Title: Where Are You?
Author/pseudonym: Yoiko (mightyyoiko@hotmail.com)
Rating: NC-17(?)
Date: 02/28/2002
Archive: GW Addiction
Author's website: http://www.aestheticism.net/vcity/1278
Disclaimers: I do not own Gundam Wing. The Gundam Wing characters and situations which appear in this story are being used entirely without permission. This is a fan work; no profit whatsoever is being made from this work of fiction, nor do I make any claim to copyright of those elements of the story which were not created by me. Also, I intend no disrespect toward the creators and rightful owners of this wonderful series.
Notes: Please let me know what you think of this if you read it. I originally conceived of the idea as a songfic, but now am not sure if the lyrics really *work*, or if the story would stand better on its own.
WARNINGS: Dark/angst, child abuse, horror, some sexually explicit material. Parts of this turned my stomach to write; if you don't feel up to reading it, it will *not* hurt my feelings if you skip this one. Honest.
I'm all grown up
But somehow
It feels like I'm pretending
I dream about them every night. Even on the rare mornings when I wake up and can't remember what I dreamed, I know that they were a part of it, because the numb, lost feeling is still there.
I don't know whether it really happened or not. The memory is clean and clear in my mind, but so many of my dreams are clear as well. The little girl and her puppy... my memory of them may very well have been a dream. I can only imagine what it would feel like, being innocent and free like her, with no worse nightmares to worry about than fantastical creatures living in my closet or under my bed.
I was never that innocent.
Visions of my younger years
They are buried
It's funny how perceptions change. When people look at me, they see the cold soldier. They don't see that sometimes I feel... little, like the clothes on my back have suddenly grown too large for me, or like I don't fit in my skin. Clothes have a way of sliding over my skin that makes me feel... things. Bad things. So mostly I wear clothes that are tight and don't move--it is like armor to protect me from myself. Duo once called me an exhibitionist, and if it hadn't made me feel so... I would have laughed, if that comment, and the way his eyes looked, hadn't made me feel so little.
I'm not an exhibitionist. I don't want eyes on me, hungry and cold, taking from me. I just want to feel normal, if I could only figure out what normal is supposed to feel like.
Duo's eyes make me feel little, and so do Relena's, and even Quatre's, sometimes. Dr. J is the only one I know whose eyes don't do that, or perhaps they do but I can't see them.
No. Not Dr. J. He's not like that. Thinking about that makes my skin all shivery, and I feel bile rise, burning, in the back of my throat.
He's not like that.
But the scenes that play inside of me
Are impending
They are never ending
In the dream, I see the bombs exploding, and the little girl opening her mouth to scream just before the blast hits, and her body blackens into ash in an instant and blows away on the wind. I know this is a dream, because if I'd been close enough to witness it I would not now be living.
I know I'm still living. My heart beats, my lungs breathe.
Or am I only dreaming I'm awake?
Where
Where, where, where
Where are you?
In the dream, I find the puppy, lying next to the girl's burned corpse. I pick it up, and feel it breathe its last, shuddering breath, and see its soft, warm brown eyes go blank. I look down to see that the crumbling dirt under my feet is really the little girl's hand, the bones crunching under my too-big shoes, and her eyes are nothing but empty pits in her blackened face but they look at me, they see me, and her mouth is open to scream but the scream is welling up in my throat.
My throat is sore when I wake, from holding in the scream.
You don't have to look out that window
Any more
You can
Come back to yourself
You can
Come back to this world
It's hard to tell dream from reality. Do I even know what reality is? Maybe this, all of this, is a construct of my imagination, my way of escaping...
I wonder if anybody else wonders about reality. If I told them, would they think I was insane? Am I insane? Don't most people know whether they're awake?
It's easy to push the self-destruct button, when you aren't sure if it's really happening or not.
I broke my leg, and reset it myself; that was one moment when I felt real. There was no delay between the action and the experience of pain; no gap between doing and feeling. Sometimes things don't hurt until long afterwards. Dr. J said it was the after-effects of adrenaline... or I might have dreamed that.
ZERO system felt real. The grip of a gun feels real. The rest... the rest is hard to tell. When I use the bathroom, I worry that I'll suddenly wake up to realize I've been sleepwalking and have started to relieve myself in front of everyone.
I wonder if anyone else has such a fucked-up sense of reality.
I wonder if reality exists.
Where are you?
Tell me, who heard you?
Where are you?
I don't even remember meeting Odin Lowe, any more than I remember my life before. There must have been a time before Odin. There must have been, but he took me in, told me how to do the job, and I did it.
He was the one who first put a gun in my hand. The man was stunned, on the ground, and Odin pressed the gun into my hand and told me to pull the trigger, and the man was looking right at me, pleading, and Odin's hands were on top of mine, steadying the barrel, and I could smell the stale-gin odor of his sweat and feel his bristly cheek pressing against mine and my fingers mashed between his hard hands and the unforgiving steel of the pistol and then there was the
bang
and the man breathed his last, shuddering breath, and his soft, warm brown eyes went blank.
When we got home, Odin beat me for not obeying instantly, and then he beat me some more for crying.
His belt was black leather, and it had a silver eagle on the buckle.
