Disclaimer: Don't own it. Fin.
A/N: I dunno. The anime agitated my brain 'cause of all the whacked-ness. Haha, I liked it a lot. I wish it was more well-known, though.
The Grey
The trip was whistling by…
And then it wasn't. Again. Why did it keep us?
What the…?
The winds had died down into still air, as if some cosmic entity had cursed us to suddenly stall amidst nothingness. I became worried. At the back of my mind, I was worried what she would say.
"Vincent."
"Y-yes?"
She merely gave me the Look that said all her efforts in embarrassing herself had been pointless muck. So what if the wind had finally answered her call? She was evidently unpleased about the end result. Of course, the fact the wind had picked up for her did not even register. Maybe she was narrow-minded, after all. Like I had overheard her telling herself.
I watched as she sniffed the cold air and left for the cabin, the door slamming swiftly after her coat. I winced. At least it wasn't as cold as—
I gave up. My sigh carried frosted particles. A storm was coming. I could feel a trace of it dampening my nape. The little AutoReiv tapped my knee. Looking down at her, she seemed to be thinking about the demise of a certain smile that had belonged to a certain Romdeau investigator.
"She's cranky, huh?"
"Maybe," I said, sighing again only to see what would happen to my breath.
"Maybe yes," the girl said.
I couldn't help but quirk a cheek at her. I never said, but Pino had become like a kid sister to me. I kept forgetting she was…unreal.
"Vince?"
"Hm?" I bent down to rough up her bangs. Such a tiny Companion.
She pouted comically and grumbled, "I'll pray and see if the wind comes."
I caught my breath.
I made sure not to pay mind. I paid mind, anyway, to her praying hands.
XXX
Sometime later, I was catching my breath again at the sight of Real stepping out of the shower. My cheeks were inflamed before I could scurry from her sight, and I felt like a man who was actually a mouse at heart. Stuck in this body. Yet it wasn't so. I was…
"Vincent."
Real's voice took hold of my eyes and I reddened even more at the loose towel draped against her body. She hadn't bothered to wrap herself, so I could see vertical stretches of skin.
"You're a virgin, aren't you?" Those heavy breasts beneath that towel. I hated that towel, I loved that towel.
The accusation sent me to the deck, not caring if the air froze her naked body in my wake.
XXX
I spent my hour before the typical Supper of Starvation—I hid my disconsolation so well from her—musing over Real. How to get her out of my head? How would I go about doing that with her constantly there?
How to get this storm to be full of wind and strong arms?
How to separate the piles of information in my head? Or rather, lack thereof.
There had to be a place to start.
The woman's image opted to remain in the first slot, as if it had taken on her own persona, denying me relief from her judgment. I refused to think she was a selfish woman. I think I would keep refusing until the final moment with her flashy bullet eradicating my whole soul. It was a thing I happened to be asking for. It was a thing she happened to be telling me, ever since the moment we re-met in the forest debris.
She was always in my head. She would haunt me in my death, wouldn't she?
XXX
The beans were laid out before us by Real this time. I was nonplussed. A rather…kind move…for her to make. A curved bean was pushed past her lips by her fork, lips barely moving.
She chewed, minute and uninterested. Just as long as she remained alive.
"Vincent."
My chest rattled. "I…" I should not have gaped.
"It was a joke. You know?"
"Ah—yeah…" I should have stifled the nervous laughter.
She stared at me, hardly blinking. Her eyes were so dark in the cabin. I almost relived that time her face was in mine, pale lips planted on my dry ones, my love expanding for her.
To this day, I didn't know why. Why did I love her? But the unreasonable reasoning fed me.
I wanted to hug my chest and sleep on this feeling. It was chilly, even in my red work suit.
She continued to eye me. Then suddenly, as if realizing her eyes had gone dry, peered at the new speared bean. I offered her a weak smile. She didn't take it.
"Why don't you speak up?" she asked heavily.
"I do," I said. I could have mentioned how I put on a smile, for her and Pino. Not necessarily for the meal. Beans were okay, but whatever strength they meant, I preferred Real.
"Liar. I could slap you and you'd just sit there, wouldn't you? That's weak behavior."
I was weak to her? Of course. It was true.
"I'm—" I was weak without her skin on mine, that was why.
She huffed at the impending self-deprecation, and I renewed it by bowing my head. There was never an end to it. Somehow, she liked the control. Maybe I was a lab rat to her. I probably was everything like that to her. Real…
We ate by the candlelight that flickered to death.
