Title: Cruelest Dream: Reality
Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: R
Warnings: death, gore, violence, disturbing themes, slightly AU
Genre: Angst, Heero POV
Pairing: Implied 1+2
Archive: Ask. (duffsbrandy@yahoo.com)

Cruelest Dream: Reality by CleverYoungThief

"What are you screaming about?"

Duo elbowed me in the ribs. It was humid and hot in our safehouse, like a sauna. Covered with sweat, I was lying in bed, wondering if I was awake or asleep. Most of the time, the life where I had a family and a home, a family and a name, is just a dream to me. But sometimes, this war, this war where I can no longer recognize my blank, expressionless, war-hardened face in the mirror, that is the nightmare, one that I am still waiting to wake up from.

"What are you screaming about?" Duo repeated, leaning over me. His violet eyes were abysmal, unfathomably deep. He squeezed my shoulder, and the gun I had been holding in my hand was unceremoniously returned to its place beneath my pillow.

Our cots stood side by side, touching. Duo flicked my ear, and the slight pain woke me up completely.

"Yume. Dream," I whispered back to him. Duo had no idea what I dreamt about, but he knew it was bad, and he never asked. He knows a lot about me, more than he thinks. Sometimes it's better that way--that way I don't have to explain. I wouldn't have to explain if he asked, but this was Duo. I would.

"S'okay, Heero," he whispered, warm sweet breath in the cup of my ear. "I dream about my first, too." He sighed. I silently did the same. Neither of us said anything. He had guessed correctly.

These dreams will be the end of me one day, these dreams that attack me in my sleep, when I am defenseless and without weapons. I hate myself for having them, but they happen anyway.

I inhaled deeply a few times, feeling warmer with the length of Duo pressed against me over the crease between our beds. I felt like crying, but of course I wouldn't. "Perfect Soldier." "Liberator." They started calling me names from the beginning, names to make up for the fact I didn't have one. The other Superiors coined the nicknames, and they stuck, despite Doctor J's efforts to keep my appellation down to "Boy." I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I was afraid to fall asleep again, despite the fact that the Perfect Soldier was not supposed to be afraid of anything. Sometimes the dreams came two and three times in one night.

I had not dreamt of the girl. Although she often shows up in my dreams, this one was not of her.

This dream was about the boy.

// And you, bring me to my knees, again... //

I had just been released from the Labs. Already trained, but still inexperienced in combat. I was standing in the shadow of some building on L2, not really knowing why. I stood at ease, relaxed, but a little restless, because I had not yet received any objectives. Borovik, one of the Superiors, stood in front of me, biting his nails. The day was bright and hot like it usually was on L2, and I was standing around, waiting for something to happen. In my dream, it is an early, overcast morning, and I always know what is going to happen next.

// All the times I had to beg you please--in vain... //

Finally, the Superiors brought him. His hands were tied behind his back, and frankly, he was pathetic to see. This was not a soldier; this was a civilian boy in the ragged, dirty clothes of a street person. It seemed impossible, unfathomable, that this boy could be my enemy. He only seemed to be about two years older than myself.

// All the times, that I felt insecure for you //

Doctor J seemed to appear from nowhere behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder and began explaining to me in his gruff, soft voice. That voice was the voice of reason, of logic, of war. To me, it may as well have been the voice of God himself.

// And I leave my burdens at the door... //

He explained to me what an enemy was, and how I was to deal with them. Hai. I nodded. I understood. He said something about the counterrevolution, and about the homefront of the colonies, which must be protected at all costs. This, I did not understand, still I understood. I understood that I was to obey.

// But I'm on the outside, I'm looking in //

But this boy just stood there in front of me with his bound hands, looking as pitiful as a wounded sparrow. He caught my eye, the boy stared straight ahead at me, afraid but pretending he was not.

// I can see through to you, can see your true colors //

I felt a connection with him, maybe with a past that I could no longer remember. As if I wanted to speak to him, but of course my training forbade it. Still, I couldn't convince myself that this was "the enemy who had to be destroyed." Suddenly, it began--my test, the "disposal of the target." This was not a nightmare but a reality, more painful than the time that the Superiors broke both of my arms to see if I could still fly Wing with them like that. It was worse than a nightmare; it was an order.

