Aurora Borealis
Is Everyone on this Damn Ship Gay?
Dearka flops down on his neatly made bed with a movement that, were anyone around, he'd like to describe to them as characterized by the lazy grace of a natural predator. No one is around, though, which is why he isn't being scolded for messing up the recently cleaned room.
He gives a speculative glance at Yzak's side of the room, which is nauseatingly neat as usual. Normally he wouldn't, but now that they're leaving for a short holiday in a few hours he's tempted to mess up his friend's stuff. Nothing big, mind you, just pick some clothes from the wardrobe and toss them on the floor and over the back of the chair, wrinkle the strict lines of the beddings: make it look lived in.
Yzak would explode, but Dearka could handle that. He might even say it's Athrun's fault, which is a claim his friend would choose to believe despite its utter ridiculousness. Besides, considering how many times Dearka has cleared up the worst of the messes caused by Yzak's tantrums, he figures it's within his rights.
After a thoughtful moment he arrives at his decision and gets up from his own bed, now comfortably messy, in favor of sprawling all over Yzak's. Having made himself comfortable he reaches for the stack of magazines on the table.
Sometimes he wonders if everyone on this damn ship is gay. It's a legitimate question, for he himself appears to be the only one even remotely interested in the glossy pictures of very scantily or not at all dressed women. Back in school these kinds of things had to be locked up to avoid theft and could be sold for considerable amounts of money: now he can leave them lying around anywhere and no one does more than glance at them in disgust or exasperation.
Miguel used to look at them very eagerly, but Miguel's dead. Damn Natural pilot in fucking G-unit he has no sodding right to use against them. Actually, part of the reason Dearka is so fond of the magazines might be that several of them are inheritances from the deceased blond.
As for the ones still alive… Well, let's just say Dearka's fairly certain there's not a straight man in sight. Rusty probably was, but he's dead as well, and Olor and his group have been transferred elsewhere.
Commander Le Klueze… Well, when you get right down to it, is Dearka really the only one who finds it the tiniest bit suspicious that their handsome, very blond commander directs a team made up solely of pretty boys?
Nicol is a poof if Dearka has ever seen one, all chubby and cute and sensitive. Born to the wrong gender, obviously, the way he's constantly making puppy-dog-eyes at Athrun.
Dearka's not sure that's any idea, though. As far as the Buster pilot's knowledge reaches, young Mr. Zala might even be straight. He declined a long-ago joking offer to look at Dearka's magazines with a haughty and somewhat scandalized, "I'm engaged!" but Yzak swears Athrun's gay, and Dearka might yet take his word for it. After all, Zala is betrothed to a real sugar puff, Miss I'm Like Totally the Hottest Singer in PLANT herself to be exact, and Dearka has yet to see any signs of excitement over this. Currently he and Yzak have a bet on a sizeable amount of money regarding the issue of their green-eyed comrade's sexual preferences.
Yzak is always a risky subject, (actually, Dearka throws a reflexive glance at the doorway, as though expecting his friend to be standing there listening in on his thoughts. The idea is not as strange as it sounds: Dearka is probably the one who knows Yzak best in the world, and it goes both ways. Yzak knows when he's being thought of and tends to assume, even with Dearka, that those thoughts aren't complimentary) but it's a known fact that the silver-haired boy has never been on a date in his life, just as it is a known fact that very few girls indeed would like a boyfriend who's ten times prettier than they are. Compared to Yzak, Nicol is close to the epitome of traditional masculinity. Oh, Juhle Jr. is though as nails and has the temperament of a starved predator, but he's…too deliciously delicate to be anything but impossible with girls. Not that Yzak's not impossible with most people.
Indeed, Dearka is clearly the only man around.
He stifles a pained smile, the magazine drifting from his fingers and falling over his lap like a forgotten mask.
Sometimes at night he watches Yzak change, purple eyes flickering over gracefully slender limbs and ingesting areas of pale-smooth skin. He knows through the touching that follows any intense friendship between long-time roommates what mostly every part of Yzak's body feels like. When he fantasizes about a girl it's the sensation of Yzak's hair and skin he provides her with.
His… her cheeks flush violently in what they both pretend is anger when Dearka brushes a fingertip over hi… her face, stroking a fringe of hair out of blue eyes.
Unfortunately it's just not credible to imagine a girl could pin him down. He lets his imaginary partner do it sometimes anyway, like Yzak has on so many occasions in mostly playful wrestling, cause that's how Dearka's become familiar with the feel of his friend's arms, his back and chest and hips and legs. It's okay to touch so long as it's in the manly spirit of training or goofing off.
