1 Dec 2000
DISCLAIMER: All Gundam Wing characters are property of Sunrise, Bandai Visuals, Sotsu Agency, and Asahi TV. This work is not written for profit, but for entertainment purposes only.
PAIRINGS: 6x5/5x6, 13x6/6x13, some very mild 4x9
WARNING: AU/modern day San Francisco; implied yaoi will turn to yaoi and eventual lemon in later chapters
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: To Alfred Hitchock who directed the incredible film, "Vertigo."
"Dreams are the Royal Road to the unconscious."- Sigmund Freud
Treize had waited, in his office, from 5-6pm every night for three nights. Now it was Friday evening - the last space in his schedule he had reserved for the elusive young man named Zechs Marquise. He had promised himself that if the blond had not made an appearance by this evening, he would give Zechs's file back to Anne and forget about him. That would be that.
/You don't accept it when clients lie to you, Khushrenada, so why the hell are you lying to yourself? You think you'll be able to forget about that case, that young man, just by signing off on the file? Either you're a fool who shouldn't be helping anyone, or you're in a very, very deep state of denial... I'd bet on the latter./
Treize shook his head clear of the strange self-talk and looked over at the small clock on the table by his desk. 5:10pm. Friday evening. He wasn't coming. Staring down at the file in front of him, he read once more through the intake evaluation.
Clinic referral case no. 72256
Client name: Z. Marquise
Referring clinician: S. Po
Presenting symptoms: sleeplessness, anxiety, decreased appetite, depression
Medical History: no known genetic problems or risks; father and mother both deceased (automobile accident); seizure episodes in childhood - diagnosis of epilepsy inconclusive; no other major medical problems; no hospitalizations; not currently taking any medications.
Psychiatric History: no psychiatric consults or admissions; not currently on any psychoactive drugs.
Psychological History: referred to Dr. D.H. Dermail, Ph.D., at the age of 10 for behavioral treatment of absence seizures; treatment lasted approx. 7 weeks.
/Absence seizures? And yet the diagnosis of epilepsy was completely confirmed... perhaps the nightmares are a sign that the seizures may come back... No, you're grasping at straws. There's nothing really remarkable in this file. He's an ordinary young man who lost a lover and is grieving... Yes... and pigs can fly./
Reluctantly, Treize took a pink-colored form from the shelf above his desk. He held his pen above the signature line that would officially turn the case back over to Anne, who would then file it with all the other one-shot cases the clinic had seen - the clients who came for an hour and then vanished forever. /Just sign it, Treize! Sign it and forget about it!/
His pen touched the paper at the exact same time as the voice called his name.
"Dr. Khushrenada?"
He looked up, an air of distraction about him. "Yes -" He stopped speaking and stood abruptly. Zechs Marquise stood in the doorway of his office.
The pen dropped from Treize's hand.
"I know it's not the right time," the blond said quietly, "but... I was hoping I could catch you in."
"Well, you succeeded," Treize said, surprised at the little spate of anger he suddenly felt towards the younger man, now that he know Zechs was safe; that he was here. "I was just about to sign off on your case," he said truthfully. "Given that you didn't show up to that next meeting we agreed on... and that you haven't called to make another. Can I assume you're going to find some help somewhere else?" /Don't make me worry about you. I don't know you well enough to worry about you, so stop it this instant./
Zechs's expression didn't change. He merely blinked sleepily and ran a hand through his long bangs. "I don't think help can be found anywhere else, and I'm not at all sure it can be found here. Sometimes..." he ducked his head for a moment, and then looked up at the psychologist through long, golden lashes. "Sometimes help doesn't come in time, no matter how hard we wish for it."
"As long as you're alive, Zechs, there is always a way to get help. You may not see it as such, but that doesn't mean it's not there. You have to reach out for it, though, just as the one who helps reaches out to you. Without that, you're right - it won't come."
The blond man looked away for a moment and then, slowly, back at Treize. His eyes had that same haunted look they had carried the first time he'd come to the clinic. When he spoke, it was in a tortured whisper. "Sometimes I feel that if I let go of all the darkness, it'll mean the horrible things will all become that much more real."
Treize held the anguished gaze steadily. "They are real, Zechs. Horrible things have happened to you - the loss of someone you loved, a soulmate perhaps. That's the full truth of it; that it did happen. But if you accept that as real, that means there's a limit to it as well. Real horrors can be dealt with and put to rest, but imagined horrors know no boundaries. They can go on for as long as you live, and grow more and more monstrous."
Treize took a step towards Zechs. "That's my business, you see? I help people bring the fears from their imaginations into the light of reality, where they can be looked at and known for what they are - no more and no less. I'd like to help you do that, Zechs. Will you let me?"
Zechs hadn't moved. He simply stood where he was, trembling, but keeping his gaze on Treize. "What if reality is that I killed him? What do I do then?"
"You told me you didn't kill him," Treize said calmly. "Was that a lie?"
"No," Zechs began, "well - I don't know anymore! There are dreams and there's reality and it's getting harder and harder to tell which is which!"
Treize closed the distance between them, pulling the trembling man into his arms and leading him to the sofa. "Now first," he said quietly, I want you to sit down here and have some water." As he said this he helped Zechs out of his jacket and got a cup of water from the bottle he kept nearby. As Zechs sipped at it, Treize turned off a few strategic lights until the entire office was bathed in a dim, warm glow. Then he pushed his chair up next to the sofa and put a hand on Zechs's back. He stroked it calmly and encouraged sips of water and in a few minutes the younger man had relaxed substantially.
