Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, nor do I know who does. But, if I did, I'd BUY the titles so I DIDN'T HAVE TO WRITE THIS!!!
The scene toward the end involves a song and routine trademarked by the good people who own the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." I neither created the song or routine and only using them in the fic to set a sort of homage. Thank you for making that movie, whoever you are. ^-^
All originals characters, settings, and situations are copyrighted and owned by me, so please don't steal them!!! Thank you ^-^
Author: A. Mused
Title: 'This 1920 NeverLand'
Warnings: original characters; dream sequences; politics - both internal and external;
bisexuality (yet no yaoi…is this blasphemy? I think not); pasts of certain characters;
READ THIS PLEASE: If you are still uncomfortable or uneasy in any way with the September 11th attacks, I heavily encourage you to not read this fic as it contains themes of violence and militarism, acts of terrorism, and threats of genocide. So please don't get offended. What happened was in no way inspiration to me.
Pairings: none presently (wow. can you believe it? we could do the implied ones…lets!)
HY+RD, DM+HS, TB+OC, QRW+OC, CW+OC, CB+OC
Point of View: Trowa Barton
003: Three
Dreams never die. They can't. It must, therefore be, insufferable to be a dream.
But I wouldn't know. Mine are tormenting. I wish them all but happiness and quick death. That makes me sound angry. Am I?
I don't remember.
It wasn't a second wave of amnesia. New revelations caused my mind to spin and my then silent heart to scream. I had almost known. Now the past was forever lost like some treasure sunken to the bottom of the abusive underwater currents.
Why should I care? The past didn't matter when I was a soldier, it shouldn't matter now. But does one ever shake that kind of identity? If not, is then the identity forgotten, only to be dutifully reminded by dark dreams?
I've been this way so long. My thoughts have become bees swarming through my head, unable to be quieted, unable to be stopped. They bite and sting and then lie still, dragging me toward a madness I'd never known otherwise.
It was as if a key inside my heart had been turned, and the Pandora's box within spilled out, fueling and poisoning my mind. I can't control what I used to.
I've become helpless because of tragedy. My dreams are obedient reminders.
She lies on the bed, quite still. Her eyes and lips remain open, but no movement
passes between them.
Red. It's everywhere. On the bed. On the walls and the floors. On her. Everywhere the drying red.
The picture fades to black and white shadows. She's still alive. Standing her ground, waiting to die. She's not afraid of her capture's face, now twisted into Death's features. Soulless eyes. Indiscriminate of who to take, who to kill.
I hate that face with every cell I command, and the one it possesses. I desire that I could too move in that place, at that time, but I'm trapped behind the mirror glass as a voiceless witness.
I watch the bullets desert the gun, sprinting across air and space and time to dive in the sea of flesh and rip and sear through that which the flesh incases. Destroying the life inside.
I'm the prisoner of this dream. Kept and tormented with it's visions.
I'm shattered from what I used to be. Lifeless was what I was.
Now I live animated, and insane.
______________________________________________________________________________
I always wake at 3:33 33 AM. The dream works that way. I always wake with the sweat on my skin and on my sheets, no matter how cold or hot it is.
I always tear off the sheets and fall to the floor, resting my forehead and forearms on the cool surface. My mouth sucks in the air and dust, I cough and stumble outside my door, into the night.
It'd just snowed, so it was a frigid place to be without any sun of any kind. I let gravity take my body, let it pull me to the ground. The snow melts under my warm skin,
I drink the air like a dying fish. I roll on my back, and my breathing slows as I stare at the sky.
Cloudless sky. Blue. All stars with a giant, round white eye. The stars that have lived in that sky before I was even a possibility of a creation. The same stars and the same moon that have stared at me throughout my life. Staring back. Being silent.
"Be like us," they whispered to me in my cradle. That's all they ever said. Now they say nothing that my ears can collect.
I arch my back toward my hips and roll into a sitting position with ease. I ran a hand through my short hair. I was getting cold, like the night.
I walked back into the house and turned on some lights. From there, it didn't take me long to decide what to do.
I walked to the bathroom, picked out a container, popped and swallowed two white pills. I pulled on a shirt, socks, and shoes. I was already wearing pajama bottoms, so no worry there. I grabbed my jacket and walked out the door while fitting it onto my torso.
I was in my car and at the cemetery in minutes.
I knew it was sick, but it seemed like here was the center of the world. Here was were peace really existed. The place where Catherine is buried.
