In the dingy light that flittered through the heavily grated window seven feet above the cold cement on which they now sat, Trowa looked over at the beautiful boy who he had once held in near idol-like status. That was almost half a year ago. At that time, the blonde had been too clean, too divinely perfect to disgrace with a touch, or even with a covetous glance. It had been safer to horde such thoughts deep in the cellar of his mind, like a dragon perched on a mountain of gold coins. It was a foolish view, and he knew that undoubtedly. It was dangerous to place someone so high when he'd seen him walk and talk just like most people, but it was still something that couldn't be helped. From the moment he'd heard the hiss of Sandrock's latch opening and seen the sparkle of gold as the amazingly delicate pilot stepped out into the earth-given sunlight, he'd felt that something was off. He imagined it was what one biblical man (he couldn't remember the name) had once felt when he'd seen an ordinary plant burst into flames and knew then that he was in the presence of the proverbial 'More'. More than human, more than normal, just More. Only his years-placed mask had allowed him any semblance of dignity.
Now the young man that was pilot 04 had changed in his silently adoring vision. There was still that childishly naïve light that sometimes danced within his brilliant aqua eyes, suggesting perpetual innocence in spite of the known blood he'd shed, but for the last six months he'd been watching it die like a terminally ill patient in a hospital bed. The smiles that had once been glittering displays of honest joy even in the middle of a dark age of men were now masking things that always held hints of pain, suffering, and deeper thought. They were given as a way to escape questioning; those concerned 'Are you okay' inquires rarely came when you were sunny-faced and he had watched Quatre learn that.
In the recently passed time, he'd watched the body he'd once stared discreetly at for hours and still found impossible to accept as a soldier's go from too delicate but still neatly compact muscles and energy, to hard and untouchable, then too thin, and finally a state that was almost uncared for. Quatre's always pressed clothes started displaying casual wrinkles, his shining hair turned a lackluster shade, and his hands -- Artist's hands -- had turned rough from the controls of his gundam. The nails, usually so slim and so perfectly almond shaped, suddenly short and bitterly bitten down though he didn't know when.
Perhaps that would have been enough to sway his opinion, to slap himself with reality that Quatre was just another fucked up child of war, but instead of crumpling, he'd prevailed through this change. Like a butterfly emerging from a dust covered cocoon, Trowa had watched a new being emerge that wasn't Quatre, but yet was. It was a new, strong and learned being, and he was still deciding if he liked it or not. The soft lines around his angel on a pedestal were gone, his golden halo fallen and dented beyond repair, and in it's place lingered something much like the feared and loved deities that had once dominated Old Africa. Those were hungry gods who showed their anger through bringing down flames on their people from the bowels of noisy mountains and superstitiously they were appeased by the spilling the hot blood of their followers.
The boy who looked back at him, aqua jewels in sallow yellow moonlight peering from the shadows, was Quatre. He was Trowa's ever-shifting god, angel, and blood-thirsty idol.
He was waiting for an answer.
Slowly, feeling the ache that had settled into his long limbs from sitting so long flare up stingingly, the Latin youth pushed himself further upright on the mildly damp cell walls. Between them, like a black watchful eye, the small covered drain gurgled impatiently of the reeking sewers it hid, and it was to this that his gaze drifted indifferently as he opened his mouth and softly offered a response. To stare at the politely angry gaze of his cell-mate would drive him slowly mad.
"Maybe some of it, but there's still truth out there somewhere."
The sigh he heard in return was enough to inform him he hadn't pleased the blonde, and he knew without looking up that dark eyes were being rolled, and the once plush and now often dry and torn bottom lip had been pulled between sharp teeth to be nibbled thoughtfully again.
"No. I don't think so. From the moment we are born, to the very second we die, we are being lied to. We are raised to accept it, and we pass it on like some hereditary disease."
He played it wise this time. Rather than venture a true opinion, possibly causing the dormant but threatening volcano to blow it's top, Trowa merely allowed this to go where Quatre wanted it with soft prodding and guidance. "Why do you say that?"
"Because it's the way it is, Trowa."
After a second of silence, warily, he risked glancing up from beneath his protecting shield of bangs and watched the Arabian lean his head back on the cold stone. Quatre's upset and questioning eyes, which someday would demand answers, drifted first to the ceiling above, then closed with the dark lashes pressed to curving cheeks that still resembled a child's, and all was safe again. For now. Pale, abused lips parted, and he listened warily as Quatre's thoughts were elaborated.
"When a child is born, the lies start within a few years... As soon as the parents believe that the child can understand them actually. They start with good nature, as most things do, but a lie with nice intentions is still just a lie in the end. By age two, most children believe full-heartedly in a man named Santa Claus, who if he ever existed, has been dead for hundreds of years. They believe a story that this man flies around the world in one night, fits down a chimney despite him being reported as 'plump', and delivers gifts just because he can. They also believe he has a mild form of telepathy apparently, because he 'knows' when you've been naughty or nice. Now, if we were smart at that tender age and didn't expect our parents always to be the guardians they claim to be, with thoughts only for our welfare, shouldn't we actually wonder why the hell a raving madman like that has been allowed to break into houses for so long unhindered?"
