Summary: Some escape the night by sleeping. Some avoid sleep and embrace the night with open arms. And some just can't rest at all. Oneshot.
Warnings: No pairings. Spoilers for the Argentine arc. Manga-canon.
Disclaimer: I don't own DNAngel in any way, shape or form. I just use the characters for my own satisfaction.
This originally started out as a sleep study for just Dark and Krad, and then I expanded with the other characters.
I hope you enjoy it!
OOOO
Sleep Study
Dark likes sleep. He sleeps a lot. He sleeps during the night, when they aren't stealing things, and he takes lots of naps during the day, especially during those boring parts when Daisuke is at school.
He likes sleep. He likes the way it passes the time without him doing anything. It's hard to do things when he's just a voice in the back of a child's mind and has no body of his own. If he had his own body, he would do all sorts of things to amuse himself.
But he doesn't, so he can't, and teasing Daisuke during class and watching him turn bright red for no reason is only amusing the first dozen times.
So he sleeps.
If he was asked, he would be able to spout a whole mess of reasons why he loves sleep. It passes the time, it keeps him from being bored, and have you seen the girls in his dreams? Ooh la la.
What he doesn't tell anyone, what he would never tell even if tortured, is that sleeping makes him feel a little more human.
He's part of an ancient artwork and he's a curse in the Niwa blood (even if he doesn't admit it, even if he and Daisuke like to pretend they're co-existing together, he knows what he is). He doesn't actually need sleep.
But humans sleep. And Dark hasn't ever been human, despite how long he's habited humans' bodies.
It's something, in his heart of hearts, that he wants.
So he sleeps a lot, and he likes it, because when he's sleeping, it's like he's a little more human than when he's awake.
XXXX
Daisuke used to get to bed at a reasonable time. Despite all the traps his mother set him every day, he could always find himself in bed by nine. At least. Ten, if he had homework. He always was able to get up well in the morning, but he enjoyed his sleep.
That's changed ever since he started becoming Dark. Now, they're stealing things all the time and staying up all hours of the night, and more than once Daisuke has been so tired that he's found himself drifting off in class.
So when he sleeps, he dives in headfirst and clings to it. He sleeps, and he dreams.
Sometimes he dreams of a normal, everyday life. A life where he's not a Phantom Thief, but just a regular kid with a girlfriend and a best friend. Once upon a time, he dreamed about dating Risa, but now her hair is shorter and her attitude a little more boyish, and in his dreams Daisuke holds Riku's hand and smiles at her.
In those dreams, Dark and Satoshi are far away, standing in a wreath of mist. Daisuke can't see their eyes, but he imagines they're sad. Every time he dreams, he waves them over, trying to get them to follow him, but every time, they turn and walk away, with a flap of white and black wings, and Daisuke understands. In this dream of normalcy, they have no place.
Sometimes he dreams things of a more magical natures, warnings and messages brought to him by ancient artworks that invade his mind. He usually wakes up from those dreams gasping, and goes to his canvas and paints until morning comes around, because if he tries to get back to sleep, he's afraid that he'll fall back into the nightmare.
He used to ignore those dreams, even after all this time, and them by the time he realized what they meant, it was too late.
After one too many times, he's started paying more attention to the nightmares now.
XXXX
Daiki likes to go to sleep at a reasonable time, earlier than his grandson does. He used to spend all day and all night up, flying on the Phantom's wings, but he's an old man now. He'll leave the thieving to the young people. He gets his second winds occasionally and goes following after his daughter when she's come up with some hare-brained scheme to help Daisuke, but most nights, he sleeps early and wakes early.
In the morning, he's typically alone, except for a pair of artworks, and he'll take a cup of tea and sit on the back porch, watching the sun rise, streams of pinks and blues and oranges. And he'll sip his tea and reminisce about the old days.
Kosuke doesn't sleep a lot. He's spent so many years researching old tomes and texts in far-away places long into the night that he's more or less trained his body to survive on only three or four hours of sleep a night. Long after everyone else has gone to bed ---even on the nights that Daisuke stays out to steal something--- Kosuke will be found in his study, poring over a book or tome, trying to find an answer somewhere. Most nights, he doesn't even know what question he's trying to solve, but he's sure that he'll know it when he finds it.
When he finally falls asleep, curled up over his desk, he'll wake with an aching back and a stiff neck. Most nights a blanket will be draped over his shoulders, and he'll get up, stretch, and pad out to the kitchen. He'll get a cup of tea and join his father-in-law on the back porch, and they'll simply sit there, watching the sun rise.
They don't need to exchange words to say all they need.
Emiko goes to bed once her son is tucked safe in bed. It doesn't matter how long he's been out for tonight's job---she'll wait up for him. She'll stand in the doorway, watching him sleep, a fond smile on her face or a frown for all the bruises and cuts, before allowing herself to go to bed. Just to make sure he's still there; just to make sure the Hikari boy didn't hurt her son too bad tonight.
