Warnings: Character death, broken laws of physics.
Basically, a couple of weeks ago I got to thinking about what kind of strange things Lag dreamed about the time he was sort of unconscious in Dr. Thunderland's lab. That, and the song which I've had stuck in my head forever. Originally I was going to work it in a fic with Aria and Lawrence with the same autumn-type setting, but I thought that Lag and Noir would be a more fitting choice.
Enough of my talking! Enjoy!
Disclaimers: I don't own Tegami Bachi. Quotes are the property of their respective owners.
There is no me without you
I will behave, I will be
An afterthought, your make-believe,
Your darkest day, your friend in need
Coheed and Cambria - "Deranged"
.
Thump, rustle. Thump, rustle. Thump, rustle. Thump, russssstle.
The shuffle of his footsteps as he sauntered the city streets at night made its own familiar noise. This noise that he knew all too well dampened the whistling of the wind and the subsequent clatter of the leaves. The clamor also served to muffle the sound of the boy's thoughts, the type of musings that only a person who still had not found what he sought after would have.
And so, the boy continued to walk alone in the streets with the hope that he'd find his home soon enough.
However, as he continued to course the path homeward, he noticed the liveliness of the city streets diminish into nothing as the people vanished. He also noticed that the same building he passed by half of a bell ago appeared in his line of vision once again.
What is going on, he wondered, flicking his chin. I could have sworn...
Forcibly, he shook himself out of whatever daze he thought he was in and continued. The confusion he felt was probably a result of his overworking himself, he figured; he convinced himself that he would be fine if he reached home soon and rested. As the time crept past slowly, and as he continued to pass by the same rows of buildings, his pace increased from a casual walk to a brisk jog. This did nothing more than exacerbate his exhaustion. No matter which path he took, his journey always seemed to lead him back into the empty town square.
Frustrated and panting, he hunched over with both hands on his knees. As he paused to catch his breath, an acrid scent tore through his nostrils, burning a path through his throat and down into his lungs as he continued to take the air in. He was too flustered to think of what this aroma could have been, or what the source was. Finally, he collected his thoughts and glanced forward, only to notice the subtle falling of a pale gray flurry of ash from the sky. A figure slowly began to materialize from beyond this flurry. As it steadily gained form, a series of faint whispers that the boy thought he imagined became more real to him. Strangely, he felt the same way about all of the other events that had happened...
"No end in sight, little Bee. The repetitive cycle of running these streets. There is no escape."
He looked around in an attempt to discern the location of this voice. Strangely enough, he sensed that no matter what direction he turned his head, the voice boomed with the same intensity and timbre. Still, he frantically continued to guess where this voice was resonating from.
"I cannot allow you to let me live. Your admiration is baseless. As the person you are now, it's not healthy for you to continue to live your life knowing that I am not who I once was. It is not right for you to cling to days gone by. You must live earnestly for today, hope well for the future, and learn from your mistakes in the past."
The form before him completed his materialization. Paralyzed in shock, he could only stare. His childhood hero, the man who had inspired him to follow his current path in life, stood before him. This time, though, this man displayed himself as a dark warder of despair. Not only did his dark garb serve as a telling sign of his intentions, but his cold, expressionless visage conveyed much conviction. He reached inside his cloak, effortlessly removed a concealed object, and presented this object to Lag.
"Please, take that and finish me."
A simple worn handgun left Noir's hand and skittered across the ground. It had just stopped short of Lag's feet. He had half-expected the boy to at least try to catch the firearm, but at the same time he wasn't all that surprised that he stood rigidly in horror. Even he didn't expect his biggest fan to kill him so willingly.
"And don't think of trying to finish yourself afterward; I'm afraid we're down to the final bullet."
The fear he had of losing his hero pitted against the fear he had of committing such a heinous act pressed him to respond without further hesitation.
"I'm not going to let you go, Gauche! I made a promise to Sylvette and to Aria, and I'll die before I even think of breaking it."
"Your world is rife of hope, and mine of despair. For me to bring you into what I have suffered through... is simply criminal. Someday you'll surely understand."
"No, you're wrong. I'll never understand. If it means another painful goodbye, I don't want to understand."
"Lag, know this well: I traversed the light, and found myself wandering through the shadows. Everything that was mine before was stripped from me in an instant, and I wandered through the darkness without aim, without a single soul to accompany me on the journey. I can never return to the light, young man. I can only wander alone."
