Compos Mentis
Cowboy Bebop belongs
to Sunrise and Bandai Entertainment.
Warnings: This fic has
Gren and Vicious in it. ^_^ That means there will be some shounen-ai or yaoi
overtones implied otherwise.
Radishface
*
"I'll send a woman up."
"It's up to you."
A pause.
"Although... I was looking forward to meeting you
myself."
*
Gren shuddered and put his cell phone away. It was the way
he said it. His voice was low, nothing more than a soft whisper in his throat,
a ghostlike remembrance of what a real voice should sound like. It was dead,
but alive, and soft, but not gentle, and rough, but not forceful. It commanded
but it didn't demand anything. There might have been a million people who could
sound like that or pretend to but to Gren, Vicious was the only one who was
that unique. He had that special quality.
I was looking forward
to meeting you myself.
He wanted and didn't want to see that ghost again. He
already had his photographs to torture him enough. He only had Vicious in one
picture, and even then, he wasn't looking into the camera when it was taken.
You could only see the faint outline of a nose, and a pair of lifeless, pale,
dry lips that didn't speak unless they had something to say. Gren knew that
Vicious thought about more things than he cared to voice, that there was always
something bothering him, and maybe, once, Vicious had smiled regularly, and
laughed.
He wanted to meet him personally. Lowly, insignificant Gren.
There were a million people out there who thought like him, loved like he did.
And Vicious wanted to meet him.
He couldn't be sentimental. There were just too many things
that could go wrong if he got emotionally wrapped up again-- but he was already
trapped. He was surrounded by his memories, living in his memories, and every
morning, when he woke up, he saw those pictures up on his wall, and it'd be
like a time machine-- transported back to a world of black and white and sepia
brown and crinkled edges and yellowed paper. And now, he was stuck in
standstill mode, replaying those words over and over again in his head, like a
broken record player, trying to figure out what they meant, trying to hope they
meant what he wanted them to mean, and knowing that in reality, it wasn't
anything like that.
I'm right above you.
Meet me on the tallest building.
The building closest to heaven, right?
*
Red for passion, orange for desire, yellow for jealousy.
And those were the colors that made up the Titan sky.
Blue for sorrow, purple for hate, silver for indifference.
And those were the colors that made up the Titan sky.
He smelled their piss and sweat and heard their derisive
barks of laughter to one another, their shouts of amusement. They weren't
saying anything and it didn't matter to him what they were talking about. The
light from their campfires didn't reach where he was-- he blocked out all the
light-- he absorbed it, and turned it into nothing. Anybody who came in close
contact with him would be frozen. This war was a respite for him, a temporary
sanctuary where he could fuel his anger and store it until the breaking point.
And sometimes it wasn't a respite. This was where he sat every night, looking
up at the reds and oranges and yellows vanish until the blues and purples and
silver specks dominated the sky. And usually, there would be a music box
twinkling softly, a person sitting next to him, a gentle smile overpowering his
deadness, and he would forget, for the moment, about everything. The darkness
would envelop him like a mother's arms and he'd lie there, seeing nothing,
hearing nothing but breathing and the music box, and for a while, he could even
be happy.
Happy.
He heard the noise coming from the camp get louder and the
laughter more barking until the men sounded like wild hyenas, noise of triumph
over their latest kill reaching into his mind. They'd tear at the flesh and
bloodify their mouths to get to the fresh meat, and all the while, laugh, and
laugh, like it was nothing, that it was natural to do so, that it was natural
for humans to do so, and not just
animals. They could eat each other and fight each other and claw at each other
and still smile through it all. Their eyes maniacal, they'd still smile. Their
mouths dripping blood, they would still smile.
A kill. Vicious
thought. A victim.
And the noises died, and Vicious was still left sitting on
the ground, the winds around him blowing dust into his face and he pulled the
turban cloth over his eyes and over his mouth. He knew what had happened, back
there in the savannah, in the tall, yellow grasses where the hyenas of men
laughed while they were killing, destroying something sacred and beautiful. And
if they did destroy it, kill it, it would better. Because Vicious knew that
he'd have to do it someday on his own, and nobody would stop him from doing so,
from taking that thing away from himself with his own hands--
"Sorry." A soft, gentle voice said, and he heard
the ground scrape as somebody sat down.
"Where were you?" He asked, cold, not caring, and
he tried to feel like he said. He wondered why he had asked. It made it seem
like he wanted to know, wanted to care.
Vicious could tell from the light that the campfires had
been doused and everybody had gone back into their tents. And Gren was here, as
usual, and they could pretend it was just the two of them, just the two of them
out here, under the air and the sky of Titan's blues, purples, and silvers.
There was a pause, stagnant.
"I was back at the camp."
He knew that. He had known that. So why did he ask?
