My late contribution to Snitch week. I didn't get struck by inspiration until yesterday, though, so what could I do? *hugs and Snitches to Lute* Happy belated Snitch week!
*cough* I know this is kinda weird, but bear with me folks.
infinitas
It was too hot. That was the only thing Snitch was certain of these days; everything else faded in and out, but he was always, always sweating. He could feel the sweat sizzling on his skin and the fever creeping through his veins, until it seemed he would burst into flames. He wanted to explain it to Skittery, but his throat hurt and he was tired, too, and sleep at least was an escape from the heat of his own skin. His heavy eyes slid shut and the last thing he saw was the pale oval of Skittery's face suspended over pink long johns.
**
He knew he was dreaming because he wasn't hot anymore. The relief of that made him think he was in heaven for a moment, but with a strange awareness, he knew it was only dreaming. His fever was gone and in its place was a soft darkness. There was no sight, in the darkness, but somehow his other senses were heightened. He was being rocked, gently, like he used to imagine his mother rocked him, but with the rhythm of waves. As if he was being embraced in soothing, watery arms. The air around him was cool and sweet, not at all like the factory-smoke filled air of the streets he was familiar with. Nothing here was familiar, but everything was.
He was in the dreaming-place again. He couldn't remember ever being here before, but something deep inside him, that wasn't really Snitch, not in the way he usually thought of himself, resonated with knowledge.
Home, home, home, it cried, and Snitch knew he could be happy here. He could be held here, and rocked here, and he would never be hurt or hungry again. He could be happy, but something was missing. It was an ache of separation. He wasn't complete, but he didn't know why, couldn't figure out what was gone. He just knew that without it he could never be fully happy.
What? he screamed into the dreaming darkness. What am I missing?
Everything around him seemed to still in anticipation, to hold its breath. Snitch waited; for what, he didn't know. He waited until he was sure there would be no answer. Then, when he was ready to despair, he heard a stirring. It started out as a low hum and grew until he could tell it was a murmur of voices. They gained volume until they were singing, filling the air with a chorus of voices . . .
The voices were all his.
They sang in a hundred different languages, with a hundred different tones and inflections and cadences, but they were all him. They were the part of him that was-wasn't Snitch. And he was positive if he could just make out what they were saying he would hear a secret so big, so important, that he would never be the same again. And it would be better that way. He would be whole.
Snitch strained his ears, struggled to hear, and for one glorious moment the voices merged into perfect harmony . . .