The man's horrifying request and the unusual ashen-colored scenery surrounding the two provoked him to question his existence in this realm. Surely this world was not real. No, it was very real; everything that he heard, every smell, every sensation, the clouds of water vapor emanating from his mouth as he spoke, all of these things truly existed. Why, then, if this was all very real, would Gauche... er, Noir, as he wanted himself to be called, request to be forcibly removed from the boy's life? Was Noir perhaps correct in not wanting to bring the boy into his world of suffering, that both of them would truly be better off with his wandering alone in the darkness?
Lag's hands shook violently as he picked the firearm up and attempted to steady it. A couple of stray tears began to roll down his face, but he took a deep breath and wiped those away. The fleeting memory of one of his other co-workers, in which this person informed the boy his strength was in his kindness, calmed his spirit and renewed his resolve.
He approached the caped man and threw his arms around him in one final embrace.
"Let us begin a new journey, together," he whispered with a quiver in his voice, his heart pounding furiously.
He nestled the nuzzle into the back of Noir's neck and pulled the trigger with his thumb. The shot traveled cleanly through, passing from his neck into the boy's collar bone. The man slumped backward, with Lag still on top of him, and both limply fell to the ground.
Everything in this world still seemed real to Lag. The warmth of his blood, the trickle of its escape from his body, and the stinging pain of the bullet in his body: all of these sensations convinced him even more so that his existence in this world was true.
He struggled to keep his eyes open as his consciousness kept varying. He was hardly even able to tell if Noir had been eliminated yet. Unexpectedly, he felt a cold hand grasp his. The pain intensified and he was hardly able to make out what this feeling was. Only able to squint his eyes at this point, he could merely hazard a guess.
"N-noir..." he forcibly uttered.
The man, who, aside from grasping Lag's hand, remained motionless as he reeled in shock from his injury, gathered enough strength to utter a few final words.
"Goodbyes... so sad..."
He paused and smiled.
"I guess... no... more... goodbyes, then..."
After he witnessed his friend take his final breaths, the boy struggled to watch the transformation that unfolded before him; the pain from his injury, and the state of disbelief he was in from having watched Noir die in front of him, rendered concentration difficult. His eyes peeked open intermittently to notice the ash, once dispersed through the streets, beginning to form itself into the recognizable shape of mottled red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves. Once they took their shape, the leaves cascaded on their own accord upward to return to the barren trees. This sequence of changes that occurred before him did not make any sense, nor did anything else that had happened previously, but he was far too weak both mentally and physically to question it. Acceptance was his simple response to these changes.
He held on to Noir's hand tightly as he watched his world of repetitive buildings, dead trees, and darkness metamorphose into lush green trees, a garden of unique architecture, and lucid blue skies.
A faint figure, masked in light, extended its arm toward him. As the figure approached, the strength of Lag's vision waned, though he was still able to discern its identity.
"M-m-moth...er..." he moaned. "Moth-er..."
The boy mustered all of his remaining strength to extend his right arm forward. In his seemingly darkest hour, he desperately wanted to reach his mother; now that he knew she was alive still, he sought to cling on to her. He lost his dear friend, and he surely did not want to let go of this last fragment of hope that he saw in this being of light and in this now beautiful world.
As his hand touched hers, he opened his eyes and was alarmed to notice that he was no longer in that strange world, but rather in the relative safety in Dr. Thunderland's lab. The alarm was such that he wasn't intent on jerking his body upright immediately, though. The doctor, who also seemed surprised, stayed still, his mouth agape.
"I... had the strangest dream," Lag uttered with a faint smile.
Just then, the figure in the bed next to him shifted to an upright position. "Lag... Seeing..." he uttered. A smile formed on his long expressionless face as he addressed the boy.
He froze once again, dazed at the prospect of his idol sitting conscious before him. This time, the man, clothed in nothing more than a white undershirt and loosely fitting white pants, seemed to want nothing other than for the boy to acknowledge his existence. Still, Lag could not believe that, even after knowing that the terrifying acts he committed in his dream never happened, Gauche sat before him now in such a warm and unassuming manner.
Leaping excitedly into Gauche's arms, the boy began to cry tears of happiness. For that one moment, he was eternally thankful that neither one of the two would ever have to wander alone in the darkness again.