It happened a year ago, her death. She'd been kidnapped two years before and was now lying in the ground. I'd spent those two years looking for her while taking a leave of absence from the circus. But I'd then returned to the circus, not as a performer, but just as a roadie. That's where I've been the past year.
Catherine's killer was caught after the act, tried, convicted, and suicided. But still I felt unstable. Like her ghost isn't in the ground with her body, but it isn't in the sky either. Is she then haunting me?
I return to this place maybe because it's hollowed ground, and ghosts can't tread here. Meaning my ghosts are then detached from me.
The marker's under a tree. An old cypress with barren branches. If I could wish the spirit anywhere it'd be sleeping in that old wood, dreaming of beautiful things.
I sat on the ground before the marker. Reading her birth date, death date, name, all engraved in stone.
I closed my eyes, remembering the hospital. Catherine had been sick before her kidnapping and needed blood. Specifically her type. I'd been the first to be tested.
I was an exact match. It pains me to remember when the doctor told me it was so close that I took a DNA test and turned out to be her biological brother. But I never got to share that with her. She was taken from the hospital the one night I had gone back to the circus. The same night I was told before I left. Catherine had been sleeping.
She was last seen dead in the hotel room where they found her body with three bullet holes.
I couldn't believe I had been unable to find her.
I sat there, just reliving all the memories too painful to think of anywhere else. Pain. It used to be a thing I could shut out. But now my heart had grown so full of it and other emotions that it's dammed walls burst with little hope of repair.
I sat there until the sun started coming over the hills. Even then I didn't want to go back. The rational side of me knew it would be much more convenient to go back now, but the less rational side hooked it's fingers into the ground and demanded stay. This war inside of me had been playing for too long. I'd given it sway and become this unpredictable force.
Controlled now, but only with foreign substance.
"Are you waiting for someone?"
My eyes slid open and my head turned. A figure was standing before the risen sun. A girl.
She sat down beside me and stared straight at me. She had green eyes. An unmistakable glassy green color that tugged at me from some long time ago. She had child-like features and crimped light brown hair with random blonde streaks. And she had a perfect mouth. No other way to describe it. Even though she was in a dark blue winter coat and black pants, I couldn't help but think she'd dropped from some heaven.
"Are you waiting for someone?" she repeated.
I hadn't really realized I was staring. When I didn't reply, she went on.
"You look like you're waiting for that person in the ground to push through the dirt and come up to see you. Or you're waiting to die so you could see them again."
I felt myself becoming quite tired of her company.
"Either way, you're waiting." she shrugged.
I didn't say anything, as it was a possibility. The girl was bent on being social, so she continued with her soliloquy.
"She was a relative of yours. Immediate family? She died very young. About age
22. You don't look much older than that. Were you her brother?" she smiled. "Her twin?"
I sighed through my nose.
"Just her brother."
"So you can speak. That's good to know."
"How did you know all that?" I asked. I didn't owe her any reply, but at the moment, I'd been feeling lonely.
"Gut reaction. But more of guessing if you look at it logically. How did she die?"
I didn't reply for a few minutes, leading into an awkward silence.
The girl squinted her eyes at the grave.
"She died violently, that's why you're here. But she's been avenged, that's why
you're not angry."
She pulled her legs to her chest and rested her head on her knees, tilting her chin
toward me.
"You seem to have a lot of answers for questions I never asked." I told her.
"You're not the type who asks a lot of questions, but expects a lot of answers."
I turned to look at her. She smiled and pulled up her head.
"I'm Mecha." she told me and reached out her hand. I took it and gave one firm shake, then released.
"Trowa."
"No last name?"
"I don't like questions, but answers."
She smiled and held her head.
"Serves me right for judging people so quickly."
"I didn't say you were wrong."
She slid her eyes up to look at me. There was definitely something familiar about them.
"I'm sorry about your sister. I wish there was something I could do, could have done." Her face took on a very concerned look, like this whole graveyard was her fault.
"Unless you can resurrect her, there's nothing you can do." I told her as I stood up. "What are you doing here?"
I offered her my hand. She took it and stood.
"I was just passing by and I saw this place. I felt compelled to come in, as we walk on the dead all the time and never appreciate what they've done for us." her face took on that look again, but then she smiled, "I suppose I felt guilty."
I smiled quietly myself.
"It's common here."
I glanced at the sun as Mecha wrapped her arms around herself.
