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The Tear of a Warrior
Alright, so there goes what I've been working on lately. I won't lie, you'll be rather lost if you haven't seen Cowboy Bebop (or at least the episodes Jupiter Jazz, part one and two). However, if you do read it, please let me know what you think. I'm venturing into new territory (beware, ahead lies NC-17 of the non too vanilla variety) and am consequently rather anxious about the fic. It wasn't planned at all, the characters pretty much took me along for the ride without my having a say in the matter. I love it when that happens, especially when it challenges me so. It's unbetaed and open to changes, so any suggestion will be welcome. (And kudos to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pee_wai without whom this fic would never have been!)
Here's a wallpaper I made for it: The tear of a warrior I know, not much of Vicious in it. I'll probably do another one with more of him. Or maybe one about just him and Spike... I'll see.
Update, 07/16/04: just reworked on it a bit, so that it would be more understandable to non CB fans, plus a few minor changes.
The tear of a warrior
It was mother who insisted I learn music. Playing music was something she had always been denied and she transferred her desire onto me, her last son. She would have me play the clarinet or the obo, but I stubbornly refused anything but the saxophone. Dexter Warrington, the sax player of the Five Devils, had been my childhood hero. He had style, he was smooth, he played like a god and I loved watching their concerts in small seedy bars, vids that I snatched on the network. I only had eyes for him, the volutes of tobacco smoke swirling around him, half hiding him, his shiny black hair, the soft, feminine beauty of his sax and mostly the look on his face when he played. It was so evident. The line between the musician and the music blurred until it completely disappeared. And then Dexter was the music.
My family was wealthy and, although I was not exactly spoiled, I did not want anything I could not have. I had never refused mother anything. I was nine when, for the first time, I put my foot down. I would learn the saxophone, or nothing.
My teacher was called Robert Green. He told me to call him Rob when nobody was around, and I did. It was like he had two distinct personalities, "Mr Green" for mother and all those people around whom you had to act proper, and "Rob" for me. I liked Rob better. We shared something through the music, just the two of us. Sometimes mother and he were talking about something, and when she wasn't looking he would throw me a glance, and the twinkle in his eyes would be enough to make it hard for me to stifle my laughter. He could always keep a straight face. He also taught me swear words and the way they talked out there, in the real world. He was my window onto another universe I had never set foot in.
One day, he stopped coming. I was thirteen. Mother offered me no reason but introduced me to my new teacher, one Miss Elizabeth Lee. I did not understand how she could play the sax so well, because she was the picture of an old maid with hardly any feelings at all. I respected authority too much to defy her, but I never put my heart in my lessons after Rob was gone. Instead, I kept listening to what good jazz I could glean on the network and strove to emulate them when I was alone in my room.
I cried the day Dexter died. I spent the day listening to the Five Devils, to mother's despair. Father came by, too, tried to talk me out of this haze. I didn't want to come out of it. I owed Dexter that much, for everything he had brought me. After a few minutes, father concluded that it was nothing and that they should just leave me alone for a while. Same old, same old. When I asked mother's driver for a cig the next day and took up smoking, it was in memory of Dexter.
I never forgot Rob, treasured those memories of him as a child does of the first adult who treats him as an equal. I was seventeen when I met him again. At seventeen, a child of the bad parts of town is no longer a child, but I for one was far from being a man. I went to a jazz club with a few friends, one of whom had gotten us all fake ID cards to be let in. The bouncers were not fooled and told us to go back home. Something in the contempt with which they turned us down told me it wasn't so much due to our age as to our expensive clothes. My spirits fell and I lit up a cig, but then I heard a familiar, gravelly laugh. I turned around, heart thudding against my ribcage with excitement.
"Rob?"
He looked up, wrinkled face frowned in an attempt at recognition. Years had not yet taken their toll on him and he didn't look much different than I remembered him, but for the strands of gray in his dark hair. He carried his sax case with him as always and the men he was with all seemed to be musicians, too. One of them even had a huge case that he had to roll around, undoubtedly a double bass.
A few seconds went by and I was painfully aware of being the center of attention both of his group of friends and mine. Please recognize me.
"Gren?"
He had been the first one to call me that. We laughed, hugged, smiled and did not say much of anything for a while. Then he invited all of us in and I grinned sheepishly at the bouncers who had refused us entrance. That night was unbelievable. My friends looked up to me for having gotten them in and the music was amazing. Rob's band clearly knew each other by heart and could play together in the best of ways, improvising better than most bands you find in such joints.
After their gig was over, Rob and I talked around some liquor. A real, long talk. I told him everything about my life since he had left and did not even realize I hadn't asked him the question that had been plaguing me for years, the reason behind his departure. I told him about Elizabeth Lee, I told him about my big brother Sean who was studying to follow in father's footsteps, I told him about the other one, Caleb, who had run off but still sent me a note now and then to tell me about freedom, I told him about school and music and girls and my friends. I told him about what I wanted to do but would never dare bring up in front of father and mother.
I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to learn how to fight. I wanted to learn how to fly a monoracer. I wanted to go find Caleb and pick up girls with him in seedy bars with an awful reputation. I wanted to fall helplessly in love with the most unattainable of women. I wanted to travel all over the system. I was seventeen; my head was full of dreams and I poured them all into his welcoming ears. He understood me.
He eventually stood up and gathered the bottle of whisky and the glasses. "It's not getting any earlier, eh?"
I glanced at my watch. "Shit!" Looked around the club to find it desert, but for the two of us. It was dawn. Father and mother would kill me. They had probably already called the ISSP.
Rob chuckled, the old twinkle still in his dark eyes. He did look older than I remembered him, from up close. There were more wrinkles bracketing his eyes and a weathered look to his skin tone, as if he had gone through just a bit too much. But his eyes were as lively and young as ever. "Don't s'pose your ma's relaxed any."
It sobered me up. I looked at him gravely. "You never said goodbye."
He looked at me in silence for a few seconds, as if gauging whether or not to tell me. I straightened slightly and hardened my look, praying he would. "The old missus wanted me away from you, kid." He often called me kid, but he didn't mean it like that. From his lips, it sounded like a simple statement of fact. "Didn't give me much of a choice. Your old man can be real persuasive too, when he's in the mind for it."
I nodded thoughtfully. This came as no surprise; I had guessed as much. "Can I see you again?"
"Come by here when you want, I'll tell Eddie to let you in."
I grinned, wanted to hug him again but realized I wasn't nine anymore and extended my hand instead, in all solemnity. Rob caught my arm roughly and pulled me to him, clapping me in the back. "I'm glad I saw you again, Gren."
I simply smiled.
Father and mother did throw a fit. And then some. Mother threatened to ground me for a time that sounded awfully like eternity to my seventeen-year-old ears. I retorted that I would just run away and go to Caleb. That shut her up. I went back to the club every night, as a listener, and they eventually let me play with them from time to time. When I first played for Rob again, he said he had nothing left to teach me, that I had the technique and it was now just a matter of heart. I thought of the day Dexter died and nodded, then thanked him. He asked what for and I couldn't find the words to explain. He ruffled my shoulder-length hair and said it was all right.
