August 14, 2000
Woohoo! We're writing...lots...
charmy: They need a life, ne?
BCW
I do not own these puppets
I do not own this song
Pairings: 6+?, 6x9, 6+13
-just three miles from the rest stop-
"Where are we going?" I asked, watching the trees copy themselves along the muddy ditch. The rain was coming down hard--the only sound was the windshield wipers squeaking softly against the glass. She just shook her head. No questions, then.
"Why?" she finally demanded. "Where do you want to go?" Her eyes were almost slits of violet, glittering like the rain outside the tiny compartment of her car. "I know it's not me. Damn it, I've tried." She laughs hoarsely. "I really have."
-and she slams on the brakes-
Her car screamed, her foot heavy on the pedal. I could feel her eyes, demanding and anxious, boring twin holes through the curtain of my bangs.
"Noin..." There was no denying it. The war was over in the real world. Staying with her was like furthering a dangerous farce.
-she said I tried to be, but I'm not-
"I can't compete with a dead man," she said, wiping her eyes quickly on the sleeve of the jacket I gave her for Christmas.
"I never thought of you as the same," I said honestly. Suddenly, she turned on the radio and we listened to Billie Holiday sing for a few minutes, her voice large in the silence.
"You didn't have to. Lt. Noin, number two in her class, number two in her love life." So bitter. I opened my mouth to argue and she yanked the volume knob so furiously it broke off into her hand. She stared at it for a moment, then rolled down the window long enough to send it hurtling into the woods.
-and could you please collect your things-
"You were always first to me--"
"Liar," she spat. Noin seemed to have doubled in my vision. I was cowed by the overwhelming red of her anger. It was so intense and all consuming, I was sure I would come away badly burned.
"I want you out of my apartment by Thursday."
-I don't wanna be cold-
Then her eyes softened and the years melted away. Suddenly, we were just two cadets again, drinking our first glasses of wine with a giddy kind of excitement, graduation uniforms discarded.
"Zechs," she said. And in that one word, I heard every dream we had ever cherished together die.
-I don't wanna be cruel-
"Noin, please let me explain--"
"Explain what?" And she sounded so tired, I didn't even want to argue. "That you always loved him, needed him, even if you didn't understand why?" She laughed. "Explain away. Explain why you still wear his graduation ring from Lake Victoria, though you defected from OZ long before he was dead."
I flinched at her words, but my traitorous hands reached down my shirt and gripped the cold sapphire of the ring in my fingers.
-but I gotta find more than what's happening with you-
"Have you found someone else?" The sharpness of my voice alarmed me.
"No," she said gently. "I don't think I ever will."
-if you'd open up the door-
"Then why are you doing this?" I whispered. "I don't...? Why?"
She laughed again, and after twenty five years on this planet, it still sounded like the lightest footsteps of tragic angel fairies. "It's just something I've come to understand."
-she said, while you were sleeping-
"Sometimes it's like you're in another world," she confided, tapping her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. "One where he never died."
"It always comes back to him," I said. Treize, Treize, Treize. I whispered his name over and over, the way one does to a new sound or a pleasing phrase. Treize.
-I was listening to the radio and wondering what you're dreaming when-
"You're saying his name." It wasn't an accusation. "I should be grateful you didn't say it when we were in bed. Or," she raised her eyebrows, "when you said, 'Oh God!', were you really talking to him?" I flushed.
"You've no right--"
-it came to mind that I didn't care-
"If your lover can't tell you the truth, Milliardo, you've got a problem." I winced involuntarily at my old name. "See? That's your name, like it or not. You're in a state of constant denial."
"I'm not," I protested, but even that sounded feeble in my ears.
"I'm guilty of it too. Of pretending you weren't dead, even though you might as well have already been buried six feet underground."
-so I thought, hell if it's over-
"Fine. Let me out."
"It's raining."
"I know." I stared out the window again at the passing trees. They flew by too quickly for me to focus on any of them.
"You've got somewhere to go?" Those eyes flickered with concern, then shuttered closed. "Money? A friend?"
