August 14, 2000
Really, this time we're being so serious. *looks serious* This is really random. *REALLY random.* And kind of, um, bad. Noisy noisy posty posty...
So, flames not appreciated. :D We'll just deep fry all the NCC in this fic...
AKL and BCW
Lyrics from "God's Fingers" by Bianca (:D me!)
Warnings: Light angst, mild sap, children alert, shounen ai
Pairings: Implied, but not realized physically
I do not own these puppets.
*these are the fingers*
I looked at my hands and I saw the years, so faded and yellow at the edges. I wondered where they were, if they were old and dying too, old like me. It was hard to imagine any of them with wrinkles, grand-children, a dignified cane and suit set. And not for the first time, I wondered what his hand would have felt like slipped into mine, a silk purse under sandpaper. So small, his fingers short and slender, covered in blood, submerged in a bath of roses.
But then they were there, my children, surrounding my bed, holding their death candles in solemn silence, white circles in the darkness. And I saw their faces reflected in their youth.
Even me; the littlest one stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes large and haunted, long braid curved around his neck lovingly like a rope. His image was superimposed over the man he had become. It seemed fate had overlapped itself; his blue-eyed lover stood on my left.
And bright-eyed Samhain, his blonde hair glinting in the poor lighting, stood with his arms firmly looped through both of his lovers'. And I, who had no lover to call my own, smiled at them reassuringly.
"No last rites. Ah don't need God to absolve me."
*that have touched God's*
I sat up, smiling as I felt the familiar curtain of hair fall over my face. "Sit down, all of you." They obeyed, Samhain flopping near my knee, Ling resting, poised, at my feet. The two blue-eyed boys made room for themselves on top of Ling, with Circe following swiftly.
"Ah want to tell you a story."
"A story," snorted Circe. Samhain rubbed comforting circles on the green-eyed boy's back, even as Ling began to massage his shoulders. "What kind of story?"
"A story with monsters?" piped up my namesake and likeness, Duo. Going on thirty, he looked more like me than ever. "Raaaahh--" He loomed over Ala, mouth contorted into a growl, pretending to be a werewolf.
"Idiot," he snorted, stuffing Duo's braid into his mouth. It was a motion too familiar to be comforting. "Shut up and listen ta him," drawled Heero's likeness. So patronizing; did he even know how much he resembled him? Of course not. That was why I was telling them a story.
"With monsters," I said, nodding. Would they have called us monsters? "And a beautiful princess. And a...and a hero," I chuckled, not quite over the last traces of adolescent immaturity. "And Death."
"But there's happy parts, right?" asked Ling suspiciously, combing his fingers through silky jet black hair. "Right?"
"There's a clown," I said slowly. "Ah don't know how happy he really was." Silence reigned. "But first, Ah'm going to sing you a song." One that he wrote, thought I, the dying man, but I said nothing and simply sang. We all cried because there was nothing else left to do but that story, and then we would blow out the candles, snuffing a light, a life, as easily as one breath.
*fingers that have traced your melancholy skin*
The next morning, we all woke to a raven pecking at the window. Circe scared it off, waving those long, gangly limbs like a scarecrow, but it gave one last defiant crow before taking flight.
And then I told my story. In my seriousness, the accent had faded away.
"There was once a kingdom. It was destroyed in a fire much much later, by foolish men who are much much older than you."
"Old like you?" asked Samhain, his fingers touching the deep lines around my eyes. "You laughed," he said confidently, not knowing that sorrow and joy are the same.
"Old like me. In the space above the kingdom, there lived a boy who had a destiny. There were five of these people, five that were destined to live or die as fate chose. The boy fell in love with a boy that fell straight from the sky, the clouds parting to let him pass.
"Times changed, and he lost track of the boy, but he never forgot his face..."
*i won't lose the memory of your gentleness*
It was hotter than the Sahara desert. That was the way Texas was, hot enough to fry an egg on the roof of a car. Sweat dripped freely down my face, but I didn't care. I was too busy getting the hell out of town.
I won't ever forget the way he looked at me, a mixture of pity and confusion as he reached for his girlfriend's hand. Everything I wanted was said in that one gesture. Reaching for comfort, for strength, support.
