AN: This is all Harry, in-case it's kind of vague. And if the setting is vague, it's vague not changing that, it feels better that way.
AN: I find it weird that there's a phrase a really like hearing and somehow be inspired by it or use the phrase only to find out that it's a title of another fanfic, most of which I've never read but they stick somewhere in the back of my mind. I don't mean to offend or steal those ideas/titles but sorry either way.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, no one but, perhaps, the circumstances that happens in this short chapter.
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A small babe slept, his parents loving and there. So precious and vulnerable, he's healthy and frail-looking and oh so small. A woman, his mother—for who else could it be?—, cradled him, not wanting to let the small baby out of her sight, unless her spouse was there to watch over the two of them as they both sleep.
She smiled, eyes bright, tired but happy, despite the fact that two weeks have passed since she gave birth, because he's her baby and loves every bit of him, a lovely gift that she and her husband managed to receive.
They never really thought they'd have the chance to have a baby, one of their own blood and flesh. Doctors said they couldn't, it'd be too much for her. But now, as tiring and taxing and emotionally filling and draining as it was, they have him and it was perfect as can be.
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He's not completely certain when it started but he knows why they did.
These brief periods of wakefulness as he'd call them.
But regardless of when they started, he does cherish them, truly and devastatingly so. They were addicting, in their own way.
Perhaps that may be the reason some humans fight to stay alive so much. The high they feel from living. He would, in the beginning, often envy the normal human being, the ones that has nothing but normal worries. The ones that live in relative peace, with their family, with their friends, with their loved and spited ones. The ones that can die peacefully and stay dead.
But he holds no real resentment. Any feelings of resentment, or anything really, have long since... dulled.
He lives, he's alive.
But, there are times when he feels so...distant. Like there's really nothing worth living for.
He's not living. Not enjoying life.
This he knows, but, he cannot change much on his own. He's weary with age, so it is understandable, to a degree, why he feels distant. He has watched his family, his friends, children, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, his family, both by blood and not, wither and die in front of him as he stayed unchanging. It was painful, it was real and it was never avoidable.
He would have complained about it not being fair once upon another life time, another world, another mindset, but with his age he's learned that things just aren't. So he takes what he can and lives. He still has his morals; they're just, somewhat, very skewered.
So mysterious and obscure as they are, he's glad to have these brief periods of wakefulness.
It makes him remember how to feel, how to live and be alive.
It is what keeps him sane.
Well, as sane as he can be.
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This time when he wakes—when he's sure, when his vision no longer blurred and he can make some sense—the first thing that greets him are earnest eyes.
Happy eyes that welcome him.
Ones that could sing true and clear. Ones that belong to a mother.
His mother.
She was there, resting. Her hair, dark and wild, haphazardly in a side-braid, tickles his nose prompting him to sneeze.
"Aww, look at him Anthony. Isn't he precious?"
Warmth. It seeped into his very being as his mother held him closer to her, cradling him gently, lovingly, serene. Her voice was soft but full of vibrancy. An answering chuckle was given by the man that was his father.
"Dolly," he hears the fond exasperation as the man spoke, "you've been saying that for weeks now. But, yeah. He is."
The man wasn't really all that tall, he had wild hair as well, not as wild as his mother, and auburn coloured that suited his verdant eyes, a duller shade than a brilliant evergreen. The man reached out to him and while he wasn't as affectionate as his mother, he felt his father's love.
But as his clarity comes, it goes now. He's nothing more than a babe. And it is meant for him to be new. His memories fade, or rather they lie dormant deep within his psyche.
And so he forgets for now, eyes closing, but he is happy.
For now he'll grow, he'll age but he'll never reach his eighteenth year, as always.
For now he is a babe with loving parents, innocent and carefree.
For now he is warm,safe and loved.
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AN: Also this has a continuation/part 2-thing, just finishing/re-writing a few more details before posting it but it will be posted soon. And I'm making an AO3 account under the same name and will post the stories I have here there, maybe a month or so from now, still thinking on what I'll do and when I'll do it.