|
"Alternative Directions: Options "Written By: Karina Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the lovely
boys and their girls in the series. Wish I did. Please don't sue me.
I haven't even got a brass razoo to give you. Rating: Deffinately PG in Australia, at the moment,
but probably safer to say R for later chapters. Not sure about international
ratings Warnings: It will be 6x2, even though it does
not start out that way. After all, Zechs and Duo never met in Gundam
Wing and only spoke briefly over a com line in Endless Waltz. I've
tried to keep them in character as I saw them in the series. A bit
of language creeping in under stressful conditions. Pairings: eventual 6x2, past 2xH, 2+H,6x9, 1+R
Summary: Directions is set post Endless Waltz
and roughly 2 years have passed. Zechs and Noin are on Mars and Duo,
after spending some time with Hilde in a relationship leaves L2 to
join Preventers. Hilde was not happy about his decision. I guess enough
said. Here t'is, and I hope you like it. This is also AU for the standard
setting, as well as the series and Endless Waltz. Spoilers: Gundam Wing Series and Endless Waltz Many thanks to Dulin for volunteering to beta this. //... // thoughts
"Alternative Directions: Options"
2nd March AC 198 Sanc Stephansbourg The Coachman’s Rest Time: 04:10 Quatre Quatre shuddered. "That is … frightening." It was a long silence that fell between them, filled with weighty innuendo, and Quatre found he did not wish to respond to Heero’s question at all. He did not want to imply a negative nor a positive outlook on Heero’s suppositions as to answer in either was to make it all real. To make it real was to suggest it was worthy of speculation and it was too frightening a thing to be possible. //It is beyond frightening.// Yet he could not forget Zero and how the system had affected him. He could not escape the memory even for a few minutes of the day how the system had interacted with him, surrounded his awareness, existed within him and breathed as he breathed. He would never forget the horrors of his past of which Zero was a dark and blood-drenched part. Zero had been a part of him and had breached his defences, making his empathy, so long held under his hard-fought control, run rampant. Unchecked, his power had fed him the dreams, hopes, fears, nightmares, indifference, rage, hate, despair… //No. I have been honest with myself after all this time and I will not slide backwards and deny it. Not so soon after acknowledging it. What happened was not Zero. It was me. I was insane and the Zero System, while it did not help my control, did not instigate my insanity. I was at fault. Zero did not exist as anything beyond blueprints and schematics on paper when I first lost myself in the rage. There. Done. I’ve said it to myself a second time and I’m still sane.// He did not wish to remember what it was like to go down into the bottomless well of emotion, to stop thinking and to be only feeling. His emotions had run rampant, fed by the darkness to be found in war and which existed in every person’s mind and soul. War was darkness, a dark time when people knew all too little of love and peace and joy. War gave vent to greater and greater darkness and he had lost himself in grief and anger. The darkness continued to grow until something shattered it and gave a reminder and longing for gentler times back to the human race. For himself that had come when Heero and Trowa had faced him and because of his insanity Trowa had been lost to him. Heero had beaten sense into him and forced him beyond the insanity. For the Earth Sphere the catalyst point had come in the final war and the destruction of Libra. He could not deny there might be something of truth in Heero’s suppositions. No two people who used Zero would describe it in the same fashion and he knew Zero in a very different fashion from Heero. Yuy’s understanding of the system was far different from his own. Of Epyon he had no shared experience. //There was some kind of intelligence about Zero but it was not exactly what I would call intelligence. More of an awareness, I suppose. As I knew it, compared to how Heero describes his experiences with the system, I would think I was more sensitive to it than Heero. Or more sensitive to certain aspects of it might be closer to the truth. Heero used both systems and he has admitted he had trouble using and understanding Epyon. Zero he claims to have had little difficulty with. He even grew to trust it.// With so little factual information to work on how was he to judge if the two systems were different? He had built the Zero system but he had not seen so much as a schematic of the Epyon system. He had experienced one interface between his own mind and a machine which he could work with to make formulations and suppositions but he had no such experience with the comparable system and machine. How else could he determine with any degree of certainty any similarities which might have existed in the two interfaces? He had had access to the Epyon suit and interface in the Sanc kingdom. However he had felt no desire to so much as touch the suit, let alone test it. Indeed he had not liked to stand near the behemoth in the hangar beneath the palace. Epyon had given him cold shudders and he had not liked Heero using the suit though he had known the futility of voicing his concerns at that time. They had needed every weapon available