"You should go. The living will miss you." she told me with a slight smile, then walked away.
I watched her walk out of the gate and move to the left. I narrowed my eyes.
"You're one to hate good-byes, aren't you?" I whispered.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
"Trowa, if we're going to catch the show, we have to go NOW." Manager yelled at me from outside my door.
I grabbed my jacket and opened the door. Manager stood there, looking quite flustered. He was dressed in a business suit, different from his usual Ring-Master wear.
"We'll take your car." he told me. I didn't even ask for an explanation about his car. It was always breaking down somewhere for some reason.
As I walked in front of him I heard the words 'punk kid' muttered behind my back.
When we hit the city, Manager pulled out a flyer with directions written on the back.
"Turn left here."
As I spun the wheel, I felt compelled to say what had been hanging over out heads since Manager asked me to accompany him to watch a performer audition.
"I'm not going back in the show." I stated firmly.
"It isn't my idea. The good doctor suggested you get back into doing your act -"
"You want it to be Catherine's act."
"That performance was one of our best attractions."
"Catherine was one of your best attractions."
"WATCH OUT FOR THAT -"
I swerved the car with little difficulty and pulled back into my lane as the car I almost hit blared it's horn.
"This is what I'm talking about! You've got to get your mind back on what's happening now, not what happened in the past. Catherine's been dead for over a year, Trowa! You need to move on!"
"And by replacing her in our act I'm supposed to move on?"
"Trowa, we all suffered deeply when she died. I practically raised her. For me it was like losing a daughter."
"Then we both lost a family member."
"Turn right at this light. All I'm saying is that it's a good idea for you to get back into the act."
I relented.
"If I'm going back, I'm going back solo."
A few minutes passed before Manager replied.
"Alright. You can do the lion taming act. Then I'll put Jackson in with the new girl in the knife-throwing act."
"Then I'm just dropping you off."
"No, you're coming inside."
"If I'm not performing with her, why should I see her?"
"Because you're a good judge of people."
Getting a compliment from Manager is quite rare, especially for me, so I reveled in the small victory while he directed me to the theater.
I pulled into the parking lot near our destination, then turned off the car and got out. Manager gave me a hard look after he shut his door.
"On the way back, I'm driving." he told me.
I put the keys in my pocket and followed him to the theater.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
The first thing I noticed when we got to the theater is that we weren't going to the theater. Passing it by a few blocks, we stopped in front of a rather run-down looking building.
"This is it." Manager stated. I said nothing.
He knocked on the double doors in front, and a voice came from inside.
"Go around to the alleyway door to your left."
Manager said thanked him and went to the alleyway. True enough, there was a metal door on the brick wall.
Manager knocked on the door and a small window slid open toward the top of the door.
"You're late." the man inside the door said. "She's on in a few minutes."
The window slid shut and the door opened into a dark hallway. Manager drew breath and walked inside. The man was in a pinstriped business suit with dark, gelled-back hair. He was a little shorter than I was, and watched me particularly as I walked in.
A second door was opened into a nightclub.
For a back alley entrance, it was pretty posh. There were red curtains with gold trim on the wall. Palm trees with stringed lights stood next to brass colored banisters trailing along the rim of the room. There was a bar to my right, and tables with white cloths draped over them that had chairs that matched the colors of the drapes organized along the three levels of the room. There were candles on the tables, but other than that, the main source of light was coming off the bar on the first level. You could tell there was a stage at the far end of the room with a curtain that matched that of the walls.
Manager lead me to a table reserved right at the front of the dark stage.
Taking our seats, a waiter came up to us.
"Rum. No ice." Manager said.
"Nothing for me." I told the man.
Manager nodded his head toward me.
"He'll have brandy."
I looked at Manager while the waiter went off to get the drinks.
"You're of legal age." he told me.
"I know, but I don't think it's going to help our performer if we're both drunk."
Giving off that face of he hadn't thought of that, Manager sort of slumped in his chair.
"I'm paying, so I don't want to hear anymore about it." he muttered.
I took the time waiting for out drinks to look around. The considerably wealthy were well represented with diamonds and fur, and the more tasteful had more original displays of trend. And the trend recently was very old, as it came from hundreds of years ago. But history does have a way of repeating itself, as it's well known.
The drinks came, and Manager practically swallowed his in a single gulp.
I sipped mine carefully, as I was never to fond of brandy.
