29-Aug-2000
Title: Eden (10b/10)
Author: Jay
Archive: All those with prior permission are welcome (and hugged profusely) to archive this. Email me at the the address at the bottom of this page if you'd like to ask. :-)
[Note: all fics accessible @ http://www.geocities.com/fenris_wolf0]
Category: Yaoi/Shonen ai. Angst. AU (Treize is alive, tho' he rightly shouldn't be).
Timeline: After EW.
Pairings: 1+2, 3+4, 5+13, 6+9.
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is quite sadly not mine, but in fact the property of Bandai, Sunrise, and other large corporations and companies I have no affiliation with. (Again, quite sadly.)
Warning/Rating: R. Violent, and graphic descriptions of what is best describe as "icky" situations. AU somewhat confusing, especially with flashbacks and whatnot. YAOI = little anime boys snuggling. You've been warned.
Feedback: Hit me!
Note: Text enclosed in /.../ indicate thoughts.
It was the emptiness. Looking into her eyes for a second-- shifting, green to blue, blue to grey-- and the curves of her smocking smile, Treize felt nothing but the dull beat of his heart and the sting of tears in his eyes.
He touched his face, gingerly. /Tears./ Treize stared at the ground.
"It's no fun if there's no chase," Lucy purred.
Treize was silent. /Wufei.../
She pouted. "I see. Well, little star..." she leaned forward, lips brushing his ear. "He's not dead."
His head snapped up, and she smiled. "Yet."
/LET ME OUT!/
Her mouth didn't make noise. Noin struggled, trapped in a thick black haze. Images would flicker-- Relena, eyes wide, Duo, looking like Death with a feral glint in his eyes-- her hands, hand from their training-- raised--
/NO!/
Relena staggered back, spitting out blood. Her own laughter came filtering into the darkness, tinny, like an ancient tape recording, an imitation of her joy.
/Please... no..../
He tested the metal that strapped his wrists and ankles down for the thirteenth time. Wufei sighed. Bleeding to death was almost as bad as asphyxia. He'd barely been conscious when he'd been thrown in here, Lucy's laughter damning his ears. Even now, his sense of justice rebelled against his situation.
/No honor./
He'd seen it though-- this construction of metal, the golden forms of five screaming angles, wings overlapping, suspended two feet into the air, designed to hold them close, like a mask or a costume. This face was molded like his-- he saw the floor between the eye slits. When he bled, the blood trickled through the answering gash of the angel that secured him. Wufei sniffed. Lucas carved a sideways figure eight-- the symbol of infinity-- into his flesh. He had an interesting sense of humor, he noted dryly.
"You should have passed out from blood loss by now," Heero rumbled.
It was Trowa who answered. "Yes, I should have."
Quatre's light voice laughed. "Well, I'm glad." The lightness sounded forced.
/Of course it is, baka. We're chained and bleeding to death./
"And you won't, not until I kill you. But there's different from merely being unconscious, now isn't it?" Lucas said, softly.
"I would imagine so," Wufei answered, deadpan.
"No. You won't die from just a little wound. You are after all, not quite... mortal."
"What a relief."
Wufei could hear Lucas smile. "And this won't just be death. This will be... unmaking God."
Duo didn't remember the way down-- winding halls and stairways, torch lit, the grey marble slick beneath his feet. He walked behind Relena, seeing very painful step and stumble the blonde girl endured.
He was strong enough to take a beating. He had been trained to withstand pain.
He shot a glance at the dark-haired woman that dragged Relena along. Noin was like a stranger-- was a stranger. The two didn't even resemble each other, despite the fact that they shared the same body. The personality, the feel, the slight inflections of her voice made her a completely different version.
Zechs' hand tightened on his shoulder. Duo swerved his head to give him a pointed glare out of one, swollen eye. The older man only chuckled.
"We're here."
Noin rapped on the oaken doors.
"Come in," Lucas boomed.
Dorothy stirred from the wall-- the manacles cut into her wrists. She snorted.
/What a novelty. Chained to the wall./
Her cynicism ceased when she saw Relena, however. Her voice snapped at Lucas, "What did you *do* to her?"
Lucas gave her an amused smile. "*I* didn't do anything."
