Title: Out of Darkness

Author: Kalio

Rating: PG-13 for language and a twist of angst.

Summary: Childhood isn't all light and joy and happiness; light isn't all joy and happiness.

[A/N] It was betaed (and encouraged) by Cirocco. Yay! Major props to her. :) It has been changed very slightly since then, so if there are any errors now, whether of the grammar/spelling/continuity type or character OOCness or anything else, are my fault.

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And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro' nature, moulding men.
       - Lord Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam (CXXIV)

It's dark. It's very dark and he's very small, but he's never been afraid of the dark. The dark isn't a pool of evil filled with skeletal hands reaching for him, the dark is a haven. It's a velvety-soft cloak that's too big for him and covers him like a blanket, protecting him from things that go bump in broad daylight.

The dark doesn't bother him, but the cramps do, the cramps that come from being in too small a space for too long a time. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting here, his knees up and his arms wrapped around them, his eyes sometimes wide open, sometimes scrunched shut, depending on the noises filtering through the walls.

The noises...

He lifts his head from where he's been resting it against his knees, pausing, listening hard. Nothing. The noises have been gone, then, but who knows for how long? If they stopped just now, it still isn't safe. He swipes a quick, shaky hand through messy hair, chews on his lip, tries to think how long it's been since the last burst of discord.

"Michael!" No. No. His head goes down again, his forehead burrowing into his kneecaps as he tries to shrink. It doesn't work. It never has.

"Michael, get out here!" No, not again, never again... His fingers ache from gripping his arms so tightly, and he tries to loosen them but it makes the bones squeak in protest.

"...the hell...?" The voice is closer, and now he tastes blood; he had forgotten to withdraw his lip from his teeth, and now the skin's burst again. He jerks his head away from his knees, afraid his bloody lip will stain his jeans, and then she would only be angrier...

"Get your ass out here, Michael, right now!" Maybe he should. Maybe he should just go out there, maybe then she won't be as angry. Maybe...

Lost in frightened indecision, he drags the back of one hand along his lip, feeling the wetness of his own blood as he wipes it away from his mouth. He uncurls his body, straightening, standing...

No! The darkness is pierced, killed savagely by a blinding explosion of light. "There you are, you snivelling little shit!" A hand claws at him, catching his collar and yanking, hard. His head flops backwards like a rag doll's, and he clamps down again on his already-oozing lip to silence the cry that erupts within. "What d'ya think you're doin' in there?! That ain't no fucking playhouse, you stay outta that closet and come when I call you, d'you hear me? D'you hear me?"

"Y-y-yeah," he manages to say through the buzzing in his head, the buzzing like a nest of hornets that wakes when something strikes his skull. "Y-yeah, I hear you, I hear you..." The buzzing grows louder and louder and louder...

---

"I hear you!" He shouts, bolting upright, his eyes snapping open. "I—" The breath catches in his throat as he looks wildly around, then collapses back onto his pillow. The sun is streaming through the thin curtains on his windows, and it falls in his eyes and stings, but he doesn't close them. With them open, he can see that he's in his apartment. The buzzing, though, it's still—of course. He rolls over on to one side, reaches out with one arm and hits the button that turns off his alarm clock.

That taken care of, he waits for his breathing to calm and his pulse to slow, then sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Groaning, he flexes his hands and realizes only now that they've been clenched long enough to leave the small crescent shapes of fingernails dug into skin.

Breathing deeply now to relax himself, he runs the fingers of one hand through his messy, dark hair and stands up. His clothes from the previous night are on the floor, and alongside them is his blanket. He must've kicked it off at some point.

Time for work, he tells himself. Go out there with a good, capable partner and put in another day's work clearing the streets of dangerous scum. And he gets dressed, knots a plaid tie around his neck, grabs a worn leather coat from the hall closet, and locks the door behind him.

He gets into his car and the early sun is bright. It's very bright, and things still go bump—and crash, and clatter—but as the days and weeks and months go by, they're clattering at the inside of their jail cells.

And that's all he needs to know to go on.

---fin---