Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: PG-13 (so far)
Warnings: Language, shounen ai (so far), Crossover (GW/Final Fantasy VIII)/Mystery
Pairing: So far, 1+2
Archive: Gundam Wing Addiction
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Don't sue. College kids are like L2 kids; we got nothin'.
Soldiers of the Far-Between Part 1
Dreams
In his dream, Duo was again walking down Club Alley on L2, also known as Third Avenue. He was walking towards Lost Boy's Haven on the corner of Third and Fifty-first. He passed a seedy club with an old band blaring out the open doors:
// "When we were young the future was so bright,
The old neighborhood was so alive,
And every kid on the whole damned street,
Was gonna make it big in every beat,
Now the neighborhood's cracked and torn,
The kids are grown up but their lives are worn,
How can one little street swallow so many lives..." //
He walked on, passing a long black reflective window, looking at himself in the mirror. He wasn't fifteen anymore; hell, he looked about ten. His braid was shorter, he was shorter. But he was still dressed in black. Black vinyl hip-huggers that looked as if he had been poured into them. A glittering rhinestone-studded belt that emphasized his narrow waist. An ebony silk peasant-looking shirt with billowing sleeves, a shirt that was undone in the front to reveal his pale, gently muscled midriff. His violet eyes widened.
/ I look just like I did when I was turning tricks... /
Gunfire. Someone was screaming, but it sounded faded and far away.
Duo tried to burrow further into the dream. He didn't want to wake up quite yet. Not before he got to Lost Boy's Haven and ducked through the back door, into the lair of the Lost Boys, the Maxwell gang. He wanted to see all of it again--the warehouse, the cathedral, Solo, Foxy. He was afraid of what he would find there now -- all of those things were gone, after all--but he still wanted to see it again anyway. He needed to see it again.
The screaming wouldn't stop, though. The dream began to darken, and the smells of alcohol and fear and blood -- the scents of L2 -- became the smell of adrenaline, fear, and sweat.
It was Heero. He was still asleep, but he looked scared to death. He had thrown off the one blanket he had been sleeping with and was lying with his knees almost pulled up to his chest. With his omnipresent forest green tank top put aside, his chest looked white and narrow, defenseless. So vulnerable.
He was moaning and crying out, a slurred mix of Japanese that Duo couldn't understand.
The strange mix of fear and curiosity in Heero's sleep-filled voice paralyzed Duo with a strange foreboding. He could feel himself shivering, even though it was as hot as an L2 afternoon in the room.
/ He sounds so far away... so far from me. And I can't do a damned thing about it... /
He thought about waking Heero up, but then he saw the heavy lead shine of the pistol lying beneath Heero's pillow. And he was sure that if he woke Heero up like this, Heero might--intentionally or not--blow his brains across the wall.
~*~
It was a beach. A long, sugar-white beach, like the flirt of a silk slip at the hem of rolling, endless blue. The first thing that disturbed Heero was that the sea was blue. No seawater was ever really blue. It was always green. The beach was totally empty except for a man dressed in black at the far end of the beach, standing where the surf washed in over his black boots.
Though he didn't seemed to be armed that Heero could tell, the man filled Heero with a sense of dread that was as deep as it was unjustified.
/ Don't go over to him. You're dreaming, and you know you're dreaming. Therefore, you can walk away if you want to. Just go. Leave. Get away. /
But his legs seemed to keep him going forward anyway, and Heero suddenly doubted that he had any control over this dream at all.
He turned to the left, looking over at the fields beyond the beach, and suddenly whatever force had been carrying him towards the man in the black leather jacket abruptly left his feet. He stopped, his eyes widening as his head tilted upwards.
The field stretched on for miles and miles, and Heero could make out a small town in the distance. But that wasn't what had stopped him in his tracks. Hovering gently beyond the beach was what Heero mistook at first for a battleship. It was formidable in size, as large as ten buildings, but it was oddly graceful in appearance, smooth and tapering. Alien-looking inscriptions labeled its sides.
/ It's not a battleship, it's an academy, / Heero thought, and had no idea how he knew what he was thinking.
The sky above the floating fortress-like structure was as bright blue as the water, with fluffy white clouds speeding incredibly fast across the horizon, like racing ships.
"You."
Heero jerked his head back in the direction of the man in the black jacket, who had turned to him. He reached for a gun that wasn't in his waistband.
/ Of course it's not. It's under the pillow, where you put it every night. Heero no baka. Remember? You're dreaming. And don't forget that. It's not real. /
It sure as hell felt real, though. He could feel the fine white sand beneath his bare feet, loose and cool, not hot. He noticed with a sense of wonder that he was dressed in the same clothes he had worn to bed, a pair of black silk boxers borrowed from Duo, and that was it. No shoes, no gun. He could hear the grinding roar of the waves as they tripped onto the sand, sending runners of foam rippling across it. The sand glistened there, wet and dark like sealskin. He could smell salt and drying seaweed, smells that never failed to remind him of his crash-landing on the Earth, the crash landing that had almost ended with him drowning in the ocean. He remembered that his eyes had been full of stinging saltwater, and that he had heard the songs of dolphins echoing indifferently beneath him as he sputtered and fought to swim and stay alive.
