Sonatina [October 4th] [Chrome, Kokuyo; 6996] [Reborn!]
Title :: Sonatina
Prompt :: October 4th, “where the wild things are” [31_days]
Characters/Pairing :: Chrome, Kokuyo gang; 6996 implied
Rating :: PG
Wordcount :: 350
Summary :: She rarely sleeps, hating the quiet of the night and straining herself just to hear his voice.
She rarely sleeps, hating the quiet of the night and straining herself just to hear his voice. (She knows he could wake her, if there was a need, but choking back yawns is nothing compared to the choking weight of knowing she is a bother, and she clings to wakefulness as best she knows how.)
Ken and Chikusa make no sounds, sleep perfectly still on the other side of the room, and would be almost undetectable there in the dark, unless you knew where to look.
She knows why they developed the skill, lies awake and wonders if it makes him proud. She ponders what it felt like for them to run at his side, knows she would have been silent as well - she does not see him as overbearing but all-encompassing, and she knows not even words could slip past that guard.
She does not know how to be jealous, does not know how to want, but wonder still remains.
Even if it only makes the nighttime silence feel more wrong, because he is not there.
She shifts, waits for the wind to reach in and touch her, to move through her hair like a phantom caress. She waits for it to curl throughout the room and back, bringing her the reassurances that she is not alone - Ken’s scent and then Chikusa’s - before parting again with a final faint kiss. (Ken smells like earth and sweat and life, and even while Chikusa complains she finds it amazing that any one person can carry so much life within their skin. Chikusa is the opposite, scent clean and sterile and something like memories, like stark white rooms and overtly bright lights; and it should be discomfiting, if it didn’t also remind her that in more ways than one, they are the same.)
This is the only lullaby she knows.
She whispers to herself like a child saying prayers: thank you, thank you, thank you.
His name.
There are no blankets, but there is the staff clutched tightly in her hand, and her lips relax almost into a smile as she dreams.
Prompt :: October 4th, “where the wild things are” [31_days]
Characters/Pairing :: Chrome, Kokuyo gang; 6996 implied
Rating :: PG
Wordcount :: 350
Summary :: She rarely sleeps, hating the quiet of the night and straining herself just to hear his voice.
She rarely sleeps, hating the quiet of the night and straining herself just to hear his voice. (She knows he could wake her, if there was a need, but choking back yawns is nothing compared to the choking weight of knowing she is a bother, and she clings to wakefulness as best she knows how.)
Ken and Chikusa make no sounds, sleep perfectly still on the other side of the room, and would be almost undetectable there in the dark, unless you knew where to look.
She knows why they developed the skill, lies awake and wonders if it makes him proud. She ponders what it felt like for them to run at his side, knows she would have been silent as well - she does not see him as overbearing but all-encompassing, and she knows not even words could slip past that guard.
She does not know how to be jealous, does not know how to want, but wonder still remains.
Even if it only makes the nighttime silence feel more wrong, because he is not there.
She shifts, waits for the wind to reach in and touch her, to move through her hair like a phantom caress. She waits for it to curl throughout the room and back, bringing her the reassurances that she is not alone - Ken’s scent and then Chikusa’s - before parting again with a final faint kiss. (Ken smells like earth and sweat and life, and even while Chikusa complains she finds it amazing that any one person can carry so much life within their skin. Chikusa is the opposite, scent clean and sterile and something like memories, like stark white rooms and overtly bright lights; and it should be discomfiting, if it didn’t also remind her that in more ways than one, they are the same.)
This is the only lullaby she knows.
She whispers to herself like a child saying prayers: thank you, thank you, thank you.
His name.
There are no blankets, but there is the staff clutched tightly in her hand, and her lips relax almost into a smile as she dreams.