Lullaby

Characters: Shachi. Rating: K. Warnings: None

The first night alone on the Polar Tang was eerie. Even submerged, Law had decreed that they needed someone to stay on watch. The younger boy had taken the first watch, and Bepo the second night. Now, the third night, it was Shachi's turn to stay up all night, curled up in a chair designed for a fully-grown adult and not a teenager with limbs too long for his body. His knees tucked up awkwardly underneath his chin, with a blanket clenched tightly against the cold (not that it was actually cold, rather almost too-hot, but habit was habit), Shachi stared at the flickering monitors, uncomprehending most of the displays but knowing enough to determine there was nothing else anywhere near them.

He hadn't felt so alone in years. The other three were all in their rooms, sleeping safely. The quiet hum of the engine deep in the belly of the Polar Tang did nothing to distract him from the lack of breathing in earshot. She was a big ship – far larger than anything Shachi had ever been on before, with the sleeping quarters some distance from the control room – and it struck Shachi that it was the first time in years that he'd spent a night alone.

Night watch on the previous boat had been determined by who was sitting up as opposed to lying down. There had been no separation there, the boat too small for such things. Before that, he'd shared a room with Penguin, sometimes even a bed when the night seemed too big.

He hadn't spent a single night alone since that day, his parents' house, his home, the only place he'd had his own room to spend the night in with no company except the penguin-toy he'd been given by Penguin (it had been meant as a joke, and Shachi had reciprocated in kind with a stuffed orca toy; he wondered what had happened to those tattered old things now they'd left, and in the too-big night wished he had his penguin toy with him so he wasn't so alone).

Shachi decided he didn't like being alone. The shadows were darker and every creak was louder when Penguin's breathing wasn't there to muffle them. He pulled his wayward feet closer to his body, hugging them tightly. His hat had slipped sideways, but Shachi didn't dare pull his hands from out of the security of the blanket to readjust it. Not in the all-encompassing, all-devouring darkness that surrounded him.

He could turn on the lights. Maybe he shouldn't have turned them off, but it was nice to take the shades off, releasing his ears and nose from the slight weight, and not be forced to clamp his eyes shut. The switch was by the door, several paces from where Shachi was sitting, and he wasn't entirely certain where his shades had slipped off to. Fumbling around blind was an even more intimidating idea than staying put under the blanket.

In a desperate attempt to distract himself, he found himself humming under his breath. It was an old tune, one that he hadn't heard for years but still knew as if he'd last heard it yesterday. His voice wasn't smooth like his mother's had been, but it didn't have to be when he could imagine it was her singing, like she used to when the darkness got too scary for a little boy in the dead of night.

"Goodnight my angel, now it's time to sleep," he sang under his breath, the second verse spilling out as words rather than the quiet humming of the first. "And still so many things I want to say."His voice choked up, and a hand braved the darkness to dart out from under the covers and dash at the tears that began to fall before retreating. "Remember all the songs you sang for me when we went sailing on the emerald sea?" The quick attempt to eliminate his tears had been unsuccessful, and Shachi leaned forwards, burying his face in the blanket as he sobbed out the next lines, muffled by the fabric. Maybe the song had been a bad idea, bringing up as much sadness as it did comfort. "The water's dark and deep, inside this ancient heart you'll always be a part of me."

He sniffled, the expansive, devouring darkness slowly fading away only to be replaced with longing as Shachi realised just how alone he was, and that his singing paled in comparison to his mother's. He missed her, he realised anew. He missed the way she'd always stayed up with him on the nights he hadn't wanted to sleep. He missed always having someone right there to turn to, just a sob away.

With nothing else to do, even though it tore open old wounds that had never really closed, Shachi kept singing, keeping himself company because even that was better than the empty room, with its eerie creaks and inhuman hums.

As the third verse spilled from his lips, accompanied by further tears and sobs, he didn't notice the silent form sat the other side of the door, back pressed against it as they listened with tears in their own eyes.

I'm not good enough to make up lyrics myself; those quoted here are from Billy Joel's Lullabye.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari