Title: Last Dance of Chances

By: Aina Song

Fandom(s): Radiata Stories

Genre: Yaoi

Rating: NC-17 (Um… eventually…)

Warning(s): Tonight, on the Warning Channel - Language; Death; Depression; Direct Quotes; Altered Scenes… Slight chance of OOC, major OOC to follow. Back to you, Bill.

Pairing(s): Flau + Jack + Ridley; Jack/Gil

Reviews: Yes, please.

Author's Note: Standard Disclaimer. This story was not written for money. The game had its rules and specific plot points, but just so you know… I intend to break a whole mess of them with this one!

Teaser: What might've happened, had Ridley not survived that blood orc's attack? The Golden dragon will demand a vessel, regardless. Meanwhile, Jack is haunted by dreams of another life, a darker path…

Chapter Eleven - Into the Night

So much cold, like shards of ice, prickled the underside of his very skin. He could feel the cold filling his lungs, taste it in the back of his throat as it washed up and then trickled back down along his veins. And, most painful of all, he felt the skin between his shoulder blades stretching as though ready to tear apart.

The only warmth came from behind his closed eyelids. His eyeballs were scorching. If he felt he could move at all, it would be to wrench them out of their sockets, just to escape their fire. As it was, a solid weight atop his chest anchored him down to halt his thrashing, and so he could only fist his hands tightly enough that his nails bit into his palms to resist the temptation. His stomach lurched, and somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered at the taste of copper that had passed over his tongue.

Tears, burning hot, trailed down his cheeks, and he felt very much alone.

Jack, a soft voice whispered near his ear, and the ghost of another's fingers swept down the side of his face. The touch was a comfort against the terrible cold.

He coughed again, hard, the taste of burning liquid escaping with his breath. Still, that other voice murmured gently, as though to keep the worst of it at bay. Yet he could not help arching his back a second time, a cry of pain passing his lips as the skin between his shoulder blades tore again. The weight lifted from his chest and he was quickly turned on his stomach, the movement promptly urging him to cough up again.

After it had done, he sank again to the floor, swallowing great gasps of air as the terrible cold became suddenly soothing and worked to diligently numb the pain in his back. The fire in his eyes slowly lessened, and the ice beneath his skin worked to douse that as well.

Jack, that other voice whispered again. A hand swept very lightly over the new skin of his back. Jack…

~o~

He at last opened his eyes, and was greeted with stunned silence. He glanced about, finding himself on his back again on one of the bedrolls laid out on the floor of the conference room. Zane and Gawain stood across the room, a map spread out on the crates before them, but it was Jack that seemed to demand their attention. A very quiet whimper drew his eyes to his left, where Flau sat on her heels at his side, both hands over her mouth, her face wet with tears. Frowning worriedly, he turned his head to his right. Gil was crouched on one knee, his hand lightly grasping Jack's wrist as though to pin it in place, his fathomless blue eyes watching him in eerie silence.

The light elf warrior seemed to sense the question in Jack's gaze, for he lifted up a shard of reflecting glass in his other hand and held it forth. And Jack stared at what he saw. There was a single streak of blond mixed in with the thick strands of his dark brown hair near the crown of his head, and his skin had began to darken, taking on a slightly golden hue that was most foreign to his kind.

And something else. His eyes had completely changed color.

Instead of the ordinary brown pigment he had inherited from his mother, they were now a piercingly bright color that closely resembled golden amber. Had he not known it to be his own reflection, Jack might have mistaken the image to be that of another.

Tearing his gaze away, he found that the glass reflected something else as equally startling. Jack carefully looked down, lifting his free hand to cautiously feel at the bandages wrapped around his bare torso. "W-what…?"

Flau shook her head, jumping to her feet and crossing the room to stand with Gawain and the elf lord. She was clearly distressed, and Jack did not have to wait to learn why.

"They are for your back," Gil calmly murmured, lowering the shard of glass to the floor.

"M-my back?"

The light elf gave him a strangely somber look. "You do not remember? You tossed in your sleep, your skin is still fevered… Do you not wonder why you are lying so still, as though your instincts are forbidding you from jarring your spine?"

Jack blinked, realizing it was true. He had moved very little since opening his eyes. And the skin of his back did feel taut as a bowstring. Tender, even… He drew in a slow breath, "What happened?"

