anactoria

Title: Brief Candles
Author:

anactoria
Characters: Leon, D, Chris
Rating: PG-13
Written for

stagesoflove Week 4. Prompt: Cake
Week 3: Cookies

The candles light up Chris's face as he leans over the birthday cake, cheeks puffed out and eyebrows lowered in concentration. He looks like he should be telling ghost stories at a sleepover, flashlight held under his chin to throw up ghoulish shadows.

Course, Chris doesn't have the kind of friends you go to slumber parties with. But if he did, he'd at least be able to come out with something more interesting than the old serial-killer-on-the-car-roof bullshit.

D's face is illuminated, too, but somehow he manages to look as though the light belongs to him -- as though the candles are inside his skull, his skin the paper of a lantern. D suits ghoulish. It figures.

Chris blows out the final candle with a determined puff, and D turns away to flick on the lights. Leon slaps Chris on the back, and the damned goat-thing that's perched on the couch beside him lets out an indignant-sounding growl, but Chris is beaming.

"Make a wish, squirt," Leon tells him. "Seven, huh? You're gonna be all grown up before I know it."

But then you'll be old, Chris objects, eyes widening.

"Not a chance." Leon grins. "You're as young as you act, right? And D here is always going on about how immature I am, so..." He waves a hand.

Chris frowns, then nods, apparently satisfied, and jumps down off the couch to run after the animals. Leon slumps back against it with a sigh.

D looks at him across the table, gaze steady and unfathomable.

Leon cocks his head. "What's up?"

"I must confess," D murmurs, lowering his eyes, transferring a slice of cake onto one of his dainty little china plates, "I've always found the celebration of birthdays... difficult to understand. Another year over; another step closer to the grave. A yearly reminder of human mortality. It seems a little morbid, does it not?"

Christ. Leon really isn't in the mood for any of D's mind-games right now, especially not with Chris around to get spooked out by them. He scowls.

"Fuck's sake, D," he snaps. "It's a kid's party. You wanna joke around with me, fine, but you upset him and I'll punch your fuckin' lights out."

D skewers him with a look, then, the usual mocking little smirk nowhere to be seen, the half of his face that isn't hidden under hair and shadow suddenly grave. Sad, even. Jeez.

"I'm afraid you misunderstand me, Detective," D says, very quietly. "I am not joking. Not at all." He sets the plate down in front of Leon, swallows, then smiles brightly. "Cake?"

Week 5: Chocolate