|
"Shadow Man"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Yaoi, AU, angst, sap, romance, drama Pairings: 1x3, 2x4, 5xC Summary: Hardly more than a shadow himself, Trowa glimpses the shade cast across the concrete of another young man, who is about to make a fatal mistake. A/N: This story takes place in a universe more
like ours today, where the colonies exist, but not in space, and where
the world is on the cusp of change. " Shadow Man" Chapter 1 I felt good about one thing: the school year was more than half over. If I was lucky I would escape the confines of this prison, this school, and become a pilot in the war. Flying felt like the most exciting thing I could ever do. It was something to hope for. Other than that, life sucked. School had been better when they'd left things alone, left us circus folk segregated in our own trade schools. Who cared if it wasn't up to "standards"? Wasn't like any of us were going anywhere outside the circus or the armed forces. But the all-mighty officials in the Sanc government "mainstreamed" us to "afford us more equal opportunities". Yeah, right. Who believed that crap? The big shots in Sanc wanted us to lose our culture and become "assimilated". Well, fuck'em all. I was staying circus-true, even if that kept me an outcast. Wasn't as if I could hide the fact of who I was. Special buses lined up to take us to the other side of town, where the circus community lived and worked. All us kids had to parade to the far end of the campus to where the "freak fleet" lined up. If I took the short route across the front of the school, then I'd be subjected to the jeers of my classmates. Bullying was frowned upon, but how could they stop the name calling? "Freak geeks!" "Freakaziods!" "Circus fags!" Well, the last one was literally correct, in my case, but... hey. I recognized that name-calling signaled inequality, like you'd call a dog or put a servant in his place, and was tired of it. Didn't the politicians know how much better it was to feel part of a group, being accepted, being at home, than to be forced by peer pressure to fit in or endure the put downs if you didn't? It was plain stupid to bus us to town and expect everyone to "just get along." I learned to avoid the gauntlet to the buses; instead, I'd take the tour of the outer gymnasium, past the temporary buildings brought in to "absorb" the onslaught of new circus students, the back of the auditorium, and, from the line of garbage bins at the service door, the kitchen entrance to the cafeteria. From there it was only a matter of cutting across a corner of the soccer field to the gate- a little-known gap in the chain-link fence, which barricaded the students from the surrounding neighborhood. From my own checks of the perimeter, I'd seen the Special Ed kids ushered out of the school quietly this way. They got mainstreamed too. I wondered how they felt about it; if they felt special in their wheelchairs and tutors and trained staff. I wasn't in any particular hurry. If there'd been any balls out, I would have liked to shoot some hoops, but there rarely were. Everything had been put away in its place. A place for everything and everything in its place. Especially the students. I kicked a rock, aiming for a pole from an old hoop. I always hit it. I was good at sports. Very fit. I was a fucking acrobat and had been for five fucking years, for fucks'sake! Never asked to join a team though. Fancy that? The whole integration thing was a total farce. I checked my watch, slowing my steps as I did so. No reason to rush. Nothing urgent waiting for me at the caravan tonight. Slinging my book bag to an arm let the sun's rays reach and warm my back. If I missed the school bus, I could walk a block and catch the city bus, so I took my time to enjoy the quiet and the sun. Inside, buildings radiated artificial illumination and hostility towards just about anyone who dared be an individual. I actually blended in pretty well. I wore the uniform of most guys my age: white t-shirt and blue jeans with a black hoodie, regardless of temperature. I hid half my face behind a fall of light brown hair, like most of the skater-types, making it hard for others to get a good look at me. I wasn't that memorable anyway. Here. Under the big top flying high of the aerial trapeze was another me altogether, but away from the circus, I went for a low profile. Not like that dude I'd seen playing soccer off the bench. His long braid attracted trouble like a magnet, but he could fight, and did, and his irreverence and funny remarks won him a kind of respectability. He'd said "hi" to me a couple times and I'd nodded back. I guess you could say we'd made a lateral connection, such as it was. I didn't have many friends and none of them went to this school. There wasn't much room, what with the chip on my shoulder taking up too much space. I had a cool sister and a best friend at the circus, and plenty of friendly associates. What would make me happy, I'd decided, was a boyfriend. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon. Maybe I'd meet a flyboy who'd like me? I could dream and I did of pilot training. On the pavement a shadow flit; that's what it looked like. Bigger than a bird. I looked up and studied the roof lines of the building. There! A man on the building. Shadow man. I got a better look and recognized a dude in my class named Heron Lowe-Heron, like the bird. "Hey!" I shouted, wanting to know what he thought he was doing up there and wanting, especially, to know how he got up there so I too could do that as a means of escape sometime. He ignored me for the most part, circling around without losing speed, backing up to the furthest corner of the temp roof. Then he took off across the roof. Where was he going? Was he going to attempt a leap to the cafeteria rooftop? He'd never make it. "Stop!" I shouted. "Too high!" It was impossible to jump that far out and up. Physics could prove it. I knew it from my acrobatic work. Impossible. He'd miss. The runner missed a step to look for me, the source of the voice, and started circling the roof again. I don't know if he saw me or not, but I was hoping he'd come down and we could talk or something. Mostly, I felt good that he'd stopped his fool jumping. But was he stopping? No! He was getting up a head of