A/N: Y-... Yeeeeaaahhh... You guys remember my oneshot "Beautiful"? Well... Let's just say I just destroyed it and am therefore willing to be shot for this...
This is what happens when writer's block and morbid little nursery rhymes take over my head...
Lullaby
-0-
The world was cruel and time, even more so. Lives changed, bodies aged, and everything had its end. These were the universal truths for change was the only permanent thing in their beaten and battered world. Things change.
Everything will change, but not always for the better.
Light to Dark.
Young to old.
Loud to silence.
Warmth to cold.
He watches her from underneath the doorframe of their room as she sat listlessly by the windowsill, eyes staring far off towards the oaks that towered over their small home. The rain poured steadily outside as the dim lights of the afternoon seeped through to the darkness inside their abode.
…
Everything seemed so surreal.
"Alice…"
He received no response and his vision barely even caught the sad smile that graced her features as her arms rocked an empty bundle of cloth in her arms.
"Alice…"
Again, she didn't respond to him.
A few silent seconds overcame them with nothing but the pitter-patter of the rain to come in between each one. He looked away, guilt eating him from the inside as her arms continued to rock the bundle in her arms. The child that was supposed to be enjoying the embrace of its mother wasn't even there to feel her warmth, that knowledge itself made him want to cry. But he held the tears back, for their sake; he held back just long enough before the painful truth could finally sink in like a needle into their hearts. He looked to her again, hoping that this time she would respond and finally come into the room. It had been a long and agonizing day and, though the day itself had yet to end, he knew that both of them were too emotionally and physically weary to even see through to its conclusion in the evening. "Alice, please…"
"Bayu-bayushki-bayu," His own breathing hitched in his throat as he heard her broken, yet still melodic voice.
"Ne lozhisya na krayu." She was singing an all too familiar song.
A lullaby once so sweet to his ears and of the little one that once slept to it.
"Pridyot serenkiy volchok," Now it made his ears ring as he wallowed and lived the bitter reality of a dead child that would never laugh, kick and cry again.
"Please, Alice... Stop..."
Mad men plagued the world, not just them.
But it hurt still to know that what they feared most as parents had happened to them without warning. The brutality and insanity of what had transpired to an innocent, to an infant was something that no sane man or woman could ever hope, or wish, to comprehend.
But it happened...
To their own child no less.
"On ukhvatit za bochok"
The blood that stained crisp white sheets of the crib was still so lucid in his mind.
He stepped forward, abandoning his place underneath the doorway in favor of reaching out for his brokenhearted lover.
She paid him no heed as she continued to sing her morbid lullaby, continued to rock and stroke the cluster of cloths in her arms.
"I utashchit vo lesok"
The ache in his chest didn't ebb away in the slightest, his throat felt more parched than it had ever been. How she could sing that song when it held a far darker meaning underneath it at a time like this was beyond him, but he understood.
...
The feeling of loss was something that one could never readily open their arms to.
...
It hurt. "She's gone Alice…"
But they had to accept it.
She stopped moving her arms altogether, but still she does not turn towards him, does not even react to his presence when he kneels down beside her.
"…"
He takes her hands into his own, prying them off of the cloths and brings them closer to his lips to place a gentle kiss on the back of her hands before holding them down onto her lap, making her forget the empty bundle and the false child that she'd imagined inside of it. Taking the time to listen to her deep breathing, watching as her shoulders begin to tremble, he gently rubs small circles on her hands.
The visages of an uncouth man, striking a bloody knife through a tiny and lifeless body, the sound of a fading cry, of his wife's terrified and begging screams, and of his own flabbergasted yells as he busted through a broken door played in a never ending loop inside of his head. "Alice…"
Still…
"Pod rakitovy kustok."
She ends the lullaby in a fit of tears, throwing herself into his arms. He falls back on himself, wincing at the force but saying nothing and just wrapping his arms around her to pull her into a tight embrace.
This time, he begins to cry as well. Burying his face into her locks, he lets the tears cascade down his face and lets her do the same on his chest. The bundle of cloth breaks apart and fall languidly unto the floor.
Their child was gone.
They would never hear the sweet voice of their little one ever again.
"We haven't-! She hasn't even said her first word yet! She hasn't even seen the world outside Shun!"
"I know."
They cling onto one another in an attempt to fill that missing void, to feel that warmth that disappeared from their life in just a blink of an eye.
"My little angel's gone… She's gone… She's gone..." She repeats the words over and over again as if it were a mantra that would make everything go away.
"She is. She's gone." As her tears die down in acceptance, he refuses to say any more…
A feeling of regret, of loss filled the very depth of his soul.
…
…
…
And without even thinking, he begins to hum.
Her voice follows suite soon after.
"Bayu-bayushki-bayu..."
-00-
-0-
End
Written-Sin: I feel so horrible for even posting this... But I wanted to show a few readers that I've not abandoned this fandom, and the fics I'm doing for them, yet...
You guys are free to imagine what happened because I can't even explain why I wrote this...
Here's the lyrics for the nursery lullaby that Alice sang.
Russian
Баю-баюшки-баю,
Не ложися на краю.
Придёт серенький волчок,
Он ухватит за бочок
И утащит во лесок
Под ракитовый кусток.
Transliteration
Bayu-bayushki-bayu,
Ne lozhisya na krayu.
Pridyot serenkiy volchok,
On ukhvatit za bochok
I utashchit vo lesok
Pod rakitovy kustok.
English translation
Baby, baby, rock-a-bye
On the edge you mustn't lie
Or the little grey wolf will come
And will nip you on the tum,
Tug you off into the wood
Underneath the willow-root.
Review please!