Eternal SailorM (Omi/Bombay)
The dreams are starting to come back; I can tell; they always start off this way. A blinding brilliant white shattering like glass into a deep black nothingness. Probably symbolic on a lot of levels, but I'm caught up in the dream and can't stop to analyze it.
They always start with the shattering. What comes next determines if I'm going to have nightmares tonight or... no nightmares. The blackness dissolves into blood-red feathers; it's not going to be a good night. Why couldn't it have been a grey feather night?
I told Siberian once about the dreams. He just bounced one of his soccer balls off my head and told me that I was watching too much CLAMP, that I thought I was Kamui or something. All I could do was smile...
Almost immediately, I feel wires digging into my flesh. So it will be this dream then? How many times must I dream about the battle to the death Weiss fake for that crazy American general...?
"What's your choice, chibi?"
I jerk my head to look for Balinese, causing this wire around my neck to dig in deeper. What the fuck...? This isn't the amusement park where the fight took place! This is the Koneko!
I finally spot Balinese. What's wrong with his jacket? I thought he got rid of or burned the one he wore while we were in Kyoto, the one with the red cross on the back. And gods, he looks horrible, like... like... like something's been tormenting - no! torturing! - him.
I feel my own lips form and choke out the word "Yohji..." without me thinking about it. What the hell is going on here? It feels like I'm following a script!
He shakes his head. "Your choice. Fight with us or against us?"
Again words come out of my mouth with no thought on my part. "Weiss, even with its new members," I break off here to cough - and watch my blood splatter from my mouth onto the pure white roses Abyssinian cultivates, "will never be enough. You'll just die."
Balinese's face tightens, as do his fingers on the wire. I stare at his tired jade eyes and watch them slip closed. I keep my gaze on his face, even as his hand slides into a tight fist.
There is a tight, unbearable pain, then... the wires around me... slip through my body, and I land on my feet on the other side. Blood covers my body, but as I watch, the thin wounds close.
"Schwarz's little kitten has nine lives, eh?"
I whirl to see Siberian behind me. His hazel eyes are glassy, giving them a glazed-over appearance. "Siberian" slips from my lips.
"If you're not Weiss, then you're just another dark beast."
Bright pain blossoms in my gut. I look down to see his bugnuks buried up to the cloth glove in my stomach then back to Siberian's face. He's smiling fiercely as he twists his weapon in my flesh and rips upwards. Without the five blades in his claw pinioning me upright, I begin to fall backwards.
A set of arms I know I've seen somewhere before catch me. A bandage on her hand places her identity for me: the Licht woman. She smiles serenely down at me and pushes me towards the door, where someone else is waiting for me. "Poor Omi-chan," Moira's voice croons as she runs a hand over my hair.
I want to scream at her, tell her Weiss is on a rampage, but I'm too exhausted to speak more than a single word: "...neesan..."
"What makes you think you deserve him?" Her tone is still light, but the words have an icy tint to them now. "What makes you think he'd want someone as pathetic as you? You, who damn near got him killed?"
Up until then, everything felt so real, like everything was really happening. Now... now, it's surreal, like stepping into a painting, as she pushes me aside to walk out of the Koneko where a sleek, red, expensive-looking car awaits her. I catch a glimpse of red hair just this side of orange before the door shuts. You see me, don't you?! You know I'm here! But you're not coming to help me... are you? Neesan's right; why would you want someone like me, you who could have anyone you want... Where's Abyssinian? Again with the same reasoning. Either of them could and should have anyone they want; why should they settle on me...?
When she pushes me, I fall and fall and fall until I land in a pool of red, red blood. As I climb to my feet, I hear a voice I'd recognize anywhere sneer, "What a waste of a perfectly good weapon."
"Persia-sama! Help me!" I scream. I'm talking for myself now, no longer following the dream's script. "Please, Persia-sama!"
"Does Bombay actually think he can be human?" Manx's voice echoes.
"Manx!"
"He's just a weapon, and one that's lost its purpose at that."
"Birman! Please!"
"Just a murderer."
The voice this time stops me dead in my tracks. "Ouka..." And she doesn't stop there. That would be too easy...
"Couldn't even save my life holding me in your arms. How can you call yourself human? You're just a weapon, no better than Abyssinian's sword or Siberian's claw. You exist only to take lives. You're worthless."
"Murderer!"
"Murderer!"
"Monster!"
"Killer!"
I can only stand shin-deep in thick red blood and listen to the accusations. Then comes the voice I was dreading hearing here: "It was all your fault..."
"Schu..." My knees give out from under me. The dream rolls over me, and I find myself drowning in it. Once more I feel arms around me, pulling me up out of the blood even as the accusations, the screams, abruptly silence. I look up, but most of my vision is obscured by two shades of red hair. But just below that, I see two more feathers, not red this time, thank the gods, but one white and one black coming together to form a single grey one.
Maybe there's something to this Grau theory after all...
Wait a minute... grey feather. What, now? Right after a dream like that one? My body sleepily reminds me that I'm laying between two gorgeous redheads and I am only a teenager after all. I have enough presence of mind to scoot back so that I'm not right up against Ran... Okay, I didn't plan that well, I think to myself, unable to hold back a quiet groan, finding myself having to bite my lip to keep from whimpering as Schuldig shifts against my back. Why does he smell like cigerettes? Oh yeah, he smokes...
At least I have some more control of my mind now, enough at least to wonder how much of this is my doing or that woman's. Schuldig doesn't seem too sure of her, and it almost seems like Abyssinian's afraid of her. Yes, somehow, she healed us, but I still can't help wondering for what ends. What does she get out of it? Schu said something about her not hurting us because she likes Abyssinian too much; hope she doesn't think she's getting him out of this deal. All the same, I can't even think when she's in my head; it's like she takes up the entire thing, what space is left, and leaves me blind to the world around me, which could prove very dangerous in a fight, especially since I seem to have no luck holding her back. On some level, that makes me a liability here.
Okay... maybe it wasn't such a good idea to let my mind wander so. My body's reacting all on its own to where it's laying, to who're on either side of it. And Abyssinian, I know his body so well it took me months to curtail my fantasizing about it after we broke it off and... and... And that was a graphic image. Where'd that come from? Let's just see where this one goes...
First draft: 14 March 2002 (high on the "ouch" factor)
Second draft: 15 March 2002
Geez... is Bombay's mind messed up or what?! If that's what he dreams, I'm glad I'm not in his head... Poor Schu! Poor Ran!