A voice came over a loud speaker.
"Ladies and gentleman. We are proud to present, Fallen and the Crowes."
There was considerable clapping, plus whistling and cheering from younger men rushing to the stage.
The curtains skimmed apart, and there was a dark figure on the stage.
"You had plenty 'a money, in 1922." the female sang with a lush tone.
A spotlight flashed on a girl standing the stage. She had a strapless, black fitted dress with a deep slit all the way to the top of her right thigh, where a small black belt with a silver buckle circled. She had black gloves that reached a little past her elbows, black four-inch high-heels, and a black five-inch rimmed fedora that covered her long, crimped light brown hair. Her eyes were framed with long lashes and dark eye-shadow, and her lips dyed bright red.
She stood with her hands on her hips as she gave off a small 'hn," letting her lip curl at one end.
"You let other women make a fool of you." she sang as the music started up in the back round and the stage lights all flashed on. She turned to her right and began walking in that direction. Within two steps, she pointed out into the audience on the word 'fool,' and drew her left leg up at the same time. Then continued walking to the right.
"Why don't ya do right?" She got to the stage wall and slid down on her back with her arms straight down, then slid back up. "Like some other men do?"
"Get outta here - " she'd gotten up to some man standing too close to the stage and kicked his chest, forcing him back into his chair, "get me some money, too."
The base plucked along with her steps toward left stage, the piano strummed along the melody, and the drums kept the rhythmic beat.
"Now if you had prepared - twenty years ago." she slid her shoe up the back of her right calf on 'years,' then continued to walk toward the left of the stage, not missing a beat, "You wouldn't be a wanderin' now from - door to door."
She made a full turn while keeping her shoulders pulsing with the beat, her hands back on her hips.
"Why don't ya do right?" she belted as she pushed another man too close to the stage down into his chair with her hand, "like some other men do?" she sang the last verse in a softening whisper, ending in sort of a pout.
She walked down some stairs on the left side of the stage and went straight for us.
She got up to Manager and put her hands on his shoulders, while he didn't take his eyes off her.
"Get outta here -" Her arms slid down his chest, them moved back up, "Get me some money, too." she walked away from him, letting her right hand trace his jawbone as she stepped away with the beat of the music.
Then she got to me. She straddled my left leg and leaned close into my face, her arms over my shoulder.
"Get outta here -" she pushed my chest and stood up, "get me some money, too." she crooned as she moved away from me.
"Why don't ya do right?" she belted. He mouth was open to the point where you could see everyone of her bone-white teeth, red tongue, and throat on her last note.
"Like some other men…" She was up against the stage by her back, staring me right in the eyes.
"Do…" she crooned as she walked back up the right stage steps, back onstage, where she stood in the direct middle.
Then drum gave off a finishing beat as the curtains flowed back together and shut, with all the lights cutting when the curtains met.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
"I've seen that routine before." Manager stated as soon as we we're allowed in the girl's dressing room.
"I'm not very original." she told us as she turned.
She was sitting at her mirror, still in costume, when her eyes wandered to me.
Same green color, same familiar pull.
"Hello again." she said softly.
Manager glanced between us for a moment, then gave me the look of 'you two have already met?"
I nodded to Manager and returned my gaze to Mecha.
"Well, then, I suppose you'd like a resume?" she asked Manager.
"Y-"
"A demonstration would be more fitting." I quickly said, interrupting Manager.
"Very well." she replied softly.
She opened a drawer and pulled out a letter opener.
"If you'd please stand against the door, Trowa."
I moved backward, all the while keeping eye contact, until I was right up against the wood door. I crossed my arms. It'd give her a better chance of not hitting me.
She realized this and looked somewhat displeased, but she drew up her arm and threw the letter opener into the air.
It landed so close to my head that it touched my left ear.
Manager seemed impressed.
"If I could just have your resume, then, I think we've got a place for you." Manager added with a smile and shook her hand.
She returned the grin, and turned to me.
"Will you be in the act with me?"
I shook my head then turned to Manager.
"I'm just here as a judge." I added with a slight smirk that made him agitated.
"I see." she didn't let on she was disappointed, but it wasn't hard to tell she was.
"Fallen. That's your stage name, right?"
She smiled widely.
"I can't tell just anyone who I am. I might get killed."
Manager rolled his eyes and looked to me as if to say 'not another one."
Author's note: Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been busy. And when I wasn't busy, I was lazy. Sorry. Chapter 3 (Quatre's first bit!) coming soon!
