"All of it, for you, just to smother you in my heart and muffle your thoughts with my confusion."
"Adoration."
Hands reached towards him, folding over the small form easily as he cringed against the corner the walls had provided him. Teeth flashed above in a triumph grin, vulpine and cruel, and eyes smoldered in the dimness of desolation. They closed, those hands, so tight, choking, around him and lifted him like a wicked child with an insect. Intents to harm. It hurt to breath.
"Love you."
Fingertips the size of logs ground into his ribs, and he had the hellish honor of hearing his own bones snap as he was brought closer to that hungry maw, knifelike shards of his body digging into his lungs and making the air the flew frightened from his mouth hint of crimson mists.
"Just to love you."
The teeth opened, became glinting razors embedded in happily decaying flesh, and warm air that carried death on it washed over him with it's final accusation.
"Killed for you… Quatre. For you. Now, I'll kiss you like darkness."
xoxoxoxox-
As the owner of those teeth clamped down on him, sliced through skin and bone alike, and pulled him apart at the middle to devour him with it's body like it had with it's love, the boy in the midst of the dream cried out and rolled over…
… And right off the bed.
Quatre struck the floor with a bone jarring thump, air rushing out of him in one alarmed squawk of protest. Then the blankets fell after him, and the sound was drowned by freshly washed black cotton. He struggled like a man in quicksand, arms flashing here and there as they flailed helplessly, and at last the golden haloed head popped through an opening with petal pink lips parted in a gasp of panic.
The sun streaming through the window caused him to yelp again, hands slapping up over his bleary aqua eyes. In the safety of their cupped shade, he tried to grasp at the fading memory of what had woken him and discovered nothing. Like sand, even the basics of it were fleeing from him, tumbling between sleep clumsy fingers.
Another nightmare. He sighed, tired and frustrated.
Like the hundred or so others he had since that morning. At least twice a week, though that was better than the six it had been for months afterwards. Maybe in another quarter of a year, he'd be able to say there was only one a week.
That morning.
It was still all too easy to remember his worry when he'd awoken that next morning and Heero wasn't there beside him, having snuck in some time after he'd finally given up his patient, fretting waiting and turned in for some restless sleep. To think of that day spent pacing and staring at a clock, of racing to the window every time a car went by, pulling back the shades with a small smile that wilted when the vehicle drove by and wasn't Heero's. Making dinner and setting four plates, but this time Heero wasn't just working or too busy to join them. To remember the hug that Trowa had given him, the miserable look, and the way he'd felt so cold when he'd curled up alone that night, staring at the moon rising outside his window and thinking that it looked like an indifferent eye. And how he'd blamed himself, knowing he should have made time instead of turning his lover's advances down, should have thought of a more diplomatic way to approach the needed subjects with Heero.
Too easy to remember sitting on the couch with a cup of cooling tea in his hands the next day, staring at a TV which wasn't on and feeling his heart ache. To recall how Wufei had snorted and called him a 'little housewife', and how he'd surprised the brunette when he'd thrown the cup at him, and then the grudging apology he'd given while they picked up the pieces of it that had rained down when it struck the wall over his head. The mark was still there now. He traced his fingers over it sometimes, and wished for the blind nerves he'd had then, before it had become utter desperation and realization.
Too easy, also, to hear the sharp chime of the doorbell that had made them look up in unison. His mind had begged him then not to let Wufei get up and answer it, Heero wouldn't knock, and because hadn't his heart already told him something was wrong? That some bond he didn't talk about was broken inside him like a freakish miscarriage? Something that was there two days ago, a fullness in his heart that bore the stoic pilot's name, was gone now.
He hadn't spoken in time though, and his fingers had only brushed Wufei's pant cuff as he'd gotten up to open the door. Inside, he'd cringed and wailed.
He still heard, nearly every day, the strangely final creak of the door's hinges when Wufei had pulled it open, and that blue dressed officer had been standing there in the sunlight. No cheerful 'good day' smile of his face, no sir, just that tired and bad news bringer frown.
"Are you friends of Heero Lowe?"
Not Yuy. Because that would have been just too obvious, after all our missions. We all lost a lot more than a name or two in that war, didn't we? Lowe was still so close to the truth, but… But any more and he might have slipped into his 'just a soldier' attitude again, where I couldn't touch him. Lowe was nice…
Wufei nodded, and the man looked down at his clip board before taking a breath. Quatre felt the strings of his soul tighten with that one breath, and knew that there were hungry scissors just waiting to cut, to sever him from the pretty and sad boy that had somehow become so important to him. He hadn't really chosen to scoop up the broken frame of the brunette the war had left behind, it had just happened, and in doing so he had realized just how incomplete he could be too.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news. A young man's body was found in the park yesterday morning… Shot. Suspected theft. We traced him here by a vehicle also in the vicinity. We need someone to come down to the station with us and-"
And that was where he stopped remembering. That grim faced officer with the monotone voice, Wufei's face slowly losing it's color, the world outside moving on like nothing had happened.
Cars drove by. Birds chirped. And somewhere a child laughed.
Later, he'd been told he'd started screaming, had started throwing things and clawing at his own face. He didn't remember that, though three days later when he came to, when the tranquilizers had finally started to leave his system, the marks on his cheeks were still healing. Duo had been upstairs, and had apparently made it in time to restrain him. To keep him from lunging at the cop and demanding to be taken to Heero. Right this minute, and stop this fucking joke.
He didn't remember that.
He was glad.
Everyone was so supportive, even Wufei, though Quatre's surprise at that only clicked in weeks later when he looked back. Time then had been a blue and black fog of denial, anger and loss. No one tried to shake him and snap him out of the depression that grew on him like a second skin. A sickening fungi that took some of his body weight, left dark marks under his eyes, and left him with the urge to gnaw at his bottom lips almost constantly.