XXX
The next day I caught her taking another shower earlier than before. I almost knocked on the door, but decided she would say something else to startle me, thus causing another painful meal. I couldn't think about her judgment or our excuse for food or even the ramparts of love.
Waited. I had been wrong. There was no storm. I had imagined it. Waited some more by the railing. A few minutes of rubbing my eyes sapped my energy. When she didn't come out from her cave, I blinked. Pino's giggles echoed from a ways due north. Then a melody buzzed my ears.
I pressed the button for the door. Predictable stillness greeted me, flat, boring, but suspicious. A game of hide and seek in the dark.
"Real? Are you in bed now?" I ventured, padding in.
"Don't worry. It's just a fever." But she sounded weak. Like the weak she had accused me of.
I stood, hovering along the door, blocking out the dull light.
XXX
Pino pressed a brown, almost black, flower into my glove. "Lookie."
"It's…dead."
"Correct!"
"…But, where did you get this? There aren't any flowers around here. This place is…" I glanced toward the barrenness.
"It's a secret!" she giggled, squeezing my thumb as she swayed on her feet proudly. I supposed that finding a dead flower was a worthy accomplishment. It had once been alive. That counted to the little girl.
"Give it to Real," she now whispered, blinking innocuously.
"Nah!"
"Why?" she said, reverting to pout mode.
"Because. She'd kill me…" But Real wouldn't do that. She couldn't. She was weak.
"A dead flower would make Real kill Vince? Real is not mean anymore."
Pino had a point. I respected it and blushed. Pino pointed at my cheeks and heehawed her way to her instrument. Maybe she knew how to manipulate me.
My lungs seemed to shiver.
XXX
They shivered past supper, a supper without an emotionally distant woman in front of me. She just lay in bed, curled up and gritting her teeth. I delayed any words for her until I was snuggling into my spot on the floor. Next I heard her teeth, chattering, coming free from their prison.
I rolled and covered my ear, inwardly telling myself that I couldn't hear her. I couldn't hear her.
I could hear her since she was so close. But I couldn't hear her. Not really.
"V-Vinc…e-ent," she started. She was drawing it out like a sword from its sheath. Like she was hoping she could use her efforts for the sake of willpower, a weapon against a weak Vincent Law. Would Proxy answer her feverish words? Now?
I reached up with my hand to touch the space near her head. "Real." A fingertip felt damp hair.
"Vince… I'm freezing—" She cut herself short so she could chatter on. My instincts felt like following suit. It was contagious, to freeze and freeze and wonder if it would ever end. Maybe tug her to my chest, hold her and smell her? Ah.
Relieving to know I had only Real to be truly concerned about. Still, I wasn't relieved. A semblance of fatigue crowded our shelter. Outside, it must have been snowing. Or raining. Or something. Something harsh, altogether.
In spite of my worries of smothering her, of somehow offending her again, I rose up on my knees. My hand rested against her forehead. I wondered if there were scorch marks.
"You're not freezing, Real. You're burning up."
She answered with her teeth. The blanket had rushed over her head for more shelter and heat.
"You shouldn't do that," I warned her. Well, what did I know? She felt superior, no matter the dictations of the situation.
She didn't say anything else.
XXX
Two days later, and she wouldn't budge. Even if Proxy, that demon inside of me, had emerged from my flesh, it wouldn't have had any affect. She was deficient in movement. However, she needed movement or Real would have much more to complain about in the future.
Pino left to play with her imaginary friends. I felt worse.
XXX
Night fell too quickly. Everything came too quickly. I skipped my measly meal. I couldn't bother with myself. I only had room to think about her. The weak woman named Real who was wasting away with a fever that had burned my fingers such a short time ago.
Would she die tonight? I didn't dare measure the thought.
"Are you cold?" I asked her.
"No…" she said, blanched. She was small without her make-up. It was useless art that didn't belong on her face. Maybe she would have looked better with it to disguise the sickness. Blue was blue, sickly and perverse.
"Are you hot?" I changed direction.
"Hot." It was as simple as that. The cold cloth rested along her brow.
I already knew how her forehead felt. I was too weak to help her, just as she was too weak to help herself. Just so. It was merciless.
If I stayed too long by her side, would I catch this fever? Possibly. Some sort of virus. I wasn't sure. I wasn't skilled in medicine.
Leaving the room, Pino came in at last, shouting about the wind and how it nearly blew her off her feet. It had come back. I didn't even have to beg. I didn't have to insult it. I missed out on the false fun.
Real was lucky, yet again.
XXX
Because the woman I somehow loved with the torn pieces of my heart would have scorned me if I hadn't taken the lead, I steered the ship along Fate's path. My head was full of grey matter.