to them at the time with invasion imminent. Heero, being Heero, would not have listened to any concerns. //Even if I could have understood what it was that made me so uneasy around the suit … I did not like Epyon when I saw it and I could feel the suit disturbed Heero. I could feel his… not fear exactly… Unease is such an understatement and I am not certain it is an adequate description. When he first appeared in Sanc with Epyon I almost asked him to throw the suit away, it was… It was what? A word to describe what I was feeling… Dark? Can a mobile suit in and of itself be evil? The look of the suit gave me shudders but the feel of it was worse. // He had accredited some basic awareness similar to intelligence to Zero and the logical part of him he had always listened to before insisted he must credit Epyon with at least the same level of awareness. The computer operating system that was Zero had been incredibly complex and would more than meet the requirements of the times to be classified as an artificial intelligence system. Zero’s intelligence had simply been focused on one thing, specialized into a fighting analytical system. Zero was designed to grant the user a greater chance of survival and victory by pre-determining all possible actions in a combat situation. Given what he knew of Epyon the system had to be designed
to do exactly the same thing. Zechs had been incredible when flying
the monster, always steps ahead of Quatre himself and //Yet he did not win the war. Well. He was not seen to win the war. He should have taken us out easily in that series of battles before the final fight. Something seemed to always take him away at the penultimate moment. Hindsight is a wondrous thing. // With the information to hand, he had to give both systems the status of AIs if in very select specialized fields and he needed to determine a broader breakdown of those specialized abilities to accurately compare the two. He closed his eyes against the sight of the firelight reflecting off the overhead beams. Now for the part he really had wanted to avoid considering but must, in fairness to Heero, contemplate. He would not simply say it was not possible because it would make him feel better and be easier for all concerned. That would be easy but not honest. //I have been dancing around these last few minutes putting off what can not be put off indefinitely. I have spent nearly three years in blessed ignorance but ignoring the implications now would be stupid. Epyon is long gone but understanding it would help Heero and give me a greater understanding of the events that led to the Libra. // *"Might that not have been the purpose of the Epyon? To make such an ability strong enough to enable the user to see enough to make a difference?"* Heero’s questions rang loud and clear in his mind, forcing him to face the issue squarely. Forcing him to think of the implications such a system might have had if it had not been destroyed in the war. Forcing him to fear the possibility if such a system had been designed once its like might yet return. The schematics of the system had to exist somewhere. //The greatest point against the idea is that we don’t know exactly what psychic ability is. If anyone should know about the advances in psychic investigation I should. I have been affected by psychic ability since birth and since I was old enough to understand my difference I have sought out information. I have wanted to know just what it is that makes me different but I have found no one who can define it to my satisfaction. The best parapsychic investigators and scientists could not answer my questions because they did not know the answers. If that is the case, then how could someone create a system that augmented psychic ability?// He had spent a considerable amount of money and even enlisted the aid of Sandrock’s creator to no avail. No one had been able to set down a definitive of what psychic talent was or how to train it. It all seemed pretty much hit or miss. Kushrenada was credited with creating the Epyon but had he devised the operating system? Someone must have helped him and perhaps it was time he spent some of his money on tracking down those who had worked with Kushrenada. They might have some answers that made more sense. //Wing Zero never made my skin crawl just by looking at it. Perhaps I was too far gone in my insanity to notice? No, that seems hardly likely. Zero seemed to augment my sensitivity though I am sure it was accidental, not intended, and I am sure I would have noticed something of that sort. At the least I should have remembered it now I am somewhat saner. I don’t remember Zero having that kind of effect on me on board Peacemillion when Heero was using it. Epyon did, though. Epyon made my skin creep. // This gave credence to there being something different about Epyon other than the demonic appearance of the suit design. Might Epyon have been designed to work with a Psychic’s natural abilities? Perhaps even specific fields of psychic ability? //We are getting into the realm of science-fiction here. Still, a few hundred years ago the idea of colonies in space was nothing more than science-fiction. // His assumption and that of every other person he knew who had had occasion to compare the suits, had been the two operating systems were of the one design and created by the same people. Those people had to have been the scientists who had died in the war. The same scientists who had designed the Gundams. The fact he had found the Zero’s schematics on L4 in the secret bunker was prime evidence of the origins of the system. He believed there was one operating system designed and the schematics had somehow been acquired by Treize Kushrenada. //Surely there could not be so terrifying a coincidence as two such AIs being created by two differing factions? There had to be common ground between the two systems at least during their development phases.