Noin dragged the blonde girl over to the wall, ignoring the strangled sounds coming out of Relena's throat. Snapping on arm restraints, she walked back to the door and knelt. "Master," her voice throaty. "We have the last one."
Dorothy whispered to Relena urgently, "Relena-sama... are you okay?"
Relena managed to give her a lopsided smile. "I'm alive, aren't I?"
The sound of an indignant screech brought her attention to the door again. Duo was there, sniffing dramatically, the fool. Always playing the superhero. He was clutching his braid protectively, glaring daggers at Zechs. Dorothy could almost laugh. What a time to be vain.
"Hands off," Duo muttered, eyes following Relena and then scanning the room. He settled on the four still forms of his friends, tracing the deceptively thin wires that held the structure up. His place between Heero and Trowa was empty. He had a sinking feeling that he'd be joining them soon. "Heero?"
There was a dry chuckle. "Join the party, Duo."
Lucas smiled and nodded. "You will be, very soon." He pulled out a simple knife. Duo could see the thick figure of a snake wrapped around the handle.
Two pairs of hands grabbed his wrists, forcing him back into the wall. He struggled, nonetheless.
Lucas snickered.
/They really never learn./
It was so dark here.
He had lost all of his senses-- there was purely nothing but black. No sight, no sound, no touch, no smell... all he could feel was the overbearing darkness and the tattoo burned into his wrist.
/Lucrezia.../ His mind caressed the name like a whisper. The faint sense of light through all this, embodied in the name, the memory.
He was unprepared for the answer.
/Milliardo?/
He had all of them now, bleeding, dying, all the way perfectly sensible. Their minds intact, their bodies only mildly marred... but their souls, dying, writhing in a torment they never felt. He drank in the sight-- he wasn't sure if anyone else could see it, let alone appreciate it. Somewhere, just slightly aside from this new life and these new names and forms, their original souls lingered, triggering the occasional memory or past experience. Souls, golden-throated, singing their screams... soon, each half would merge. He knew this as well as he knew who he was-- it was an innate understanding of something he could barely explain.
Lucas reached into his pocket and brought on a small silken pouch and laughed to himself.
/The secrets of the universe in my pocket./
Someone knocked on the door.
Relena rubbed the back of her head with her one free hand. Her vision was blurry and hazy, eyes riveted on the golden altar in the center of the room. She'd seen Lucas cut into Duo and drag him over to tie him down with the rest of them. She had tried to scream but her voice had stopped working for that moment. Relena only realized that there was no one to scream for.
Her vision only still danced. All the light in the room seemed to concentrate on the five figures, dancing across their bodies, the very air seemed to be twisting in either agony or ecstasy. The very air... her eyes widened. She looked at Lucas, first, to see the rapturous expression on his face. She knew he saw too.
Relena looked at Dorothy for a pleading confirmation.
Dorothy murmured, "Well, I shouldn't be surprised..."
"You see too?"
It was almost blinding-- a heartache of beautiful things, the inner torment and strained serenity.
Someone knocked on the door.
Lucy drifted in, her seemingly slender arms belied by the ease with which she dragged Treize Khushrenada behind her, fingers gripping the collar of his shirt. Blood trickled out the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were vague and unfocused, like a man trapped in a dream.
"You didn't kill him, did you darling?" Lucas smiled at his little girl.
"No, papa... just had a little fun..."
She had force fed memories of every single one of Wufei's deaths into his head. The world was blurry. Treize breathed thickly from the floor, eyes sliding over and settling down on the coalescing light. Suddenly, his vision sharpened. He, like everyone aside from the five boys, could see the backs of the glowing figures that hovered over their prone forms, shapes shifting but strangely definite, golden, melting and condensing in the blink of an eye.
Hands. He could see their hands, fingers curled into fists, the absolute stillness in the air the echo of their cries. And then, the suddenly outline of blinding white, folded over their backs. One of them turned around slowly, fixing Treize with a long stare.
/Wufei... little dragon.../
He was like and unalike-- the dominant features were unfamiliar, but they would melt into others he knew but could not remember... but the names came. Xiao Long, Da Ming... transitioning into Torrey Charlesworth, Ivan Pober, Daniel Littleton... but the same bottomless dark eyes, the familiar set of his lips and slope of his jaw. His hair was dark, then light, but always clothed in a thin membrane of gold and light.