Though he only wondered at the condition of his back, Gil took it upon himself to answer the bigger question. "You have been unconscious three days now. First you were afflicted with fever, and then you began thrashing about, so much that Sir Gawain worried you might bring injury upon yourself. Even Lord Zane grew concerned after you began vomiting blood-"

"What," Jack choked. "B-blood?" He automatically searched the caverns of his mouth with his tongue, fearing the lingering taste of copper.

"I rinsed your mouth with water each time," Gil softly assured.

A relieved sigh escaped his lips. He'd always hated the taste of a bloody mouth. Looking up again, he forced himself to ask, "What, then?"

"You screamed," Flau whimpered from across the room. "It was awful…"

"Yes," Gil sighed. "You worried us immensely. There was such fear and pain on your face, you looked as though you were being tortured. It was only after we saw the blood pooling beneath your back that we realized what had happened."

"What did happen?" Jack asked a second time.

The light elf met his gaze with something akin to sympathy flicking across his usually expressionless face. His voice lowered to little more than a whisper, "The skin of your back split open. Twice. Lord Zane questioned his brother's wisdom; Sir Gawain muttered that you were too young… You were still screaming so terribly that no one would dare approach you, though the blood was pooling freely…"

Jack stared, his eyes finally taking in the light elf's clothes. Dark red stained the front of Gil's hosen from the knees down, and the cuffs of his sleeves. "Gil…?"

"Yes," the light elf said again, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "You looked to be dying, and your screams nearly had me convinced that you would. But I had pledged my loyalty to you, and you are my friend besides… I could not allow myself to let you die, Jack Russell."

"Friend," Jack repeated, feeling his heart thumping at the word, though he could not say why. "Really?"

Gil's smile widened just a little bit, enough that even his startlingly blue eyes shone with quiet indulgence. "Of course."

~o~

Jack remained bedridden and riddled with fever for a solid three weeks. He fell asleep easily, drifting in and out several times a day. He ate very little, occasionally having to force himself to swallow the broth brewed for him to help restore the blood in his veins. He often had to settle for lying on his stomach, so that his back might heal more readily.

Flau came to him twice a day, but never seemed able to stay long. She explained during one such visit that she had been there to watch him pull himself out of the darkness of his grief, to push through solo missions that he should never have survived… She had even turned her back on the human race for him. But she refused to let the image of him lying there, helpless and wrapped in blood-stained bandages, burn into her mind.

Sir Gawain or the elf lord, or both, were always present. Because his healing back did not allow for him to be moved, he remained in a corner of the conference room. Zane and the former knight busied themselves with their maps and scrolls, quietly talking over war tactics which Jack felt too tired and feverish to bother listening to.

Gil rarely left Jack's side. Jack wondered at this, until late one night he woke up to find the light elf had drifted to sleep, one knee drawn toward his chest, his head tipped back against the wall. Jack glanced down and found his own wrist lightly gripped by slim milk-white fingers. He knew already that Gil needed little rest, less than humans anyway, and he suspected that elves were not heavy sleepers. If he but flexed the muscles of his wrist, Jack was willing to believe that Gil would feel it and come awake in an instant.

He was safeguarding Jack's slumber.

The thought that there was a traitor in their midst was so absurd, Jack never bothered to consider it. But the light elf obviously meant to protect him against something, and Jack's heart clenched within his chest to realize what that meant. That, somehow, on some level, and without even thinking to try… Jack Russell had penetrated that calm façade that was ever present in the elf warrior's eyes and reached the soul that humbly sought the kind of friend Gil had already claimed to have found in him.

Jack could not help a small smile at that, however impossible the idea, and he let his eyes close once more.

~o~

Weeks later, he was standing shakily upright, his arms bracing him against the wall. He shook his sweat-dampened hair from his eyes, barely noticing anymore that there were now more blond strands than brown, and he met Gil's steadying gaze. Jack bit back a wince as a dark elf named Clarence wetted the last of the bandages and carefully tugged them from around the small of his back. They fell to the floor, and Jack felt Clarence's wet cloth gently sponge away the remaining dried blood. And the tall dark elf suddenly whispered, "There's something you don't see every day…"

"What is it," Gil softly demanded, finally breaking Jack's gaze.

Jack rested his forehead to the wall, muttering a profanity under his breath. The worst he could think it to be was an infection, and he knew he could not soon return to battle with something like that. And, given its location, his healer's hands were virtually useless.