And I can't quite shove out of my head the way he clasped my shoulders firmly and pressed his lips to mine, brushing my bangs out of my eyes. I could feel him trembling beneath his skin.
To come so far, only to be too late. I pretended I didn't mind and left impolitely. I could feel his Prussian blue eyes burning into my back.
The noon sun was enough to kill. All the smart people had gone inside to their air conditioned homes to wait out the heat. All but one. I could see the seat of his blue jeans hanging out of the dumpster, wiggling like he was a snake shedding his skin.
"Hey," I said, "what're you doing?" He peeked his head out and I nearly ran into a fire hydrant.
"What do ya want?" he said in that slow way the little boys in the deep South have. "Ah ain't causin' trouble." That messy brown hair, and those piercing blue eyes, widened into a semblance of friendliness; he could have been his son, or twin brother as a child.
"Nothin'," I said, dropping into the familiar dialect. No one said all Americans were Yanks; Father Maxwell's ancestors had been from Virginia, and Sister Helen's from Kentucky.
Those little fingers, perched so studiously on one hip. "Where's your Momma?" I asked, leaning down to peer into his eyes. He regarded me suspiciously, drawing back as I came too close.
"My momma's right over the-ya," he said, and as soon as I looked, he bolted.
I grabbed his ankle and swung him up into the air. He squealed and pounded on my chest with tiny fists, those fingers chubby and small. "Lemme go! Ah'll scream!"
And suddenly, I had two other little shadows jumping on me, pulling my braid, biting my ear. "Ow!" I yelled, dropping the little Heero. He ran away, calling to the others to follow him. One of them, a blonde that resembled Quatre, tripped and fell on a loose shoelace. I snatched him up, holding his screaming form in my arms tightly. The green-eyed boy that I associated with Trowa hesitated for a moment, looking to mini-Heero.
"Ah'll get 'im; y'all get outa here!" Then, with a determination so fierce it burned, he kicked my knee. Quatre fell unto the hard pavement, crying and wiping little tears from his face.
Quatre got away, but I wrapped my arms around little Heero, nuzzling the softness of his hair. Gods, he still smelled the same.
Or he would have, if he hadn't been playing in the dumpster outside of Rosie's Diner. "Where're your parents? Where do you live?"
"Day-yed," he said firmly. "Ah don't need a hou--watchou doin'? Lemme go!" I began to drag him into my car, shivering half from excitement and half from the sunburn on my arm that the little monster was eagerly twisting.
"Ah!" he screamed before I stuffed his mouth with a Krispy Kreme donut. Glaring at me, hunger won over and he reluctantly nibbled at the edges, occasionally making weird signals with his hands. As if he could fool a trained terrorist; I knew the other two boys, both of whom had looked like my fellow pilots, were shadowing my red Porsche on his orders.
We came to my hotel room and I judiciously left the door open so Little Trowa and Quatre could hear that I was killing him and grinding his bones to make my bread.
I tossed him to the bed; he snatched a pillow up and held it in front of him, as a barrier between the strange man that had accosted him and himself. I let him keep it.
"You hungry?" I asked, grabbing my jacket. He stared at me, uncomprehending. "I'm going to get some lunch; man, I'm starving!" And there I was, lapsing back into the casual English I used around Heero. Even he wasn't too fluent in American-ese.
"You're not going to--?" He stopped and frowned at me.
"Why so glum, chum?" I reached out to pinch his cheeks affectionately, and he reared back. Before I knew what was happening, he had a knife out and aimed at my chest. Knowing that I could have easily disarmed him, I played along and bought him and his friends lunch at McDonald's.
They sang campfire songs and cheered all the way to the golden arches. I had little boy hanging out of every side of the car. Twice Trowa nearly fell over onto the dusty road, saved by a quick catch by Quatre.
We discussed their current living situations over hamburger Happy Meals. "So, where do you live?" he asked, gesturing avidly with one yellow-wrapped sandwich. Little Heero and Little Trowa looked at each other, debating silently.
"Nowhere," Heero replied, then looked angry with himself for cracking first. He stuffed his mouth full of fries, as if that would stop any further traitorous admittance.
"You live on the streets?" Something inside me was twisting painfully, and I knew if I didn't get a grip on myself, I would scare them away.