The scene toward the end involves a song and routine trademarked by the good people who own the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." I neither created the song or routine and only using them in the fic to set a sort of homage. Thank you for making that movie, whoever you are. ^-^
All originals characters, settings, and situations are copyrighted and owned by me, so please don't steal them!!! Thank you ^-^
Author: A. Mused
Title: 'This 1920 NeverLand'
Warnings: original characters; dream sequences; politics - both internal and external;
bisexuality (yet no yaoi…is this blasphemy? I think not); pasts of certain characters;
READ THIS PLEASE: If you are still uncomfortable or uneasy in any way with the September 11th attacks, I heavily encourage you to not read this fic as it contains themes of violence and militarism, acts of terrorism, and threats of genocide. So please don't get offended. What happened was in no way inspiration to me.
Pairings: none presently (wow. can you believe it? we could do the implied ones…lets!)
HY+RD, DM+HS, TB+OC, QRW+OC, CW+OC, CB+OC
Point of View: Trowa Barton
003: Three
Dreams never die. They can't. It must, therefore be, insufferable to be a dream.
But I wouldn't know. Mine are tormenting. I wish them all but happiness and quick death. That makes me sound angry. Am I?
I don't remember.
It wasn't a second wave of amnesia. New revelations caused my mind to spin and my then silent heart to scream. I had almost known. Now the past was forever lost like some treasure sunken to the bottom of the abusive underwater currents.
Why should I care? The past didn't matter when I was a soldier, it shouldn't matter now. But does one ever shake that kind of identity? If not, is then the identity forgotten, only to be dutifully reminded by dark dreams?
I've been this way so long. My thoughts have become bees swarming through my head, unable to be quieted, unable to be stopped. They bite and sting and then lie still, dragging me toward a madness I'd never known otherwise.
It was as if a key inside my heart had been turned, and the Pandora's box within spilled out, fueling and poisoning my mind. I can't control what I used to.
I've become helpless because of tragedy. My dreams are obedient reminders.
She lies on the bed, quite still. Her eyes and lips remain open, but no movement
passes between them.
Red. It's everywhere. On the bed. On the walls and the floors. On her. Everywhere the drying red.
The picture fades to black and white shadows. She's still alive. Standing her ground, waiting to die. She's not afraid of her capture's face, now twisted into Death's features. Soulless eyes. Indiscriminate of who to take, who to kill.
I hate that face with every cell I command, and the one it possesses. I desire that I could too move in that place, at that time, but I'm trapped behind the mirror glass as a voiceless witness.
I watch the bullets desert the gun, sprinting across air and space and time to dive in the sea of flesh and rip and sear through that which the flesh incases. Destroying the life inside.
I'm the prisoner of this dream. Kept and tormented with it's visions.
I'm shattered from what I used to be. Lifeless was what I was.
Now I live animated, and insane.
______________________________________________________________________________
I always wake at 3:33 33 AM. The dream works that way. I always wake with the sweat on my skin and on my sheets, no matter how cold or hot it is.
I always tear off the sheets and fall to the floor, resting my forehead and forearms on the cool surface. My mouth sucks in the air and dust, I cough and stumble outside my door, into the night.
It'd just snowed, so it was a frigid place to be without any sun of any kind. I let gravity take my body, let it pull me to the ground. The snow melts under my warm skin,
I drink the air like a dying fish. I roll on my back, and my breathing slows as I stare at the sky.
Cloudless sky. Blue. All stars with a giant, round white eye. The stars that have lived in that sky before I was even a possibility of a creation. The same stars and the same moon that have stared at me throughout my life. Staring back. Being silent.
"Be like us," they whispered to me in my cradle. That's all they ever said. Now they say nothing that my ears can collect.
I arch my back toward my hips and roll into a sitting position with ease. I ran a hand through my short hair. I was getting cold, like the night.
I walked back into the house and turned on some lights. From there, it didn't take me long to decide what to do.
I walked to the bathroom, picked out a container, popped and swallowed two white pills. I pulled on a shirt, socks, and shoes. I was already wearing pajama bottoms, so no worry there. I grabbed my jacket and walked out the door while fitting it onto my torso.
I was in my car and at the cemetery in minutes.
I knew it was sick, but it seemed like here was the center of the world. Here was were peace really existed. The place where Catherine is buried.