She always wakes up at least once a night ---more if Dai-chan's been roughed up--- and go to that door, and watch her boy. When she was told she'd be the mother of Phantom Thief Dark, they never told her the kind of anxiety she'd face. But then, this is the sort of thing all mothers go through, once in a while. She just has it a little worse than most.
Then she'll get a blanket and pad silently to her husband's den, draping the fabric over his hunched shoulders. Occasionally, if it's too late and she knows he hasn't had a decent sleep in a while, she'll prod him to semi-consciousness and guide him to bed, but most nights she'll leave him where he is. With a gentle kiss to his forehead and a snap as she turns off the lights, she'll leave Kosuke to his dreams and pad back to bed.
She's always awake before Daiki and Kosuke wake. She can hear them moving downstairs, can pinpoint when the back door slides open once…twice…
She always breathes a sigh of relief when she hears the door slide open a second time. She's so relieved that Kosuke is here now, because he'd been away for so many years…
When she hears Daisuke start to stir in the next room, she gets up and starts to make breakfast for her little thief.
In the daylight, her worries don't seem so bad.
XXXX
Towa and Argentine don't need sleep. Being magical artworks, they've never needed sleep, and even though they've been awoken, they still have no need to sleep.
Most nights, Argentine stays down in the basement, running his hands over damaged and broken art pieces and gently restoring them to their former glory. He can't repair their souls, but he can repair their broken bodies. There are so many pieces of art work here, gathered over so many years that he thinks he'll never finish.
Once in a blue moon, a part of him will ring with worry ---though he wouldn't be able to name the feeling--- and he'll run his hands over a statue's leg or a painting's face, carefully undoing the restoration he'd completed. Like that one fairy tale, undoing his work during the night so he'll still have something to do during the day.
Though the rational part of his mind knows that Niwa Emiko would never let a prize like him go, though he knows that his creator gave him freely to the Niwa family, he still worries, and undoes his work.
Towa spends most of her nights on the rooftop, watching the moon and the stars spin above her head. Sometimes when she closes her eyes, she can still feel the salty sea air brushing over her face on top of that lighthouse tower. When she opens her eyes, she's always glad to be here, surrounded by other people, in a family that wants her and won't let her fade into obscurity. She's not alone anymore.
Occasionally, once in a blue moon, she'll listen to Argentine's magic working backwards, undoing what he'd so carefully restored. Those nights, she'll climb down from her rooftop vista and flutter down to the basement, where she'll find herself a nearby perch and watch him. He always gives her a melancholy glance, and she never says anything.
On those nights, she'll watch and he'll undo his work until the sun comes up and the Niwas begin to move upstairs. Then she'll hop down from her perch and brush herself off, and Argentine will shed his old cloak and climb into the butler's outfit without protest, and they'll go up the stairs together.
Once in a blue moon, they put aside their natural animosity as snake and bird and sit together in silence, because it's so much better than spending the night alone.
XXXX
Risa and Riku used to sleep together in the same bed. Even when they shared a room and had different beds, their parents would come in once the sun rose to find the two girls curled up around each other. Finally, the Harada adults gave in and pushed the two beds together, giving the girls one large bed. They were going to sleep together anyway.
When they got older, they got separate rooms, right next to each other. They pushed their beds against the room's adjoining wall, and when Riku climbed into bed at night, she could sleep knowing that her sister was just on the other side of this wall. And so far, she's managed to spend most nights alone, without her twin at her side.
But there are times (like when Risa was kidnapped; she'd been so scared) when she'll get up and creep into the next room. Risa's room is full of frills and pink things and stuffed animals, much girlier than Riku's boyish room. But it smells like Risa, and Riku can hear her breathing.
And when she climbs into Risa's bed and curl up under the covers, Risa's body snuggles close, and Risa will sigh in her sleep and curl up against her.
When their parents wake them in the morning, they never say anything.
They know that sometimes the girls need each other to sleep the night through.
XXXX
Lately, Risa has been having trouble sleeping. It's all Argentine's fault, really.
After her kidnapping, after talking with Argentine, she's started…wondering things. Something about what he was saying, along with a dozen other worries, makes her question who Dark really is. That day at the amusement park changed so many things, and she doesn't know what to do or think.
Dark isn't a monster. He couldn't be.
And even if he was, Risa would love him. She sees him, and she loves him, and that's all there is to it. She knows that Riku thinks it's stupid, just a silly crush that will fade when the new boy comes along, but Risa knows that's wrong. Risa really, honestly loves Dark.
She knows she can't have Dark. That day at the park was goodbye. But she wonders.