Quatre nodded. "Nowhere to go," he mumbled, taking a great interest in the design on the open-ended box of French fries. There were deep shadows rimming his eyes, and I knew that he was a miniature of me, of all the street kids. But I could save them.
"Your parents?"
"Day-yed," Heero insisted again.
"No," Trowa said real slow, leaning back in the plastic chair. "We never had any."
That stopped me. "Your mom and dad died?" I asked, reaching out to touch his hand. He just looked blankly at me.
"I didn't come from a mom and dad," he said slowly. "There was..." The small-banged boy stopped and swallowed hard, trying to drown himself in his soda.
"S'okay, Circe," Quatre sighed. Circe?! That was girl's name, wasn't it? A mystery for another day... "He's nice. I can feel it." Those blue eyes, not quite innocent but not jaded, peered at me.
"Well," I said as we sat, gazing at the remnants of their cardboard box lunches, "who's up for another Happy Meal?"
*never the child you wanted me to be*
That night I brought them back to the hotel room and we all slept in the same bed, a mess of arms and legs and feet ("Yuck! Your feet smell, Duo!"). They were all so skinny, malnourished and unloved, ugly things, their bitterness a mask over their faces. But I had seen the people they would become, and they were beautiful.
We awoke to Circe, his green eyes wide in the shimmering darkness, the air heated and humid, trembling and rocking back and forth. "No...no...no..." To my surprise, the stoic soldier was the first to reach out and hug the whimpering child. In my mind, I guess I had seen this new Heero and my Heero as the same. Somehow, the image of their bodies twined together, seeking pitiful comfort in the dark, made the split real.
He was murmuring something, rocking Circe, that bewitched creature of long legs and scarred arms... "Shhh...he's not here. He *cain't* hurt us..."
"Can't hurt us..."
"*Cain't* hurt us," he reaffirmed, kissing his forehead so delicately, as if he were a waifish spirit about to dissipate into the heavens. Ala, was his name. Ala, a wing, a pinion, a bird bursting into flight and flame.
Ala, not Heero.
*your reflection and mine intermingle in the darkness of shuttered curtains*
Samhain, that dark soul's festival, not Quatre.
Circe, not Trowa.
There was no one else for me to become, so I watched on my side, pretending to be sleeping, as Samhain and Ala smushed Circe between them, seeking comfort in the warmth of their bare skin. It was another sleepless night for me.
And in the morning, I took them away with me, their sleepy forms shuffling into the car long enough to fall asleep, pillowed on my dirty laundry and my guitar. Goodbye Houston, I thought, as we pulled out of that dusty town.
And just as soon as we had turned the corner I slammed on the brakes, jerking my baggage awake. "Wufei," I breathed, smiling as a little Chinese boy, smaller than the rest, his owlish eyes peeking at me through thick bangs, climbed out from behind another dumpster. Dumpster children; never thought I'd live to see the day when Gundam pilots lived in trashpiles. Somehow I knew he wasn't a missing child with parents; he was like the others.
"What ya lookin' at, punk?" he snarled, throwing a rock at me. I narrowly avoided it, but it hit Qua--Samhain, I mean. He fell over, a reddish mark spreading over his temple. It would be a bad bruise. That was too much for Ala and Circe and they jumped him, getting in a few good kicks before I managed to separate them.
"Get away," sneered Little Wufei.
"Make me," I dared him. He attacked; I grabbed him by his ankles as I had Heero.
And we ended up with another miniature Gundam pilot riding in the backseat. I know I shouldn't think of them that way, but if you could have seen the resemblance! Even now, it's uncanny. Ling, his name was. Ling with no last name, Ling no-name. I hated how they made me feel like someone had taken a bag of our worst and our best characteristics, our dreams and our hopes, and tears and our joys, mixed it thoroughly and poured these four ragamuffin kids out.
Trowa Nanashi. Ling No-Name, with his scowls and death threats. Ala with that cute smile and strange tremors that only happened when one of his friends was in danger. Uchuu no kokoro. The words echoed softly in my mind. I shoved them away for another day's meditation.
I wasn't sure where we were going. "Somewhere warm," declared Sammy, wiping mock sweat from his brow, trying to get Circe to laugh. Arabian blood... That cute little button nose, that small rosebud mouth. So innocent.