It happened a year ago, her death. She'd been kidnapped two years before and was now lying in the ground. I'd spent those two years looking for her while taking a leave of absence from the circus. But I'd then returned to the circus, not as a performer, but just as a roadie. That's where I've been the past year.
Catherine's killer was caught after the act, tried, convicted, and suicided. But still I felt unstable. Like her ghost isn't in the ground with her body, but it isn't in the sky either. Is she then haunting me?
I return to this place maybe because it's hollowed ground, and ghosts can't tread here. Meaning my ghosts are then detached from me.
The marker's under a tree. An old cypress with barren branches. If I could wish the spirit anywhere it'd be sleeping in that old wood, dreaming of beautiful things.
I sat on the ground before the marker. Reading her birth date, death date, name, all engraved in stone.
I closed my eyes, remembering the hospital. Catherine had been sick before her kidnapping and needed blood. Specifically her type. I'd been the first to be tested.
I was an exact match. It pains me to remember when the doctor told me it was so close that I took a DNA test and turned out to be her biological brother. But I never got to share that with her. She was taken from the hospital the one night I had gone back to the circus. The same night I was told before I left. Catherine had been sleeping.
She was last seen dead in the hotel room where they found her body with three bullet holes.
I couldn't believe I had been unable to find her.
I sat there, just reliving all the memories too painful to think of anywhere else. Pain. It used to be a thing I could shut out. But now my heart had grown so full of it and other emotions that it's dammed walls burst with little hope of repair.
I sat there until the sun started coming over the hills. Even then I didn't want to go back. The rational side of me knew it would be much more convenient to go back now, but the less rational side hooked it's fingers into the ground and demanded stay. This war inside of me had been playing for too long. I'd given it sway and become this unpredictable force.
Controlled now, but only with foreign substance.
"Are you waiting for someone?"
My eyes slid open and my head turned. A figure was standing before the risen sun. A girl.
She sat down beside me and stared straight at me. She had green eyes. An unmistakable glassy green color that tugged at me from some long time ago. She had child-like features and crimped light brown hair with random blonde streaks. And she had a perfect mouth. No other way to describe it. Even though she was in a dark blue winter coat and black pants, I couldn't help but think she'd dropped from some heaven.
"Are you waiting for someone?" she repeated.
I hadn't really realized I was staring. When I didn't reply, she went on.
"You look like you're waiting for that person in the ground to push through the dirt and come up to see you. Or you're waiting to die so you could see them again."
I felt myself becoming quite tired of her company.
"Either way, you're waiting." she shrugged.
I didn't say anything, as it was a possibility. The girl was bent on being social, so she continued with her soliloquy.
"She was a relative of yours. Immediate family? She died very young. About age
22. You don't look much older than that. Were you her brother?" she smiled. "Her twin?"
I sighed through my nose.
"Just her brother."
"So you can speak. That's good to know."
"How did you know all that?" I asked. I didn't owe her any reply, but at the moment, I'd been feeling lonely.
"Gut reaction. But more of guessing if you look at it logically. How did she die?"
I didn't reply for a few minutes, leading into an awkward silence.
The girl squinted her eyes at the grave.
"She died violently, that's why you're here. But she's been avenged, that's why
you're not angry."
She pulled her legs to her chest and rested her head on her knees, tilting her chin
toward me.
"You seem to have a lot of answers for questions I never asked." I told her.
"You're not the type who asks a lot of questions, but expects a lot of answers."
I turned to look at her. She smiled and pulled up her head.
"I'm Mecha." she told me and reached out her hand. I took it and gave one firm shake, then released.
"Trowa."
"No last name?"
"I don't like questions, but answers."
She smiled and held her head.
"Serves me right for judging people so quickly."
"I didn't say you were wrong."
She slid her eyes up to look at me. There was definitely something familiar about them.
"I'm sorry about your sister. I wish there was something I could do, could have done." Her face took on a very concerned look, like this whole graveyard was her fault.
"Unless you can resurrect her, there's nothing you can do." I told her as I stood up. "What are you doing here?"
I offered her my hand. She took it and stood.
"I was just passing by and I saw this place. I felt compelled to come in, as we walk on the dead all the time and never appreciate what they've done for us." her face took on that look again, but then she smiled, "I suppose I felt guilty."
I smiled quietly myself.
"It's common here."
I glanced at the sun as Mecha wrapped her arms around herself.
"You should go. The living will miss you." she told me with a slight smile, then walked away.
