There are too few Baccano fictions. It makes me sad. It's so underrated!
This piece is trying to be a three-parter, focusing on Ennis and Czes's relationship. This is a general POV version, setting the stage, and the ones that follow will be from Ennis and Czes's eyes.
Disclaimer: I wish I was the genius that created this masterpiece...
The little brother charade lasted for all of about two weeks. There was something more difficult about pulling off such a relationship with someone you'd just barely met.
"Do you...still like being read to?" Granted the word still implied that someone from his past had read stories to the young boy once, of which Ennis wasn't sure about, but that wasn't really what she meant. The question was more about whether Czes, despite being two hundred some years old, liked being treated like a child.
His big dark eyes didn't exactly light up, but flashed a little at that. "Why?"
"I could read to you if you like. It's just a thought. I'll understand..." Ennis had never been a child. Czes would always be a child. It just made their understanding of one another all the more difficult.
"I wouldn't mind," the little boy replied with forced nonchalance.
Ennis didn't have any place to stay after Szilard was devoured. Neither did Czes. They both found themselves living in a much too small apartment with Firo, high up above a deserted street in New York.
"Okay. Come here, I guess." And since the apartment didn't have a surplus of rooms (they were lucky to get two out of the deal), Czes and Ennis shared a room.
Czes clambered out of his bed and cautiously crawled onto the foot of Ennis's, who already had a book picked out.
A look of surprise crossed the little boys face when she started reading him some sort of eloquent literature...only about a fourth as old as he was, but still very admirable.
Ennis stopped mid sentence and looked at the small child. He outdated her, but the look of wisdom that was usually in his eyes, the look that meant he'd endured many hardships, was gone for the moment. Czes looked like any child his age.
He tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Are you done?" he pushed himself forward onto his hands and knees and managed to scoot closer while still keeping distance.
Ennis chuckled. "It's like no one's ever read you a story before."
"No one ever has," Czes answered, deadly serious, "My guardian preferred other means of 'fun'."
"Your parents...?" Czes was already shaking his head.
"Never met them. He was all I had."
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that." It wasn't like Ennis knew just what Czes was implying about his guardian. But the way he said it, matter-of-fact and downright cold, invoked her sympathy. She reached out and stroked his hair.
Czes closed his eyes at her comforting touch. "You're the closest thing I've ever had to a mother," he murmured.
Ennis flinched visibly, and had it not been for Czes's closed eyes, he would have seen it. It had taken quite the while to actually put words to their bond. Yet now, here they were.
Czes had become less of the 'little brother' that Isaac and Miria had promised, and instead more of a son.
"We're kind of like a family," she replied, "You and me...and Firo. Two parents and their child. It's so normal. Normal is kind of nice, don't you think?" The little boy wasn't the only one who had a twisted biological family.
Czes nodded once, crisply. Normal was a little nice. It was unusual for him to let someone put their hand on his head, someone who was perfectly capable of devouring him, and not appear threatened.
The little boy sprang forward, sprang for lack of a better word, because his action was fast but calculated in a very Czeslaw sort of way, and hugged Ennis quickly, briefly.
Then he scurried over to his own bed, not turning back. But Ennis swore she heard him murmur, "Goodnight, Mom."