The look was something he could not describe-- all the longing and desire and sadness that found be found in the sanctity of the heart, mingled in a glance that cut through the details and facades and barriers-- some he never knew existed-- and kindled the same in his.
He could also not describe the horror he felt when he realized it was a goodbye.
Somewhere in the darkness of his head, Zechs could hear Noin sobbing. It was the only sound then, but it had sparked somewhere-- a fleeting image of her, standing straight, eyes forward. The perfect subordinate. The image disappeared, but her voice remained, delirious with pain and loathing.
/Get me out.../
/Lucrezia.../
/GET ME OUT./
The rawness in her voice cut into him.
Lucy let Treize's body drop to the ground and delicately held out her hand to her father. Lucas smiled and grasping her palm, the two walked over to the circle of boys that hung in the air. Five goblets were lined beneath them, burgundy liquid ranging from half a cup to nearly brimming over filling them.
"Do you know what the original Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was? It was the flesh of God that contained those-- a piece of Himself that he set in Eden, forbidden to Adam and Eve. When they bit into that apple, they ate a piece of God-- just a piece, though, and they were transformed."
There was a feeling between fire and ice that touched his skin, fleetingly. A feeling that hung in the air. Heero tried to ignore it. Every time it touched him he felt pain, agony, betrayal, a wasting sickness of the soul, that bit into him.
Lucas' voice drifted to his ears, below him.
"They held the power of choice now, that comes with knowledge. From a single bite of an apple. Can you imagine the power I would have had, if I had chosen to eat then, too? The power of God. Now that God is dead, there's only you, the last remainder of His flesh."
It brushed against his skin. A voice that sounded like an echo of his-- no, his sounded like an echo of this-- whispered into his ear or his mind.
/We were made to hate him, to hunt him, to kill him, but to have sorrow for him... for he, who was closest to the Highest, who had fallen.../
Lucas opened the bag he held: it was filled with a fine, grey dust.
He sprinkled some into one cup.
"Reyhan, I call you."
Quatre began to scream.
Dorothy watched as Lucas sprinkled some of whatever he had into the cup below Quatre.
"Reyhan, I call you."
The form above him-- Reyhan with the wide blue eyes, Leron, expression pained, her brother, a dozen other faces and emotions-- abruptly plunged into his body, the golden form merging into his body.
He screamed, a long, wailing, despairing sob, the sounds the soul had stifled, that cut through the air.
/Oh, God, he's dying.../
Quatre's screams quieted into moans.
"Little brother?" Lucas looked up at Quatre's writhing body.
"Why, brother, why?" The little blond sobbed. "We were originally conceived merely to be the five newest... but your actions gave us hatred, malice, but over all-- regret! Remorse... their dying screams that rang, still beautiful, in my ears... even as they fell from the sky..."
Lucas dropped more dust into Trowa's cup. "Thane, I call you." His piercing shriek muted Quatre's moans as the light that danced above him drifted down.
"I died with the first brother I slew. Could you understand, Lucifer, the agony? The seed of dissension and discord... all for what? Power? He loved you-- we loved you, we hated you, the rift tore me apart-- gave you almost absolute power, his favorite creation... I would be singing in the heavens, if not for you and your arrogance..."
Another little bit of powder in Heero's cup. "Gavrie, I call you." Another scream.
"I remember you, flaming, scarlet, wreathed in the fire of your own anger and pride... the hesitation on my part, a second, half a second... an eternity of time... where I could have struck you down like I'd done to so many others. But I could not. I almost saw Him in your face. And you, instead it was you who cut me down. I saw you... I tried to stop you, even as I saw Matthias die... and whatever heart I had ripped through bones and flesh I did not know I had..."
Wufei could hear Lucas' steady voice, calling. The screams of his friends rent the air, and something, somewhere above him, kept brushing his skin, burning through that, to the very core of his existence.
"Samuel, I call you."
And then it was pain, as something descended into him, something holy but dying, despairing and defiant, loving, hating, a part of him that had always been separate. It was a moment before he recognized the screams as his own.