On my eighteenth birthday, after the traditional dinner with my parents, the guys took me to a fighting centre held by a friend of Jackie's, who played the trumpet. His friend was a small man with olive skin and sleek, short black hair, who talked with a funny accent I had never heard before, in a drawl that made you feel immediately comfortable. He was called Aki. Rob told me Aki would teach me to fight. He told me he was intent on seeing that I got to realize all those dreams of mine. I thanked him again, and again, and then some more. He laughed it all off as if it were nothing. Later, when we were alone around a glass of whiskey, I asked him whether he had any dreams I could help him fulfill. He cryptically replied I already was and changed the subject of the conversation.
Aki was a good teacher. His demeanor changed completely as soon as we entered the fighting ground. He was no longer laid back and easy-going but became demanding and harsh. It took some getting used to, but he didn't leave me much of a choice and I learned a lot with him. He did not teach me any one art, but instead a mixture of fighting techniques. I never was very muscular and he taught me to rely on my speed, stealth and cunning. I never became an excellent fighter, but I could hold my own against most people.
When my parents learned about it, though, there came the blow. I had only begun to learn to fly a monoracer, had not yet picked up girls with Caleb or fallen helplessly in love with an unattainable woman, and I had not seen much of the world at all.
I do not know how they learned of what I was doing at Aki's and I do not care. It was a row as I had never witnessed, not even when Caleb was still here. I had never seen father truly angry at me. It was a sight to make one quiver. He shouted a lot, horrible things, but I put it to an end when he got started on the subject of Rob. He remained quiet for a few seconds, then spoke up calmly, coldly. I had never seen father as someone dangerous, merely a businessman emotionally remote from his family. The true implications of his soft words chilled me to the core of my being. We were talking about Rob.
"Trust me, son, his days as a musician are over."
Then came my turn to rage. I yelled and threatened him of the worst things, but he never flinched. I resorted to the only thing I had left. I pleaded. I promised I would do anything he wanted if he just left Rob alone.
"Enroll."
The word had come from mother, who I had not noticed standing in the doorframe to father's study. I looked at her with mild disbelief. Enroll? I would be shipped off to Titan. She wanted me in a war? I swept my incredulous eyes back to father. His blue gaze did not waver, hard as rock.
"Enroll," he repeated evenly. "Enroll, swear to me that never again you will be in contact with him, and I will leave Green alone."
I thought of the twinkle in Rob's eyes and of his pledge to help me achieve my dreams. I closed my eyes to get myself under control; I did not want father to see me cry. Then I looked at him steadily. The word tasted bitter on my lips. "Deal."
I went to my room to pack. I kept my end of the deal.
I became Private Grencia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener.
Hell, I hate that name.
They kept repeating it, again and again, during my trial. Grencia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener, the accused. The spy. The traitor. I had fought their war and this was how they repaid me. Father disowned me without so much as a farewell, but even then I would not dare reply to the few letters Rob sent me, before giving up. I was scared for his well-being if I did. I will never forget the kind of man I had not known my father to be.
Grencia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener. It's a reminder of everything they have done to me. I like Gren better.
He called me that, too. He never talked much to any of us, remained mysterious, but always watched us. Those pale gray eyes of his, never warm, ever wary. I felt under study. I do not know whether the others noticed it, but his gaze weighed on me all the time, pinpricks of awareness tingling all over my body.
In some sick and twisted way, I fell helplessly in love with him. Some unattainable woman, eh?
I did not realize it at first. I did not know anything then. I was young and naïve, though I thought myself educated in the ways of the world. Disillusioned about family, I sought comradeship above all else, valued it, honored it, lived by it and would have died by it. He would have laughed at me for it, as he did not hesitate to let that kid die in his stead.
I was a fool. I still am.
He watched us, fought by our side, but he never was one of us. A silent shadow, an angel of death, a mysterious figure in shades of gray that lacked mercy or empathy. He took pity on none but made war an art. Bodies were his canvas, death his subject matter. He used guns and rifles like the rest of us, but preferred to deal out death with the blade of his knife when possible. He made it possible on more occasions than any of us would have dared, grace in motion as he stole between mines closer to the enemy and sliced their very throat, dodging bullets and bombs all the while. He seemed to shy from nothing; everything shied from him. Once the battlefield was no more than a land strewn with bodies, he would walk around aimlessly, or so it would seem, and look at things. Simply look at them. When most of us did not want to face the lives we had taken, when the others pinched the corpses or took pleasure out of contemplating them, he would just walk around and look at them. He looked at the crows gnawing at the bodies, scavengers of death. He looked at them still, and the glimpses I could catch of his face under the strands of near-white hair the wind whipped about betrayed no emotion. Nothing beyond his usual, neutral look.
His neutral look has always been one that spoke of a thousand ways to make you die screaming. That should have told me enough.
One time, I saw past the mask. Our unit was being called away and I had been charged to go and get him. Through the sand storm, he was only identifiable as that blurry figure a while off. The battlefield was empty; we had decimated them, even though we lost our own share of men. I protected my face behind a scarf and set out for him, wary not to step on a body or, worse yet, a body part.
He made no sign of noticing my presence as I stopped a few feet from him. I could only catch a glimpse of his profile, face hidden under his hair; his scarf was around his neck as if the sand could not possibly affect him. He stood still and I looked at what he was watching. If I had not been fighting for a while then, I probably would have thrown up what little I had had for breakfast. The corpse was the mere shadow of one, strips of flesh and skin still hanging on the bones here and there, where the crows that were perched on it had not yet gotten to.
A sudden gust of wind whipped the hair out of his face and I thought I caught the glimpse of something unusual in his face. Something that puzzled and elated me. Kinship. In my foolishness, I clung to that hint of a feeling to convince myself that he was, after all, not so different from me. Kinship was what he was after.
The second seemed to last an hour before he turned to me, his expression as malevolent as ever. The crows took flight, croaking disharmoniously. He took me in, not saying a word.
Rather than fidget, I spoke up. "We're moving to section 12.4." My voice sounded oddly insignificant after the racket of the crows.
He looked at me still for a few more seconds. Never have I met someone who could make you afraid to die as effortlessly as he did, without a word, simply by being. His harsh features, coupled with the coldness of his eyes, chilled your very blood and had you wonder whether Judgment Day had come. This time though, unlike before, I would have welcomed it. With a look, he made me wish to die. He made me wish to experience the coldness, to embrace death and make her my comrade.
He turned away and walked back to our unit. I followed after a look at the sky. I could not see the crows.
I have not felt like that ever since. This violent desire for death that grips you and feels as if it won't ever let go. Even now, what I feel, it has nothing to do with it.
The day he gave me that music box... The tune fascinated me, all the more so that I would find him listening to it. Him and music – they did not seem to go together. That name he whispered, the emotion hidden behind it, "Julia..." I itched for my sax.