He handed his empty cup to Treize and smiled faintly. "Well, you're certainly good at that."
"I should hope so," Treize smiled back, "as overeducated as I am."
Zechs nodded toward the framed diplomas on the wall over the sofa. "I saw these. Ph.D. at..." He peered at the document. "University of Missouri, Columbia." Is that where you were trained?
"Yes," Treize nodded, "I sacrificed five years of my life to living in the southern midwest so I could study under a particular professor. I've never regretted it."
Zechs tilted his head slightly, regarding Treize. "Why was he so great?"
"He was one of the first clinicians to do research on gay men and their needs in therapy situations," Treize replied. "It was pioneering stuff and I wanted to be a part of it."
Ice blue eyes had sharpened their gaze. "Are you gay, too?" Zechs asked.
/Oh, *fuck* - how did this happen! I wasn't watching myself close enough, wasn't guiding the conversation in the right way. Bloody hell!/
"That doesn't really pertain to your therapy, Zechs. Let's keep the focus on you, all right?"
Zechs looked puzzled, but didn't say anything more.
"Now," said Treize, trying to regain his sense of control, "What I'd like you to do is tell me about these dreams. Do you feel you can do that?"
Zechs hesitated for a moment and then nodded.
"All right then, try to be as detailed as possible, but describe them in a way that's comfortable for you." Treize took up his notepad and sat back in his chair.
Zechs stared at him for a moment and then down at his hands, which strayed once again to twist a lock of that long, pale gold hair.
"They all start the same way: Wufei and I - Wufei is - was my lover - we're driving down the coast, on Highway 101. It's almost exactly like a real trip we took, down to southern California last March. I got an amazing freelance assignment to do a series of architectural sketches of all 21 missions. We went to all of them together and Wufei got to be a real expert in them - did all the tour stuff while I was drawing. Funny... He always liked the cemeteries best..."
Zechs paused for a moment, and Treize almost said something, but stopped himself. The blond began speaking again. "So in this dream, we're in the car, and we're following El Camino Real..."
Treize looked up for a moment, seeing Zechs's gaze focused once again on some inner world of his own, his voice somewhat dreamy as well. "The mission road?" he asked.
"Yes," Zechs continued. "There used to be this one road that connected all the missions in California, from San Francisco to San Diego - that's El Camino Real, the King's Road. Anyway, we're driving and I know that we're going to Oceanside, to Mission San Luis Rey. I don't know how I know it, but I do... I'm going to do some sketches and Wufei's telling me everything he's learned about the cemetery there."
Zechs shifted a bit, frowning in concentration before continuing. "When we get there, we step out of the car and I immediately have this feeling that something's really wrong - that something horrible is going to happen. Wufei doesn't seem to notice anything, though, so I try to ignore it and we walk into the church. I'm in Romanesque heaven, so I sit down and start sketching, and Fei goes up to the baptismal font and starts to splash holy water all over himself. Then we leave and walk through the long row of colonnades to get to the cemetery. We're walking, holding hands, and the colonnades keep stretching, going on and on, so we can't reach the end. That's when Fei looks scared for the first time and he says we have to run if we're ever going to get out of there."
Stopping suddenly, Zechs sat for a moment, eyes glazed, breath coming a little heavily, as if he were really running. When he didn't go on, Treize leaned forward. "Zechs? Are you all right? Do you want to stop?"
The younger man's body trembled a bit and then he looked up at Treize, blinking and looking somewhat dazed. "No. No, I want... I want to tell you..."
"All right," Treize said soothingly, giving Zechs's knee a little pat, go at your own pace."
Zechs gave another frown. "Right... where was I? Oh - the cemetery. "Well, we finally get there and I realize that this is the place all the bad stuff is coming from - it's centered there, in the cemetery. We wander around for a bit, but it just gets worse, so I tell Fei I want to leave. He turns to me and says we can't - that we have to climb the stairs, and suddenly we're not in the cemetery anymore, we're in the bell tower and he's telling me he never wants to go home - that he wants to stay there forever. He runs up the stairs, laughing in this insane way, and I follow him, but he gets to the roof before me.
I'm really terrified at this point because I know that whatever was in the cemetery has gotten into Fei and that it could make him do something bad. But when I get to the roof he's still there, leaning out on of the windows... And I walk over to where he is... and I push him... I push him out the window and he falls... Then I look down at him, and I can see him, on the ground, and there's blood coming from his head..."
Zechs blinked again, several times, and then looked up at Treize. "That's when I wake up," he said softly. "I always wake up right after I push him..."
He leaned over and put his elbows on his knees, hands running through the long strands of his hair. "Do you think I did it? And if I didn't, why do I keep having these dreams?"
"So, are you telling me that your lover actually *did* die of a fall from the tower at a mission?" Treize asked.
Zechs nodded slowly, eerily, Treize thought. "That same tower," Zechs whispered. "At Mission San Luis Rey. We were down in Oceanside, because I had to do some follow-up sketches. We'd gone to the mission that day..."
And tell me, Zechs, were you in the tower with him when he fell?"
Zechs paled. "I... I don't know... I think I was... but I don't have any memory of seeing him near the window. It's as if one moment he was there and the next... he was on the ground." He buried his face in his hands and shook his head. "There were people coming up the stairs... they said I was sitting on the floor, a long way away from the window. They said I didn't do anything..." Looking up at last, he met Treize's gaze with tired, pleading eyes. "If I didn't do anything to him, why do I keep dreaming that I did?"
Treize held the gaze firmly. "I don't know, Zechs. But I'm willing to help you find out."
End of Chapter 2
(:./kumiko/rr2)
