Omi sunk to the ground, where he lay curled on the floor with no lingering awareness of his surroundings. The visions in his head consumed him.
He saw the boy with his family: mother, father, aunt, uncle, cousin. Closeness, warmth, and bonds beyond them that existed as part of their extended family, the community of the circus. It was a wildly different upbringing from his own but it seemed no less idyllic to Omi. Circuses were about fun and excitement.
It disappeared too quickly. The images of scandal, extortion, sabotage and murder flashed in quick succession. He heard the snap of the trapeze, saw their bodies that pitifully lay in a sprawl of death under the big top's spotlight. Everything gone, in one horrifying, unimaginable instant. The numbness, the shock, the hopelessness and the utter sense of aimlessness. Where did you go, what could you do, without the love and support of family? It was a feeling Omi knew all too well.
And the change. The appearance of a savior, a man offering his hand and taking the lost boy with no one else to turn to. This, too, Omi understood. The gratitude, respect, hero-worship, the desire to please them, to succeed. The training, learning to fight, learning to hack, it was so similar and yet so different. This boy's mentor was present. Visible. Love was never admitted and yet always there. He had found someone to call family again.
Omi was simultaneously glad on the boy's behalf and pained inside from seeing a manifestation of all the things he'd privately longed for after losing his family. Things he continued to long for to the present day, but accepted as things he would never have.
Even as the boy grew and began to notice that his hero was not perfect-- he had antisocial tendencies, obsessive behavior-- still that bond remained. It grew. Through the dual roles of family and crimefighting partners had grown a deep friendship. And, with it, some very strong convictions about right and wrong ways to go about dealing with criminals the law failed to take care of. It was never okay to kill. Never.
Omi knew, without external suggestion, if it had been his life... he probably would have come out exactly the same way.
The images receded. Omi found the floor on which he lay. He scrambled upright and looked, horror-stricken and confused, at the other boy. What had just happened. And, more to the point... was it real?
no subject
He saw the boy with his family: mother, father, aunt, uncle, cousin. Closeness, warmth, and bonds beyond them that existed as part of their extended family, the community of the circus. It was a wildly different upbringing from his own but it seemed no less idyllic to Omi. Circuses were about fun and excitement.
It disappeared too quickly. The images of scandal, extortion, sabotage and murder flashed in quick succession. He heard the snap of the trapeze, saw their bodies that pitifully lay in a sprawl of death under the big top's spotlight. Everything gone, in one horrifying, unimaginable instant. The numbness, the shock, the hopelessness and the utter sense of aimlessness. Where did you go, what could you do, without the love and support of family? It was a feeling Omi knew all too well.
And the change. The appearance of a savior, a man offering his hand and taking the lost boy with no one else to turn to. This, too, Omi understood. The gratitude, respect, hero-worship, the desire to please them, to succeed. The training, learning to fight, learning to hack, it was so similar and yet so different. This boy's mentor was present. Visible. Love was never admitted and yet always there. He had found someone to call family again.
Omi was simultaneously glad on the boy's behalf and pained inside from seeing a manifestation of all the things he'd privately longed for after losing his family. Things he continued to long for to the present day, but accepted as things he would never have.
Even as the boy grew and began to notice that his hero was not perfect-- he had antisocial tendencies, obsessive behavior-- still that bond remained. It grew. Through the dual roles of family and crimefighting partners had grown a deep friendship. And, with it, some very strong convictions about right and wrong ways to go about dealing with criminals the law failed to take care of. It was never okay to kill. Never.
Omi knew, without external suggestion, if it had been his life... he probably would have come out exactly the same way.
The images receded. Omi found the floor on which he lay. He scrambled upright and looked, horror-stricken and confused, at the other boy. What had just happened. And, more to the point... was it real?