Then he killed the scorpion. He saved my life. I thought he was going to kill me – he never bared his blade in vain – and he saved my life. I foolishly thought, wanted to believe, that this was comradeship at last.
Julia was a ray of sunshine in my life, and yet she shed a dark light on that box. As soon as she forced out of me the name of he that had given it to me, she knew. She knew Vicious much better than I did, it turned out. There was a transmitter inside. He had been the spy. That was the reason why he had given me the box, why he had saved my life, why he had testified against me at the trial: I was a scapegoat, used to draw attention from him. Of course, I did not know that, I did not suspect any of that, until Julia, two years ago. She brought me understanding. Since her, I know who to blame for my damnation.
I remember when I first laid eyes on him. I felt nervous, with the proverbial lead in my stomach. I had been well trained, I was ready for combat, but I had never killed. Most importantly, I did not want to be there, I longed for the companionship of Rob and the guys and I craved for the feel of my sax in my hands. I watched the other men of my unit apprehensively. They were all long time soldiers, apart from the other new recruit. His name summed up his look: Vicious. Sharp features, a tall and lean body, and an expression that made you wonder what you had done to infuriate him, and how you could take it back. It made you ready to give anything to take it back.
The coldness in his pale eyes came gradually, replacing the constant anger. He was a man on edge. Even though he had a few years on me, our young age made me long for his companionship more than for the others', but he made it clear he would have none of it. As time passed by and the body count rose, the coldness came. His features were still as aggressive; I don't believe anything could take the sharpness out of them. But his eyes came to reflect less rage, though just as much vice. I saw no hope of ever forming a bond with him. I had almost resigned myself when I heard that tune, found him listening to that box. How I missed music.
After that, his attitude toward me changed slightly. He seemed to watch out for me more than before in battle. He still did not speak much to me, but often came to be with me. I grew accustomed to his silent presence; he became like a shadow to me, going when he would, but he was always back. He made me think of the myth of the Doppelganger, a dark double that was not human but came from the world of Shadows, a double that was almost constantly by your side but that you could never get a good look at. We fought side by side, ate together, never slept too far away, but he remained as ungraspable as ever. I did not attempt to push it further for fear that he would put an end to this tentative comradeship.
The latest battle had raged on for several days, ending on a bloody climax of corpses torn apart and mines setting off under the feet of those who would flee. The day was ours. The others had gone back to the trench to sleep, at last. I should have done the same; I knew I was exhausted, but could not feel it anymore. I had grown past feeling it. I sat in the middle of the desert battlefield and took the music box out. The tune rose languidly around me; I closed my eyes and imagined a true sax player was here; my fancy improved the tune, expanded on it and took it to greater levels with the sound of the saxophone. My heart felt as if it would burst. I heard a crow in my back, shattering my carefully-crafted illusion. The music in my mind stopped abruptly; the music box had been silent for a while. I looked around to see him standing there, looking at me. The crow that had jarred me out of my own world flew off.
We held each other's gaze for a while. Usually, I would have gotten to my feet, feeling awkward, and we'd have likely headed back to the trench. I looked back down at the music box and wound it up. I called forth no imaginary instrument this time but focused painfully on the fragile reality of the tune.
He walked up to me and crouched down. I did not look up at him, kept my gaze fixed on the music box. It was then, in such proximity, that I acknowledged for the first time that I wanted another man. That I wanted him. I was afraid to look up at him, because I did not know what I would do if I saw him so close to me, now that I was in all effect weaker than I had ever been, after taking part in one of the greatest victories of our side.
When the music died down, I reached to wind it up again right away. The music was like a barrier between us, a safeguard, something to cling to other than his pale eyes and aggressive features. His hand closed on mine, around the box, before I could wind it. My breath caught in my throat. I stared at his long, pale fingers – an artist's fingers, not a soldier's. His skin was much whiter than mine. I heard someone sigh and realized it was me.
I slowly looked up into his face.
He stiffened when I pressed my lips against his, surprised or shocked, and did not return the kiss. His lips were as cracked and dry as mine, due to the odious weather and the frequent sand storms, and yet the knowledge that they were his, that they belonged to that tall, graceful feline of a man was enough to get me more aroused than any woman or girl ever had. I withdrew, eyes still closed, holding my breath and awaiting the killing stroke.
When it did not come, I opened my eyes to find him visibly thrown off his game. It scared and excited me. He was not looking at me, even though his eyes were looking in my direction. His hand tightened around mine, crushing my fingers against the metal of the music box. I bit my lips to keep from crying out, but a moan did rise from my throat when the skin cut.
His pale gaze focused on me, then looked down at our hands. Slowly, he let go, and watched the blood rising in my palm. My breath was short as I watched him watch me. The world around us had stopped existing, as far as I was concerned. I had enough of a survival instinct to know I ought to wait for his next move.
It came suddenly. The music box was snatched from my hand and thrown off, and he was lying on top of me, kissing me like there was no tomorrow. His kiss was not gentle or soft like a woman's; it was rough, harsh, bruising, painful, bitter and coppery. It demanded that I give myself over to him in more ways than either of us could comprehend, and I willingly complied. He bit on my lower lip hard enough to draw blood and licked at it feverishly, as one of his hands snaked its way to my hair and pulled it backward harshly to bare my neck. I moaned again in pain, wriggling against him, and his teeth assaulted the sensitive skin of my neck. I felt on fire. Pain and arousal mixed into pleasure at every one of his rough, burning touches. I wanted him to leave his mark on me. The need to become part of him, as Dexter used to become part of the music, blazed fearfully in me.
I let him defile me in more ways than one. He grabbed my hand and, still with his bare teeth, tore at the cut that had stopped bleeding to open it again. He feasted on my pain and I reveled in the double pleasure of him and of what he got from me.
"Gren," he grunted when he entered me, and I cried. I cried because of the pain and I cried for Rob, for my sax, for Dexter, for family, and for the kid that he must have once been and that had turned into a man that responded to little but malice and pain.
The pain was excruciating. He held a fistful of my hair and now and then bit down on my trapezius, marking me as he tore violently into me. His other hand gripped my hip, nails driving into my flesh. He changed angle at some point and started thrusting into a spot in me that made me cry out in rhythm. He let go of my hair and his hand came back with his knife in it, sliding the bare blade across my neck as he kept driving into me. The fear only heightened the pleasure and I came as he slashed the blade across my back, drawing blood. Everything around me seemed to still for a moment as the friction of my cock against the cloak on which I was lying, the sharp pain in my back and his hitting yet again that wonderful spot sent me over the edge, reducing me to nothing beside that agonizing, acute pleasure. He licked the long cut up my back and I felt him come with me, spilling his seed into me. I whimpered and probably moaned, twitching around him.
He lay on me for a while. We were both breathing laboriously, and I wondered whether any part of my body did not hurt. If there was one, I could not find it. After a while, he withdrew. "If you gave me any disease, I'll fucking kill you."
I did not move. "I'm clean," I managed after a few tries. My voice was raw, as if I had not spoken in years.