"Warm," agreed Ala, curling up on the seat next to Ling. The Chinese boy scowled, but said nothing. And a few moments later, they were both asleep, Ling's head on Ala's shoulder.
As soon as Circe fell asleep, Sammy crawled into the front seat and looked at me for a long time, as if measuring my worth. He seemed satisfied. "Why does Circe have a girl's name? He's not a girl," I asked, trying not to pry too much. If his past was anything like Trowa's...
"'Cause they used him like a girl," the blonde boy confided. And I didn't need anymore explanation than that. I did want to know who 'they' were, but he was tight-lipped about that. "Ain't you got any parents?" My smile died.
"No, I don't." We stopped at a Quickie Mart long enough to gas up and get a bite to eat. Ling slept right through it, his hands curling into fists as Ala tried to wake him with jovial punches and softly spoken words.
"Get away from me," he snapped, and I saw a flash of hurt pass over my little boy's face. Then his expression softened inexplicably. "Not hungry," he grunted by way of explanation.
We were almost past the old Mason-Dixie line when I saw it. Or rather, him. He looked about seven, younger than the others who seemed almost nine or ten, and he looked terrified, even as a man in a jacket led him away from the red-painted whorehouse.
He had large blue eyes, so light as to be translucent, and long, loose chestnut hair. It was his outfit that appalled me; tight leather and black silk, not appropriate for a child. But appropriate for a boy turning tricks, my mind reminded me painfully, and I found myself jumping over the side of my car, racing towards the man.
"How much?" I asked breathlessly, sparing no glance at the cherubic vision before me.
"For a night?" he asked, confused.
"Forever. I want to buy him." The man laughed.
"You'll have to go inside to do that. But I've already bought him for the night; he'll be back tomorrow, keep it in your pants." And with that, my likeness walked away into the darkness, head low like a beaten animal.
I paid a thousand dollars for Little Duo. And I still couldn't save him from the roving hands of the man who'd left with him. We slept in the car, piled together for more than warmth.
*how did we come so far only to be thrust back into hell?*
I led him out of the brothel, letting him where one of my shirts. It fell to his ankles; he was small for his age. He had no name, so he took mine. "Duo," he said, trying out the word on his little pink tongue. Then he smiled. It was rare and more beautiful than any of Heero's smiles combined.
And I took them to a little house on the ocean, where they could play all day in the sand and the ocean, the salt water lapping at their thin ankles, healing old scars. Every night we slept in the same big bed.
And then one night, Circe remembered. It pained him the most to think about his past. Even Duo and Ala, sharing the same angry welts of a dirty profession, were not as bitter and furious. He dreamed, he said, back before. When he was floating in an eternity of darkness, he claimed.
The mystery of their birth had puzzled me a long time, so I packed up the gang and took them on a trip to outer space.
"Outer space!" exclaimed Ala, clinging to Ling and Duo as they carried him inside after nearly being flattened beneath a giant wave. "Ah've never been to outer space!"
"Me neither," sighed Sammy, tugging on Circe's bangs absently. "Ah wanna go."
"Ah don't. Who wants ta go ta outer space anyway?" Ling pouted, but was outvoted, 5-1. So we bundled up their meager possessions and boarded a shuttle to L-1, *his* home colony, where hopefully there would be some answers.
*i never thought it would be your fingers pulling me back from the sun*
That night I had a dream on the shuttle that Heero was in danger. Red lights were flashing all around us as we stood in the rubble of a building, sirens screaming and brick dust falling in slow motion. But he just stood there, one hand masking his face, staring at me. I knew there was something he wanted to say, but couldn't. But I couldn't understand him, so I woke up, feeling emptier than I had in a long time.
That night we visited Dr. J's old lab.
It was dusty; Ling had a terrible sneezing fit, his ebony hair flying around his face with every mini-explosion. It looked rundown and old; nothing like the building Heero had described to me that night.
*yours hands worked their magic, darkness into light*
"What's this?" Duo demanded, poking at several old metal cords lying on the floor.
"Don't touch those," said I, rising slowly as if it pained me to be parted from this small part of Heero's past. "You can't know exactly what they are. The man who worked here--he was a bit mad."
'Mad?' mouthed Circe to Sammy.
'Mad,' he affirmed, running a finger distastefully over a gray desk, thick with settled dust. "What are we doing here?"