It's completely asexual to sit atop your best friend, straddling him on your bed, and keep repeating to yourself that the hard something poking into the back of your thigh is just some trinket or other in his pocket. Even if you're both in just your nightclothes, which don't even have any pockets. There's nothing weird about staring at how panting breaths make their way in and out of your friend's parted lips, or about taking the time to familiarize yourself with his chest or thighs while you're ostensibly holding him down. Nothing wrong at all.
Still, he's feeling uneasy now and the magazine isn't what he wants. He tosses it on the floor in annoyance, searching the doorway for Yzak. It's simple reflex: when Juhle Jr. isn't around Dearka is almost always, inevitably looking for him. He can scarcely imagine a time before that was so natural a fact that it didn't even occur to him to wonder about it.
Now, finally, there are sounds in the hallway that call to him. Dearka jumps off the bed and hurries out to see Yzak pushing a stretcher with a seemingly unconscious boy in it through the corridor. Normally this unusual appearance would have it flooded with nurses and commanders, but with the upcoming holiday the sole person present save Dearka himself is the rapidly approaching Athrun Zala.
Dearka has never seen the normally composed and slightly aloof blue-haired boy like this: frantic ice-white face, running as fast as one can possibly manage in a light-gravity space. Even Yzak's just sort of silently staring at him as he halts his wild dash by grabbing onto the stretcher.
"Kira," he says, breathlessly, incredulous and worried sick, one hand cupping the stranger's cheek. "Oh god, Kira, how…? Yzak, what…?"
"Picked him up," Yzak replies. "No lethal damage, but you should take him to the infirmary."
Athrun gives a shaky nod before following the advice.
Yzak turns to the still somewhat stunned Dearka with a cheeky, victorious smirk. "You owe me fifty bucks."
xxxxx
Sai is numb with shock, his fingers trembling in the air above the keyboard through which he's been manning one of the weaker cannons. He's not the only one, and that worries him even more: after all, where he is only a student from a neutral, destroyed colony, most of these people are trained soldiers. If they're freaking, it must be really bad.
And when "normal" includes life-and-death battles against a genetically superior race and his friend slowly breaking apart under his helplessly watchful eyes, Sai doesn't want to think about what "really bad" means.
Really bad is the Archangel in a panic, the ship heavily damaged from the attack. It'll be a good while before La Flaga's Zero can be put to use again: would have been even longer, had the mobile armor not been top priority now that it's the only piloted weapon they can utilize. Sai's stomach lurches at the thought, and he wishes, not for the first time, that he could help Kira out by taking turns with him in the Gundam.
Really bad is Tolle pale as a ghost demanding they search for his missing friend, a request coldly denied by Ensign Badguriel. She's obviously shaken but nonetheless explains harshly that MIA is rarely more than a fancier term for "killed". The words seem to freeze the Command Bridge. Sai thinks that he doesn't like the Ensign, really he doesn't, but he's glad they're on the same side.
Really bad is Captain Ramius with a hand over her face, as though trying to gain some distance and hold back tears. She's a kind and admirable woman despite the resentment he felt in Heliopolis when she contained them for circumstances than none of them could alter, but she has effectively caused the death of a remarkably innocent and deft young man who should never had had anything to do with the war. None of them should, but Sai's not much for that kind of abstract fantasies and Kira's more obviously unsuited than most for these conditions. Now that he's gone, likely dead, it's almost inevitable that they'll all soon follow suit.
With that reality upon them Sai wishes for once that he wasn't smart, that he didn't see the logical consequences of things. They might have an advanced ship and a G-unit, but only Coordinators can fight Coordinators. Sai's a Natural: a good one, but that still means he can't ever compare.
With a sting he remembers a few comments he's made, about acheivements by Coordinators being only a result of tampered with genes. He's pretty sure Kira's too kind to realize that there's much more envy than disdain or conviction in those remarks, and now Sai will probably never have the chance to admit that.
Kuzzey really shouldn't have been the first to realize what Kira is (Sai refuses to think about him in past tense): Kuzzey doesn't know him half as well as Tolle and Miriallia, and he's not half as smart as Sai. But Tolle and Miri are too blinded by emotion to notice, too caught up in who Kira is to really care much about what, and Sai… Sai never wanted to believe that, since he liked the Coordinator too much to want to get into a situation where he was doomed to always try to compete and inevitably fail.
Sai bites his lip, slightly ashamed to be entertaining such thoughts when his friend has most likely died to protect them but too smart to blame himself overly. Still, Miri's raw cries, only partly muffled by Tolle's shoulder, eat at him.
"I should have known," she sobs. "We should never have let him out to fight in that condition. I should have realized there was something wrong."