"I didn't know," he said, dazed. "The blood I felt... was it my blood? Could I bleed? Was it the blood of those I killed? Could I kill? Did I kill? Did I kill God with the reasons of my existence? And the haunting current of love and hate and pain and war... the iron smell... like the world could, would collapse... landing on me... I lay... dying on a field no one remembers now. But I wasn't meant to give my life for Him... I'd just realized that prayer was useless. No one was there to answer it."
Lucas paused before the next, having his fun.
"Duo, I have a question."
"Go to hell," he spat. Duo's heart pained me, to hear his friends hurt so. His Heero... Gavrie... Nathaniel...
"We all were there, already. But tell me..." His lips curved into a cruel smile. "What does it feel like to know that... Sister Helen... all the children at Maxwell Church... all those dying in the world today, yesterday, in the wars... those praying to God... what does it feel like to know that they were fools and that they died in vain? What does it feel like to know that the people who sheltered you and trusted in God... were wrong?"
"You... you..." Duo's voice was thick.
"I was the officer that gave the command to attack. Matthias... I call you..."
Duo's howl was half-misery and half-anger, twisted together... even as he was Matthias, became Matthias, the hurt and grief of knowing they had died... for nothing.
"It was a perfect world; the earthly semblance of heaven. And it was your war-- yours alone-- that wasted it, burned the ground, destroyed a faith, a being that had been in existence since the beginning of time-- that created you, created me... you were the cause of those deaths, the reason there were no answers to their prayers... playing with man's futile hopes... invading the blessed inner chambers of the human mind, the human heart... to twist their emotions, lead them on false hopes and lies..."
The last piece fell into place and the world clicked.
The boys lay, half-inside the earthly sphere, battling something on a higher plane, the suffering extending to this flesh. Outlines of gold still danced around them, surrounding them, permeating the skin.
A pair of black leathery wings ripped through the back of Lucas' shirt. They scraped against the floor. Lucy's wings tore through the fabric of her dress. She watched adoringly as her father leaned down by Heero's figure, teeth scraping his throat.
Relena stared at the scene and then at her hands and muffled a shriek. Aside from her own hands, a wisp of fog clung to them-- to her, over her body-- just a bare outline of phantom fingers. Their separate movements stopped. The mist sunk into her body, and she shivered at the hot and cold, searing her to the bone.
Dorothy shivered and moaned beside her.
The darkness was graying. She was perplexed-- the haze of her mind was lifting, dissipating... half was lit in shining light... the other was still as dark as it was before. She was trapped in-between them. A mirror appeared, and she saw-- her face divided, half lost in shadow, half bathed in light. Unable to cross into either.
/I love you, Lucrezia.../ Zechs' voice floated into her head. /I'll always love you./
Some barrier shattered in her mind.
"I love you, Milliardo," she said aloud.
They raged inside him, suddenly... the dark sides of Zeke and Hadrian, against something pure and unadulterated. Lucas' hold on him was like a death grip, inexorable. Something triggered dual consciousness, three people trapped into a single body. Zechs' voice was lost in the tumult.
"I love you, Milliardo." Said in a voice devoid of any guile; something soft, something strong, that snapped the final balance.
"Lu..."
Zechs and Noin looked at each other, before staring at Treize, who was striding towards the altar, rapidly.
"Treize!"
His teeth scraped against his throat, hand tightening on his neck. Lucas smiled.
"Treize!" Noin's voice floated across the void that was his mind. It didn't matter-- he had caught the difference in the inflection, knew what it meant-- there was a sole purpose in mind, nothing could break it...
"Catch!"
A few seconds of silence, and anticipation.
One shot. Two shots. Three shots.
The four and final one rang out before Lucy screamed.
Her scream broke into the void he'd created and ripped apart his shields. He straightened and looked over, down to the floor.
She lay there, Treize calmly standing above her. Four bullets emptied into her single weak spot-- where the wings joined her back, the jointed bones shattered... smoking metal embedded into her...
/Even angels can bleed./
He dropped down, ignoring the murderer standing above her, filing away that information for another moment. He gently flipped her over; afraid to look at her ruined back, her torn wings. Blue-grey eyes stared up at him-- his little angel of death-- clear and afraid. "I thought we'd drink together," she murmured, and closed her eyes.
She only touched the locks and chains and she was free. Relena slid serenely towards the altar, distantly noting Lucy, lying on the ground, Lucas bent over her. Dorothy walked beside her.
