When he hears the girl and the boy come clattering through the front door, Cassian lets himself quietly out the back.
He stays there in the garden, the rest of the evening. It's not unpleasant. The breeze is a little chilly, but he's got a jacket, and he listens to the quiet noise from the kitchen while the little family sits down to eat. Shakes his head and smiles a little at - at the father, when he looks out to check on him; later, I'll be fine, go on.
Eventually the kids vanish upstairs. After a long, long while, the parents do too. He watches the lights go out in the upper windows, and then slips back inside. In the front room the cage is covered, silent, and the chrono reads 1.42; there's no outcry when he lets himself down, carefully, on the sofa.
It snows, in his dreams: that steady, almost lazy fall, out of a sky so darkly clouded it might be almost any time. His hands are bare, chilled. The shutters are closed behind him, and his father urges him gently into the house. His father's face is Bodhi Rook's face, and the shape of the rooms is wrong, but Cassian is six or seven or eight years old and he says nothing, he's too grateful for the warmth, for the hand on his shoulder. We're home? he asks, and the hand on his shoulder comes up to ruffle his hair and a man's flat-accented voice says, Yes, we're home now, this is my brother, and he's tired, he's cold, he curls up in the corner where he knows K is, although he can't see him, and he signs with his small skinny fingers I dreamed you were gone and
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branchandroot
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Date: 2019-04-23 06:36 am (UTC)He stays there in the garden, the rest of the evening. It's not unpleasant. The breeze is a little chilly, but he's got a jacket, and he listens to the quiet noise from the kitchen while the little family sits down to eat. Shakes his head and smiles a little at - at the father, when he looks out to check on him; later, I'll be fine, go on.
Eventually the kids vanish upstairs. After a long, long while, the parents do too. He watches the lights go out in the upper windows, and then slips back inside. In the front room the cage is covered, silent, and the chrono reads 1.42; there's no outcry when he lets himself down, carefully, on the sofa.
It snows, in his dreams: that steady, almost lazy fall, out of a sky so darkly clouded it might be almost any time. His hands are bare, chilled. The shutters are closed behind him, and his father urges him gently into the house. His father's face is Bodhi Rook's face, and the shape of the rooms is wrong, but Cassian is six or seven or eight years old and he says nothing, he's too grateful for the warmth, for the hand on his shoulder. We're home? he asks, and the hand on his shoulder comes up to ruffle his hair and a man's flat-accented voice says, Yes, we're home now, this is my brother, and he's tired, he's cold, he curls up in the corner where he knows K is, although he can't see him, and he signs with his small skinny fingers I dreamed you were gone and