Merrillian Part 12

Heero awoke from the dream to find his face wet with his own tears. Curling in on himself under the covers of his bed, he wrapped his arms around his own trembling body and just lay there, letting his mind replay the dream.

What he'd seen. What had happened. He was only hurting Duo now. Especially since he now knew that he didn't want to free Duo, for his own horrible and selfish reasoning.

Somewhere along the line, he'd gotten used to the dreams. Somewhere along the line, despite their morbid style and message, he'd actually come to take comfort in the dreams. He had started to look forward to them, if only to see Duo again, despite his condition. Something about the dreams was strangely comforting and now he was faced with losing all of that.

His rational mind screamed at him. It was a dream! There was no reason to keep it, no reason to seek comfort in seeing Duo like that. It was absolutely absurd and practically insane to seek comfort from such a morbid vision of torture. Yet, Heero couldn't deny it now, because he knew it was the truth.

Somewhere along the line he'd fallen in love with Duo.

And if those dreams were the only way to see him, then he didn't want them to stop.

Even if that meant Duo would be trapped for the rest of his life.

Heero sighed angrily, disgusted at his own thoughts. Sitting up in bed he angrily wiped away his own tears and started to get out of bed. He stopped though when he saw his father standing in the doorway.

Odin looked mad.

"How long have you been standing there?" Heero asked quietly. Standing up he moved toward the bathroom and grabbed a towel, wiping off his face.

"Perhaps not long enough," Odin responded in his own quiet voice. Stepping into the room, he shut the door behind him and leaned against it, making very clear that he intended to have a talk with his son, period.

Heero blinked at his father, forgetting his own problems long enough to be confused. This wasn't like his father at all. Odin wasn't the type to push a talk on his son. Not at all.

"Heero, we need to talk about this."

Heero sighed.

"I know I said I wouldn't pry, but I guess I lied. Anyone can see that whatever this thing is, it's huge. Up until this point I've pretty much let your life be your own. But this time, as your father, I need to step in." Odin took a deep breath and relaxed, letting it out slowly. "Yeah... so that said, please tell me what is going on Heero. This is eating you up, I can tell."

In spite of himself, Heero found he was smiling at his father. It was a very small smile, but one none the less. He knew his father stunk at this kind of thing, and oddly enough, the times that he did step forward and try to yank some information out of his son, his approach was almost comical. It served more as a stress relief for both of them then anything else.

Heero took a seat on the bed, his eyes moving over to the painting from his dream. "How much..." He stopped, retracting his statement to reword it. After a long moment of silence between the two, Heero looked up and met his father's eyes, then looked back to the floor.

Taking a deep breath, he tried again. "With all those artifacts you study, how much of it do you think is true?"

Odin blinked at his son, lifting an eyebrow in question. From his father's expression, Heero guessed this wasn't what his father had expected to hear. Heero didn't even need to reflect on the question to know why it was so strange. Nothing seemed normal to him anymore. In fact, he would have welcomed any of the normal problems that college students his age were supposed to have to deal with.

With a soft sigh, Odin took a seat on the bed next to his son. "It's not that that matters."

Heero's eyes flickered to him with a quizzical look.

"Oddly enough, I've found that it's not the truth that matters. Hearing this from a scientist is probably pretty strange, but after so many years it makes sense to me. I've seen countless religions, countless beliefs and countless artifacts, all claiming to have one power or another, good and bad. But under all of them there is one thing they hold in common. The important part is not the object itself, but the belief behind it."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Actually, yes it does. Think about it. Take any culture in the world and look at them, what they practice and how they live. Always, their belief structure holds all this together in some form or another. To them, truth holds meaning, but more importantly the belief is what threads them all together."

Heero frowned, pondering those thoughts for a long moment. "You're gonna think I'm insane."

Odin chuckled. "I've heard so many so-called wild tales in my life, you couldn't possibly top them. That's part of the spice of studying other cultures."

"Well, that's my problem. Right there." Heero pointed at the painting of Duo hanging in the network of chains. "He is real, he is an actual person. And I see him every night in my dreams, just like that. And I... don't know how to help him."

Odin stood up from the bed, with a frown growing on his face. Walking over to the painting, which was still leaning against the closet door, he knelt down to get a closer look. Silence filled the room and every minute longer, Heero found himself shrinking further away. He kept on thinking that he shouldn't have said anything. Now his father would think he was insane and he wouldn't be any better off then before.

"Interesting." Odin murmured softly. "And I'm assuming this has to do with that stone you asked about... the Merrillian?"