// “I am not sure frightening is the appropriate word.” Heero’s voice startled him out of his speculations and he glanced across at the other bed. Heero’s eyes were closed and Quatre suspected he was seeing once again that towering crimson demon in his mind’s eye. Epyon still haunted Heero’s dreams even after all this time as Zero haunted Quatre’s. //Curious. My nightmare is Zero but Heero’s nightmare is not Wing Zero. He has told me before it is Epyon in his dreams. Epyon haunts him which means he has to have genuinely feared the system. // “You see, I have to give the old man’s story some form of credence because I know some things he does not. I have information he does not, information that involves us, the Gundam pilots. The war was a game, Quatre, a very complex and bloody game and I believe it is still being played. Epyon was a part of that game. Zero was too. We all were.” Quatre scowled into the darkened recesses of the ceiling. His empathy could pick up the shadow of fear from Heero, a lingering remnant of past days. He had never felt this shadow when Heero spoke of Zero but now that he thought on it he had always felt an emotional shadow when Epyon was mentioned, even in passing. Always there was a brief flash of deep uneasiness and momentary confusion. He might not have been able to name it fear then, but he could now. “We cannot allow our imaginations to run rampant. We have to deal with this logically and determine the facts. In an evaluation there can be no room for supposition. There are always people out there who think they know best how the world should turn and that is why we have the Preventers.” He watched as Heero seemed to hunch in on himself and felt a brief tightening of his emotions. Heero was keeping himself under control but he was showing strain. They were both tired and should be sleeping instead of lying here and contemplating past wars and schemes. “To me psychic ability has always been a fact of life. I live with such ability every day. It is not a flight of fancy or a means to milk money out of lonely old ladies missing their wealthy husbands. Psychic awareness is real and even after evaluating what I know of my own abilities I can’t measure or define what I do or what I sense. I can’t put down on paper what it is so that others can look at a list of numbers and say ’Ah. Now I understand.’ I know what I feel, not how to describe it to other people. I don’t see how anyone could make a computer system to interact with such an unmeasurable ability. If I can’t understand how it works, how can others? You have to understand something to convert it to cold hard figures on paper. I would think clairvoyance would be even harder to define for such purposes than empathy. Is it possible someone could construct a machine to augment something as intangible as seeing into the future? I honestly don’t know, Heero but I would think not.” Heero shook his head slowly from side to side against the pillow, eyes closed though Quatre was uncertain what it was he did not wish to see. The reaction was probably symbolic of not wishing to be seen as losing his reasoning. He could almost feel Heero wondering if it was possible he was going insane after all this time. The emotions were all shadowy and somewhat vague but he could feel them. He supposed it was only natural Heero would have those moments of doubt but there was something else hidden within those confused emotions he did not understand. He read it as a certainty Heero was holding something back and he felt it was of importance. “When I first used Epyon… I went insane. I must have gone insane, Quatre. There is no other explanation for what happened, for what I did. Epyon was so unlike Zero. Under Epyon’s influence I… Everyone was the enemy. Wherever I looked I could see them. They would turn on me and I knew they would come for me but before they could I struck out at them. I attacked and killed the very people I had been fighting with as allies only an hour before. I killed the enemy Quatre but I killed people who had been my allies too. Because they would be the enemy.” Quatre stared at the dancing flames, his hands drawing the eiderdown tighter to his body. “Why?” “I… why?” “I understand why you would kill those who were attacking you. Romefeller’s Oz was destroying the city and everything and everyone around you. I can understand you reacting to that, defending your life and the lives of others present. That is what we were trained to do. Why did you attack the men and women of the Treize Faction? They had been fighting with you to defend the city and Kushrenada’s prison. Why do you think you turned on them?” Quatre lifted up slightly in the bed meeting Heero’s eyes with a steady gaze. “You have said you had been working with them, fighting side by side with them. Why turn on them? Did one of them attack you mistaking Epyon as an enemy?” “No. Epyon… I… Epyon