One of his fingers ran down the cut he had made in my back. I shivered despite myself; his only reaction was to lick the whole length of the cut again. "It will leave a scar."
"Hmm." A part of my brain was trying to get my attention, but since it wanted to point out that we were in the middle of a desert battlefield and that we ought to go back before the rest of the unit came looking for us, I resolved to ignore it.
He let his hands roam over the marks he had made on me. I turned around to let him continue his exploration. Eventually, his pale gaze came back to mine. I wanted to kiss every harsh line of his face, but I knew that it would not be acceptable. Something in him gradually came back in place as he looked at my face. "This was the one time, Gren. Never again. And not a word to anyone, or I will kill you."
I knew better than to argue. I'm not sure I could have talked past the lump in my throat, anyway. I had fallen helplessly in love with the most unattainable of men. The most beautiful and vicious of men. And yet he did not say this cruelly. It was a mere statement. There was neither joy nor regret in him.
I picked up the music box on our way to the camp, bending down an effort that pulled on many of my abused muscles.
When I heard Vicious had testified against me, I thought I would go crazy. Something inside me broke and I was unable to find sleep, obsessed with understanding. I replayed all those months at war in my head, looked at him under all different angles, because I needed to understand. I needed to understand why he would save my life and then betray me. Always I came back to those three moments, the crows on the battlefield, the music box and the scorpion, and that time after the battle away from the others. He had not ignored me afterwards; we had fallen back into our usual routine. I could not make any sense out of it.
The drugs brought me a temporary relief. They stopped my thoughts and offered me some measure of rest. Then, eventually, they changed me. They changed me inside out, transformed my body into that of a hybrid, made me into an anomaly. I became neither man nor woman, and yet both. It was another milestone in my loss of self. I escaped and came to Callisto, took refuge in Blue Moon.
I thought I could live what few years I had left here. The drugs had not simply feminized my body. I had but a few years left to live, due to some mutation my lungs were going through. I had never smoked much and it was not hard to quit altogether, not out of a desire to live longer, but out of a desire to play longer. Bell hired me at the bar to play the sax, and that was enough to pay my rent, buy me food, and then some. Of course, exercising my lungs so much with the sax might have quickened the process, but I could not have quit it. Music is the one thing nobody ever took from me. I had lost my identity, myself, but I could still exist in the music.
I attempted to forget him, put him out of my mind. I wanted some peace, desperately. Paradoxically, the only way I found to achieve this was in the embrace of other men. My peculiarity made me very popular in Blue Moon, a town deprived of women, and I could get anyone I wanted. However, I wished for nothing beyond the mere pleasure of sex, and I never let them have me in the complete and utter way he had. I did not want any bonds and was wary of anything remotely like comradeship.
Every time I cried out in pleasure, I thought of cold eyes and a vicious smile. When they cried out, I wondered whether I could have made him lose himself in me.
My moods came and went, empowered by my lack of hormonal balance. I tore the only picture I had of him, once. The next day I taped it back together. It felt as if I was battling something inside me, more often than not. I liked to believe it was the part of me that belonged to him, irrevocably. But then I found myself wondering whether there was any part of me that did not belong to him.
Julia understood me, I think. I never said it, but she knew. I could see it in her eyes, during the short time she stayed here. Her big blue eyes that enticed me so. I did not want her as many a man in Blue Crow did. She was, in all essence, as much of a comrade as she could have been. We were lost, both of us. She spoke of Spike, sometimes; I hardly spoke of Vicious.
When I saw Faye at the bar, sitting on Julia's stool... I could not let her go. I did not want to be alone. For one last time, I wanted someone there with me, I wanted a comrade. I wanted Julia back, but she was long gone and Faye was the next best thing. As beautiful as Julia in a completely different way. Less style, more abruptness. Yet some softness, too. Julia had been an angel; Faye was indeed a fairy. She felt it as did I, readily confiding in me. And when I told her, characteristically, she tried to take me out to ensure she would not have to go through that.
Either way, I won't last much longer.
I thought back on Titan and the constant awareness that we might not last a week, a day, an hour. Death could strike at any moment and the only one who seemed above it was Vicious. The other day, I coughed blood for the first time. The pain in my lungs had been steadily growing worse, so gradually that it had become a part of me. I knew it was now or never. My need to see him again was visceral. I needed to confront him. To find out whether, indeed, he was above death. And if he was, to die at his hand.
I played one last time at Rester House and Faye was there like a sign of fate. I smiled at her back and then waved at Bell on my way out, as I would have any other day. I followed her, helped her, took her home, exchanged confidence, tied her up and went out to meet Vicious. She was right to call me selfish. I used her to give meaning to my last hours.
For once I was the one hidden, under that cloak. He barely glanced at my body, rather focusing on the shadows of the hood that hid my face. He sent the kid forward with the case. I did not say anything for a moment, trying to master my voice. The sight of him was something I had been craving for years. He looked older, but in essence he had not changed. His beauty struck me anew now that it was no longer a memory, but physically present. The beauty of a sharpened blade, like the one he was carrying on him. I had never seen him wield such a weapon, could only picture the deadly grace he must exercise when dealing out death with a katana. Aki had demonstrated for me once, and I had been impressed. Vicious would probably have struck me speechless.
He made to walk off, giving me his regards, and again the shrill knowledge, now or never, washed over me. I told him as much as I dared. It was enough for him to scorn me.
There is nothing there to believe. Nor is there a need to believe...
I did not mean to kill the kid. He was collateral damage. He died for Vicious, who would not die for anyone. The pain in my lungs had gone up a notch, so much so that I was forced to notice it. Another fighter had joined us; I did not yet know it was Spike.
In this world there is nothing to believe in.
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. I believed in him, even then, and as I got into my fighter to take this up to the sky, I knew that this would be my end. There was no killing him. Even the music box would not help. There was no killing him.
When he hit my engine, I felt something in me give way. My lungs were no more than a mass of burning embers by then, each breath a renewed agony. I was thrown off my fighter when it crashed. The snow was melting under me and I chuckled, cutting myself short at the new level of pain it made me reach. I do not know why Spike let Vicious go, why he came to me. Perhaps simply the hope that I could give him Julia.
You do get a strange feeling, looking into Spike's eyes. I think he understands, too. I want to believe he does, because it would mean that I will soon enough be on my way. Titan. Comradeship. Him. I want to be as close as I can.
Vicious did hit some vital organ.
There is no killing him? Looking into these eyes, I lose the last thing I believed in. Reflected in the right one, I see Vicious' death.
Somewhere. Sometime. Laughing Bull watches the fire, awaiting it. He felt it coming earlier in the day. The smoke rises in lazy volutes, full of meaning for those who can read them. The air smells of sorrow and loss. There it is, then, the brief spark of something that could have been, fading away too soon to reach them.
The child spotted it as well. "The star fell, Bull."
"That is no ordinary star. That is the tear of a warrior." Now Laughing Bull himself is filled with sorrow and loss and there is nothing to laugh about.
