Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Eternal Series ❯ Eternal Memories ( Chapter 5 )

Warnings: To be safe most likely language, possibly mildly upsetting/unsettling imagery, the hint of plot to come (though that's not really a warning).

Disclaimer: I believe I've already said I do not own this, so this isn't for that. All myths/legends, rituals, places, vampire characteristics are true in that they have existed in small bits here and there through life. None of the things are "historically" or anything else accurate beyond that. Also, the title is a tentative one, it may change.

Eternal Memories

It is comforting to know that some things in life will be predictable. This morning for example, when you woke up at fifteen after seven despite it being a Saturday and walked the ten or so steps to the desk to flip on your laptop, and then the twenty or so to the bathroom where you proceed to take a five minute shower. Of course, it is also comforting to know that some things in life won't be predictable. Such as the light kiss you settled against my forehead this morning after waking up, on the dot, at fifteen after seven, and the way you carefully moved yourself out of the tangle of my limbs, and your not flipping the shades up to let the light into the room to wake me up.

If I dreamed in a regular fashion I might have feared it to be just that, a dream, last night and the day before. But I don't, and the heaviness of your sleeping form reminded me of that all night, the hot mortality that seared through me as you curled into my body, the taste and scent of you drowning me as I breathed in air I should have left to linger where it was.

You give me that half up twist of your lips that is your smile as you come out of the bathroom, a towel draped over your shoulders and one knotted low on your waist.

"How did you sleep?" I murmur sleepily, not acting but genuinely feeling as if I've woken from a deep, peaceful rest.

"Better than you, seeing as how you didn't."

"Don't really need to."

"I'd gathered."

And that is that. You dress and leave the towels on the bathroom rack to dry, coming back into the room and seating yourself at the desk. In the dim light I can clearly see the slightly bruised bite mark on your throat, and absently your fingers lift to brush over it as you wipe a bothersome drop of water away. It is there my eyes want to linger, but instead I tear them away and bury my face in your pillow, breathing in your scent mixed with mine.

"Hmm…"

"What?" The pillow muffles my voice.

"Pilot 01 abort current mission and move to attached location, await further instructions. Forward message to Pilot 02 if your paths cross."

I lift my head and twist my body to look at you. You give a half shrug, probably sensing my eyes heavy on your skin.

"Odd. And we've gathered quite a bit of background and information on the base and the school, I wonder why…" you trail off, eyes darting around the room. I can read your mind, but I'm not now, and I still know quite clearly what idea you're entertaining. I speak without thinking.

"No, we're not being monitored. Even the best equipment makes some sound, whether it be clicks or whirrs or whines or hums, and I haven't heard a thing except for the occasional chirp of a beetle somewhere outside."

You take that information in, studying me intensely, and then you look back to the screen, typing for a few minutes. "Then we'll just accept the losses and move to the new location."

"Right now?"

"Hardly."

"So can I go back to sleep?"

"You weren't sleeping to begin with."

"If you join me I might be persuaded." I give you a decidedly impish grin.

Not a word or a look or even the remotest reaction. I curl back up in your warm sheets and draw your pillow closer, eyes falling closed. I'm surprised to hear the laptop click shut and the chair creak as you rise and your familiar weight settle on the bed and across my back, arms sliding around me, face buried against my throat. "Not too long," you murmur.

Just eternity, I think to myself.

____________

I've been dozing. I'm surprised to realize this. And in my light slumber I've been dreaming. Not the dreams of the mortal, not the dreams of the sane either, not even really dreams to begin with but memories not my own. They are my maker's, or his maker's, the experiences of eternal life imprinted in the body, carried in the unnatural blood, knowledge and history and beliefs and myths passed down from one generation to the next. They are madness, broken images, sounds, sensations. Pouting full lips, blood red, on a child's face, kisses sweet as honey and heady as blood, sharp small nails biting into tender flesh, sharper small teeth buried deep in flushed skin, the flickering flames of fire, writhing bodies painted with blood, reeking of death, dancing naked and chanting around a burning fire, a pole in the middle, engulfed by burning death, a figure of youth tied there, head thrown back, screaming in ecstasy, in agony, the feel of flesh giving beneath questing fingers, moans, grunts, sighs, shouts, whimpers, cry child cry, lapping blood from a still beating heart, bodies joining frantically, cower, hide, don't look, don't hear, tear out the eyes, tear out the hair…

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until the world is spinning and all I can see are white bursts and lines.

