27-Dec-2000
Title: Shattering Wave
Author: Ravynfyre
Archive: GW Addiction, Darkflame
Category: Introspective Angst
Pairings: 1+2
Standard Disclaimer: All parts of Gundam Wing are Not Mine. It's all Theirs. *sigh* Too bad, but otherwise, I guess I'd never get anything done *happy hentai thought*. Anyway, not makin' any money offa this so dun sue me. You'd only get some college debt, a few dogs, and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers anyway. Ya know. blood. Turnip. Do the math.
Rating: PG
Warning: Introspection
Spoiler: Umm... episode like 10 or so, pertaining to a certain Big Boom
Notes: no pilot torture, no rape, no death... ya know... what angst USED to be.
Feedback: Yes, please. All comments welcome (although flames may be fed to my dogs, who, since they have notoriously gassy intestinal tracts, will be spending the night with the flamer afterwards)
I felt it coming. Like an earthquake in the deep ocean, I felt the tsunami of fate rushing in on our shore. They say that in the deep ocean, a tsunami may only be about ten or fifteen feet tall, and you'd never even notice it. It's only as it approaches its destination, the shoreline and the tidal shelf, that it rears its ugly head and becomes the force of nature it is.
I felt it coming from the first day I ever even heard about the damned mission. It started out as a gentle kind of unease. Just a twinge of discomfort for the danger he'd be in. Nothing even as concrete as a worry yet, but there nonetheless. The closer it got, though, the more it. manifested.
I watched as he packed his bag, stuffing his typical spandex and cotton into the tiny pack with a precision bested only by his hacking skills. With each motion, abrupt not because of anger, but simply because that's the way he was, I wanted to reach out and grab his hand and beg him not to go. I could taste it in the air that morning. Sour and pungent, it stank of betrayal and blood, undercut with that thrilling punch of adrenaline that each of us has learned to crave, whether we want to or not. It comes from living on the knife edge of death day by day, knowing that you may not have a next breath, next meal, next morning. next kiss.
Don't go. Don't go. Please god don't go.
The words jumped to the tip of my tongue dozens of times. Each article of clothing stuffed into the confines of his pack seemed to call to them as they sat in my chest. Each precisely placed bullet, carefully loaded into his pistol, screamed to me to set them free. Each smoldering glance he tossed me as I sat miserably on our bed in that grungy little room seemed to demand their utterance.
That's why I kept them tightly crammed in my chest. Those words that just ached to be spoken remained my prisoners because I knew. I knew with a crystal clarity that even if I let them free, they would make no difference to fate.
Don't go. Don't go. Please god don't go.
And if I'd said them, I knew, he would have stared deeply into my anguished eyes, and with a regret he would deny till his dying breath, he would have said.
Okay.
And then, instead of having to watch that baleful flash of fire and lightning steal him from me, I would have been treated to watching his achingly slow, withering disintegration. The soldier within would have slowly consumed the boy I had learned to love.
Yes. I said love. Does that shock you? Good. Be shocked. I don't care anymore.
Because no matter how I look at it, I was destined to lose that day. Six of one, one half dozen of another, and be it swift, or be it gradual, the tsunami had been born and it was racing to the shore.
Don't go. Don't go. Please god don't go.
There was no parting kiss, no last supper for the damned. Just one lingering brush of cobalt against my silent withdrawn form before that door slipped shut with a quiet click that I swore should have deafened the whole world. The Soldier led the boy out into the night and away from me in a welter of solitude. Within me, the words screamed themselves into oblivion.
It was too late to stop fate.
When next I saw him through that crackling electronic connection, I understood. I saw. He'd seen those words in my eyes that night he walked away. He'd heard them despite their silence. And he'd been just as powerless to forestall the shatteringwave as I had. I read the gratitude in his heavy glance and knew that even though I would lose, I'd already won.
I cradled the end of my braid in my hand, unable to be comforted by the smooth strands as he stepped out on the platform and gently punched that hateful button.
Don't go. Don't go. Please god don't go.
And destiny erupted, like a spray of water casually thrown against the stones on the shore, it rained down upon us all and stole him from us.
The tsunami struck landfall and swept away everything worthwhile left to me. Deep in the ocean, the world trembled once again, and another was born in its place, rolling towards its own destruction once again. And fate resumed its inexorable march.
~owari~
RavynFyre
Please send comments to: ravynfyre@hotmail.com