I watched her walk out of the gate and move to the left. I narrowed my eyes.
"You're one to hate good-byes, aren't you?" I whispered.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
"Trowa, if we're going to catch the show, we have to go NOW." Manager yelled at me from outside my door.
I grabbed my jacket and opened the door. Manager stood there, looking quite flustered. He was dressed in a business suit, different from his usual Ring-Master wear.
"We'll take your car." he told me. I didn't even ask for an explanation about his car. It was always breaking down somewhere for some reason.
As I walked in front of him I heard the words 'punk kid' muttered behind my back.
When we hit the city, Manager pulled out a flyer with directions written on the back.
"Turn left here."
As I spun the wheel, I felt compelled to say what had been hanging over out heads since Manager asked me to accompany him to watch a performer audition.
"I'm not going back in the show." I stated firmly.
"It isn't my idea. The good doctor suggested you get back into doing your act -"
"You want it to be Catherine's act."
"That performance was one of our best attractions."
"Catherine was one of your best attractions."
"WATCH OUT FOR THAT -"
I swerved the car with little difficulty and pulled back into my lane as the car I almost hit blared it's horn.
"This is what I'm talking about! You've got to get your mind back on what's happening now, not what happened in the past. Catherine's been dead for over a year, Trowa! You need to move on!"
"And by replacing her in our act I'm supposed to move on?"
"Trowa, we all suffered deeply when she died. I practically raised her. For me it was like losing a daughter."
"Then we both lost a family member."
"Turn right at this light. All I'm saying is that it's a good idea for you to get back into the act."
I relented.
"If I'm going back, I'm going back solo."
A few minutes passed before Manager replied.
"Alright. You can do the lion taming act. Then I'll put Jackson in with the new girl in the knife-throwing act."
"Then I'm just dropping you off."
"No, you're coming inside."
"If I'm not performing with her, why should I see her?"
"Because you're a good judge of people."
Getting a compliment from Manager is quite rare, especially for me, so I reveled in the small victory while he directed me to the theater.
I pulled into the parking lot near our destination, then turned off the car and got out. Manager gave me a hard look after he shut his door.
"On the way back, I'm driving." he told me.
I put the keys in my pocket and followed him to the theater.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
The first thing I noticed when we got to the theater is that we weren't going to the theater. Passing it by a few blocks, we stopped in front of a rather run-down looking building.
"This is it." Manager stated. I said nothing.
He knocked on the double doors in front, and a voice came from inside.
"Go around to the alleyway door to your left."
Manager said thanked him and went to the alleyway. True enough, there was a metal door on the brick wall.
Manager knocked on the door and a small window slid open toward the top of the door.
"You're late." the man inside the door said. "She's on in a few minutes."
The window slid shut and the door opened into a dark hallway. Manager drew breath and walked inside. The man was in a pinstriped business suit with dark, gelled-back hair. He was a little shorter than I was, and watched me particularly as I walked in.
A second door was opened into a nightclub.
For a back alley entrance, it was pretty posh. There were red curtains with gold trim on the wall. Palm trees with stringed lights stood next to brass colored banisters trailing along the rim of the room. There was a bar to my right, and tables with white cloths draped over them that had chairs that matched the colors of the drapes organized along the three levels of the room. There were candles on the tables, but other than that, the main source of light was coming off the bar on the first level. You could tell there was a stage at the far end of the room with a curtain that matched that of the walls.
Manager lead me to a table reserved right at the front of the dark stage.
Taking our seats, a waiter came up to us.
"Rum. No ice." Manager said.
"Nothing for me." I told the man.
Manager nodded his head toward me.
"He'll have brandy."
I looked at Manager while the waiter went off to get the drinks.
"You're of legal age." he told me.
"I know, but I don't think it's going to help our performer if we're both drunk."
Giving off that face of he hadn't thought of that, Manager sort of slumped in his chair.
"I'm paying, so I don't want to hear anymore about it." he muttered.
I took the time waiting for out drinks to look around. The considerably wealthy were well represented with diamonds and fur, and the more tasteful had more original displays of trend. And the trend recently was very old, as it came from hundreds of years ago. But history does have a way of repeating itself, as it's well known.
The drinks came, and Manager practically swallowed his in a single gulp.
I sipped mine carefully, as I was never to fond of brandy.
A voice came over a loud speaker.
"Ladies and gentleman. We are proud to present, Fallen and the Crowes."