The only answer she receives is something Tolle mumbles into her hair, the words inaudible to Sai and perhaps also to Miri herself. That probably makes little difference, as Sai has no doubt that they, like Tolle's hand stroking her back, are intended to sooth rather than explain. Sai doesn't think any of them can explain this in an even remotely satisfying way: none of them are the type to sprout platitudes like 'the Lord works in mysterious ways'.
There's a very distinct possibility that Miriallia is right: it's obvious enough now that Kira wasn't himself.
Between the pilot's tendency to get kicked around in the beginning of every fight and the concentration it takes to fulfill his own duties, it was rather a while before Sai got worried. Panic didn't reach him until Miri screamed at Kira to return, even though the lesser attack force had dealt them more damage than ever Le Klueze and his elites.
The cause isn't a mystery either: there've been reports of large amounts of vomit both in Kira's room and in Strike's cockpit.
Still… At length it's Sai who says what most of the adults are probably thinking, "Even if we had known, Miri, would there have been any choice but to send him out?" Her teary blue eyes are accusing, and he raises a hand in a reflexive attempt to ward her anger off before continuing, "We'd be dead if he hadn't fought. Kira wouldn't have wanted that, that's why he didn't say anything."
The words ring of truth, which, strangely, makes Sai reel with guilt.
"At this rate we'll die anyway," his friend replies, tone hushed and downcast. She's normally a cheery girl, but she's never been stupid. Once again he's left without answers, both to her questions and to his own.
"That's the problem we're currently facing, yes," Mu La Flaga speaks up, for which Sai is very grateful. Certainly the officer can provide comfort or at the very least distraction. The blond man has been grim ever since returning onboard, though, and the normal laughter-tint to his voice is obviously forced. Seems he's grown rather fond of Kira while trying to keep the boy on the correct path. "Girl's right: there's no way in hell we can reach any EA base without the kid and his Gundam. I propose we hide in the deep part of the Debris Belt."
There's a little bit of hope in the captain's face as she meets La Flaga's eyes. Sai doesn't blame her for accepting reassurance from the bright and out-going officer, but he's well aware that this is no ideal solution, if a solution at all. They all are, he can't imagine otherwise.
"We'd be almost totally immobilized for gods know how long, before either ZAFT or the EA finds us," La Flaga continues. "At least we'd survive, for now. It's worth a shot."
Excellent points, the lot of them. Unfortunately, to Sai's ears, so is Tolle's loud interjection: "But Kira…! You can't just leave him here! You said he escaped! We have to look for him!"
"Don't be a child," Badguriel snaps, and Sai winces as though the words were aimed at him. In a sense he almost wishes they were: if he were trying to intercede on Kira's behalf he'd have a cleaner conscience. Unfortunately the logical portion of his brain is a bit too dominant for that. "The area will be flooded with enemy vessels within minutes. Speaking of which, Captain, I propose we make our move immediately."
Murrue Ramius nods decisively and speaks up. As the ship turns there's a soft torii and a green shape flies onto the Bridge. Sai's eyes are suddenly brim-full with tears as he turns his gaze away from the little mechanical bird. It's an advanced creation, and Sai has never seen anything similar, so it can hardly have been bought off the shelf. Besides, Kira's had it for as long as Sai's known him, and the bird has never been far from its master: it must mean something to Kira, something really important, and Sai belatedly wonders how the Coordinator came by it.
"Miriallia," the captain says to the still-sobbing girl, not unkindly. "I think it'd be best if you went back to your room and rested for a bit. Why don't your friends go with you?"
Sai, recognizing his cue to leave, gets up and joins his old schoolmates on the floor. Tolle and Miri have their arms around each other, and he feels a bit awkward until he dares place a hand of his own on the distressed girl's shoulder.
She stops suddenly in the doorway, face white and shining with tears but also strangely determined. "Who's Athrun?" she asks.
Sai raises an eyebrow, having no idea. It appears that's the case with the others as well, judging by the silence and the raised eyebrows.
"Why?" La Flaga inquires at last. "I've never met an Athrun."
"I just remembered…" Miriallia replies, subdued and distant. "Right before I told Kira to come back, he said: 'Athrun. Help. Athrun, please. I need you'"
Her voice is an echo of Kira's, a ghostly recollection.
"Oh god, poor kid," Captain Ramius whispers.
"The only Athrun I've ever heard of is Zala's of the Supreme Council son," La Flaga interjects. "But I believe it's a pretty common name on PLANT."
Of course, when even his friends don't know, how could the others be expected to have information on Kira's connection to some Athrun? There's no reason for Sai to be disappointed: nor is there really any reason to dedicate attention they didn't bestow on him before to Kira after his disappearance.
Torii makes an inquisitive sound as Sai and Tolle lead Miriallia away in silence.
xxxxxxxxxx