made me believe they were a threat.” Heero whispered into the darkness. “I saw them turn on me and on each other. Like rabid dogs on a corpse I saw them rip apart the city and I saw them kill each other and slaughter the people running from them. I saw them do it. They never did anything of the sort, I know that, but I saw them do it over and over again. They were becoming the enemy and I was a weapon to destroy them before they could.” Quatre closed his eyes wearily and sank back down into the bed. He was tired, so very tired and he wanted nothing more than to sleep. His body ached in every muscle and bone and his mind seemed to be running around in circles. He was just too tired to think straight and surely Heero wanted to rest too? Why did they insist on lying here in the dark and rehashing the old wounds of the war? They were only torturing themselves over events long finished they could not change. There was no going back in time to change events to something less horrible, life just did not work that way. It was over. Was it not? //It should be over but it’s not. That is what is wrong. There is so much that happened to us during the war and we have not faced certain events head on and settled them within ourselves. It will not be over. It will never be over until we face our past and every rotten painful decision we had to make. // “Quatre?” “Yes?” “I think… I think Epyon…” Heero growled softly and Quatre felt a flash of frustration from the other young man. “Am I simply attempting to foist the blame for a decision I made onto a machine? Am I looking for a scapegoat that can’t fight back so I don’t have to blame myself anymore for what I did? Epyon can’t argue back and make me face an unpalatable incident from my past. I’ve not run from my past, you know. I’ve had long sessions with psychologists and talked to them about everything I did during the war. Everything I did except any incident that happened to me while I used Epyon. I talked to them about Zero but I never talked to even one of them about Epyon. I’ve not told anyone until now, until I told you.” It was there, undeniably there and undeniably it was fear he sensed. Buried deep within Heero was a hard core of fear and Quatre was uncomfortable with it. One did not associate Heero Yuy with the word or idea of fear and to so clearly feel his emotions now was a rude awakening. Emotions made of the Perfect Soldier nothing more than a human being. A frail, emotional human like any other human on the planet. Heero was no longer that emotionless near automaton, trained to excellence in killing. That Heero was gone now, the conditioned barriers crumbled and fear was only one of the emotions tumbling within him. It was not just fear Quatre had found within his friend’s emotional vocabulary in the last day. Heero had come a long way to acknowledge the fear and the warmth and yearning Quatre associated with love. //I don’t think he even realizes it yet. Love. It’s there and it is unmistakable. I’m pleased he has found himself even if right now he is not enjoying human frailty. The fear is strong and the love is far weaker but it is there. It makes him stronger.// “I had my share of sessions with psychologists and they dug deep into my psyche but somehow I could not tell much about my time using Zero. I have told you far more than I told them. Sometimes we need more time before we face something so… personal as Zero was to me. We need time and I think the right person to confide in and if those conditions are met there is no holding back. I’ve talked to Trowa and he understood why I couldn’t talk about Zero to the psychologists the way I talked to him. The way I have talked to you. Maybe it was easier talking to each other because we know we will not condemn the other for what was felt and what was done. We went through hell during the war and came out the other side alive. I will be honest, Heero, I never expected to survive. I guess it stands to reason there would be areas of baggage we would not have shared with others.” “Am I trying to blame the machine for my own failings?” //He is like a dog worrying at a bone. // Quatre sighed. “It was war, Heero. Not an excuse, I know, but it is the truth. It was war. Crazy things are done during wartime that makes no sense in the light of peace. Sometimes that is just the way it is.” In the other bed Heero sighed and rolled, turning his back to Quatre and facing the door. Quatre smiled at the gesture, recognizing it for what it was. The symbol of Heero’s trust. They did not often turn their backs to a person and never to an enemy or a stranger. “We are too tired for this, yes?” “I think so. Everything just seems to be going in circles. We are sure to make more sense after we sleep.” “Yes, I suppose we will. We should sleep, but you should know there are things I need to tell you. Things that have a bearing on what we learned tonight and are important to the overall picture. Things that will shock you.” Quatre stared up at the ceiling and waited for more information he really did not want but Heero was silent and the silence stretched out. It was an odd silence as he could feel the tension within Heero had not abated and he knew Heero was not asleep. Waiting, Quatre guessed, for him to make the offer to hear this important information but they needed to sleep and he simply could not face any more. “It takes a great deal to shock me, Heero. I’m pretty