And then there's White Wings, who's saved her twice now, and she still doesn't even know what to call him. It doesn't seem fair.
Lately, Risa's been having trouble sleeping for all the questions running through his mind. So when she hears her door click open and Riku climbs into her bed, she snuggles into her twin and feels better.
She'd always felt better sleeping in the same bed as Riku. They're two halves of a whole. Opposite, and so very similar.
Two halves of a whole…white and black…dark and light…
With questions whirling through her mind like monochromatic feathers, Risa closes her eyes and holds her sister and tries to get to sleep.
XXXX
Takeshi has the ability to fall asleep almost as soon as his head hits his pillow. Though his father snores louder than a sawmill, after all these years Takeshi is used to it, and he just drops away.
He doesn't dream often, but when he does, he's always the main character, with the biggest scoop on Dark, and for once all the girls are flocking around him and giggling and cooing, and Takeshi will wake up with a silly grin on his face and the taste of success in his mouth while Daisuke stands in the background and pouts for god-knows whatever reason.
Sometimes he'll dream weird dreams where Daisuke turns into Dark and vice versa, but he brushes it off as the influence of that commercial Dai was in all those years ago.
After all, there's no way his clumsy friend could be the esteemed Phantom Thief.
Besides, Takeshi dreams of one day doing the exclusive when the thief gets caught by his father. And if Dai is Dark, then Takeshi would be reporting on putting his best friend in jail.
Takeshi much prefers his normal dreams to the weird ones.
XXXX
Hiwatari Kei sleeps peacefully. He has no regrets on his soul, and though everything he's done is for (mostly) his own selfish greed, he doesn't feel bad in the slightest.
He always falls asleep with a smile on his face, and wakes up with plans in his mind.
XXXX
Satoshi doesn't let himself sleep often.
When he sleeps, he has dreams that terrify him, dreams of blank red eyes and a laughing voice in his head. Most nights, he wakes up sweating and trembling, and not even his low blood pressure keeps him from rushing to the bathroom the throw up, or from spending the next twenty minutes washing his hands free of blood under scalding water.
He's perfected the art of insomnia, pushing himself to stay up reading ---even if he's reading something as meaningless as his school textbook--- and when he feels himself reaching his limit, he'll force himself awake even longer.
Being only human, Satoshi always eventually falls asleep, and wakes up in his bed, clad in his pajamas. If he's pushed himself hard enough, he doesn't even dream.
During the day, people notice the dark rings under his eyes and the sallow tint to his skin and the bloodshot eyes hidden behind his glasses. But he brushes them off without a word and goes to his desk and pretends he's alright.
Niwa never asks why Satoshi hasn't been sleeping well. Satoshi's grateful for that.
Because Niwa is probably the only one who would be able to get the answer from him.
But somehow, Satoshi suspects that Niwa already knows the reason.
XXXX
Krad doesn't sleep.
He never has, and he has no intention of ever doing so. There's no point to it. He's part of an artwork, and he has no need to sleep. He could, if he wanted to, but why would he? It's a weakness that besets humans every night, a wasted eight hours where their body shuts down and they do nothing with themselves.
Satoshi-sama doesn't sleep often and he doesn't sleep well, and when he's curious, Krad will watch the dreams, just to pass the time.
He knows it's his fault Satoshi-sama can't sleep without nightmares, and it's his fault that the boy pushes himself past his limits to keep from falling into slumber. He may use the boy and his body without regard when he's fighting Dark, but when it's during the night, during the time when Satoshi-sama needs to recharge his body…
Well, Krad thinks he might feel a little bad.
So whenever Satoshi-sama falls asleep at his desk, he quietly pushes past the feeble mental barriers, weaker when Satoshi-sama is tired and sleeping, and moves the boy's body to the bedroom, changing clothes and curling up on the bed. Some nights, he'll relinquish control right away and let the boy sleep, and other nights, he'll simply sit and stare out the window while Satoshi-sama sleeps in his mind.
Krad doesn't sleep. He doesn't need to.
It has nothing to do with the fear that he'll wake up in that dark place between Tamers again. That place where nothing exists and he's trapped inside a prison where he can't move, can't see or hear or sense anything, not even his other half, and all he can do is feel. It has nothing to do with any of that.
After all, no one would ever say that the curse flowing the Hikari blood is afraid of anything.
OOOO
Risa was really my hardest to write. I hope I got her down. And I know that in the manga, Takeshi doesn't seem to have too many suspicions about Daisuke being Dark (not like Riku has suspicions, anyway) but I can't believe that Takeshi would be so stupid not to notice the many, many coincidences that happen with his best friend and the thief. Thus, his dreams, and his subconscious prodding him.
I really don't have anything else to say about this fic, except that I hope you enjoyed it and will leave me a review to tell me how I did.
~Until next time!