"What is a warrior?" the child asks in all earnestness.
"One who has finished his battle somewhere on this planet. A pitiful soul that could not believe in the Great Spirit..."
Tonight, Laughing Bull mourns for the warrior. So does the child.
~~ fin ~~
So, please review?
pee_wai without whom this fic would never have been!)Here's a wallpaper I made for it: The tear of a warrior I know, not much of Vicious in it. I'll probably do another one with more of him. Or maybe one about just him and Spike... I'll see.
Update, 07/16/04: just reworked on it a bit, so that it would be more understandable to non CB fans, plus a few minor changes.
The tear of a warrior
It was mother who insisted I learn music. Playing music was something she had always been denied and she transferred her desire onto me, her last son. She would have me play the clarinet or the obo, but I stubbornly refused anything but the saxophone. Dexter Warrington, the sax player of the Five Devils, had been my childhood hero. He had style, he was smooth, he played like a god and I loved watching their concerts in small seedy bars, vids that I snatched on the network. I only had eyes for him, the volutes of tobacco smoke swirling around him, half hiding him, his shiny black hair, the soft, feminine beauty of his sax and mostly the look on his face when he played. It was so evident. The line between the musician and the music blurred until it completely disappeared. And then Dexter was the music.
My family was wealthy and, although I was not exactly spoiled, I did not want anything I could not have. I had never refused mother anything. I was nine when, for the first time, I put my foot down. I would learn the saxophone, or nothing.
My teacher was called Robert Green. He told me to call him Rob when nobody was around, and I did. It was like he had two distinct personalities, "Mr Green" for mother and all those people around whom you had to act proper, and "Rob" for me. I liked Rob better. We shared something through the music, just the two of us. Sometimes mother and he were talking about something, and when she wasn't looking he would throw me a glance, and the twinkle in his eyes would be enough to make it hard for me to stifle my laughter. He could always keep a straight face. He also taught me swear words and the way they talked out there, in the real world. He was my window onto another universe I had never set foot in.
One day, he stopped coming. I was thirteen. Mother offered me no reason but introduced me to my new teacher, one Miss Elizabeth Lee. I did not understand how she could play the sax so well, because she was the picture of an old maid with hardly any feelings at all. I respected authority too much to defy her, but I never put my heart in my lessons after Rob was gone. Instead, I kept listening to what good jazz I could glean on the network and strove to emulate them when I was alone in my room.
I cried the day Dexter died. I spent the day listening to the Five Devils, to mother's despair. Father came by, too, tried to talk me out of this haze. I didn't want to come out of it. I owed Dexter that much, for everything he had brought me. After a few minutes, father concluded that it was nothing and that they should just leave me alone for a while. Same old, same old. When I asked mother's driver for a cig the next day and took up smoking, it was in memory of Dexter.
I never forgot Rob, treasured those memories of him as a child does of the first adult who treats him as an equal. I was seventeen when I met him again. At seventeen, a child of the bad parts of town is no longer a child, but I for one was far from being a man. I went to a jazz club with a few friends, one of whom had gotten us all fake ID cards to be let in. The bouncers were not fooled and told us to go back home. Something in the contempt with which they turned us down told me it wasn't so much due to our age as to our expensive clothes. My spirits fell and I lit up a cig, but then I heard a familiar, gravelly laugh. I turned around, heart thudding against my ribcage with excitement.
"Rob?"
He looked up, wrinkled face frowned in an attempt at recognition. Years had not yet taken their toll on him and he didn't look much different than I remembered him, but for the strands of gray in his dark hair. He carried his sax case with him as always and the men he was with all seemed to be musicians, too. One of them even had a huge case that he had to roll around, undoubtedly a double bass.
A few seconds went by and I was painfully aware of being the center of attention both of his group of friends and mine. Please recognize me.
"Gren?"
He had been the first one to call me that. We laughed, hugged, smiled and did not say much of anything for a while. Then he invited all of us in and I grinned sheepishly at the bouncers who had refused us entrance. That night was unbelievable. My friends looked up to me for having gotten them in and the music was amazing. Rob's band clearly knew each other by heart and could play together in the best of ways, improvising better than most bands you find in such joints.
After their gig was over, Rob and I talked around some liquor. A real, long talk. I told him everything about my life since he had left and did not even realize I hadn't asked him the question that had been plaguing me for years, the reason behind his departure. I told him about Elizabeth Lee, I told him about my big brother Sean who was studying to follow in father's footsteps, I told him about the other one, Caleb, who had run off but still sent me a note now and then to tell me about freedom, I told him about school and music and girls and my friends. I told him about what I wanted to do but would never dare bring up in front of father and mother.
I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to learn how to fight. I wanted to learn how to fly a monoracer. I wanted to go find Caleb and pick up girls with him in seedy bars with an awful reputation. I wanted to fall helplessly in love with the most unattainable of women. I wanted to travel all over the system. I was seventeen; my head was full of dreams and I poured them all into his welcoming ears. He understood me.
He eventually stood up and gathered the bottle of whisky and the glasses. "It's not getting any earlier, eh?"
I glanced at my watch. "Shit!" Looked around the club to find it desert, but for the two of us. It was dawn. Father and mother would kill me. They had probably already called the ISSP.
Rob chuckled, the old twinkle still in his dark eyes. He did look older than I remembered him, from up close. There were more wrinkles bracketing his eyes and a weathered look to his skin tone, as if he had gone through just a bit too much. But his eyes were as lively and young as ever. "Don't s'pose your ma's relaxed any."
It sobered me up. I looked at him gravely. "You never said goodbye."
He looked at me in silence for a few seconds, as if gauging whether or not to tell me. I straightened slightly and hardened my look, praying he would. "The old missus wanted me away from you, kid." He often called me kid, but he didn't mean it like that. From his lips, it sounded like a simple statement of fact. "Didn't give me much of a choice. Your old man can be real persuasive too, when he's in the mind for it."
I nodded thoughtfully. This came as no surprise; I had guessed as much. "Can I see you again?"
"Come by here when you want, I'll tell Eddie to let you in."
I grinned, wanted to hug him again but realized I wasn't nine anymore and extended my hand instead, in all solemnity. Rob caught my arm roughly and pulled me to him, clapping me in the back. "I'm glad I saw you again, Gren."
I simply smiled.
Father and mother did throw a fit. And then some. Mother threatened to ground me for a time that sounded awfully like eternity to my seventeen-year-old ears. I retorted that I would just run away and go to Caleb. That shut her up. I went back to the club every night, as a listener, and they eventually let me play with them from time to time. When I first played for Rob again, he said he had nothing left to teach me, that I had the technique and it was now just a matter of heart. I thought of the day Dexter died and nodded, then thanked him. He asked what for and I couldn't find the words to explain. He ruffled my shoulder-length hair and said it was all right.
