afraid of the dark.
He is coming on forty-five years old. He has two daughters, for whom he vanquished monsters under the bed countless times. He has five grandchildren, who all see him as the most fearless man to ever live. He works with animals that could crush any one of his bones with a wrong move, and he doesn’t bat an eye.
And yet he sleeps with a light on every night.
He doesn’t fear the boogeyman or robbers or goblins. It isn’t even the ghosts that bother Ennis-no; the one ghost he knows lingers around him doesn’t bother him at all. He welcomes the company.
Ennis del Mar is afraid of his memories. Or, rather, he’s afraid of forgetting his memories. With every day, he loses a little more of the man he let slip away. Piece by piece, drop by drop, a little Jack Twist fades out of Ennis. And it scares the life out of Ennis.
The daylight is good for Ennis. The bright blue sky is Jack’s eyes; the sun is the twinkle of his laugh. The dark is when things get murky. The dark doesn’t hold concrete reminders of Jack. Ennis can think of plenty of things he and Jack did in the dark, but he can’t see Jack’s face in the dark. Night is cold, and Jack was not.
Ennis sleeps with a light on so that when he wake in the night, whether his pillow or his sheets be wet, he doesn’t even have to turn his head to see the only piece of Jack he can hold in his hands.
And he has to be able to see that.
The dark twists those shirts, morphs them into something shadowy, something menacing, something completely different from Jack. Jack, with the easy smile and the bright eyes and the smart mouth and the warm arms. No, Ennis can’t tolerate the dark.
Just one more thing to add to his list of irrational, irreparable fears.