Blinking, Trowa felt a wave of unexpected sadness creep in as Quatre so clinically tore apart a youthful tale that he'd known for years. It wasn't necessarily his own beliefs, he'd been past his 'Santa-craze' years ago, nor was Christmas typically a happy time of year for him, but it was still something you were used to hearing and accepting. Even adults held onto to that story and still smiled over it. Santa was a figurehead for the season, real or not. But acknowledging that society accepted it so readily, he could see why Quatre -- who'd once confessed he really didn't know much of the holiday and sometimes felt he was missing out -- could feel that way. It was a lie, though legend seemed a better label to him. Really though, weren't they one in the same?
"Same with the giant bunny that lays eggs and gives them out. There is no rabbit on this planet that births through eggs, and the only mammal I've even heard of doing so is a duck-like creature in Australia. Not to mention the complete dismissal of the strong maternal instincts all animals share. And that lie was based off the birth of a man who has nothing whatsoever to do with colored treats and chocolates! … Though that one, too, bothers me."
"There are a million such examples like that, Trowa. The innocent lies that parents feed their children, and all before they even reach adulthood. The tooth faerie, leprechauns, unicorns and things like that. Then there are also the lies that kids get from other kids."
Personally, Trowa would have loved to say he had some faith that at one time, there had been a creature that was vaguely horse-like and had bore only one horn. Magic or not, part of him wanted to believe that the image that adorned so many fantastical dreams had to have once been based off truth. Dragons as well. It wasn't such a far stretch, was it? After all, there were thousands of species that had once walked the Earth in plenty, but has vanished long before man had arose to power. And sadly, even more since their appearance, forced to extinction through the growing number of humans and their perpetual demands for space. Creatures vanished every day, turned into myths that lived only through the pictures on paper and the words of remorseful mouths. That didn't mean they had become lies.
His eyes drifted over the pinched curve of Quatre's brow and the tight frown of his lips. Looking at him with his masks finally set aside and seeing a child that had been abused as surely as any other though in different, more political ways, he kept his silence a little longer.
"I was home taught, Trowa… For most of my life. I think I told you that. One year though, my father broke down to my lonely begging, and I attended fifth grade at a private school with other boys."
"I came back that first week convinced without a doubt that there was a Thing in my closet. It had been there all the time, even before I was told it was there, I knew that then, and it had just been biding it's time until I was ripe. Until that little boy so innocently shared the lie his parents had told him, presumably to get him to behave, I had been a relatively good sleeper and never had troubles. For a month after that, I woke my sisters, the maids, and my own father screaming up and down the halls that I was about to be eaten."
A frame shaking sigh worked it's way out of Quatre's narrow chest, and Trowa felt reasonably sure that it was released not for his own tainted childhood, but for him having just admitted to being a hassle for that single stretch of thirty days. If there was blame to be accepted with anything, Quatre was always the first to step forward and offer little hands to hold it all.
"Those are just the fantasy lies, the creature ones, if you will. Then there is a multitude of others that are even more scarring… They are, of course, given with even stronger 'good intentions'." One stormy ocean eye winked open, drifted away from the tell-nothing ceiling and fell on him. For now, it bore no unspoken rage, but just the wish to further communicate on a more intimate level and Trowa could meet it without any of those recently disturbing worries. "Those, I guess, are best labeled the 'life lies'. They start with the ever famous 'you can do anything if you try hard enough'.
"If someone tries, extremely hard, then yes, maybe they can get a lot done… But that isn't what people say. They say -anything-, and that simply isn't true. No matter how hard you try, how many years you put into it and how much you work yourself to the bone, some things just cannot be done or cannot fall into place for some people."
"Someone who is sick from birth, suffering constant illness and spending half of their childhood in bed because of a heart murmur they can't control, or being born with a small organ here or there, is not going to become a combat soldier who will save the world through his hand to hand fighting techniques. A man who cannot perform basic hacking, spell, or really type to save his life, is not going to invent the next world-wide computer program no matter how much he wants to. The little boy who was born to a prostitute who couldn't afford her safe guards that one time because she had to eat that day will not lead a country, and neither will a prince ever get away from the responsibilities he was born with. They can do a lot, Trowa, maybe get half way to those goals, but there will always be one wall that is too high, and they will be turned away."
And one nameless child of war cannot pilot a gundam. Cannot aide in ending that war, in making a difference… But Quatre, have you forgotten that we already have? That -you- have? None of us are really the expected material to carve heroes and saviors out of, not even Wufei if only because of his age, but that's what happened. Duo's an orphan and a thief, Heero just a mentally disturbed child, I'm just… Just a nobody, and you're just a spoiled little rich boy, right? … I wish I knew who jaded you so much as to stop seeing whatever you once saw in us, so that I could pick up my guns once more, and put a bullet into their brain.
So many thoughts and valid points, and yet Trowa couldn't force his lips apart to voice a single one. Part of him knew it wouldn't come out right, that in his calm monotone it would seem uncaring and insubstantial. Another part, the new part that he supposed had come with Quatre's changing, was afraid to because he might relight the dormant spark just beneath the waves in those blue eyes.