Noin and Zechs glided forward, eyes at peace, but with purpose. Treize dropped the gun. It hit the ground with a clatter.
And Lucas was crying, his eyes not even blinking.
He could never understand what happened. One moment, Duo had been Matthias and Abijah and probably a dozen other people. Then, it left as suddenly as it came. Leaving him by himself, achingly alone... but the feeling of death was gone. He felt weak.
The restraints on his wrists and ankles snapped open. Someone gently turned his body over. Relena stood beside him, something-- someone-- familiar, arms wrapped around her, framing her in an ethereal glow.
/Matthias.../
She poured his blood on his wound. It burned almost comfortingly. He sat up and slowly traced the new scar, fingers trembling.
Treize had kissed his little dragon, and spilt the familiar crimson over the cut.
Wufei stared up at him, and then over his shoulder-- at himself-- Samuel, wonderingly, as if amazed by the sight and the sound of the world.
One by one they rose, and stepped down from the altar, once again side by side by their other forms. Noin blinked. The lines separating them became hazy and indistinct.
Ten figures melted into five.
And they were lost in a blinding flash of light.
Heero blinked and stared at his hands, ignoring the battle cries around him, which were still a beautiful melody. Someone close by him screamed a name.
"Lucifer! To the glory of the Morning Star!"
He turned to see a hovering figure-- and suddenly realized that he was suspended in a blood red sky-- and instinctively raised his hands. His fingertips felt numb. His head was light. Someone-- everyone-- was screaming, fury and madness, in the throes of life or death. From the smooth palms of his hands-- no lines etched-- flooded light, that spoke of creation and destruction: a power that literally sang through him, invading his body, filling it, coursing through, until he opened his mouth to scream or sing, fearing that it would burn him alive. A slash of red decorated the winged man beside him. The burning brightness slashed through him, and he fell, screaming, from the sky.
There was the past and the future, superimposed on the present-- Heero was Nathaniel was Gavrie. He cut down another winged figure marked in red.
/Burning the impurity out of the soul./
He dreamed of awaking, he dreamed of being a boy with olive skin and bright eyes, he dreamed of being a pilot with rough hands. Heero dreamed of violet eyes, that filled each life-- as much a part of him as whatever power ran through his body.
Another angel fell, white feathers brushed against Heero's cheek, before being swept away in a soft zephyr. The sky was blood red...
...so red. The seraph screamed as the scythe splintered flesh and bone he never knew he had. Blood never touched the lilac-eyed boy, though.
/I am Matthias I am Abijah I am Duo Maxwell.../
The scythe was dead black, no light reflecting on it. It trapped all the brightness it touched, dulling the skies. Duo flew through a nimbus of clouds, slashing at the crimson-stained angels with the beautiful voices, their silken throats singing their death songs.
/I am Matthias I am Abijah I am Duo Maxwell.../
Sometimes, they would scream his name: "Lucifer!" Entreating their leader to save them from the boy that cut them down so easily, walking side by side with a weapon of Death's. Even the clouds were red.
Underneath him, the earth rumbled and cracked.
/I am Matthias I am Abijah I am Duo Maxwell.../
The mental cacophony ceased with a single thought.
/I am Shinigami.../
His fingers touched his cheek...
...and Trowa wondered about the sudden moisture collecting and spilling over his eyes. He realized, now, what he was-- a weapon, a sin of God's, halfway angelic and halfway mortal. Around him, guilty seraphs screamed.
Somewhere, a little blond was calling his name, promising an eternal symphony on heaven or on earth.
Another cherub fell to him, plunging to the earth.
/Thane.../ Reyhan whispered, beckoning him to the sound of harps and bells.
/Brishen.../ A little girl sobbed, crying for a friend.
/Trowa.../ The simple declarations inherent in the soft syllables of his name.
Somewhere, he was out there. And Trowa would find him-- he would pass outside of the heavenly realm to find him, he would search space and time...
A violin and flute duet floated through the calm of his mind.
/A warrior first, a lover second./
Another angel died to the green-eyed boy.
Noin clasped a single red apple in her hands, curled underneath an apple tree. A serpentine voice whispered false promises. The skin was a luminous, ripe scarlet...
/The apple of God's eye.../
Or was it... /The eye of God's apple./
She stared and watched the figures move across the smooth fruit.