steam, running faster! "No! It's impossible!" But my shouting earned me a sore throat and nothing else. He was going for the jump. Talk about a leap of faith! You'd only attempt this one if you had a death wish. I was running to get beneath him. If I could break his fall, he might live to thank me over a mess of broken bones, mine too. I seemed mired in some time warp, moving in slo-mo, while he sailed through the air at light speed. He even arced up, until the force of gravity grew greater than that of his jump. I could see it on his face. That moment of realization when he could see he wasn't going to reach the other roof. A smile turned horrible, his arms and legs scrabbled for hard surfaces to climb and alter his downward course. I heard the awful thump when he hit the asphalt. He lay face down. His limbs might have cushioned a bit of his fall and now rested at odd angles. I didn't even check for breathing. He was either dead or nearly, falling from so high up there. I called 911. "Hurry! A kid fell off the school roof. Back of the cafeteria. I don't know! Get help here fast if you want to help him!" Idiots. Did I know him? What difference did that make? He fell off a fucking roof! What was my name? What did that matter at a time like that? If I was a criminal, would I tell them? Fuckin' idiots! I got my act together and knelt next to the guy's head. Blood seeped from some wound I couldn't see. I did my best not to move him, in case he'd broken his neck, while I slipped a handkerchief underneath. He was, miraculously, still breathing, though I wondered how that was possible with as many broken ribs as he must have had. No one in their right mind would have attempted that jump. He'd heard my warning, I was sure, and done it anyway, so, he either was a mental case, a stupid dare-devil, or he'd done it on purpose. Heron Lowe had always seems serious and solid; he didn't fit any of those descriptions, unless there was more to him than met the eye. I jogged over to the nearest building and called out for help. I ran to the other side and called, but no one was around. I hadn't thought I'd been watching him jump for that long, but I guess I had. I dunno. I was spinning inside, not knowing what more I could do. I could call his home, if I knew the number. He was still breathing when I sat by his side again. "Hey," I said to him, "what's that in your hand? That a note?" A clue to why he jumped, maybe? I tugged the rolled up paper out of his fist and flattened it on a knee. First thing I checked was the signature. "ZM". That had to be Zechs Merquise. Heron was dating his younger half-sister; I was aware of that. So, the note was private and I wasn't a snoop, which meant I stopped reading and folded it into a neat rectangle. I aimed to shove it into a pocket, and when I touched his jeans, his cell phone buzzed. Fuck! I nearly jumped a foot. The phone sounded again, and in the far distance I could just now hear sirens. The phone was in his jacket pocket. It was a wonder it hadn't broken. I took it out and considered a moment if I should answer it. The caller ID read "Home." That was his dad or guardian or whatever. Was he that late getting back? Nice that someone cared. That all went through my mind in a flash. I'd thought of calling his home anyway, so I took the call. Before I could say, "hi", a loud, angry man's voice shouted at me, thinking I was Heron, of course. "You're late again and you ain't got practice. You better not be screwing the team, 'cause you're my buttboy! Getcher ass home. No excuses!" Jesus! I about threw the phone into the garbage. Some stranger yelling at me like that and a kid dying at my feet?! My hands shook. I wanted to get outta there so bad, put more distance between me and that voice. Abused? I'd had no clue he was so messed up. He was one of the school leaders. One of the guys that set the standards. One of the ones that shut me out. The sirens ripped through the neighborhood. They were close. "Hold on, dude," I told him. As to why he jumped, I had to assume he wasn't okay with being a cool dude at school, while being treated like shit at home, so I went with suicidal. I took my own leap of faith then and decided he wouldn't want to wake up, if he had a choice, to find himself having to face the demons or whatever he was trying to run away from. Anyway, that's my excuse for some of the things I did next. I kept his cell phone, pocketing it as the first EM vehicle bounded over the curb and bounced across the broken drive, and then I grabbed his wallet. "Hey! Over here!" I stood and waved. "Move away," one medic barked. "What happened?" someone asked me. "Who are you?" another asked. All the while they were hooking Heron up to lines and securing his head to a board, getting a gurney flat to the ground. "Do you have ID?" one of the medics asked me. "Ye-ah." My voice came out in a waver. Try as I did, I couldn't keep the fear out of it. "Just a sec... I got his wallet here...picked it up when it, ah, fell out." I moved on semi-automatic, doing my card tricks, switching out Heron's ID with my circus one, burying Heron's photo ID deeper into my wallet. I made a point of not hiding my hand tremors, real ones from the shock, using it as a distraction to make the slight-of-hand work. "H-here it is- mine," I said, showing my "Trowa Barton" official Sanc Reserve High School ID - with picture. "I got his wallet here." The medic gave my ID a cursory glance, a mumbled acknowledgement of my district, "circus," and then filed through Heron's wallet. "No driver's license here either-" He pulled out my "Triton Bloom" nom-de-circus ID-with no picture. "Triton Bloom, it says here. Circus kid." "Better take him to their hospital, then." The circus hospital was further away; I hoped he wouldn't die because of that. I'd be responsible for letting him die. I brushed a line of tears away. I had to be there to make sure he got through the ID checks there, too. "He's my cousin and I've missed the buses, can I catch a ride?" That was a lot of words; I hoped it'd do the trick. I wasn't big on talking; I let my body do the communicating. Words got you into trouble. I found the more you said, the less people listened anyway. I put my circus training to good use. I looked pathetic and sniffed. "Yeah, sure, kid. Climb aboard." TBC
|