"Doctors lie to patients only to go behind their back and speak the truth to their families. Lawyers make fortunes off of their lies. The rulers of countries lie to the people they'd protect. Nothing is done in honesty any more, Trowa." Slowly, he closed his eye again, and the soft down-fluff of his hair was pressed into the uncaring surface of the wall as he tipped his head backwards. "In truth… I don't know if it ever was done for that reason. Maybe lies were born into existence with the first person. It's an incurable disease now, and we all have it… Even our own bodies lie to us."
Disease. Even in his chosen state of emotional distance, that word reached him and yanked on his strings of expression. His lips curled downwards into a thoughtful frown and the single visible eye just past a fence of auburn bangs darkened with distaste.
It was a word that brought such a reaction from many people. Even in a time when they'd cured things that had once meant death to whomever caught them, it was still a commonly unknown horror. It wasn't the boogey under the bed, or a thing that lurked in the dark. It was a killer, and it was real. All of humans' research had merely tamed that beast a minuet amount… And sometimes, it mutated and left life speechless in the wake of it's devastation.
It was a word that he hated to hear in such reference fall from the lips of the boy who used to smile at strangers and whose day was once made by the sun shining warmly above.
"Quatre… It's not that bad. You're just…"
Who was he to be delivering pep-talks? It wasn't his job, and certainly not his specialty. The tragic-kissed lips that turned down in an unhappy frown on Quatre's face made him want to try though. His throat gave a dry click, and after swallowing painfully past it, he looked to his forced companion and continued in a misuse dulled voice. "Right now things look bad, but it's not always going to be like this."
Strangely, his words brought a smile to the blonde. An upward tilt to his mouth that had nothing to do with good humor or joy, and it made the Latin pilot want to cringe.
"Trowa, it always -has- been. You say so sweetly, and forgive me, so naively that it's not going to stay like this… But how can you when it's been like this since years and years before we were here? Before books were written and people still cringed from explosions and blamed them on spooks?"
I can say it because I think I love you. Because I'm not ready for the mountain on the edge of my sanity to erupt into flames, and for my illusions to be pulled apart like the wings off a moth, but mostly because I love you.
He said nothing like that, what emerged when his lips parted was a feeble attempt at diversion, and Quatre let him get away with it. "What do you mean that our bodies lie?"
Head quirked to the side, the Arabian considered for a second, then recognition lit his eyes warm cerulean again. He scooted across the cement with his leg shackles clattering behind him like bones, and Trowa fought a wave of revulsion.
One pale arm, bruised along the lifelines of the wrist from where the wide arm bands had been fastened earlier, was brought a few inches from his face. Flakes of rust clung to the milk and cream flesh.
"What do you see right there?"
Looking past the appendage and at the serious face beyond it, Trowa swore he heard the drums of sacrifice begin.
"Your arm."
"No. Trowa. Not that." Like he was chastising a puppy, the blonde tapped his nose with his other hand, then brought his fingers up to point at the small clustering of veins at the inside base of his hand, so clearly etched out beneath his thin skin. "Here. The veins. What do you see?"
Pounding now. Aching cries in his head like thunder. Yet like all before him had felt, he still wanted to please. "I see… Your skin. It's too pale now, Quatre. And it's… It's dirty? I see your veins clearly, and that's not a good sign."
His answer was rejected by a weary sigh, and something in his chest cracked a little. "No. Not that stuff. The color, Trowa."
"Blue." His eyes dropped to those pulsing branches of life, so close to him. At the slight nod of encouragement he got from Quatre -- Good Trowa. Good boy. I'm trained now. -- he elaborated and hoped for more. "Blue-violet."
"But blood is red, isn't it?" Quatre shifted around to his side, arm still up, until Trowa felt the welcome and electric weight of him leaning on one shoulder. The other pilot was resting his head there, so calmly, as if he knew he belonged, and if he turned his head just a little, he'd be pressing his lips to the soft crown of that hair and he would know heaven.
He stared resolutely forward, stiff and unyielding.
The blonde looked at his own wrist with a mixture of distaste and wonder, his voice soft and musing as he continued on, unaware of the turmoil within the Latin youth. "It's red, when it touches the tainted air of this world. Inside, it's blue-violet, and that's the truth. It flows in your body, rousing organs into functioning, coloring cheeks, creating pleasure or making us feel faint, and it's blue-violet. But in movies, it's always red. In pictures, it's crimson, and it sprays wildly. The world makes it a lie, just like everything else."
It's oxygen that does that! Not lies. You know that! Quatre, what is -wrong- with you?! His lips were glued shut, but his ears were open to hear another breathy exhale from the young man who could have once been the wealthiest man in the universe, maybe the bachelor of the year, or the youngest successful business owner.
The voice that followed it was like wind through the reeds framing a black-water pond, dead and lost. "Just once, Trowa. I'd like to get a cut, and I would like to see the flesh part to flow out something as clean as that purple-cobalt color. It would make it all okay again… That's never going to happen though, is it?"
He didn't know how to answer that.