The quiet voice of the man in black leather brought him crashing back to reality--at least the reality of the dream, anyway.
Heero, now closer, saw that the man was really only a couple of years older than him; he was eighteen at the most, maybe less. Heero also saw that he had been mistaken about the man being unarmed. A large swordlike weapon hung sheathed and suspended on one of the many belts hanging loosely at his waist.
"Who are you?" Gray eyes rose to meet his cobalt ones, and Heero didn't miss the movement of a hand going down to rest at the grip of the sword. He wished that he was armed, dream or not. The eyes of the black-clothed man were narrowed in suspicion. "Who are you?!" Those eyes were stormy and dark.
/ They've always been that color. They were never blue like babies usually are. They were always gray and wild. They call him Squall. They named him Squall for his eyes. How do I know that?!? /
"Who are you?" Heero replied, trying not to look unstrung.
The gray-eyed man pulled his sword and pointed it at Heero; an explosion of handheld thunder rocked the beach, and everything went dark.
~*~
"Huh!" He shot upright in bed, pulling his gun out from under his pillow in one fluid motion, flicking the safety off. The only sounds in the room were his own ragged breathing and Duo's light snoring; after Heero's thrashing had calmed down a little, the American pilot had gone back to sleep.
The dream--and all the ones before it--had definitely been nightmares, with a kind of surreal simplicity about them. Heero turned the light on, trying to reconfirm his place in reality before going back to sleep. He felt as if he had a high fever, the colors brighter, the air still and heavy, like the calm before a storm.
Sighing, he got out of bed and crawled into Duo's, curling up beside him. Duo--without even waking up--yawned, threw a comfortable arm over his shoulders and kept snoring.
Heero reached over and turned the lights off again, listening to the wind moan outside. He heated his cool hands against Duo's warm arm, breathing in the herbal scent of Duo's shampoo, staring into the shadowy corners of the safehouse bedroom. Suddenly, Duo shifted positions, molding himself to Heero's back, mumbling. "Uh... um... Heero?"
"Hai," Heero answered quietly in the darkness, not trying to pull away.
"Nnn... feels good... night, Heero."
"Goodnight, Duo."
There were no more dreams of the ocean and the man in black leather that night.
~*~
Mornings in the safehouse, as usual, were uneventful. Wufei growled over a cup of coffee. Duo was putting so much sugar over a presweetened cereal that a dentist would have fainted. Trowa was quietly eating his own breakfast, and Quatre was searching Heero's pale and unrested face.
"Heero, what's wrong with you? You look terrible. Are you sick?"
Heero grunted, grabbing the sugar bowl away from Duo and spooning a little over his own cereal. "Iie. Bad dream."
Quatre's turquoise eyes narrowed a little, studying Heero's face in a way that made the Japanese pilot feel uncomfortable. "What was it about?"
"Don't remember."
Quatre nodded slightly. "I doubt that. You're not a very good liar, Heero." The other pilots lifted their heads to watch the discourse.
Heero smiled grimly back at him. The smile was rough, clumsy, and there was no humor in it. "No practice. Quit looking in my mind, Quatre. I can feel you searching around in there." Quatre blushed, convincing Heero that his convictions were correct.
The two stared in tense silence at each other.
"C'mon, we don't have time for you guys to showdown this morning. I hate to be the bearer of actual work, but we're finally getting some new missions! Get up, oh mighty and indestructible leader! We've got a briefing to do!" Duo's voice was nervous and full of forced levity.
Quatre still sat there, his bright blue eyes dark with scrutiny. "Are you sure there's nothing you want to tell me, Heero?" he asked finally.
Heero seriously thought about it--telling the small, light-haired Arabian everything, about what he had seen in his dreams, about the floating fortress and the man in black leather. But then he decided against it. With his lack of communication skills, he would not be able to clearly describe the things he had seen, the things he had felt, the vulnerability. The fear. And Quatre was a clairvoyant, one of the Newtypes. Normally, he would be able to see what Heero had dreamt whether Heero had wanted him to or not. But this time he hadn't be able to. He hadn't been able to see anything. Heero could read it in his eyes.
/ Maybe, / Heero thought as he stared back at Quatre, / maybe I was meant to see these things alone. /
"I'll tell," Heero said slowly, deliberately. "If something important comes up, something that may involve the rest of you, I will tell. Everyone. Right now, I don't understand it yet. So if we're going to go discuss strategy, Quatre, let's do it." He began to outline the next battle plan in his grim, deadpan voice.
TBC...
Back to CleverYoungThief's Fanfictions Page