The clouds distilled everything grey.
XXX
Pino was tugging on my pant leg. I frowned at her pink bunny suit.
"Pino touched Real and Real wasn't mean to Pino. Does that mean Real is different now?"
"Wha—?"
She repeated herself, monotonous in that engineered tone. I gaped for a moment.
Did she mean…?
I found the woman draped across her bench, sullen and drowning in her sweat. Why couldn't I do anything?
"Real!" What damaging effects could a fever leave? She must have been seeing those clouds in the back of her mind.
She sucked down air. She whispered that she was pretending to be enjoying herself. I couldn't understand her slander. Convinced herself she was riding a high, huh? An arm hung over the side. She looked like she wanted to die. This wasn't the first time I had spotted trails down her cheeks.
The heat from her body was basting her from the inside out. Even as a man, I wanted to cry, growl, clench from frustration. The core in me wanted to ravage the landscape. My person was haphazardly filled with the hate I had reserved for this woman. I had come to love her. But I hated her.
She had said she was drawn to me. That was her mistake.
Thinking about this, I opened the shower door and waved at it. Cold water or self-torture. She could choose.
XXX
Grey skies passed. The breezes smelt of powder. Chalky earth.
At least Real was alive and eating again.
XXX
Upon noticing that Pino was absent for the umpteenth time, I slumped over the edge of the ship, wondering how it was possible to be missing her laughter. She must have slipped away during a daydream. It was easy to fall prey to such monsters out here. In the wind, it was a way of unwinding.
Nothing could distract me from the knowledge that my other half was Proxy.
That was its undefined name. It was easier to ignore my other half's name. Vertigo.
A fresh daydream took me by the hand. The cabin opened for me, and then so did Real.
XXX
When I next saw her, I melted in my redness and windburn. My mind wouldn't drop the dream's slick fragments. I rather hoped it wouldn't influence or disturb anything else. Corrupt me.
I sat on the toilet and counted till my body would stop being a man. How was it possible to have a drive at a time like this? I couldn't offend her. The grip on my knees tightened. I left the bathroom and came upon her. She stared straight into me. I flinched back and realized she was trying to pin me down with that Look.
"Is something wrong?" I squinted.
"No. I just wanted to tell you my thanks."
"What did I do?" I hadn't done anything for her.
"I would have kept going. Thank you." She nudged me aside to get to the stall. The door clicked shut.
"For what?" I said to the door, empty in the pit of my stomach. It was too quiet for her to hear.
I turned, pacing by the door for a minute before evading her temper. She was annoyed at how hard it was for her. And how hard it was to really break Vincent Law. She now knew I could hate her, even when she wore her underwear in point-blank range.
XXX
Even though I was tired and on the floor, preparing to shut my eyes, her upcoming words would have heated me in the expected snow.
"You really are a virgin."
"I…" How could I answer that? My heart sickened me.
"There's no point in denying it. It's all right. It doesn't matter."
I was nursing a sudden hot flash.
"…Are you?" she prodded quietly from her perch, curled into a ball and facing my direction. I was glad Pino was recharging.
"I…" I said again. In truth, it wasn't because I didn't know how to answer her unabashed assumptions. It was because I couldn't recall if I was or wasn't. It was a madhouse in my head. I didn't know what to think of myself, or my body, or her up above.
Thoughts of legs, spreading…
I couldn't avoid the creeping in my shorts.
"It doesn't matter" filtered through my clenched teeth. Her silence was what remained.
XXX
Pino brought me another dead flower in another dead land. We would be reaching a dome soon. Which one was it?
She said she left the one she had saved at Real's place at the table. It should have been unacceptable to Real, but I never heard any resentment coming from the cabin.
Could it be? Had Real gone insane?
XXX
When semi-darkness staged itself like danger, the ship was put to rest for the night and I patted Pino's head. She was already in her suspended state. I wondered how she would look dead. I gulped down a feeling.
"It's an odd thing, AutoReivs. You never know when they're going to turn on you."
I listened to my shipmate absentmindedly as I wiggled through my make-shift bed.
"You grow up thinking they're at your beck and call…"
The burn on my chin itched. Oh. I had forgotten to shave.
"…So when they've minds of their own, it's hell for the humans."
My eyes adjusted to see her form there.
"Iggy was just like a human. He…made me cry. How could he have managed that, Vincent?" she asked shallowly, so giving with her words.
A radioactive memory threw itself against the walls of my brain then, and it had to be related to something that had happened months ago, in another life.