It was there, in the corner. Strange, for a known terrorist to leave his most secret files in an old cabinet in a forgotten corner. But then, all of the scientists were somewhat strange. I suppose it was their genius; it made them absent-minded. And they were geniuses--who else could have designed something so terrible as a Gundam?
"Go play outside," I murmured, rifling through tattered folders and thin papers, yellowed from age. "I'll be right out..."
"Project: Water Lily."
*it all seemed connected by a thread from you to me*
It's already the second day of the process. It is doubtful that any of the five fetuses tested will survive. Too far gone; the cells are not dividing rapidly enough. Perhaps it was a mistake to try for a diverse spectrum of ancestral heritage; I believe O was right, it would have been better to stay with one race.
...
The fifth try, and the crew grows weary. The Japanese subject lived the longest, cloned from the original cells. I believe that is the key: new, untainted cells. Perhaps at the Peace Convention, sure to attract expecting mothers from all Colonies...
...
A terrible day for the American subjects. This last fetus lived seven days outside the artificial womb, but was born with an undeveloped cranium. Unfortunate; it would have had severe brain damage had it lived. This is not what we had hoped for when we set out to create the perfect human automaton.
...
...
The five living subjects have been successfully implanted in the wombs of infertile women. Birth expected in approximately six days.
...
It has been determined that back up pilots are necessary. The cloning process should take much less time, as we have all the records from the older pilots...
...
Backup pilots are no longer necessary. Disposal should take place in less than four hours.
...
"Project: Water Lily."
So they were clones. Not surprising; the resemblance was too severe for me to really expect anything else. But the other things he said...! We were clones. I was a man that came from another man's blood and body, not original, not new. Just a copy of someone else. A product of another madman playing God.
Why did it not surprise me?
I looked at my baby pictures, except they weren't of me. They were of another test subject, a little Duo crawling around, laughing, and playing. How was he to know that he would be ultimately terminated for a disease that caused excess growth of hair? "Duo..." I pressed my fingers to the old rotting paper, and suddenly I wanted to cry so badly it hurt.
So many photos, archived, evidence of a bright-eyed Chinese boy, his arms little flippers at his shoulders. A Japanese girl with one intense blue eye. All deformed, all not right somehow. But so beautiful in their own way. They had still been children. Someone should have been there when they took their first steps, when they said 'Daddy' or 'Mommy' or when they cried, someone should have been there to hold them.
And I shut the cabinet and walked away. "Come on guys," I said thickly, trying not to see their tiny forms splayed on a gray metal table, sliced open to determine the 'problem'. "Time to go home."
* i was thinking of you when i wrote this song*
I thought about writing them. I started a thousand letters and burned as many. There may still be a few in my desk; dispose of them as you see fit.
I thought about telling them about our dirty little secret, how we were half-man, and half petri dish. But they had moved on with their lives, and I--I found that I had too.
"Hungry!"
"Okay, okay, let's get some lunch, man."
So now you know my secret.
*and when you touched me, i thought*
"Duo," whispered Ala, his fingers clenching in his lap. He looked like I thought Heero would have, had I told him. It made me glad I hadn't. "So we're..." He found the answer too horrifying to speak aloud.
"You're all someone's children," I whispered, the lights dimming and fading in my sight. Time to blow out the candles, then. "Someone who loves you." At that moment, I thought I would die from my heart bursting, overflowing with the wishes I held for them.
I heard weeping, knew my breath was slowing. And one by one the candles went out with urgent finality. "Duo...Duo..." They mumbled my name like an arcane rite.
*i thought*
I could see all of them, surrounding the way to a soft light, watching and passing judgement silently. Dozens of Heeros and Duos and Wufeis and Trowas and Quatres, rocking back and forth to a melody so old there were no words, only sounds and notes purer than sand.
*that it was His fingers that caressed me like the thinnest glass*
Then their faces faded away, and I could see them for what they truly were.
God's fingers.
Heero's hands on my face.
God's fingers.
*so gentle like a breaking breeze*
God's fingers.
His lips on mine, sweet like honey.
*purer than sound*
God's fingers.
*higher than Heaven*
His fingers, His will.
And I knew surely, surely this was the way that *he* too had died. A more beautiful sight surely the living had never seen!
~owari~
Ariana and Bianca
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