Heero blinked in surprise and looked at his father. "Uh, yeah."

Odin nodded, running his hand through his hair in thought. "Judging what I know about beliefs surrounding dreams... Hm." Odin glanced over to his son. "Are the strings holding him up... or is he holding the strings together?"

"What?"

Odin stood up and smirked a bit at his son. "I said, are the strings holding him up or is he holding them together? If you can't solve a problem, then step back and look at it differently. And I don't mean stand on your head."

Heero still stared at his father, not sure at all how to go about doing that.

"Yeah, so I still stink at giving this fatherly advice thing. Maybe I should study how other cultures take care of their children and try to apply it to my own life. Maybe they have an ancient book on child rearing somewhere."

"A book?" Heero's eyes widened a bit as he remembered something else his father had said not too long ago. Something about writing out your problems so you could look at them differently... or painting them...

Without warning Heero stood up quickly and moved to his closet. Stepping around his father, he opened the door and pulled out a new canvas. Setting it against the wall, he searched around for a few clean brushes.

"What are you up to?"

Heero smirked a bit and pulled everything into his arms, heading for the door. "I'm going to look at it a different way. And then I'm going to paint myself a solution."

~*~

The minute he dipped the brush into the paint and set it to the canvas, his painting began to take on a life of it's own. He made no attempt to figure out the overall picture before hand, but instead let his hand glide across the canvas as his subconscious directed. Working with whatever color felt right at the time and keeping Duo and a solution in the back of his mind, he let his muses take over, painting the image before him.

Light colors, dark colors, mixed and swirled together to create an image of immense reality. And all the while Heero thought of nothing else. His mind blocked out the world and little by little it seemed to fade around him. He lost track of the wooden floor beneath his feet, covered with old and yellowed newspapers. He stopped seeing the walls of the porch and the summer scene beyond. He stopped hearing the birds outside, the cars passing by, and the talking of those who passed. He lost track of everything, even the strain in his back from his healing cuts. All that mattered was the canvas before him and the pallet in his hand. Nothing else.

There was nothing else.

There was nothing else but him and the painting.

Him and figuring out how to set Duo fr-

"Heero!!"

Heero dropped the paintbrush and stepped back in surprise. Turning, he found Catherine standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. She frowned deeply at him as he shook his head and bent down to pick up the dropped paintbrush.

"What in the world are you doing? I said your name about five times and you didn't so much as blink!"

"Sorry," Heero muttered. "I guess I was caught up in the painting."

"Just what in the world are you painting anyway?" Catherine stepped into the room and maneuvered her way across the newspaper so she wouldn't get paint on her socks. She stopped and gasped softly as she stood in front of the painting. Hearing her, Heero took his first look at the painting as well.

Before them stood a piece of art that was, at the same time, one of the most beautiful and most eerie images they had ever seen.

In the center, just like the other, was Duo. The long red chains still suspended him in the air, but he wasn't curled in a ball anymore. Instead he was almost standing in the air, looking down below him, his long chestnut colored hair hanging around him like a torn cloth. Below him, in the very bottom corner of the painting, was a shadowed figure with its arms reaching into the air, like it was ready to catch him.

The air around them was filled with speckles of red and blue light, almost like the remains of two forces clashing together to explode into fireworks, which now slowly dripped to the horizon. And everywhere on the chains, where they connected and intertwined, was a pair of hands, working to untie the pieces. Many working together to free the poor boy, and one person ready to keep him from falling.

Heero starred at the painting in amazement, he couldn't believe that had come from his own mind. And even more amazing, as he looked at the incredible details, a plan began to form in his mind.

All the pieces slipped together, clicking into place perfectly to show him the complete puzzle.

Only one piece remained. But he knew exactly where to find that piece.

One more piece and the puzzle would become whole.

A slow grin moved across Heero's face and he turned to look at Catherine, who only starred at him in confusion.

"Heero, why are you smiling like that?"

"I figured it out." He said softly.

"You figured what out?"

"I know how to set Duo free. I know how."

Her eyes widened and in a moment she was returning the smile brightly, nearly bursting with energy. "How?! And when the heck did you figure this out?"

Heero shook his head and dropped his brush in the water, letting it soak with all the others. Then he raced out of the room for the kitchen, Catherine following behind him, yelling in protest.

"Heero! Where are you going?"

"To Quatre's! Hurry!"

"Damnit, Heero! Wait up!"

TBC...

 

To The Next Chapter

To The Previous Chapter

Back to Snow Tigra's Fanfictions Page

Back to Guests Fanfictions Page

Back to Main Page