(no subject)
Mar. 24th, 2011 01:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
3nanashiHe's cold.
He's in A-- He's in a place he should know. He almost does. There's ice everywhere, stretching to every horizon.
It's not featureless, of course. This is a real place, and landscapes don't work that way. It curves in wind-sculpted eddies, looms in knife-edged crumbling cliffs, plunges into black crevasses. The exposed bones of the ice cap are blue-green in sunlight. From everywhere comes the slow groan of glacial motion straining against itself, the buried creaking of sea under ice.
It's supposed to be all right if you're in a mobile suit. He thought it would be sufficient -- the insulation, the armor. Even in a dream he could quote you detailed figures. But in a dream, the figures are somehow insufficient. The wind's cutting through, and all he has is Trowa Barton's (isn't that his own?) old jumpsuit. He's shivering.
If he could remember the way back, that would be fine. But he can't. He didn't prepare right -- he did something wrong, he didn't do enough, he can't remember, and without that he can't move. Every step could take him onto a snow-covered crevasse, and Heavyarms would break right through the crust. He can't move. He can't remember which way to go.
He should be able to remember. But he can't.
The cross around his neck is ticking. It'll blow up soon, and take all of them with it, and he can't afford that, he won't do it, but he can't figure out the way back. He can't disarm it, and he can't get back, and he can't think. It's too cold.
There's snow heaped past his knees. He needs to go.
At least everyone went away. He didn't trap anyone else here, but he needs to do this, he needs to remember what he needs to do, he needs to--
Trowa's awake, like a stick snapping. No immediate threats -- wall to his back, gun within reach, lying down, no one in the room but someone at the door--
Quatre.
His bunkmate. Expected. Okay.
Trowa's awake. Fully, and not just the half-understood instincts that pull him from sleep into battle-assessment. His heart is beating fast, but he can keep his breathing slow and normal. He's awake, in his room on Peacemillion, and the blankets have slipped off him and the clock is ticking softly, and Quatre's at the door.
(His dream has shattered into fragments, disconnected and ungraspable, and the lingering adrenaline of something formless.)
He breathes out, and meets Quatre's eyes.
He's in A-- He's in a place he should know. He almost does. There's ice everywhere, stretching to every horizon.
It's not featureless, of course. This is a real place, and landscapes don't work that way. It curves in wind-sculpted eddies, looms in knife-edged crumbling cliffs, plunges into black crevasses. The exposed bones of the ice cap are blue-green in sunlight. From everywhere comes the slow groan of glacial motion straining against itself, the buried creaking of sea under ice.
It's supposed to be all right if you're in a mobile suit. He thought it would be sufficient -- the insulation, the armor. Even in a dream he could quote you detailed figures. But in a dream, the figures are somehow insufficient. The wind's cutting through, and all he has is Trowa Barton's (isn't that his own?) old jumpsuit. He's shivering.
If he could remember the way back, that would be fine. But he can't. He didn't prepare right -- he did something wrong, he didn't do enough, he can't remember, and without that he can't move. Every step could take him onto a snow-covered crevasse, and Heavyarms would break right through the crust. He can't move. He can't remember which way to go.
He should be able to remember. But he can't.
The cross around his neck is ticking. It'll blow up soon, and take all of them with it, and he can't afford that, he won't do it, but he can't figure out the way back. He can't disarm it, and he can't get back, and he can't think. It's too cold.
There's snow heaped past his knees. He needs to go.
At least everyone went away. He didn't trap anyone else here, but he needs to do this, he needs to remember what he needs to do, he needs to--
Trowa's awake, like a stick snapping. No immediate threats -- wall to his back, gun within reach, lying down, no one in the room but someone at the door--
Quatre.
His bunkmate. Expected. Okay.
Trowa's awake. Fully, and not just the half-understood instincts that pull him from sleep into battle-assessment. His heart is beating fast, but he can keep his breathing slow and normal. He's awake, in his room on Peacemillion, and the blankets have slipped off him and the clock is ticking softly, and Quatre's at the door.
(His dream has shattered into fragments, disconnected and ungraspable, and the lingering adrenaline of something formless.)
He breathes out, and meets Quatre's eyes.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 12:47 am (UTC)He's listening; he's unsure.
It's information. More than that, it's information about what Quatre and Heero have been talking awkwardly around and Duo and Wufei don't seem to know, and maybe he'll remember something from it. You never know.
But he's not condemning. He wouldn't anyway, on just that sentence, but -- well. Trowa's only known Quatre a few weeks that he can remember, but already it's very obvious that Quatre's good at guilt.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 03:13 am (UTC)He glances out of the side of his eye, to catch Trowa's expression. When they make eye contact he holds it for a long moment, before glancing ahead.
"Colonists killed my father. It... I made a mistake. I thought--" he breathes out, shakily. "I finished building a new Gundam with -- some blueprints that had been left. It had an AI that I -- didn't understand. I didn't care, I -- wasn't rational," he says, quietly. "I was just... angry. And... it seemed like the right thing to do."
He's silent for several long moments.
"You tried to stop me. And you did, I mean -- it worked. But your suit -- I just wanted Heero to--" he cuts off and doesn't say kill me so he'd go save you, because he doesn't think Trowa needs to know that. It puts the situation in the wrong light. He wasn't a sympathetic party. "But we were stopped before we could, of course."
no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 03:34 am (UTC)There's something --
There's the tantalizing feeling that he should remember something he can't quite grasp, words and shapes and a cold enormity, but he can't make it coalesce.
(And Quatre's hunched misery is visible in every line of his body.)
"I don't remember," he says, after a long silent moment.
It's matter-of-fact. Not an accusation; just a quiet statement.
(It feels like an admission of failure.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 04:16 am (UTC)"I'd understand," he says, after a moment, glancing back over to him, "if you'd want me to leave you alone. I could switch with Heero."
He tries to keep his tone light, and fails miserably.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 04:42 am (UTC)"No."
"You're rational now," he says, because it's true. He's seen no signs of anything else. "It's okay."
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 04:03 am (UTC)"Okay." He smiles, small and hesitant, glancing back into his tea. After another moment, he finally takes a sip.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 04:12 am (UTC)Trowa sips his tea carefully. It's good, and almost too hot; warmth spreads down his throat when he swallows.
He's not sure if he wants to ask for more information or not. He wants to know, but he wants to really know what happened, and not just chase the trail of someone else's words in endless circles. But right now those words are all he can find.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 04:17 am (UTC)So he doesn't say anything at all.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 04:42 am (UTC)So he has another swallow of the tea Quatre made, and sits in what Quatre sometimes finds comforting silence. Not always, but Trowa doesn't really know how to achieve comfort except as a side effect, for himself or anyone else.
After a minute, "Were we all working together?"
At the time, he means. As a general question, it seems to depend on who you ask and how precisely you phrase it.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 04:45 am (UTC)"When?"
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 05:02 am (UTC)At any time worth mentioning?
"Before then."
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Date: 2011-03-31 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-02 04:20 am (UTC)The information gives him more context. Nothing that jogs a memory loose, not enough to matter, but -- it's context.
For this event, for their course through the war, for the complicated geography of relationships aboard this ship.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-11 05:05 am (UTC)He's quiet for a moment. "Heero doesn't know if they knew you were a Gundam pilot. He says Une liked you, but -- that's it."
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Date: 2011-04-11 05:28 am (UTC)It might be useful to know how much OZ knows about him -- you never know -- but, well. (The part about convincing OZ doesn't surprise him. Maybe it should, since he doesn't remember any of it, but it feels right and logical. People are easy to convince of things.)
This explains a couple of Duo's reactions, though.