Disclaimer: I don’t own the G-Boys. I wish I did.
This is a prequel to Sleepless Nights
Pairing: 1+2
Rating: G
Warnings: ficlet, a little angst, a little sap, POV, slippery when wet.
Notes: This is the prequel to a ficlet I wrote about a week ago called
Sleepless Nights, set about two years before. For all of those who asked, I
will be continuing Sleepless Nights, I just felt I should write this to
clarify the plot a bit.
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Wakeup
by Jade Black
I woke up in a frenzy. There had been a noise or something, but I couldn’t
be bothered to go investigate it. There probably hadn’t even been a noise,
it was just my paranoia. Instead I stepped out of the bed and went to the
washbasin on the other side of the room. I ran the cold water for a moment,
and then took a couple of handfuls and splashed them on my face.
Successfully refreshing.
I looked at myself in the mirror. Expressionless features, a thin mouth
curved into a never-ending, cold smirk. Dark blue eyes, close to black,
shining out- the whites tainted with lines of red. Cascades of brown hair
falling chaotically over my forehead, and brushing against my eyelashes like
they always did. Water dripped down my face into the basin below, but I
still couldn’t see me. Was this really what I had become? What I had always
been? To me, it didn’t seem like a lot. I was just there to be the one who
knew how to operate a beam-cannon properly. I had no true purpose. That was
I all I had to do.
My hands were stained with the blood of my fellow fighters. There were
stains so deeply embedded into my skin that they were impossible to define.
The ugly marks and scars on my soul were things that could never be washed
out. I’d never really even thought about it before. I’d never had a flood of
humane emotions enough to make me think about it. I couldn’t remember what
it was like all those years ago.. when I didn’t have all this Perfect Soldier
strength and willpower. J had totally drummed any emotion and conscience out
of me- and, even if his eventual goal was to achieve total pacifism, that
wasn’t right. You couldn’t just take away a child’s opportunities in life
like that. J had taken away my will to live. He’d stolen my life.
And now, I knew no other way- and I was lost. I had to fight. I had always
considered that the case if I wanted to stay alive. This skin on my knuckles
had been chopped and grated off of my hands repeatedly, and now there were
just permanently red scabs where I had once had flesh. If I hit someone too
hard now, then I would probably rip my entire hand open.. that would have to
be pretty damned hard, though.
J had taught me to run.. but I had never run from him once. He didn’t treat
me well- but I knew nowhere else to go, and he hadn’t taught me to have
enough imagination to work it out otherwise. That was what made me a
soldier, I had no though other than the dogma that had been indoctrinated
into me. I was about as much use as a mobile doll.. just with better
reflexes. I had no compassion for anything else.. and yet there had been that
whole thing with Relena. I don’t know what that was; it certainly wasn’t
love.. or something like that. Every time I looked at her I was reminded of
that little girl and her dog.. I guess that was what it was. I just didn’t
understand it.
But, recently I’d changed. I’d started opening up- I guess I was just
becoming weak in the times of peace. Every morning when I woke up, and every
night when I went to bed, and a good deal of time throughout the day.. I
spent thinking about.. him. I really don’t know what it was with me, but it
had been getting worse- this weak feeling in my stomach. Something that
affected the way I thought about everything. Something that stayed on my
mind.. but it all seemed wrong. Even though it felt so right. It made me feel
so lost I thought I was going to die from it. No one had ever explained this
kind of feeling to me. They only ever explained the pain and the hatred and
the horror. I’d had to explain that for myself.
But now, even though nothing really was different, everything had changed.
That feeling was always with me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
When the sun rose, and I jumped out of bed, I walked past his room, and
glanced in- pausing at the doorway and watching him sleeping peacefully for
a moment. He didn’t smile in his sleep, that much I noticed.. he seemed so
sorrowful.. he was like a completely different being. Sometimes he talked in
his sleep, I could hear it through the walls. Moaning about things with his
eyes closed- every now and then the screams and the cries for help. I ran
through there one night, and saw him sitting bolt upright looking scared for
his life. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me to go back to sleep.
The only harsh words he’s said to me in his life. Sometimes I wondered what
it was.. but I guess I knew it was his past coming back to haunt him. The
ghosts of all the people who’d died. He’d mentioned the people he used to
live with.. at an orphanage or something. He’d mentioned no names, and I
wasn’t about to go looking for anything, or ask him.
Sometimes I wondered what it was that made him so scared, that put him
through so much pain. And then I began to get angry, with my hands balling
into fists. I looked up at myself in the mirror again, my face had dried. I
was at that stage now; I could see the vein pulsing in my forehead, saw the
way my jaw clenched. I didn’t know how I could get so angry over something
so small, I didn’t understand it. I didn’t care who did whatever they did to
him! He was nothing to me! And yet, my mind kept jumping to the worst
possible conclusions. Horrible images appearing in my head of his face as he
knelt down for some mystery captor.. or something of the sort. I just
couldn’t believe someone would do that to someone so wonderful.. It was just
wrong.
I watched myself in the mirror, eyes darting from one to the other as I
looked. I noticed there was a single droplet of water running down my face,
the aftermath of my waking.. but wait. That wasn’t just water. That wasn’t
from when I splashed my face. That was.. that was a tear. And yet I didn’t
feel anything. I didn’t know why it was there, right in the middle of my
cheek, making a curving trail down to my lip. I just stared at it.
"Heero..?"
I looked up in the mirror, and saw him standing behind me. His mouth hung
open in shock, eyes questioning as they met my reflection. I guess he didn’t
know what to think. That made two of us.
"Duo."
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