jaded despite my age. War, big business and taking an active role in politics do that to a person. We will talk after we have slept. To try to go beyond this point we must rest. I need to think about what you have told me of the Epyon as you experienced it. Will you trust me to talk to you again about Epyon? Will you give some more thought to what it was you sensed, what you might have felt during that time so when we talk again your impressions may come a little easier to help me?” “Yes.” a whisper in the night. “Good. I’m far from naïve and I know there is a great deal about the war and about Treize Kushrenada and even Zechs that we don’t know. I think we need to learn more about them on a personal level so we might gain some insight into their motivations. It should help us to better understand what happened. The Epyon and Zechs and Treize probably have no bearing at all on the current situation but it will at least allow us to put our own ghosts to rest. Some of them at least.” Heero’s breath caught, a small hiccup and a flare of emotion. Disbelief perhaps? Unease certainly. “The hard drives stored in the boot of the car. There is information on the hard drives that will answer a lot of questions. While we are forced to shelter here it would be wise to begin the investigation into the information contained there.” Ah yes, the hard drives in the boot of the car, one of which contained information on his own conception. He shuddered delicately and it had nothing to do with the cold. “You have not even told me where you got that information from. So many hard drives and it can not all be concerned with our individual pasts. It’s too late now, we need to rest but I have the feeling what is on those drives will only lead to more questions.” Quatre whispered. “Oh yes.” Heero murmured. “A great many more questions will need to be asked before we can even begin to understand.” Quatre frowned in the silence that settled over the room. The crackle of the fire as it burned lower in the hearth and the howl of the blizzard outside were the only sounds. He listened intently to the storm and could pick out the occasional creak from the old inn buffeted by the wind but it was a surprisingly comforting sound blended with the crackle of the fire. //Something about those hard drives disturbs him. It has been there, underlying everything he has felt all evening. As far back as the time we were talking in the Palace. It is faint but it is there and it is not unlike fear, though nothing like the fear I sense when he mentions Epyon. The information I was genetically enhanced is on those hard drives and information about the other pilots’ pasts. What else is there? Is there more about my family? More information on Heero? How much data might there be about the others? How exactly did he get his hands on this font of knowledge?// For a long while Quatre lay in the dark and listened to the sounds of the night. The storm raging beyond the inn and the quiet footsteps pacing beyond the door marking one of their fellow Preventers on his rounds. “Good night, Quatre.” He was very tired and whoever was walking up and down the hall had a quiet and measured stride. Each step was like a quiet beat and the longer he listened to it the more it lulled him. “Good night, Heero.” ————————————- ** Flames. The acrid stench of smoke and the roaring of flames. Frantic running feet and the panicked shouts of those who fled before the flames. Dancing flaring flames and hot dark and bitter smoke and shrill shouting of the women and the deeper voices of men. ** ————————————- He shuddered and rolled in the bed, blue eyes cracking open. The crackle of the fire pried his eyes open a little further and sleepily he sighed, recognizing the room. It was at once recognized as a safe zone and as being unfamiliar but the roar of the storm wind reminded him of where he was and why there was no danger. Sleepily, without truly waking he snuggled back down beneath the eiderdown. There was no acrid smoke to set him coughing. The fire was contained within a hearth and was burning low, little more than glowing coals. The lingering scent of burning pine in the air and not the chocking bitter stench of burning flesh. No danger here. ———————————— ** Acrid burning stench of smoke and leaping dancing flame out of control. The promise of imminent and painful death. “Quatre!” ** He knew the voice that summoned him. He knew the shape and form of the emotions reaching out for him. The hands reaching out to him, like the emotions reaching for him, were familiar. The caress of awareness and dawning unease mirrored his own. Within the deep voice calling to him was a promise of understanding and warmth no one else could offer and a wealth of fear for him. Somewhere in the velvet darkness surrounding him, somewhere in this safe warm cocoon Trowa called to him. Within his cocoon of peace and safety there dawned a disturbing flicker of thought. There had been something about the loved voice calling his name that suggested panic. A thread of concern birthed to fight the welcoming warmth of his safe nest. A hint of unease wavering to life and stirred to something more on the distant awareness of wind. ————————————— He was startled from peaceful darkness. Something teased at his awareness, tweaked sluggish curiosity and blew on the embers of dawning unease. He moaned in protest, reaching for the warmth and comfort.