"You see that?" Gren asked, pointing at the sky,
where the stars shone with all their brilliance, and Vicious looked, followed
an imaginary line from Gren's finger to the constellation he was pointing at.
And when he saw it, he didn't say anything. Because he knew. Gren knew
everything he said and didn't say, he could read him, he knew him, no matter
how hard he tried to hide away, create a wall, push him away, saying no, stay
away, you'll be hurt, go away... But he never left. He never left him. He still
came everyday, even though he was kicked and spat on and left with bruises
marring his pale skin, so delicate, so fragile...
"That's Andromeda. She was chained to a rock by the
ocean as a sacrifice to a sea-monster."
Gren took out the music box-- the skeletal music box, and
set it on the ground, winding the small handle and then letting it go. The
melody wrote itself as it played, deafening, and quiet, and melancholy, and
Vicious couldn't help but feel that it wasn't Julia's song anymore, it was his
song, it was Gren's song now. It was so frail, could be so easily snapped, and
broken. He wondered what it would be like to break the music box, watch the
parts fall out, separate now, and they wouldn't be able to be put back
together, broken, broken, pieces, falling onto the ground, detached.
"Then Peruses came and rescued her, even though no one
else would, because they were all too afraid."
There wasn't much light, just from the stars, since the
campfires were all gone. He could feel the wind blow gently in his face,
cooling the blood that welled from his lips, soothing the pain away from the
bruises he had, just barely. His face was upturned to the sky, but he knew that
Vicious wasn't there anymore, wasn't there listening to what he was saying. He
was living somewhere else, somewhere that Gren couldn't imagine, possibly get
into.
Then Vicious said, softly, "Does that make you Perseus,
then?"
There was a silence, broken only by the music box, and even
then, it wasn't broken. Gren stared up at the Andromeda, he couldn't bring
himself to look over. He could hear his own shallow breaths in the quiet, in
the darkness.
"Sometimes..."
Gren turned, and Vicious' hand reached out and brushed
against his cheek, over the bruise, and it hurt, but he didn't mind. He didn't
care. It was a different kind of pain.
"I feel like..."
Fingers slid into his hair, drawing him closer, like he was
going to--
"I feel..."
"You feel?"
"When I'm with you..."
And then--
When he pulled, back, their fingers were intertwined and
Gren was breathless and aching somewhere, because it was so sad, so miserable,
so crazy, and happy, and hopeless. And the light in Vicious' eyes had changed.
Predatory, hunting.
"When you're with me..." Gren whispered.
The music box faded away as the handle unwound to a stop.
*
"I thought we were comrades."
Vicious remained silent.
"I looked up to you."
There was nothing to say then. There was nothing to say now.
And even if he did want to say something, it'd be useless, drowned out in
passion, drowned out in everything else. He wouldn't be able to say anything.
He stared straight ahead, looking at Gren, eyes betraying nothing, the wall
behind them secure.
"I believed in
you."
He wanted to laugh at him, at his naivety, at his innocence,
ridicule for even thinking such a thing. His lips wouldn't form that laughter.
He wanted to believe that this was all lies, that he could kill him without
feeling anything, without remembering a sweet face smiling at him-- without
remembering that Gren was the only one who hadn't betrayed him so far like all
the others did. He wanted to kill traitors, torture them, make them feel what
he felt and feed the knowledge of the pain you suffered when you were left all
alone. You bled, you hurt, nobody came for you, nobody was there to help you up
or catch you when you fell. The stars laughed at you. The Space Lion and the
Andromeda laughed at you.
"There was nothing to believe in." He said. You were a fool for believing.
He looked into those azure eyes, and he saw the emotion
quivering there, spiraling out of control, and then something snapped.
Gren's finger tightened on the trigger of the gun pointed
right at his head, and just barely, he ducked out of the way. Then the box of
'titan opal' that was payment for the redeye was shot open, and the detonator
exploded, as pieces of cement went soaring through the air, showering all of
them up on the deck. The smoke cleared, and Gren stood, holding the gun again,
ready to fire.
Lin jumped in front of him, for the syndicate, for the
loyalty, for the honor. Vicious watched, uncompassionate, and watched as the
body went flying through the air and he watched it land on the ground, a puddle
of crimson blood surrounding his body. And then there was more gunfire-- this
time from a ship Vicious knew quite well. Spike was back.
He mounted his ship, tossing the bag of redeye into the
storage compartment nearby, and proceeded to chase Spike. He heard the other's
voice come faintly onto his intercom.
"Lin died for you." Angrily, gritted.
"No." He replied feeling the adrenaline rush
through his veins, knowing Spike didn't know any better than he did. "He
died for the honor. Don't you understand?!"