There was considerable clapping, plus whistling and cheering from younger men rushing to the stage.
The curtains skimmed apart, and there was a dark figure on the stage.
"You had plenty 'a money, in 1922." the female sang with a lush tone.
A spotlight flashed on a girl standing the stage. She had a strapless, black fitted dress with a deep slit all the way to the top of her right thigh, where a small black belt with a silver buckle circled. She had black gloves that reached a little past her elbows, black four-inch high-heels, and a black five-inch rimmed fedora that covered her long, crimped light brown hair. Her eyes were framed with long lashes and dark eye-shadow, and her lips dyed bright red.
She stood with her hands on her hips as she gave off a small 'hn," letting her lip curl at one end.
"You let other women make a fool of you." she sang as the music started up in the back round and the stage lights all flashed on. She turned to her right and began walking in that direction. Within two steps, she pointed out into the audience on the word 'fool,' and drew her left leg up at the same time. Then continued walking to the right.
"Why don't ya do right?" She got to the stage wall and slid down on her back with her arms straight down, then slid back up. "Like some other men do?"
"Get outta here - " she'd gotten up to some man standing too close to the stage and kicked his chest, forcing him back into his chair, "get me some money, too."
The base plucked along with her steps toward left stage, the piano strummed along the melody, and the drums kept the rhythmic beat.
"Now if you had prepared - twenty years ago." she slid her shoe up the back of her right calf on 'years,' then continued to walk toward the left of the stage, not missing a beat, "You wouldn't be a wanderin' now from - door to door."
She made a full turn while keeping her shoulders pulsing with the beat, her hands back on her hips.
"Why don't ya do right?" she belted as she pushed another man too close to the stage down into his chair with her hand, "like some other men do?" she sang the last verse in a softening whisper, ending in sort of a pout.
She walked down some stairs on the left side of the stage and went straight for us.
She got up to Manager and put her hands on his shoulders, while he didn't take his eyes off her.
"Get outta here -" Her arms slid down his chest, them moved back up, "Get me some money, too." she walked away from him, letting her right hand trace his jawbone as she stepped away with the beat of the music.
Then she got to me. She straddled my left leg and leaned close into my face, her arms over my shoulder.
"Get outta here -" she pushed my chest and stood up, "get me some money, too." she crooned as she moved away from me.
"Why don't ya do right?" she belted. He mouth was open to the point where you could see everyone of her bone-white teeth, red tongue, and throat on her last note.
"Like some other men…" She was up against the stage by her back, staring me right in the eyes.
"Do…" she crooned as she walked back up the right stage steps, back onstage, where she stood in the direct middle.
Then drum gave off a finishing beat as the curtains flowed back together and shut, with all the lights cutting when the curtains met.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
"I've seen that routine before." Manager stated as soon as we we're allowed in the girl's dressing room.
"I'm not very original." she told us as she turned.
She was sitting at her mirror, still in costume, when her eyes wandered to me.
Same green color, same familiar pull.
"Hello again." she said softly.
Manager glanced between us for a moment, then gave me the look of 'you two have already met?"
I nodded to Manager and returned my gaze to Mecha.
"Well, then, I suppose you'd like a resume?" she asked Manager.
"Y-"
"A demonstration would be more fitting." I quickly said, interrupting Manager.
"Very well." she replied softly.
She opened a drawer and pulled out a letter opener.
"If you'd please stand against the door, Trowa."
I moved backward, all the while keeping eye contact, until I was right up against the wood door. I crossed my arms. It'd give her a better chance of not hitting me.
She realized this and looked somewhat displeased, but she drew up her arm and threw the letter opener into the air.
It landed so close to my head that it touched my left ear.
Manager seemed impressed.
"If I could just have your resume, then, I think we've got a place for you." Manager added with a smile and shook her hand.
She returned the grin, and turned to me.
"Will you be in the act with me?"
I shook my head then turned to Manager.
"I'm just here as a judge." I added with a slight smirk that made him agitated.
"I see." she didn't let on she was disappointed, but it wasn't hard to tell she was.
"Fallen. That's your stage name, right?"
She smiled widely.
"I can't tell just anyone who I am. I might get killed."
Manager rolled his eyes and looked to me as if to say 'not another one."
Author's note: Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been busy. And when I wasn't busy, I was lazy. Sorry. Chapter 3 (Quatre's first bit!) coming soon!