He sought to avoid the unease, to crawl back into the enfolding security
of black oblivion. He could bury himself in the warmth and in dreams
of the touch of his lover’s hand. A spike of alarm flickered into existence within the unease and the desire to burrow into warm darkness lost ground to growing curiosity. There was something not right. Some ‘thing’ was wrong with the world beyond his secure cocoon of protection. Some ‘thing’ insisted on invading his safe zone. It was pulling at him, calling to him, begging him for attention. //Trowa?// Sleepy thought battling with the encroaching darkness and beckoning warmth of his cocoon. A thought directed at some intangible ‘thing’ that was familiar within the swirling darkness. He tried to open his eyes, to respond but he wondered if there was really any need to make such an effort. Beyond the darkness there was only the storm enclosing Sanc and the cold, cold air. The fire must be so much ash by now, cooling quickly in the storm’s icy chill. Through the gathering darkness was a resurgence of awareness. The growing awareness of distress, of unease growing apace with a racing heartbeat and a spike of horror. The impression of reaching out to him from a great distance, fighting the horror that was both familiar and unknown at once and a growing sense of denial. He could feel it, the fear he would not be there with comfort sorely needed and welcoming arms to protect against the horrors. It was familiar. All too familiar. //Dreaming again, Trow? Not tonight. Mm tired.// With the thought the descent began once more into welcoming warm darkness. Within the darkness there was the suggestion of a smile and the impression of warm arms closing protectively about him. The unmistakable musky scent of his lover filled his nostrils and he could taste him on his lips. “Love you, Trow.” He breathed the whisper against warm lips snuggling into a welcoming embrace. ———————————— “No!” Spike of distress searing through the comforting darkness. Distress enfolding him in fear. The flavour of fear was familiar as was the remembered scent of the fear of blood. Blood was familiar, fear was familiar. Unwelcome but familiar and he struggled against it. So many kinds of fear. The flavour differed with each source. Sharp bite of fear and heat of flames with the acrid smoke filling his nostrils. Fear of blood and instinctive fear of death sharper and deeply ingrained into the human psyche. Above all the yearning responding to the fear of a solitary existence. Being alone, bereft of warmth and companionship found and meaning life itself to him. He had been alone, they had been alone and there was fear it would come again. He feared he must be deprived of the lover who made life itself worth living. Aching soul binding need for ease from the terrors he had lived with. “No.” A milder denial, with the rising awareness of wrongness in the emotional storm. His racing heartbeat began to steady. Within darkness the easing of that heartbeat mirroring his own relaxed his dawning fear. He knew this. Even lingering sleep could not disguise it from him. He knew this fear and aching need and he had dealt with its like before. He could soothe the need, all he needed to do was reach out and calm his lover. Reach out with his own comforting warmth and love and bring Trowa back to awareness. Trowa’s dreams could be so consuming and if there was fire his lover would need all the reassurance his empathy could project. He had promised his lover he would always be there. “Trowa. S’kay. Mmm here.” He needed to remind Trowa he was not alone, enfold him in his love. No matter where they were, no matter the distance that might separate them, he needed to know they were always together within their hearts and their souls were one. It was a bond he lived to feel and without it there would be nothing worth having. ———————————————— Unease emerged from darkness, a vague awareness of something being wrong. The darkness and warmth tugged at him to return to its embrace, to immerse himself within restful oblivion. There were stirrings of memory of smoke and flame and the more welcome remembrance of a lover’s touch, of concern and need. He existed in the darkness adrift in comfort and aware of threat and stirring to the need to act. A sharp piercing blaze of light filled the darkness, the red gold of an explosion of flame. A resurgence of the acrid burning stench he was all too familiar with from the war, the stench of burning flesh. He shuddered within his cocoon at the rising roar that might be storm winds or might be the thunder of a firestorm approaching. The roaring speared through his comfort zone, forcing his awareness, driving from him the need for oblivion. He shuddered, tossing against the invasion of sensation overtaking him. Groggy with sleep, his surroundings became unreal. The darkness and safety were wrong, the fire’s roar was a threat yet unreal, sleep fading before the onslaught. He shuddered, uncertainty forcing awareness and giving birth to questions. Where was he? Who was he? Someone reaching out for him? Someone threatened. Someone needed him. Who called him? Who reached out for him and why did he have the sense of distance? There was danger, fire and it threatened them. Him. //Trowa?