When Clarence failed to answer, Gil moved away from the wall and looked for himself. And Jack did not know whether to laugh or to pray for redemption when he heard his own profanity repeated by that lyrical tongue. Then he felt Gil's fingertips lightly stroke down between Jack's shoulder blades, and Jack sucked in a hiss of breath at the sensation. "What is it," he choked.

"Jack," Gil murmured, something untold in the tone of his voice. "I have never seen a more glorious sight, than the symbol the gods have etched into your back…"

"Nor I," Clarence added as solemnly.

"What do you mean," he wondered, turning his head to glance over his shoulder.

The light elf looked up and met Jack's gaze with a quiet awe in those endlessly blue eyes. And his mouth tilted in that familiar half-smile. "If you had been born with wings," he spoke, his words slow and laced with meaning. "And if those wings had been torn cleanly from your back… The scars left behind would look very much like these."

Jack blinked, his heart racing as he tried to wrap his mind around it. Wing scars…?

"Your back is healing nicely, by the way," Clarence chuckled.

~o~

"Wing scars," Gil softly murmured again that night, his fingers sweeping down Jack's back for perhaps the tenth time.

Jack, lying again on his stomach, his cheek atop folded hands, tried not to squirm under the touch of those fingers sweeping along new flesh. His back had healed remarkably well; his wounds had closed very cleanly, leaving the mysterious fresh scars that his light elf companion seemed unable to resist.

But Jack's back now was annoyingly sensitive, and Gil's lightest touch almost tickled.

"Do they really look like I'd once had wings?" He asked now.

Gil cocked his head a bit, as though to look at the marks more closely. "Perhaps they are reminiscent of a previous life."

"But I'm human," Jack protested. "We only live once."

"Do you?" Those fingers lifted from his back, and Gil dropped his hand to his side. "Do you never wonder what you might do differently, had you been given more than this life to make such decisions?"

Jack could not help a shudder, and he turned his head away. "Don't ask me that again. Please."

The light elf was quiet for a moment, but then he touched his hand to Jack's shoulder. "Forgive me, if I have offended you…"

"You didn't," Jack muttered to the opposite wall. Sighing, he closed his eyes. "Gil… Do elves have dreams?"

There was a moment's silence, but when the other warrior answered, it was without skepticism. "Those of us that do are called seers. Their dreams speak truth, always, and it would be foolery to ignore their wisdoms."

Jack turned his head again, staring up at Gil with much hurt in his golden amber eyes. "Always?"

The light elf nodded, a very faint frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Jack," he wondered, "why are we speaking of dreams?"

He hesitated, but knew Gil was one who would not judge. Slowly, he painted out the details of his only constant nightmare. During the telling, the light elf's face grew cautiously expressionless. And after, Gil only asked, "And did Lord Cepheid die well?"

"I-I don't know," Jack confessed. "It always starts with him falling behind the cliffs."

Gil was silent for another moment. "And the elf. He was I?"

Sighing, he nodded. "Least, I think so. I mean, you said it was your duty to safeguard Wind Valley, and that was the Wind dragon's haven…" And then, suddenly remembering, he blurted, "I thought you looked familiar when we first met…"

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Jack shrugged, feeling a flush of warmth beneath his collar. "It was, uh… your eyes. They're… different… than other light elves'…"

"My coloring does stray from the norm," Gil patiently acceded. "But that is what comes of one who discards the sun's favor for that of the moon…"

"What do you mean?"

The elf warrior gave him an infinitely patient look. "It is a long-forgotten proverb. The sun, warm and fiery bright, represents youth in all its unrefined restlessness. Whereas the moon, soft and cool and comforting, represents the wisdom that comes of age and experience."

"You're saying your coloring changes with age?" Jack blinked, "How old are you, anyway?"

Gil gave an indulgent chuckle, "I am far older than I care to remember, but that is not quite what I meant. There are some few that surpass me, and their coloring will never alter. We are as we are born. Those with hearts filled with the warmth of the sun are yellow-hued. You have seen that this includes most of our race, and this is because in our hearts we wish always to be close to our dark elf cousins, who thrive under the nourishment of the sun and earth. The moon, however, graces those whose hearts are destined to need such undying comfort throughout their continuous years."

Jack's golden amber eyes widened. "I-I'm sorry, Gil. Does… that mean…?"

