So Shiny, So Happy - fic

[deird1]

This was written for joss_las, for the “darkness” prompt.

Title: So Shiny, So Happy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 610

Summary: Fred’s the only one who can see the darkness.



So Shiny, So Happy

There are several different kinds of dark; Fred has classified plenty of them over the years, and could tell you, in any situation, precisely what variety of darkness you’re dealing with.

Firstly there’s Vegas darkness.
That’s when you know, theoretically, that it’s night, and therefore dark – but the lights are still bright, so bright, sunglasses-bright, because the entire place turns on every light it has, and defiantly pushes the darkness back out to the desert where it belongs.

Then there’s L.A. darkness, when the city sees the dark as an excuse to put on its party clothes and go out to dance.
There’s street lights, and store window lights, and disco lights, and blacklights… each one blinking on as the sun goes down, and saying “Hooray! It’s night-time! Now, let’s stay up drinking and party until it’s not dark anymore!”

Next is Texas darkness. That’s when you go outside and you can pick out every individual house by looking for its porch light. They all sit there – tiny, friendly points of light – reassuring you that the town still exists, and everything is the same today as it was last week.
As each family goes to bed, lights go out, one by one, until finally you can look out your window and see nothing but stars.

Then there’s Pylea darkness – which probably isn’t actually as dark as it feels, but when your hands are pressed against your eyes, it’s hard to see the flaming torches that mark out the village, or the occasional campfire being used by a hunter, or any of the things that you’re trying to pretend don’t exist.
If you can keep your eyes closed, then you can tell yourself that the darkness you’re not seeing is just warm, safe, Texas darkness. And you never know… one day it might be.

There’s also hiding-somewhere-safe darkness, when you get into the darkest, quietest, smallest place you can find, curl yourself up tiny as ever, and maybe there are just one or two little specks of light you can see through a crack somewhere – and you stay quiet and still, and don’t take your eyes off those teeny specks of light, because if you see anything, anything at all, you’ve got to be ready to run.

Next there’s walking-through-sewer-tunnels darkness, which mostly means dim light, shadows, and flashlights. And also some growling, and occasional fights with scary monsters – but hopefully you’ll have some friends with you who can handle a bit of monster fighting from time to time, so you’ll probably be okay.
Sewer tunnel darkness isn’t nearly as dark as you’d think it is. Especially if you’ve got a flashlight on you.

And last, there’s fire-falling-from-the-sky darkness, which is when the entire sky is black as black gets, and the whole city seems to have gone dark with it, and the falling fire lights everything up just enough to show you how very little light there actually is.
It’s scary, but mesmerising.

…and then there’s this.

Fred’s got so many different forms of darkness figured out, but she’s still got nothing to describe this one.

This is… pretend darkness. Or darkness-in-disguise. Or darkness-hidden-underneath-the-not-darkness.

It’s when you can see lots of light, lots of brightness, lots of happiness – but it’s not real happiness, none of it’s real. The light lies, and the smiles are all fake.
But the smilers don’t know that.

There’s darkness everywhere, creeping in, submerging everything, all of it, so dark, so very dark, and you’re the only one who knows it’s there.

What do you call darkness that’s pretending to be light?

Fred closes her eyes, and wishes she was in Texas.

Comments

[elisi]

Oh, this is wonderful.

[deird1]

Thanks!