// It seemed so long ago since they were together. Trowa, his other half, his soulmate who could kill impassively and draw out the pleasures of the flesh for hours and make him beg for completion. His other half was out there, somewhere beyond the darkness and calling for him. “Trowa? Where are you?” He sought to reach him through the darkness, seeking touch, the assurance of his voice and his hands. Trowa was there, somewhere in the darkness and he needed to reach him. To hold him. “Quatre?” The voice was soft, curious and far from alarmed. Sleepy almost. Familiar. He received the impression of confusion, wary alertness fading to the need to sleep. Beyond the confusion he sensed was not his own there was the underlying fear returning. The fear and the impression of haste and running. Somewhere beyond his hearing, though he felt it with every fibre of his being, was the sound of running feet. Footsteps running away from him one moment and toward him the next. People circling him and never seen, never touched only sensed. “Trowa? Running… why? You are running? Where are you? Can’t… Can’t feel you…” “You are dreaming, Quatre. Go to sleep. It’s too damn early to get up.” The quiet voice in the darkness a counterpoint to the urgency he sensed surrounding him. Mixed with the rising urgency a flash of resentment and the cottony feel of a mind befuddled by sleep. Dreaming? Was he… He was dreaming? Well, of course he was dreaming. That made sense but how odd. He was tired and the ache of his body told him it had been a long day and a day which had not wanted to end. He was overtired and reacting to shadows, jumping and twitching at nothing. Why should he think there was something wrong? Why should he smell smoke and burning flesh and hear the thunder of firestorm and the sounds of running feet and screaming? Why should he be disturbed by such a nightmare when pure exhaustion should have ensured dreamless sleep ? He was exhausted and he lay in warmth and comfort and knew here was safety. Need. He could feel a need reaching out to him. He tossed
his head about seeking escape or to locate the source of the need.
He was uncertain which he sought to do. The sensation grew stronger,
begging him to reach out in turn and meet it. It was familiar and
he sought to comply, to reach out with his love and sudden certainty
it was Trowa seeking him. He fought Agitation. Clear and rising, flashing fear and distress. Calm, they were together in heart and soul and never ever apart. Calm with the touch of shared emotion though their bodies might be apart. It was only physical distance separating them and distance meant nothing to the mind with love so deep as theirs. Reaching out to the one calling him he could almost feel the warmth of skin against his hands, feel the brush of hot flesh against his own. Pain. Low level pain disturbing him and disrupting his concentration. A headache, a remote part of him identified. Well, what more did he expect? He was overtired and exhausted and of course he had to experience nightmares when finally his aching body and overtaxed mind had the chance to rest. It was just unfortunate the nightmares picked today to bother him. He sought out the darkness, that balm to dismiss the headache and allow him to curl up within its gentle folds. He needed so desperately to sleep and he knew Trowa was far away. He wanted to dream of Trowa but it should be the wondrous sensuous experience he remembered of their last night together. He had not had much sleep that night but Trowa had shown him beyond any doubt he was loved. —————————— ** “Fuck!” Terror exploded into his dark safe cocoon. Shattering rolling waves of emotion bombarding his awareness and he cried out with the force of it. The world around him, the darkness was filled with it. The initial thunder of emotion was not lessened by the growing sense of uncertainty of it and the fear was filling with confusion. ** He was shaking, gasping for air, clawing at the air, tangling restricting cloth. He was in restraints, tied and hampered from reacting physically to go to Him. Where was He? What was wrong? What was happening? ** "Quatre. Where are you? I need you Quat." He was gasping and choking for air and he could not breathe. There was a shadow in the darkness, a deeper darkness full of shadowy flickers. Was that a glimpse of a smiling face and a brilliant flash of flame and acrid stench of smoke robbing the air from his lungs? "God. Quatre, I need you." Heartfelt longing exploded into his senses and the fear receded. "I miss you." ** “Trowa?” gasping against the smothering darkness. No air. There was no air. The flame had robbed him of the air he needed to breathe. “Quatre? Wake up! You are dreaming!” A voice close to him. A familiar voice though it was muffled in the smothering darkness. Trowa was near but it was not Trowa who called him. He struggled against the bonds containing him, desperate to break free. The muffled words were curse words, he was sure of that. Someone was swearing fit to kill somewhere in the darkness and it was not fair they had air enough to breathe and he must gasp for every little bit. He screamed as the world tilted crazily in the darkness. “I don’t know how to reach you, Quatre! I don’t know how to reach past whatever it is making you dream like this.” Confusion battered at him, filling the darkness in overpowering waves. He could not think for it filling his awareness, overflowing his senses, filling his entire being. Nothing made sense to him other than the awareness of confusion and growing fear within it. Where was the light? Where was the light he must have