He led me into his room
And had me lay down
My heart
My soul
Anything else that you could own
When you're six years old
"Be a good boy," he told me. If I was a good boy, he'd love me like I was his own son, and he'd take care of me. I'd have food to eat and clothes to keep me warm, and Odin would keep me safe from the authorities, who would put me in jail if they caught me, because I killed a man.
Good boys don't cry.
Good boys aren't afraid of guns.
Good boys do as they're told.
My fingers were too small to wrap all the way around it. It tasted bitter, like the vomit leaping up in the back of my throat, waiting to get out, and he groaned and smiled and patted my head, and my whole world was nothing but gin-stink and pain and shame and my nose running and my hands aching and my eyes burning, and a shivery-sick feeling that started between my shoulder-blades and worked its way, freezing, into my throat and into my heart, and I hated it, hated it, and I hated him and I wanted to be free...
I wished I was dead.
When it was done, he told me to go clean myself up. I stumbled off to the bathroom, sick and numb, and I threw up the little bit of breakfast I'd had that morning, and then I started cleaning myself up like a good boy.
To this day, I cannot even look at fried eggs. They're too expensive.
Now I'm older
I touch myself sometimes when I'm alone, or when I think I'm alone. I try not to worry about the sleepwalking thing. And I try not to think about cold eyes on me. Sometimes I think about Duo. I think about licking and sucking him, not because he tells me to, but because I choose to. Or I think about being mean to him, making him suck me, or beating him if he doesn't.
Sometimes I think about doing it to Relena. Sometimes I think about being tied down or beaten or forced. It always makes me feel that shiver in my heart, just before I come. Then I go to the bathroom and clean myself up like a good boy.
Sometimes it still makes me throw up.
I don't do it very often; it makes me feel worse. I could never do those things to them, even if their eyes make me want to sometimes. I don't want to make them feel ashamed. I don't want them to feel like I do.
I will never wear a belt.
Such a quiet secret
It hurt too much, trying hard to keep it
He taught me a lot of things. How to fight, how to handle a gun, how to kill. He taught me to live by the contract we had between us--I was a good boy, and he took care of me. He loved me like a father.
That's what he told me.
Oh, and I looked up to you
I wanted so much to believe in you
I wanted so much for you to believe in me
Oh, I tried
I tried
I didn't cry. I wasn't afraid of guns. And I did everything he told me to do. And still...
I never asked if he was proud of me, and he never said. But I always wanted to know. I wanted to know if it was enough. If I was good enough.
He told me to follow my emotions.
"All these years with you... weren't so bad," he said, just before he died.
Just before his soft, warm brown eyes went blank.
Where
Where, where, where
Where are you?
He told me to follow my emotions, but I don't know what they are. I feel things, but I don't have words for them.
I picked up the detonator he'd dropped, and looked down at his body, and my gaze focused on the silver eagle of his belt buckle.
"Is this what you had left to do?" I asked, and triggered the detonator.
His final mission, completed.
Odin, are you proud of me?
Dad, are you proud?
I was a good boy.
I don't have to look out that window
Any more
I can just
Come back to myself
I can
Come back to this world
I wandered away, cut loose and drifting. I didn't know what to do, with Odin gone. How could I be a good boy, if nobody told me what to do? My emotions weren't telling me anything.
He was lurking in the shade of an alley, and I wonder how long he'd been watching me. Dr. J. He looked like the kind of monster little girls with puppies have nightmares about.
"Do you want to pilot a Gundam?" he asked me.
I don't know what made me say it. Maybe it was my emotions leading me, after all.
"Sure," I said.
Things were different with Dr. J. He didn't make me touch him. He didn't beat me. And I was a good boy for him, I really was. I learned everything I could from him and the others. Fencing, horseback riding, computer and mechanical skills. I learned more about fighting than Odin had taught me. I learned how to drive or pilot anything. I learned how to do my own doctoring.
I learned everything they thought I'd need to know on Earth. And I obeyed every order Dr. J gave me, even when it meant self-destructing. And I survived.
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
When it was all over, he told me that there were no further orders. I stared at him, lost and betrayed. How can I be a good boy, if I don't have orders to follow? I have to be... I have to be good...
"Go out and live your life, son," he told me, and he looked sad even though he was smiling. "You've got the whole rest of your life to try to learn to follow your emotions."
"Yes, sir," I replied. It was kind of a mission, wasn't it? But there were so many variables... how would I know if I was doing a good job? I turned to go, but the sound of his voice stopped me.
"Heero?"
"Sir?" I turned back to face him, wondering...
"Son... I just wanted to tell you how very proud I am of you."
The sick, shivery feeling melted into something else, and my throat felt tight and my face felt tight, and then there were sounds coming out of me that I couldn't stop, and my whole body was shaking and I couldn't stop, and he pulled me into his arms and told me again.
Sometimes things don't hurt until long afterwards.
Tell me, who hurt you?
He's proud of me.
I'm a good boy.
~owari~
"Where Are You"
lyrics by Chynna Phillips
can be found on the 1992 Wilson Phillips album "Shadows and Light"
I do not own Gundam Wing, or the Gundam Wing characters and situations which appear in this fic. This story is in no way meant to be taken as a claim to the copyright, neither do I mean any disrespect whatsoever to the creators of this wonderful series.
(:./yoiko/where)