This mind, his ears, his heart all rang with their whispers... murmuring over the golden-haired boy in white that killed with regret in his eyes-- who sang before he killed, his voice soothing the unfortunate, so even as they plunged from the skies, their deaths were merciful.
His heart was leaden as another cherub fell.
He swallowed and collected the mess of his consciousness.
All battles had to end sometime.
He sang, a dirge to the fallen, an ode to the battling, staring at the horizon that was now indistinguishable from the sky... as heaven and earth merged so that no line could be discerned between the two.
The sword was light and fire and darkness and ice.
And they screamed as it killed them.
Wufei swept the blade in a clean arc and another figure crumpled and fell from the skies. Samuel raged inside of him, grief-stricken.
Suddenly, he dropped, his wings folding. Settling onto the burned earth, he strode purposefully in the direction of four other standing figures, around a dark shadow.
He nodded grimly.
Lucifer sat, still huddled over his daughter's still form, blankly staring at her broken back. Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre stood around, forming a partial ring. Wufei stepped into his place and placed the tip of his sword under Lucifer's chin. The archangel never moved.
"We call you to answer for your sins."
"Very well," the man replied. His tears made dark spots in the dirt. He looked up with a vehement hatred and desperation, and touched Lucy's body. "But who will I answer to? God is dead."
Wufei shivered and looked at the bloodied heavens. He closed his eyes.
It was Heero that answered. "Then you'll answer to us."
The tree was dying. Apples lay, rotting on the ground. Noin still stared at the fruit in her hand.
Zechs walked up to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Time overlapped.
"Eden is dying," he said.
"Which... one...?" she asked, vaguely.
"Both," he answered. His hand gestured to the other dying trees. "It's the beginning of the end."
"End of the beginning," she murmured. Noin looked up and smiled a sad and sweet smile. She looked at the apple-- the beginning and end of all things-- and offered it to Zechs.
"When He dies, will we pass?"
He drew an arm around her and stared around them. "We have nowhere to go."
Lucifer sighed, wearily. "Hunters, I call you."
Zechs stared at the apple, lips curving into a smile. "You have no bind on us." He held up the perfect apple, blood red against his skin. "We never ate from the Tree."
Noin nodded. "The Original Sin is nonexistent."
Somewhere, Lucifer's voice hissed. "You fools, you'll alter the entire time and history of the universe."
Noin shook her head. "No," she whispered, and stared at the dying garden. "Your future has affected our past... Eden is dying... we forsake our Paradise, by our free wills."
Lucifer's hands clenched and unclenched. "Very well." He stared at the circle of boys around him. "You will kill me." A statement, not a question.
Trowa answered, "It's our purpose to see to your undoing."
Lucifer nodded. His nails dug into his palms, drawing blood. His wings were black feathers-- given thousands of years, they would meld together like leather-- and slowly, one fell. Followed by another. Feathers gathered around his feet. "Then I will die," he said quietly.
The wings dissipated and the feathers turned to dust.
Lucifer, Lucas, the morning star, stood rigid under the burning heavens for a moment, before he fell under the coup de grace; his blue-grey eyes still opened wide.
"What did he do?" Heero murmured.
"He had nothing to fight for... nothing to fight with..." Duo shivered.
Trowa stared at the rapidly falling streaks of red and white that came from the sky.
"This battle is over," Wufei intoned.
Quatre knelt, and pushed Lucifer's eyes close with his hands. He shook his head, suddenly weary. "No. This war is over."
They stepped back through light, through time...
Relena squinted, rubbing her eyes, as they pried the lobby doors open. She smiled as they stepped out into the new dawn.
[fin]
Oi! Here's a guide for who's who so far. (Numbered in order of lives.)
HEERO: Gavrie (1), Nathaniel (2)
DUO: Matthias (1), Abijah (2)
TROWA: Thane (1), Brishen (2)
QUATRE: Reyhan (1), Leron (2)
WUFEI: Samuel (1), Xiao Long (2)
NOIN: Lucia (1), Calypso (2)
ZECHS: Zeke (1), Hadrian (2)
RELENA: Tahirah (1), Cecenia (2)
DOROTHY: Iman (1), Portia (2)
TREIZE: Wuxing (1), Soterios (2)
Jay
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