He felt and heard gunshots behind him, and he wondered why
he hadn't just let Gren kill him back on the building. He was already on the
building closest to the sky. Closest to heaven, right?
But he couldn't. He was already dead.
"Stay out of this, Gren." He heard himself murmur,
a warning. Stay out or you'll get hurt. You
can't break no matter how much I want to break you. You won't die no matter how
much I want you to. I want you to hate me so you won't feel anything when I
kill you. Hate me, hate me, like the rest of them. Hate me so when I'm dead you
won't feel anything. I don't deserve this. Ghosts don't deserve what you have
to offer me. Betray me so I won't feel anything when I kill you.
The missile tailed Gren's ship, hitting it and sending it
spiraling down, one thousand, two thousand feet down, an infinity down, where
eternity awaited. Vicious heard everything, heard the explosion of the missile,
heard the break, the crack, as something reached the breaking point and went
over.
And then he heard the music box, the melody, their melody, in the bag where the
redeye was, in the storage compartment, and it sang to him, like it had sang to
him millions of times before, so many years ago, but it seemed like it was just
yesterday. He could pretend he was on Titan again, sitting on the edge of the
cliff, Gren next to him, just sitting there, not speaking. His presence next to
him, a gentle smile, a soft voice...
That's Andromeda.
*click*
The music box stopped. It had reached its limit.
It had reached that breaking point.
*
It had been a mistake to ever go enlist in the war. It had
been a good mistake to go to Titan.
He remembered being drunk on the adrenaline, remembered the
cries of the people around him as they charged into the battlefield, shooting
other people to pieces and watching other people get killed. Their bloody
remains stayed on the field after the battles were over, and they'd rot in a
day, the putrid air of Titan doing more than flies and maggots ever could. And
all that would remain of them would be their skulls and bones and perhaps a
scrap of cloth or two. He was glad he never knew anybody well. He wasn't sad
when they died. He didn't feel anything except the adrenaline fading away after
the battles, and then he'd be tired. But he didn't sleep.
There were cliffs everywhere on Titan. The rocky formation
of the earth gave way to soaring plains and towering plateaus and mountains,
and there always seemed to be one of those no matter where they camped, as if
everywhere he and Vicious went, there'd be a place just for them. And when the
music box played, it was their song. He felt ordinary, like a nobody, when he
was alone, by himself. He was just another one of those people who thought the
same and talked the same and walked the same and loved the same way as anybody.
He never got his chance to shine on his own, to be special to somebody real.
Vicious didn't count. Vicious was a ghost.
But that was better.
His face was bloodied and his skin bruised the next battle
after that night. He had sat, his legs dangling over the edge of the same cliff,
not scared, not caring if it should suddenly break and send him plummeting
miles and miles down. He'd get to fly before he was killed, at least. And he
wasn't scared if somebody came behind him and pushed him off. They'd do
something like that, he was sure. But if he were to die, at least he'd lived.
It wouldn't happen again, he was sure. If he were to fall, the wind whipping in
his face, cold against his bruises and the dried blood, somebody would be at
the bottom, already dead, ready to catch him. He'd have to pay for his
happiness. Death would knock on his door. He hadn't come yet.
He heard the thunder of footsteps, the steel-toed boots
clamping down heavily on the ground, the men shouting with excitement as they
marched off again, and he felt the adrenaline come again. He needed to fight.
That was what he was here for.
His hands pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket, and
his hands, shakingly, on the lighter, snapped the switch over and over again,
the oil leaking from the thing and running all over his hands. If he lit it
now, the oil would catch on fire and then his hands would burn. Sinful, sinful,
hands. He shouldn't be here. He should be running off, sprinting off, to get
killed, to get pumped full of bloody holes.
"Move out!" He heard a rough voice say, not to
him, yet to him. Gren didn't pay any attention. He wasn't missed. He wouldn't
be missed.
"Gren." He heard a familiar voice murmur, and his
hands stopped, the cigarette unlit, still in his mouth.
He didn't say anything. The oil was running all over his
hands. He wanted to burn them.
"Move out, Gren." Vicious said, softly. And then
he was gone.
I want to go back to
Titan.
Gren smiled, bitterly. He was so tired, of himself, of his
life, of the living in the memories.
He wondered what the chances were he'd crash on that very
same rocky edge, amidst the brown and red dust and the yellow and orange skies
during the day and the blue and purple ones at night. And he wondered if the
Andromeda would watch over him. He wondered if any of the constellations would
be present, if they'd shine with the brilliance they had three years ago. Maybe
they would. Maybe they wouldn't. It seemed like such a long, long, time ago,
even though when he thought about it, it was only yesterday.
To relive that world of black and white and sepia brown...
To relive the stargazing.
There was nothing to
believe in.
Yes, there was, he thought, eyes drifting shut.
There was...
*
- owari -