On my eighteenth birthday, after the traditional dinner with my parents, the guys took me to a fighting centre held by a friend of Jackie's, who played the trumpet. His friend was a small man with olive skin and sleek, short black hair, who talked with a funny accent I had never heard before, in a drawl that made you feel immediately comfortable. He was called Aki. Rob told me Aki would teach me to fight. He told me he was intent on seeing that I got to realize all those dreams of mine. I thanked him again, and again, and then some more. He laughed it all off as if it were nothing. Later, when we were alone around a glass of whiskey, I asked him whether he had any dreams I could help him fulfill. He cryptically replied I already was and changed the subject of the conversation.
Aki was a good teacher. His demeanor changed completely as soon as we entered the fighting ground. He was no longer laid back and easy-going but became demanding and harsh. It took some getting used to, but he didn't leave me much of a choice and I learned a lot with him. He did not teach me any one art, but instead a mixture of fighting techniques. I never was very muscular and he taught me to rely on my speed, stealth and cunning. I never became an excellent fighter, but I could hold my own against most people.
When my parents learned about it, though, there came the blow. I had only begun to learn to fly a monoracer, had not yet picked up girls with Caleb or fallen helplessly in love with an unattainable woman, and I had not seen much of the world at all.
I do not know how they learned of what I was doing at Aki's and I do not care. It was a row as I had never witnessed, not even when Caleb was still here. I had never seen father truly angry at me. It was a sight to make one quiver. He shouted a lot, horrible things, but I put it to an end when he got started on the subject of Rob. He remained quiet for a few seconds, then spoke up calmly, coldly. I had never seen father as someone dangerous, merely a businessman emotionally remote from his family. The true implications of his soft words chilled me to the core of my being. We were talking about Rob.
"Trust me, son, his days as a musician are over."
Then came my turn to rage. I yelled and threatened him of the worst things, but he never flinched. I resorted to the only thing I had left. I pleaded. I promised I would do anything he wanted if he just left Rob alone.
"Enroll."
The word had come from mother, who I had not noticed standing in the doorframe to father's study. I looked at her with mild disbelief. Enroll? I would be shipped off to Titan. She wanted me in a war? I swept my incredulous eyes back to father. His blue gaze did not waver, hard as rock.
"Enroll," he repeated evenly. "Enroll, swear to me that never again you will be in contact with him, and I will leave Green alone."
I thought of the twinkle in Rob's eyes and of his pledge to help me achieve my dreams. I closed my eyes to get myself under control; I did not want father to see me cry. Then I looked at him steadily. The word tasted bitter on my lips. "Deal."
I went to my room to pack. I kept my end of the deal.
I became Private Grencia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener.
Hell, I hate that name.
They kept repeating it, again and again, during my trial. Grencia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener, the accused. The spy. The traitor. I had fought their war and this was how they repaid me. Father disowned me without so much as a farewell, but even then I would not dare reply to the few letters Rob sent me, before giving up. I was scared for his well-being if I did. I will never forget the kind of man I had not known my father to be.
Grencia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener. It's a reminder of everything they have done to me. I like Gren better.
He called me that, too. He never talked much to any of us, remained mysterious, but always watched us. Those pale gray eyes of his, never warm, ever wary. I felt under study. I do not know whether the others noticed it, but his gaze weighed on me all the time, pinpricks of awareness tingling all over my body.
In some sick and twisted way, I fell helplessly in love with him. Some unattainable woman, eh?
I did not realize it at first. I did not know anything then. I was young and naïve, though I thought myself educated in the ways of the world. Disillusioned about family, I sought comradeship above all else, valued it, honored it, lived by it and would have died by it. He would have laughed at me for it, as he did not hesitate to let that kid die in his stead.
I was a fool. I still am.
He watched us, fought by our side, but he never was one of us. A silent shadow, an angel of death, a mysterious figure in shades of gray that lacked mercy or empathy. He took pity on none but made war an art. Bodies were his canvas, death his subject matter. He used guns and rifles like the rest of us, but preferred to deal out death with the blade of his knife when possible. He made it possible on more occasions than any of us would have dared, grace in motion as he stole between mines closer to the enemy and sliced their very throat, dodging bullets and bombs all the while. He seemed to shy from nothing; everything shied from him. Once the battlefield was no more than a land strewn with bodies, he would walk around aimlessly, or so it would seem, and look at things. Simply look at them. When most of us did not want to face the lives we had taken, when the others pinched the corpses or took pleasure out of contemplating them, he would just walk around and look at them. He looked at the crows gnawing at the bodies, scavengers of death. He looked at them still, and the glimpses I could catch of his face under the strands of near-white hair the wind whipped about betrayed no emotion. Nothing beyond his usual, neutral look.
His neutral look has always been one that spoke of a thousand ways to make you die screaming. That should have told me enough.
One time, I saw past the mask. Our unit was being called away and I had been charged to go and get him. Through the sand storm, he was only identifiable as that blurry figure a while off. The battlefield was empty; we had decimated them, even though we lost our own share of men. I protected my face behind a scarf and set out for him, wary not to step on a body or, worse yet, a body part.
He made no sign of noticing my presence as I stopped a few feet from him. I could only catch a glimpse of his profile, face hidden under his hair; his scarf was around his neck as if the sand could not possibly affect him. He stood still and I looked at what he was watching. If I had not been fighting for a while then, I probably would have thrown up what little I had had for breakfast. The corpse was the mere shadow of one, strips of flesh and skin still hanging on the bones here and there, where the crows that were perched on it had not yet gotten to.
A sudden gust of wind whipped the hair out of his face and I thought I caught the glimpse of something unusual in his face. Something that puzzled and elated me. Kinship. In my foolishness, I clung to that hint of a feeling to convince myself that he was, after all, not so different from me. Kinship was what he was after.
The second seemed to last an hour before he turned to me, his expression as malevolent as ever. The crows took flight, croaking disharmoniously. He took me in, not saying a word.
Rather than fidget, I spoke up. "We're moving to section 12.4." My voice sounded oddly insignificant after the racket of the crows.
He looked at me still for a few more seconds. Never have I met someone who could make you afraid to die as effortlessly as he did, without a word, simply by being. His harsh features, coupled with the coldness of his eyes, chilled your very blood and had you wonder whether Judgment Day had come. This time though, unlike before, I would have welcomed it. With a look, he made me wish to die. He made me wish to experience the coldness, to embrace death and make her my comrade.
He turned away and walked back to our unit. I followed after a look at the sky. I could not see the crows.
I have not felt like that ever since. This violent desire for death that grips you and feels as if it won't ever let go. Even now, what I feel, it has nothing to do with it.
The day he gave me that music box... The tune fascinated me, all the more so that I would find him listening to it. Him and music – they did not seem to go together. That name he whispered, the emotion hidden behind it, "Julia..." I itched for my sax.
Then he killed the scorpion. He saved my life. I thought he was going to kill me – he never bared his blade in vain – and he saved my life. I foolishly thought, wanted to believe, that this was comradeship at last.