to live and the air he needed to breathe? He was smothering in darkness
and he was being pulled down into the horror of the Nightmare enveloping his senses, filling him with the smell and taste of flame and smoke. People were running around him, shadow shapes in the smoke filled darkness of the building and nothing was making sense. This was not real, he knew it was not real, it was only a dream and he could control his dreams. The first step to controlling his empathy was to establish control of his imagination. He needed a wall. A wall, strong and high and it must be a dome over his head and surrounding him against which only the impressions he desired could enter. A domed enclosure would protect him, enfolding him in safety and silence… The dome shattered above him and admitted the smoke and he huddled behind the ruined remnants of his barricade. On the other side of the wall the fire raged and the smoke took the air and people ran screaming before the flames. He could hear them running and screaming and he could hear the thundering roar of the fire approaching though here on the far side of the wall he could see nothing and he was safe. There was light suddenly invading the darkness, blazing brilliant light and a blast of bone aching cold air. With the light and the cold was a rise in the confusion that was too strong and too intense to come from one person. He twisted away from the confusion but it was surrounding him in the ruined dome, the walls of his enclosure trapping the emotions where he could not escape them. “Quatre! You are just tied up in the blanket! Wake up! It’s just a dream.” He knew that voice and the uncertainty in it did not belong. That voice was more accustomed to certainty and competent decisive action. There were hints of anger and desperation swirling within the confusion. The anger should have been cold and calculating with just a hint of manic lunacy but always cold and calculation belonged within both voice and emotion. There was a name to go with the voice but the emotion itself was strange and he could not remember the name for the life of him. “You are dreaming.” Trowa was out there. Cold certainty enveloped him. Trowa was somewhere out there and he was struggling to deal with the confused aftermath of nightmare. No, that was not right. Nightmare? Trowa dreamed of fire and not all his dreams were nightmare memories of his past. Was this nightmare of that other thing? He had helped Trowa through the dreams that were not nightmare before and at first he had not told his lover of his suspicions. It was only later, after meticulous investigations made without his lover’s knowledge that he had been convinced he alone was not marked. Dreams of fire would haunt his lover and in the new day, sometimes only hours later he would find evidence. Sometimes it would take days or weeks but his investigations would always reveal details of actual event matching the details he managed to worm out of his reluctant lover. Dreams need not necessarily be memories of the past. “Precognition.” He whispered and it seemed his voice was hoarse as though he had been screaming. His voice felt tight and raw to him as it would if he had been screaming… or inhaling acrid smoke filled air. “Quatre! It’s Heero. It’s Heero! Will you listen to me?” Strong hands were gripping his shoulders and squeezing. He always knew Heero was strong but he had never before been subjected to this. Vice like fingers were digging into his shoulders and he was jerking in the darkness, being shaken repeatedly and with growing strength. //Heero? // If Heero was there and this was not just a part of his dream why could he not see him? Why could he hear him and why did Heero’s voice sound muffled for all he seemed to be shouting? Heero was touching him and gripping his shoulders in a grip that hurt and he was definitely being shaken but he could not retaliate. Why could he not fight back? Why could he not throw off the annoying source of his pain? He wanted to throw Heero across the room and he would! He struggled against the restraints forcing his arms into unyielding immobility and he was cold, freezing. He did not like being shaken! Resignation and unease swirled around him, breaching the shattered remnants of his dome. Not Heero. That anger was brighter, the confusion giving way to true anger and no little worry and concern. This wave of emotion was distant but still strong. It seemed more real than the hands shaking him or the voice cursing him. Resignation and longing passing and filling with a sense of curiosity. He knew the sensation of old and he knew it was imperative he answer. He could almost see his lover standing before him and almost hear his voice asking him why he had to do this thing. Why he needed to interfere and pursue the matter to a conclusion and in so doing acknowledge what had always been unpalatable to him. He could hear the loved voice ask why and he knew there was no other response he could make. He must answer and then, Allah willing, the confusion would fall away from him and he could separate the threads binding him. "Because you need to." t.b.c. Karina Robertson 2006 ----------------------------- Notes: Previous Quatre / Heero chapters are 139 and 142 dealing with the beginning sequence of the chapter. This chapter links with the events of Trowa's nightmares.
|