Trowa took it upon himself to tend to the house, cleaning and dealing with the paper work that Heero had previous ruled over with his usual silence and tact. Wufei handled all of the funeral arrangements and made sure that despite his arguing (in a few cases, even hysterical fits), Quatre attended the ceremonies. Now he was glad for that, though then he wanted to stab Wufei with his own sword. Preferably in the eye. It had helped jump start the 'healing', he supposed. Seeing that stone in the ground, hearing Wufei cough to cover his own tears as the preacher droned on about an after life Quatre wasn't sure he believed in had made him sure it was real, and that waiting up at night with his eyes on the door wouldn't miraculously turn up his lover and friend. Heero wasn't coming back. He was dead.
And Duo… His best friend, had been there to carry him through it all. He reminded him to change, and helped him wash his hair on the days when he could only stand under the stream of scalding water and cry. He'd been there to hold him when it all began again in his dreams, with Heero stalking out of the house never to return and it was all his fault, to wake him and make him cope. He'd been wonderful. They all had.
It hurt now, almost a year later, and it always would because that little space in his heart that had been Heero's was empty and would stay that way, but gradually the pain had gone from a consuming agony, to a searing itch, to a gently aching memory.
Eleven months after that morning, he was starting to feel like a human again. A month after that, he thought it would be possible to love again. Hadn't Duo already proven that Quatre could laugh and it was all right? That Heero would want it, not the guilt induced life he'd readily accepted? Another month after that, and he was sure he could, even wanted too, and when his friend had asked-
Sleepy purple eyes appeared over the edge of the bed, blinking down at him through a tangle of red-brown bangs.
"Heya, Kitten. Was my morning breath so bad you decided the floor was better for your snoozing?" Quatre shook away his weary consideration of the past, for about the seventh time this week so far (sad when that was still better than it was just last month) and smiled up at the heart-shaped face of his boyfriend. "No. Not at all."
To prove it, he sat up on his knees, wincing from a bruise that was bound to make it's appearance sometime within the next few hours, and nuzzled lightly at Duo's cheek with the end of his nose. "Just had a bad dream."
"You have too many of those." It was an old statement, and one Duo was only half focused on with that sweet contact. His arms appeared from beneath his remaining blanket and wrapped easily around the blonde's shoulder, drawing him closer to dust a kiss just beneath one ear. "You know, they have pills that might help with that, Kitten. I know you don't like them, but maybe it'll help get rid of them quic-"
"No." Drawing back, cerulean eyes met violet steadily. There was sadness still, deep in that strange dark color, but Duo couldn't deny the stubbornness that also lurked. Gods help the man that tried to get Quatre to change his mind about anything once that shade had appeared. "They aren't that bad… And really, I don't mind. It's… It's almost good. It lets me know that I remember him."
Quatre lowered his head, and so didn't see the flicker of emotion that flashed in Duo's eyes. Which was good. If he'd seen the turbulent spike of aggravation, perhaps he would have thought twice about leaning into Duo's warmth, and about slowly stroking along the side of the boy's pale neck with one hand. It was those actions that sent that flare scurrying back into the darkness of Duo's pupils, and there was no way to tell what would have happened if Quatre had seen and reacted.
"I know I remember him anyway, every day… But sometimes I wonder. I hear people talk about such things all the time, how they forget the way it sounded when someone laughed, or the smell of their hair when you hugged them… The press of their hand in yours. I remember that all now… But if the dreams I am having are about him, are strong enough to make me fly off a bed, maybe I won't need to worry about that in the future, right?"
"Yeah, maybe…"
The Arabian frowned, then sighed and turned to press his face into the soft nest of hair at the base of Duo's neck. "Maybe they are just nightmares though, nothing I should pick apart and analyze. I don't know why I'd be afraid of Heero. I was never afraid of him when he was… You know, still here. Not even when he got mad or struck out at me."
Along his side, graceful pale fingers curled possessively, looping into the blonde's shirt. "Would it really be so bad to forget?"
Duo knew it was a mistake before the words had ever fully left his mouth.
And just like that, the boy was out of his grip, looking hurt and lost… And angry. Quatre stood, wobbled, then got his balance as he nudged the blankets out of his way with one foot and glowered unhappily at his red haired friend. "Of course it would! He was my friend, Duo! I would never want to forget any of you, no matter what! And I loved him! You don't just forget love, whatever happens. Once you've admitted you care about someone on that level, that part of you is stained permanently with the emotion. It doesn't wash away, it doesn't fade, it's just -there-. …That was a cruel thing to ask."
The last bit of the outburst was little more than a colorless whisper, aqua eyes dull but dry as Quatre turned and slipped to the door and then out in the hall. Off to the kitchen, to make breakfast for them, and perhaps for the others if they were around.
Duo let him go.
It was a foolish thing for him to have said, he recognized that now. Sometimes though, particularly when the blonde's beautiful eyes gained that distant quality and he knew he was contemplating dark blue eyes instead of purple, it was hard to listen to what was right. Anger was easier to react to than common sense.
Anger at a dead boy? Oh, come on, Duo. Grow up. He let out a dry laugh, rubbing at one temple sheepishly. Let him have these mornings. I've got him. I've got his smiles when we're out walking around and the sun is shining. I have his laughter at my jokes. And his hand in mine when we watch movies.
The smile grew, slightly, into a smug smirk as he shifted his long legs off the bed, hissing when the bare feet hit the cold wooden floor but keeping them there anyway. "And at night, I've got his body. Heero's got… Well, got worms by now." Another chuckle followed that statement, along with a shiver he really didn't notice.
"So let him keep these stupid mornings."