Notes: Thanks to everyone for feedback, and to Arith for being my most wonderful muse/beta/uke, and helping me with all my chapters, and Sol for basically dragging me kicking and screaming to the page. I'm a very reluctant writer. (Also, most of the chaotic plotlines that will ensue are her responsibility.)
More Notes: The song in this is "Bright Eyes" by Art Garfunkel. It's from "Watership Down", a movie which seriously disturbed me as a kid...Anyway, Arith is the one who suggested it, because it's really haunting... *plans evilness*
"Little puppies looking lost
Waiting for an avalanche
Never slow the endless snowSons and daughters looking lost
Notice how they always laugh
But you never see them smile."
--- Posie, Looking Lost
Requiem for the Sinners Part 14
Supplications For Snow
Heero awoke slowly to find a pair of dark eyes watching him solemnly from the side of his bed, and he wondered idly if Wufei had suddenly shrunk. His second thought was that if that was the case, he must have been given some serious drugs.
But once his eyes focused, he saw that it wasn't Wufei at all. A small Hispanic boy was standing beside his bed, small hands curled over the edge of the mattress, dark hair falling in unruly curls across his forehead.
::Mister, are you lost?::
He brought his hand up to brush the bangs away from his face wearily, and watched in wonder as the small boy by his bed did the same thing silently, mimicking him.
Heero touched his finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. The boy did the same, sloe eyes serious.
Heero bared his teeth in a mock snarl. The boy repeated the expression, although Heero could see amusement dancing in his eyes now.
He laughed softly.
"What's your name?"
"Gabriel." The little boy looked at him, expression still serious, resting his chin on the edge of the bed. "He didn't mean it, you know. Those things he said."
Heero scowled a little. "Who?"
"You know."
Duo...
"How do you know?" Heero asked, gently.
He didn't know a lot about little kids. Mainly just that they were usually scared of him. And that they frightened easy in general. At least around him. But that had always been a given. He had been the court boogeyman, an unknown used to scare the aristocrat children of the Cinq Kingdom into behaving themselves.
The little boy shrugged. "Just do. He's my Daddy."
...Duo? Heero closed his eyes. It didn't make any sense. But then again, nothing that had happened to him in the last few days made any kind of sense at all. He was kind of relieved to be sticking to a trend.
The boy looked at him critically, gently poking at his hip. His flannel pants, the same ones he was wearing from the hospital, were riding low on his hips, and the boy's finger traced a thick pattern of scars there.
"I know that mark. That's an OZ mark. You an OZ soldier?" The boy raised an eyebrow at him, the critical, disapproving expression on such a solemn little face almost comical. He placed his palm flat against the scar, and then jerked away as if he had put his hand on a hot stove, eyes wide.
"They did that to you?" he whispered, meeting Heero's eyes. The boy suddenly looked like he was on the verge of tears.
::"How do you like that, my devil, my little Tuefel? Is Hell hot enough for you?"::
Slowly, Heero nodded. He didn't like to remember where he had gotten that scar, and he sure as hell didn't like to talk about it. He didn't like the fact that the boy knew so much about it, either. How did the boy know so damned much?
The boy swallowed visibly, dark eyes moving to the fresher wounds in his shoulder and chest. He gazed on them with a mix of curiosity and awe.
"Get shot?"
"Hai."
"... Did it hurt?"
Heero raised an eyebrow at him. "Of course it hurt." Baka... he thought, and smiled a little.
Just a little.
The boy shrugged, then raised up his worn tee-shirt to reveal a thick white scar, a perfectly round circle. "I got shot, and it didn't hurt. Daddy says I was in shock, though. That's the only reason. It hurt like hell afterwards."
Heero let out a soft snort that would have passed for dismayed laughter from anyone else. The curse sounded so strange, coming from such an innocent face. "You shouldn't curse."
"You want to know why I did?" the boy asked, raising both eyebrows.
"Why?"
"Because of those fucking Ozzies." The boy brought both hands up to his mouth in a child-like gesture, giggling.
Heero laughed hard enough to make his chest hurt. The sound was harsh, but genuine.
The little boy walked over to the end of the bed and climbed onto it clumsily, crawling over to sit next to the wall, leaning up against it with his knees drawn up to his chest. He looked at Heero, head cocked in a strange inquisitive gesture, dark eyes sharp and shining.
The way the boy looked at him sent a chill through him. Someone else had the ability to look at him that way...who was it?
He was too tired to remember.
"I brought you a present. Daddy gave it to me for Christmas, but I'll let you have it, since you're in here alone. Plus, it's Christmas, you know," Gabriel added, shrugging as if giving away the only gift he had received wasn't really a big deal.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small glass globe filled with water. A cyclone of tiny white flakes swirled through the glass. He reached beneath the globe, twisting a key beneath it. A haunting melody began to play through the room, and the boy held the globe out gently to Heero.
Heero took the small gift in awe, looking at it. A cityscape enveloped with whirling snow.
It seemed so beautiful and fragile in his scarred, callused hands. Hands that had probably killed more men than there were snowflakes in that perfectly round glass ball. Heero recognized the unforgettable song, although for the life of him, he couldn't remember where he had heard it.
Is it a kind of a dream
Floating out on the tide
Following the river of death downstream
Oh, is it a dream?
There's a fog along the horizon
A strange glow in the sky
And nobody seems to know where you go
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?Bright eyes
Burning like fire
Bright eyes
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes...
He had a feeling of foreboding that trickled down his back like ice water, and he shook it off roughly.
It's probably just the snow, Heero thought, shaking his head a little. Reminds me...reminds me of that other time.
::Here, this is for you...::
That was nothing he wanted to remember. Not now. Not ever.
"Daddy got that for me. He says it's back from when it used to snow here at Christmas. It's L2." The little boy sighed with a world-weary shrug that made Heero's heart ache. "He says it hasn't snowed here in a really long time. I asked him if maybe...I prayed hard enough, maybe we could have snow again. Do you think so, Heero?" the boy asked, his voice soft.
How do you know my name?
Heero met the boy's eyes steadily, not really sure what to say. He scowled a little. "I... no one has ever given me a gift before."
"S'okay. He thought about you when he found it."
The boy shrugged cryptically, then reached over and touched him gently on the shoulder in a tap that sent a jolt through Heero. His eyes widened as he recognized that touch.
I recognize that... that is uchuu no kokoro...
Heero looked at him sharply, and the boy met his gaze, not looking away. Heero felt himself getting lost in those dark sparkling eyes. They were knowing and ancient and eternal, like the space between stars.
"You're a strange kid."
Gabriel smiled shyly. "You too."
Heero smiled back, tentatively. He didn't have much practice in it.
TBC...
Note: uchoo no kokoro - space heart
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