"Yes," he whispered. "I have known suffering." He paused, adding, "As you seem to, through this dream of yours. The result of an altered decision, perhaps?"

"But I don't want to do things differently," he replied instantly. "I don't want to make the wrong choices and end up betraying everybody like my father."

Something dark and untold flickered within the endless depths of those penetrating eyes. "Cairn Russell was an honorable human. That he succumbed to the madness of algandars does not taint his many other great deeds."

Jack stared, hearing something fierce and loyal beneath the softness of that ever-lyrical tone, and he pushed up on his elbows. "Really?"

"Lord Zane said you mentioned a difference in the way our races mourn." Gil waited until he nodded before adding, "You were right. Sir Cairn was Lord Zane's most trusted friend; it nearly destroyed him to give that order, and to this day he cannot forget." Then the light elf leaned forward, his eyes pinning Jack under their steady gaze. "I see much of Cairn in you, Jack Russell. But I see, also, much more that no other human could dare to equal."

"I'm not," he whispered sullenly. "I'm not as strong-"

"You are agile," Gil kindly interrupted.

"I'm at least a decade younger than most human warriors-"

"Yet you have endurance."

"I never know if I'm doing the right thing-"

"Ah," the light elf's half-smile returned. "But you never fail to follow your instincts. You hesitate, you experience fear, but you are no coward. Your skills with a weapon are finely honed, and I have never known a human to be so knowledgeable about medicinal remedies, nor to have so sensitive an awareness of the elements."

His head moved even closer, until there was but a breath's reach between them. "In short, Jack Russell, you are a power unto yourself."

And then the light elf bent his head and lightly swept his lips against the human's. Jack drew in a sharp breath, and Gil daringly brought their mouths together in a truer kiss. His mouth slanted over Jack's, first capturing one lip and then the other, tasting and tugging. And then his tongue, cool and slick and questing, touched against Jack's lower lip.

"Open for me," Gil moaned. "Jack, open your mouth and let me in." The plea was spoken in a rasping voice that was so unlike the light elf's lyrical tones that Jack immediately complied, digging his palms into his bedroll and lifting himself higher, pressing himself closer.

With a surprisingly low groan, Gil sent his tongue into Jack's mouth - twirling, seeking, stroking. His hand lifted to the back of Jack's head, fingers twining amongst blond-streaked strands of brown, seizing Jack in a silent command not to move again. Soon Jack felt bold enough to meet Gil's questing tongue with his own; those gripping fingers pressed harder against the back of his skull, and another moan passed between them. Jack could not tell anymore whether it was Gil this time, or himself.

When at last the light elf broke away, Jack sucked in a great breath, his head dizzy and his lungs aching after the prolonged lack of sufficient air. Gil's fingers slackened their grip, but he tipped his forehead against Jack's brow, their panting breaths mingling.

"Damn," Jack gasped, breaking the silence.

Gil lifted his head to meet the other's stare, that almost-smile tilting his mouth, though somehow the amusement did not reach his eyes. "Forgive me," he uttered, even while his fingers worked at the back of Jack's skull as though they would pull him in once more. "I have wanted to know the taste of you for some time…"

Before Jack could answer, before he could wonder what he might say, another light elf slammed the door open and flitted across the room toward them. Gil immediately straightened away, and Jack turned his head to see that it was one of the gatekeepers to the City of Flowers, the one named Shin. If this light elf warrior had seen how close they were but moments ago, or noticed how reluctantly Gil's hand had finally left Jack's hair, he seemed too distracted to comment.

Gil picked up on that distraction as well. "What is it, Shin?"

"Lord Parsec has been attacked by the humans!" The other light elf announced without preamble.

"What?" Jack carefully turned over and sat up, only wincing a little at how the movement pulled at the new skin of his back. "Is he all right?"

"We don't know," Shin quickly shook his head. "But our messengers say he's been driven into Fire Mountain."

A sense of purpose, larger than any he'd experienced thus far, flared within his chest, and he tossed a meaningful glance in Gil's direction. The blue-toned light elf did not protest, did not remind Jack that he was still fevered, still healing, still recovering his strength. In fact, Gil said nothing at all. He only wordlessly pulled Jack to his feet, and even helped him into his armor. Lastly, Gil strung Jack's blade behind his own back; he then motioned Shin forth, and between them they lifted Jack from the floor, gliding out of the conference room, out of Fort Helencia, and into the night.