Julia was a ray of sunshine in my life, and yet she shed a dark light on that box. As soon as she forced out of me the name of he that had given it to me, she knew. She knew Vicious much better than I did, it turned out. There was a transmitter inside. He had been the spy. That was the reason why he had given me the box, why he had saved my life, why he had testified against me at the trial: I was a scapegoat, used to draw attention from him. Of course, I did not know that, I did not suspect any of that, until Julia, two years ago. She brought me understanding. Since her, I know who to blame for my damnation.
I remember when I first laid eyes on him. I felt nervous, with the proverbial lead in my stomach. I had been well trained, I was ready for combat, but I had never killed. Most importantly, I did not want to be there, I longed for the companionship of Rob and the guys and I craved for the feel of my sax in my hands. I watched the other men of my unit apprehensively. They were all long time soldiers, apart from the other new recruit. His name summed up his look: Vicious. Sharp features, a tall and lean body, and an expression that made you wonder what you had done to infuriate him, and how you could take it back. It made you ready to give anything to take it back.
The coldness in his pale eyes came gradually, replacing the constant anger. He was a man on edge. Even though he had a few years on me, our young age made me long for his companionship more than for the others', but he made it clear he would have none of it. As time passed by and the body count rose, the coldness came. His features were still as aggressive; I don't believe anything could take the sharpness out of them. But his eyes came to reflect less rage, though just as much vice. I saw no hope of ever forming a bond with him. I had almost resigned myself when I heard that tune, found him listening to that box. How I missed music.
After that, his attitude toward me changed slightly. He seemed to watch out for me more than before in battle. He still did not speak much to me, but often came to be with me. I grew accustomed to his silent presence; he became like a shadow to me, going when he would, but he was always back. He made me think of the myth of the Doppelganger, a dark double that was not human but came from the world of Shadows, a double that was almost constantly by your side but that you could never get a good look at. We fought side by side, ate together, never slept too far away, but he remained as ungraspable as ever. I did not attempt to push it further for fear that he would put an end to this tentative comradeship.
The latest battle had raged on for several days, ending on a bloody climax of corpses torn apart and mines setting off under the feet of those who would flee. The day was ours. The others had gone back to the trench to sleep, at last. I should have done the same; I knew I was exhausted, but could not feel it anymore. I had grown past feeling it. I sat in the middle of the desert battlefield and took the music box out. The tune rose languidly around me; I closed my eyes and imagined a true sax player was here; my fancy improved the tune, expanded on it and took it to greater levels with the sound of the saxophone. My heart felt as if it would burst. I heard a crow in my back, shattering my carefully-crafted illusion. The music in my mind stopped abruptly; the music box had been silent for a while. I looked around to see him standing there, looking at me. The crow that had jarred me out of my own world flew off.
We held each other's gaze for a while. Usually, I would have gotten to my feet, feeling awkward, and we'd have likely headed back to the trench. I looked back down at the music box and wound it up. I called forth no imaginary instrument this time but focused painfully on the fragile reality of the tune.
He walked up to me and crouched down. I did not look up at him, kept my gaze fixed on the music box. It was then, in such proximity, that I acknowledged for the first time that I wanted another man. That I wanted him. I was afraid to look up at him, because I did not know what I would do if I saw him so close to me, now that I was in all effect weaker than I had ever been, after taking part in one of the greatest victories of our side.
When the music died down, I reached to wind it up again right away. The music was like a barrier between us, a safeguard, something to cling to other than his pale eyes and aggressive features. His hand closed on mine, around the box, before I could wind it. My breath caught in my throat. I stared at his long, pale fingers – an artist's fingers, not a soldier's. His skin was much whiter than mine. I heard someone sigh and realized it was me.
I slowly looked up into his face.
He stiffened when I pressed my lips against his, surprised or shocked, and did not return the kiss. His lips were as cracked and dry as mine, due to the odious weather and the frequent sand storms, and yet the knowledge that they were his, that they belonged to that tall, graceful feline of a man was enough to get me more aroused than any woman or girl ever had. I withdrew, eyes still closed, holding my breath and awaiting the killing stroke.
When it did not come, I opened my eyes to find him visibly thrown off his game. It scared and excited me. He was not looking at me, even though his eyes were looking in my direction. His hand tightened around mine, crushing my fingers against the metal of the music box. I bit my lips to keep from crying out, but a moan did rise from my throat when the skin cut.
His pale gaze focused on me, then looked down at our hands. Slowly, he let go, and watched the blood rising in my palm. My breath was short as I watched him watch me. The world around us had stopped existing, as far as I was concerned. I had enough of a survival instinct to know I ought to wait for his next move.
It came suddenly. The music box was snatched from my hand and thrown off, and he was lying on top of me, kissing me like there was no tomorrow. His kiss was not gentle or soft like a woman's; it was rough, harsh, bruising, painful, bitter and coppery. It demanded that I give myself over to him in more ways than either of us could comprehend, and I willingly complied. He bit on my lower lip hard enough to draw blood and licked at it feverishly, as one of his hands snaked its way to my hair and pulled it backward harshly to bare my neck. I moaned again in pain, wriggling against him, and his teeth assaulted the sensitive skin of my neck. I felt on fire. Pain and arousal mixed into pleasure at every one of his rough, burning touches. I wanted him to leave his mark on me. The need to become part of him, as Dexter used to become part of the music, blazed fearfully in me.
I let him defile me in more ways than one. He grabbed my hand and, still with his bare teeth, tore at the cut that had stopped bleeding to open it again. He feasted on my pain and I reveled in the double pleasure of him and of what he got from me.
"Gren," he grunted when he entered me, and I cried. I cried because of the pain and I cried for Rob, for my sax, for Dexter, for family, and for the kid that he must have once been and that had turned into a man that responded to little but malice and pain.
The pain was excruciating. He held a fistful of my hair and now and then bit down on my trapezius, marking me as he tore violently into me. His other hand gripped my hip, nails driving into my flesh. He changed angle at some point and started thrusting into a spot in me that made me cry out in rhythm. He let go of my hair and his hand came back with his knife in it, sliding the bare blade across my neck as he kept driving into me. The fear only heightened the pleasure and I came as he slashed the blade across my back, drawing blood. Everything around me seemed to still for a moment as the friction of my cock against the cloak on which I was lying, the sharp pain in my back and his hitting yet again that wonderful spot sent me over the edge, reducing me to nothing beside that agonizing, acute pleasure. He licked the long cut up my back and I felt him come with me, spilling his seed into me. I whimpered and probably moaned, twitching around him.
He lay on me for a while. We were both breathing laboriously, and I wondered whether any part of my body did not hurt. If there was one, I could not find it. After a while, he withdrew. "If you gave me any disease, I'll fucking kill you."
I did not move. "I'm clean," I managed after a few tries. My voice was raw, as if I had not spoken in years.
One of his fingers ran down the cut he had made in my back. I shivered despite myself; his only reaction was to lick the whole length of the cut again. "It will leave a scar."
"Hmm." A part of my brain was trying to get my attention, but since it wanted to point out that we were in the middle of a desert battlefield and that we ought to go back before the rest of the unit came looking for us, I resolved to ignore it.