Proxy had made her cry. Did that mean…?
"Your fever has gone away?" I said.
"Not quite. Just a little woozy. But don't underestimate me."
Her hand was abruptly in my face. "Get closer," she said. A command.
I was commanded. I didn't know what to do with her outbursts.
"Why?" I breathed, and there was that creeping. Damn her heat, it was all over me. The images in my head suggested that I run and sort it out and hope, hope, hope she wouldn't follow.
"An experiment. You're a human virgin, aren't you? Not an AutoReiv, right now, not a…Proxy. Does that make you want to cry?" And my face was so close to hers, I could have bitten her nose. She had her grip on my undershirt. Did she have to be so in control? Did she have to be so…? There was that "s"-word.
"I'm supposed to be human," I said. I could defend myself this way. It was what she wanted. I loved her and hated her for it. Something inside of me cared about this charade.
"Supposed? You look human. And you're a Proxy underneath it all. What are you really? Who are you really?"
"I…I don't know." It was the truth. I had to swallow my breath, my pride. My hands supported my weight on her bed's edge.
"You never know, do you? 'I don't know,' you say, all the damned time. I'm fed up."
She was. Real smelt of rigidity. There assumed a hint of skin. "I'm sorry?"
"Fuck you."
Did she really mean it? Because according to my senses, her lips were touching mine. How did she mean this? Oh God, dear God, I was lost. My cheeks lost their chill and became apart of hell. The spit in my mouth was manufacturing itself at the thought of Real and her shoddy reality.
It ended too quickly, like everything else—except the journey—and I sighed inwardly, actually relieved. She had been strangling me with her touch.
"Consider that I'm still drawn to you. I will know why soon enough, and then I will shoot you. Do you understand me?"
I reeled back down, hiding my face in my sorry pillow. She was expecting too much from me. Perhaps it was Proxy loving her, and Vincent Law hating her the most.
"I understand," I whispered, lying.
She was probably on her back and telling the low ceiling, "There is something wrong when you touch my lips. You…make me want to cry. You're like Iggy and Grandfather. And then…I can't tell if I really want to cry. Or…to simply shoot you…"
She was able to sleep. I grew alone but not lonely.
XXX
Morning washed my body ashore from a waking dream, and I realized my crotch was sticky. I blinked away this realization with self-disappointment. It was only natural to be overly happy about the body above, just sleeping blissfully unawares. She wouldn't be able to hang me for my humanity.
I jumped at the bathroom. A klutz.
XXX
Mosque was in reach. Very much in reach. Proxy would probably come out to play. What scared me was the idea that my only human companion would come into contact with Proxy all over again and love it like food to the stomach.
I steered the ship. This would go well. This would hurt me, but go well. I almost told her, almost sneered at her, that I would take advantage of her body if she ever kissed Vincent Law again. But I didn't. My abs tensed instead.
The grey above and beyond took over. The grey matter in my head was lacking efficiency. However, I wasn't crooked enough to even steal a kiss. I wanted to say, "Fuck you, too." I didn't.
The greyness sprinkled like ashes.
XXX
She could have at least patted my back and said she believed in good-bye kisses. Never mind that. I would have embarrassed myself.
Our ship was finally arriving. I thought of our bodies exploding like the dome. There had to be different ways of exploding. I would witness them soon enough. In Real's reality, whatever that meant to her or me.
XXX
Time nearly killed us. Good-bye, Romdeau. Time had nearly taken her away and everything else to the realm of ache. Time had lost against my Proxy self. I was no longer hating her control.
Ergo Proxy, my name. They came to get Ergo Proxy, me, with the ship. On deck, I stared at Real, the human one. The one who had chased me through the grey landscapes. I couldn't stop to think if it was ironic that she was dark and grounded, not light and free. I stared, staring until she grinned, lively, courageous, thankful for my being a god at her side. If she was, if she was. If I still was, I couldn't be sure.
The feminine Entourage turned Pino away as the woman grabbed my collar.
XXX
Despite time having lost, it still passed by. I realized we had become a closed network, with support, with connections, with reasons to hold each other. Also a laughable thing to not need a reason. Pino was our daughter who would never grow up. Real was someone I could touch most intimately, and she loved it when I did. And Kristeva had grown to be our therapist, nurse, confidante, keeper. All because it was her way of being useful.
Kristeva had said one day, calm, "Are you proud?"
I had replied, steady, "I'm alive." I was alive, beside Real who kissed my lids and hugged my backside, the spirit I had always loved. Acceptance. Our heads weren't full of grey.