"No." She deserved the truth, for once.
-I had better end it quick-
"But--"
"It's *fine*. I was a good soldier--I can take care of myself." She blushed slightly, but nodded. "I--I've enjoyed knowing you."
Noin reached over and patted my head. "You *are* a good soldier, sir."
-or I could lose my nerve-
"Are you sure--" She couldn't help trying one more time.
"Noin!" I straightened my jacket smugly. "I'll be fine. I'll call, okay?"
"Okay." We both knew she didn't have a phone in her apartment.
-are you listening-
"But if anything happens, call Lady Une and she can--"
I motioned for her to stop the car and got out. Slowly, carefully so she would be sure to understand, I said, "Thank you, Noin." She beamed, and snatched a black baseball cap from the backseat, forcing it down over my blonde hair.
"Take care, Milliardo."
-can you hear me-
"Take care!" I yelled after her, not sure if she'd heard or not. It didn't matter, one way or the other.
Three miles from the rest stop.
-have you forgotten-
My feet ached from walking in these shoes, but it didn't matter, the soldier would nurse his blisters later. "I have gotten soft," I muttered as I pushed the door open.
The 'rest stop' turned out to be a bar. It was mostly empty, except for a few men hard on their luck. I saw a young man sitting on a stool, trying to drown himself in the inch of liquor in his shot glass. I read once that you can kill someone with two inches of water. Seeing him, I didn't doubt it.
"Hi," I said, watching nervously as he turned to look at me, his face completely disguised by his own red baseball cap. For a single wicked moment, I imagined him to be the receiver of a similar encounter.
-just three miles from the rest stop-
He mumbled a hello and went back to his drink. "What'll you have?" snorted the bartender. "He don't talk much. Punched the last guy that hit on him."
"I'm not hitting on him," I snapped crossly. "And I'd like water, please."
-and my mouth's too dry to rage-
Suddenly, I felt absurd, sitting there in my bright red and shiny black clothing, next to a man barely more talkative than a tree, asking for water in a bar.
It didn't matter, I reminded myself. You're just here for a stopover.
"Let me guess," he said, his slightly nasal voice cutting through the thick smoky quiet. "You got dumped about four miles from here."
-the light was shining from the radio-
"Three miles," I said before I realized I'd given myself away.
"Nothing to do on this road except think." I guess it was supposed to be an explanation. I found myself leaning towards him, for all he was definitely male.
-I could barely see his face-
We talked for a while, just staring into our separate drinks and thinking our own thoughts while pretending to converse. It was somewhat pleasant, although strange.
"...so I'm stranded," I admitted.
He looked at me, then said nothing, but I could see dark blue glittering beneath that cap. Blue eyes, then. Brown hair. I wondered what his face looked like, if he was ugly, if he was cute.
"You could hitch a ride into the next town," he suggested, swirling an ice cube around in his mouth.
-but he knew all the words that I never had said-
"But you don't want to do that." I nodded in agreement. "You're stuck, then." He downed the last of his drink and offered in a soft voice, "I could give you a ride, if you want."
I thought for a moment and decided that I did.
"Sure." I finished my drink and left the bartender a large tip. As he walked by, I could see that he was almost a foot shorter than me, his body built slender and lean.
-he knew the crumpled up promise of this broken down man-
As soon as we were outside, the stars spinning their glowing web over the night, I pressed him against the brick of the rest stop, my lips moving over his neck. Young; the skin was smooth, not prickly with the shadow of manhood.
"Wait," he said, reaching out to tug off the cap. My hair spilled down over my face; I awaited recognition and judgement. Peacecrafts don't blend into the public well.
He wasn't surprised. The young man only smiled, breathing something like, "I thought so," and took one of my hands in his, leading me into the parking lot. His car was a gorgeous red convertible, sitting with the top down, looking like a hungry monster.
-and as I opened up the door-
We were three miles onto the highway when I reached over tentatively and lifted off his hat.
What do you know? What I found didn't surprise me either.
~owari~
Bianca
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