He let his hands roam over the marks he had made on me. I turned around to let him continue his exploration. Eventually, his pale gaze came back to mine. I wanted to kiss every harsh line of his face, but I knew that it would not be acceptable. Something in him gradually came back in place as he looked at my face. "This was the one time, Gren. Never again. And not a word to anyone, or I will kill you."
I knew better than to argue. I'm not sure I could have talked past the lump in my throat, anyway. I had fallen helplessly in love with the most unattainable of men. The most beautiful and vicious of men. And yet he did not say this cruelly. It was a mere statement. There was neither joy nor regret in him.
I picked up the music box on our way to the camp, bending down an effort that pulled on many of my abused muscles.
When I heard Vicious had testified against me, I thought I would go crazy. Something inside me broke and I was unable to find sleep, obsessed with understanding. I replayed all those months at war in my head, looked at him under all different angles, because I needed to understand. I needed to understand why he would save my life and then betray me. Always I came back to those three moments, the crows on the battlefield, the music box and the scorpion, and that time after the battle away from the others. He had not ignored me afterwards; we had fallen back into our usual routine. I could not make any sense out of it.
The drugs brought me a temporary relief. They stopped my thoughts and offered me some measure of rest. Then, eventually, they changed me. They changed me inside out, transformed my body into that of a hybrid, made me into an anomaly. I became neither man nor woman, and yet both. It was another milestone in my loss of self. I escaped and came to Callisto, took refuge in Blue Moon.
I thought I could live what few years I had left here. The drugs had not simply feminized my body. I had but a few years left to live, due to some mutation my lungs were going through. I had never smoked much and it was not hard to quit altogether, not out of a desire to live longer, but out of a desire to play longer. Bell hired me at the bar to play the sax, and that was enough to pay my rent, buy me food, and then some. Of course, exercising my lungs so much with the sax might have quickened the process, but I could not have quit it. Music is the one thing nobody ever took from me. I had lost my identity, myself, but I could still exist in the music.
I attempted to forget him, put him out of my mind. I wanted some peace, desperately. Paradoxically, the only way I found to achieve this was in the embrace of other men. My peculiarity made me very popular in Blue Moon, a town deprived of women, and I could get anyone I wanted. However, I wished for nothing beyond the mere pleasure of sex, and I never let them have me in the complete and utter way he had. I did not want any bonds and was wary of anything remotely like comradeship.
Every time I cried out in pleasure, I thought of cold eyes and a vicious smile. When they cried out, I wondered whether I could have made him lose himself in me.
My moods came and went, empowered by my lack of hormonal balance. I tore the only picture I had of him, once. The next day I taped it back together. It felt as if I was battling something inside me, more often than not. I liked to believe it was the part of me that belonged to him, irrevocably. But then I found myself wondering whether there was any part of me that did not belong to him.
Julia understood me, I think. I never said it, but she knew. I could see it in her eyes, during the short time she stayed here. Her big blue eyes that enticed me so. I did not want her as many a man in Blue Crow did. She was, in all essence, as much of a comrade as she could have been. We were lost, both of us. She spoke of Spike, sometimes; I hardly spoke of Vicious.
When I saw Faye at the bar, sitting on Julia's stool... I could not let her go. I did not want to be alone. For one last time, I wanted someone there with me, I wanted a comrade. I wanted Julia back, but she was long gone and Faye was the next best thing. As beautiful as Julia in a completely different way. Less style, more abruptness. Yet some softness, too. Julia had been an angel; Faye was indeed a fairy. She felt it as did I, readily confiding in me. And when I told her, characteristically, she tried to take me out to ensure she would not have to go through that.
Either way, I won't last much longer.
I thought back on Titan and the constant awareness that we might not last a week, a day, an hour. Death could strike at any moment and the only one who seemed above it was Vicious. The other day, I coughed blood for the first time. The pain in my lungs had been steadily growing worse, so gradually that it had become a part of me. I knew it was now or never. My need to see him again was visceral. I needed to confront him. To find out whether, indeed, he was above death. And if he was, to die at his hand.
I played one last time at Rester House and Faye was there like a sign of fate. I smiled at her back and then waved at Bell on my way out, as I would have any other day. I followed her, helped her, took her home, exchanged confidence, tied her up and went out to meet Vicious. She was right to call me selfish. I used her to give meaning to my last hours.
For once I was the one hidden, under that cloak. He barely glanced at my body, rather focusing on the shadows of the hood that hid my face. He sent the kid forward with the case. I did not say anything for a moment, trying to master my voice. The sight of him was something I had been craving for years. He looked older, but in essence he had not changed. His beauty struck me anew now that it was no longer a memory, but physically present. The beauty of a sharpened blade, like the one he was carrying on him. I had never seen him wield such a weapon, could only picture the deadly grace he must exercise when dealing out death with a katana. Aki had demonstrated for me once, and I had been impressed. Vicious would probably have struck me speechless.
He made to walk off, giving me his regards, and again the shrill knowledge, now or never, washed over me. I told him as much as I dared. It was enough for him to scorn me.
There is nothing there to believe. Nor is there a need to believe...
I did not mean to kill the kid. He was collateral damage. He died for Vicious, who would not die for anyone. The pain in my lungs had gone up a notch, so much so that I was forced to notice it. Another fighter had joined us; I did not yet know it was Spike.
In this world there is nothing to believe in.
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. I believed in him, even then, and as I got into my fighter to take this up to the sky, I knew that this would be my end. There was no killing him. Even the music box would not help. There was no killing him.
When he hit my engine, I felt something in me give way. My lungs were no more than a mass of burning embers by then, each breath a renewed agony. I was thrown off my fighter when it crashed. The snow was melting under me and I chuckled, cutting myself short at the new level of pain it made me reach. I do not know why Spike let Vicious go, why he came to me. Perhaps simply the hope that I could give him Julia.
You do get a strange feeling, looking into Spike's eyes. I think he understands, too. I want to believe he does, because it would mean that I will soon enough be on my way. Titan. Comradeship. Him. I want to be as close as I can.
Vicious did hit some vital organ.
There is no killing him? Looking into these eyes, I lose the last thing I believed in. Reflected in the right one, I see Vicious' death.
Somewhere. Sometime. Laughing Bull watches the fire, awaiting it. He felt it coming earlier in the day. The smoke rises in lazy volutes, full of meaning for those who can read them. The air smells of sorrow and loss. There it is, then, the brief spark of something that could have been, fading away too soon to reach them.
The child spotted it as well. "The star fell, Bull."
"That is no ordinary star. That is the tear of a warrior." Now Laughing Bull himself is filled with sorrow and loss and there is nothing to laugh about.
"What is a warrior?" the child asks in all earnestness.
"One who has finished his battle somewhere on this planet. A pitiful soul that could not believe in the Great Spirit..."
Tonight, Laughing Bull mourns for the warrior. So does the child.
~~ fin ~~
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