It's the heat; it has to be the heat. I can think of no other reason for this unexpected drowsiness to overtake me so soon after an intense feeding but for the all-oppressive heat, even in the air-conditioned car. The heat and humidity. The heaviness of the air slows down the reception of most stimuli, and the absence of overpowering stimuli slows down the body's response, and that creates the environment for one of my kind, given the situation, to be lost in light slumber. The knowledge came without warning, but once it had come it became a part of me and was something I understood to the core of my being. Sometimes things like this unnerve me.

I rest my cheek against the cool glass, but after a moment I can feel the heat of the sun coming in from the other side and pull back.

"Duo?"

Light, tentative inquiry. I turn to you with a half smile, reaching out momentarily to cover your warm hand with mine, to ground myself again in reality, and then I pull my hand back and draw my knees up to my chest.

"You okay?"

"Damn heat's making me drop off."

You lift an eyebrow and I go on to briefly explain the reality behind humidity and my body's reaction to it, coupled with the constant hum of the engine and the lulling murmur of breathing in a moving vehicle. You seem to understand.

"You were dreaming." It's a statement, not a question, but you are you, of course you would notice.

I nod, reaching out to fiddle uselessly with the air conditioner.

"Still hot?"

"A bit, and a bit cold, but it's not bothering me."

"We're almost there."

"Oh joy. I just can't wait to go traipsing off through a jungle to a deserted half destroyed base."

You give me that almost smile that means more than most people's biggest grins. "That's tomorrow, probably. Depends on the others arrival times. Can you get that stuff in the back that I printed up?" You tilt your chin to the back seat, where there is a file folder of papers, a cooler, and a bag filled with odds and ends. I unbuckle my seatbelt and twist around easily in the seat, picking up the folder and turning back around to set it on the floorboard.

"Wanna drink? Or something? How long have you been driving now?" I pull back enough to look at you.

"Water. And not long. Hardly any traffic out here."

"Not surprising, we are out in the middle of nowhere." I unscrew the lid and take a small sip of the water before passing it along. You're giving me a strange look. "What?"

"That's all? I haven't seen you drink anything since, well, we received the new mission orders."

I turn to the stuff in the backseat again. "I thought to myself, `hmm, we'll be trekking off through some South American jungle for a few days, maybe I should stop drinking liquids.' So I did."

"I'll admit, most of the time I do understand you, but right now I'm lost."

"We're all lost, love. You'll find your way again some day."

I feel your fingers crawl along my shirt a moment before your hand fists and I'm pulled into the front seat as you jerk your arm forward. I'm actually quite startled. You seem pleased. "Are you looking for something, love? You are being terribly distracting."

"Nothing in particular."

"Then put your ass where it belongs."

A slow smile curls onto my lips at that but I behave and settle in the seat again, flipping open the file folder and rifling through its contents curiously. The papers I'm looking for are in the front and I pull them out, shuffling through those quickly, eyes lingering in no one place.

"Are we supposed to not know what's going on?" I ask after a moment.

Your eyes flick to me, then back to the road. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well…" I shuffle through the papers again and start outlining. "We arrive, check into assigned destination, and wait for others to join us, obtain layout of the area, research destroyed OZ facility, investigate late OZ scientist Robert Peridan and search home for any important documents." I look up. "And by the way, his widow and two kids still live there and are still in mourning, going on 8 months now. They hardly ever leave the house." I look back down. "Send findings along to specified destination."

I raise an eyebrow. "And it gets better. Locate destroyed OZ facility and visit, thoroughly search destroyed OZ facility for anything of intelligence value and/or importance. Send findings along to specified destination…blah, blah, blah.

"What specified destination? Are you missing pages? Are there more in here that I'm not seeing? Have I overlooked it? There are no destinations, and the mission statement gives us several instances of sending… something found off to them."

"Maybe the others have the specified destinations. A safety precaution so one or two of us won't try and take this on all by ourselves."

"Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…" I flip through several more pages.

You're giving me a look out of the corner of your eyes; I can sense your narrowed gaze on me. "Your idea of pertinent information and mine are quite different, so I guess I'll be reading those once we arrive there."

"You want me to drive?"

"I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Quite sure."

I shrug and slump in the seat, closing my eyes against the bright sunshine coming in through the windows. There's a moment of nothing, and then the dream images come back to haunt me, screams, sobs, whimpers, sighs, bright color, hot fire, cold water, pale, pale, pale skin bathed in dark red blood…

My eyes snap open and I pick up the papers, arranging them into some semblance of order. "I'll read them to you."