// 'Cause inside you're ugly, ugly like me... //

Suddenly, Borovik looked over at me, his eyes gleaming sadistically. "Come on, Perfect! Finish your Mission or to hell you go!"

// I can see through you, see to the real you... //

I looked back at Doctor J, checking to make sure that this command was solid. Doctor J nodded once, and I closed my eyes. A tremor shook my body as something inside me came undone, and I felt the Doctor's one remaining hand on my shoulder, reassuring and firm.

// All the times that I felt like this won't end, was for you //

"Ninmu ryoukai," I whispered. I understood now. I had to kill this unarmed war orphan with his hands tied behind his back, and he was still looking into my eyes. To kill him. Not knowing why or for what purpose. I had the sneaking suspicion there *was* no purpose, that this was entirely as an experiment to see how I would react. I don't think he understood why they were making me do it, either. Not until the very end.

// And I taste what I could never have, it's from you //

I raised my machine gun, as long as one of my arms, convinced this couldn't be happening and never would. Never. I had to--just had to--wake up in my cell back in the Labs, where my enemies were virtual simulations. I just had to wake up to white walls and fluorescent lights, and I would be fine. Human again.

// All the times, that I've tried, my intentions full of pride //

With my cobalt eyes, I looked into his smooth, clear green ones. They were the color of jade, cool and submissive. He didn't understand. Neither did I.

In reality, all this may have been a fraction of a second, but in my dreams it can last ages, centuries. He probably thought it was a mistake, a misunderstanding, that everything would turn out well, and that maybe we could meet without a gun between us, meet and become friends...

// But I waste more time, than anyone... //

The boy must have thought that, because he even took a step in my direction as if he wanted to say something to me. I lowered the barrel of my gun and sighed, almost in relief. This entire order was obviously a mistake.

// All the times, that I've cried //

"Boy, finish it!" Doctor J's voice was no longer comforting and placating. It was commanding. I had never disobeyed an order from the Doctor in my short life.

// All this wasted, it's all inside // I raised the gun again. I no longer understood anything.

// And I feel all this pain, stuffed it down //

"What is the point of this training, sir? Permit me to untie his hands," I said in a completely unmilitary fashion, with a tongue that felt dry and alien in my mouth. My head was throbbing.

// It's back again and I lie here in bed //

"Are you insane, Boy?" Doctor J whispered from behind me. "Carry out the order! Bayonet him!"

I wanted to scream, to crawl around on my hands and knees and kiss Doctor J's dusty boots, to beg him not to make me do this.

// All alone, I can't mend--but I feel //

But I am the Perfect Soldier.

Instead of screaming or begging, I quietly answered. "Hai. Ninmu ryoukai." And I accepted. But I still dream about his face, his jade eyes, his voice with its rough, guttural L2 accent. He never turned away from me, this boy Solo.

Of course, I was taught. I was taught to kill in all possible and impossible ways. But my aim was not true, my hands were shaking too badly. And it took six blows for me to kill him. The bayonet kept hitting his breastbone, his collarbone. It must have been agonizing, must have hurt him terribly, maybe even more than it hurt me.

// I'm on the outside, I'm looking in //

The boy lay still, crumpling to the ground, those jade eyes wide with disbelief. His mouth was open too, and dark blood was already trickling from the corner of his mouth.

// I can see through you, can see your true colors //

"Bad, very bad work, very messy," Borovik growled down at me disapprovingly. "All right, quit blubbering and fall in."

// 'Cause inside you're ugly, ugly like me //

I fell in. And everything on from there fades to gray in my memory, like the wings of a dove folding gently over my eyes. I remember nothing more.

// I can see through to you, see to the real you... //

I was not blubbering. I had not cried, and I had not thrown up. I had simply killed a person, maybe even a very good one. A boy two years older than me, a boy that had no more reason for killing than the fact that the Superiors had picked him up out of an OZ prison. His death was random, drawn out of a hat. I understood this now. There was not supposed to be any motive behind this execution.

It's just that this dream will not go away. And Duo says that for some reason in my dream I keep screaming: "I am ten! I am a boy like him! You see? You believe?"

Although in six days, if I am not killed, I'm going to be sixteen.

The End

(:./cyt/cruel)