DN -- Frail
Title: Frail
Collection: The Margins
Fandom: Death Note
Character: Watari
Rating: PG
Word Count: 338
Warnings: none
Summary: In which the world is just, and unjust, and just again.
Author's Note: ♥
FRAIL
She had always been frail. But it was a beautiful thing, the pale and peculiar delicacy of her white hands and the gentle waves of her sunrise-yellow hair, and he cherished it as he cherished everything about her. She loved him before she knew about his money, and she insisted, with a surge of the opalescent fire that gleamed in her silver eyes, on a small ring, a small ceremony, one small life made of their two. She had wild, incredible, ingenious plans, and her voice grew softer and softer the more excited she became until she whispered with her lips to his ear.
He had used to slide his fingers nightly through the silk of her hair, coaxing the snarled strands into harmony, breathing in her voice. He stroked it still as she lay fading into the white sheets in the sterilized hell of the hospital bed.
He had always bemusedly thought of her as a visitor, as a guest, as a half-celestial gift that heaven would have to take back someday. He wasn’t much for sentimentality, but he was starting to believe it.
The cancer opened its cool arms, and all he could do was hold her tightly until it won.
She smiled at the last, as a wasted finger slid from his grip, the simple ring greater than its circumference now, and closed her eyes.
For many years he thought he’d forgotten how to feel.
And then he saw her eyes again-no, not hers, not the same, but… right.
Wide gray eyes, curiously appraising his face from behind a haphazard curtain of hair like pitch, endowed with an unnatural intelligence and an insatiable interest, and he knew.
As he touched the frayed wool coat over a shoulder already bent, already employed to hide the boy to which it belonged, and took a tiny mittened hand in his; as the wind nipped his ears and snowflakes melted on his cheeks-he felt warm.
And he knew, with a quiet, dawning certainty, that this was right.
Collection: The Margins
Fandom: Death Note
Character: Watari
Rating: PG
Word Count: 338
Warnings: none
Summary: In which the world is just, and unjust, and just again.
Author's Note: ♥
FRAIL
She had always been frail. But it was a beautiful thing, the pale and peculiar delicacy of her white hands and the gentle waves of her sunrise-yellow hair, and he cherished it as he cherished everything about her. She loved him before she knew about his money, and she insisted, with a surge of the opalescent fire that gleamed in her silver eyes, on a small ring, a small ceremony, one small life made of their two. She had wild, incredible, ingenious plans, and her voice grew softer and softer the more excited she became until she whispered with her lips to his ear.
He had used to slide his fingers nightly through the silk of her hair, coaxing the snarled strands into harmony, breathing in her voice. He stroked it still as she lay fading into the white sheets in the sterilized hell of the hospital bed.
He had always bemusedly thought of her as a visitor, as a guest, as a half-celestial gift that heaven would have to take back someday. He wasn’t much for sentimentality, but he was starting to believe it.
The cancer opened its cool arms, and all he could do was hold her tightly until it won.
She smiled at the last, as a wasted finger slid from his grip, the simple ring greater than its circumference now, and closed her eyes.
For many years he thought he’d forgotten how to feel.
And then he saw her eyes again-no, not hers, not the same, but… right.
Wide gray eyes, curiously appraising his face from behind a haphazard curtain of hair like pitch, endowed with an unnatural intelligence and an insatiable interest, and he knew.
As he touched the frayed wool coat over a shoulder already bent, already employed to hide the boy to which it belonged, and took a tiny mittened hand in his; as the wind nipped his ears and snowflakes melted on his cheeks-he felt warm.
And he knew, with a quiet, dawning certainty, that this was right.