It's almost frightening you know me well enough to be concerned by my casual statement, but you let me read without questioning, and so I do, word for word, all 30 useless, uninformative pages.

Anything to keep the images away.

____________

"God, could this place be any more depressing?"

"It's… quaint," you supply at last.

It appears you've turned onto a main road and my eyes move along the small town as it rolls by. I can admit silently that it could be worse, but I still feel like I've fallen back several hundred years or so in time. The buildings are simple and rustic, built not to please the eye but to withstand the climate and the elements, and that gives them an odd sort of grace and elegance. I can see now as we come around a curve that we're only on the outskirts of the place, the real town is nestled farther back, but this is where we'll stop for there's the inn and the general store.

"Interesting setup," you remark, parking the car in a dirt lot that looks like it's had some use in the past.

"They don't like strangers." My eyes follow a young man, dressed only in ragged cutoff jean shorts, as he moves slowly up the steps leading to the inn and sinks down in a simple wooden chair I hear creak from here. An old man comes out from inside the inn and exchanges a soft word with him, then settles down next to him, eyeing us warily.

"Hmm, I don't suppose they would. I'm sure in the past strangers have never meant anything good."

I think of the destroyed OZ base, of the widow who hardly ever leaves her house, and I'm inclined to agree.

"We should go check in. The packet said we're expected."

You don't move. You've turned the car off by now, and the air is stifling. I need to get out of the car if nothing else. You follow my lead, getting out slowly, drawing a hand over your forehead to wipe away sweat that already seems to be forming. The air is heavy as I breathe it in and tastes of dirt and dust and old things, but it's full of life.

The gravel shifting beneath your shoes alerts me and I turn as you start to walk and follow, up the sturdy steps, onto the shaded porch, where you nod to the old man. He sizes you up and I wonder what he sees looking at you. I have little time to contemplate though, for he's looking at me, and I know what he sees when he looks at me. His eyes harden and darken, he pushes himself up slowly, and he snaps something in the native language to his young companion. I'm instantly on my guard.

My eyes dart upward, to the top of the door, and I see the bundle of twigs and herbs fastened together there in the far corner and I see fire again, lapping at the wood, hungry to consume, and hear murmurs and chants and I know I'm lost in a waking dream. My vision has grayed as if I'm seeing at night, and the people writhing around the fire are all sweaty skin and hot blood and giving bodies. There's a chant, it's all slid together to create nothing but a hum, a murmur, an echo of wordless cries, and then one voice separates itself, then another, and another. They are chanting Asoc. Asoc, Asoc, Asoc, Asoc, Asoc, Asoc…

Pale arms tattooed with snakes reach out; beckoning those near, and they come, desperate, wanting, hungry.

A touch, a murmur, I wake as if coming up from the water and suck in a breath, filling my lungs with the dry air. The old man is staring at me, face lightened by surprise, eyes darkened even more by fear. His fear is sweet, and it's not the fear of the unknown, or of things that cannot be known, but more of things known only too well.

There are words in my mind, maybe a memory or a thought, and I speak them to the old man softly, waiting to see his reaction. "You are going to deny one of Asoc's children entrance?"

The fear blooms as drops of sweat appear on his upper lip and along his forehead.

You murmur my name again, questioning. I ignore you for the moment, too intent on the old man. "I'm here on business old man, business that has nothing to do with you or your people… yet."

He takes a shuddering breath then snaps at his young companion, eyes still focused on me. His companion gives a start and moves immediately to the doorway, reaching up to take down the small bundle that had prevented my entrance. He disappears through the screen door.

"Ah, yes, please come in," the old man invites in rough English. "Ricco will show you to the rooms. You know, yes, there are only three…?"

"Yes, we know."

"Then… enjoy your stay."

I give the man a warm smile and catch your hand, delighted by the way your fingers curl over mine without even a questioning glance. "Are our friends here by any chance?"

"One. He has the small room. Ricco will show you."

"No need, really." I pull you along without waiting for anything else and Ricco meets us at the bottom of the stairs, eyes darting between us uncertainly before nodding upwards for us to follow.

You draw me close as we walk and murmur, knowing I will hear. "What was that all about?"

I think of fire and chanting and blood, of the old man's fear and of the ancient magic I can feel here, in the buildings, in the earth, in the air, and shake my head slightly. "I only wish I knew."

"But then-." That's all you can say for Wufei is waiting at the top of the steps, dressed as he always dresses, arms crossed over his chest, watching with alert eyes. The subject is laid to rest, for the moment at least.

I can't help but feel it won't stay at rest long.