Goodbye LJ...

[windandwater]

This is just to make it official for those who don't know, but I'm leaving LJ completely. For the rest of this week at least. Tomorrow is the Bar Exam and it runs for three days, so don't expect to see me about at all until Thursday night. Or even until the weekend since I plan on spending Thursday after the Bar drunk and crying. No online time for me at all. *whines* It will be hard, but I know I can do it.

So, because I'm a total h0r like that, I am declaring this to be a spam post. Go ahead. Run wild! Give me fics, give me links, give me pics, just babble to your heart's content and rape my inbox so I have something to see when I finally DO come back to the wonderful world of LJ. I don't even care if you write me a drabble and post it one word at a time. XD;

Though, I've tried to make a spam post before and it failed a bit miserably, so I don't have very high expectations this time around. Feel free to prove me wrong though!

♥

Comments

Re: Torn 6

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Another burst of phantom laughter sounded behind me, and a ghostly echo followed in its wake. "Hey, love, it's all right," whispered the memory of a voice. "We have a fight coming tomorrow, and you're going to leave bruises if you don't let me go. Loosen up a bit, koi. I'm not going anywhere, I promise..."

The blurry image of a familiar form wavered into existence for a moment, leaning over Heero to touch his hair tenderly, but a sudden gust of hot wind tore the apparition into nothingness. Memories... instinctively, I backed away; somehow I was intruding on something too powerful and too private. Kind of ridiculous, really; invading someone else's mind in the first place is about as violating as it can get, but I wasn't exactly doing it on purpose.

I heard a sound behind me, almost like a footstep, and for the third time I turned around in startled response. I wasn't expecting there to be anyone behind me; I certainly wasn't expecting to see a child.

The kid was only about seven years old, and incredibly grubby, but there was no mistaking his identity. Not with that hair, the braid already a foot and a half long. Not with those eyes, huge pools of violet fixed on me with a mixture of fear and hope.

"Are you an angel?" Duo whispered. His tongue darted out to lick his lips, and his hand twisted nervously at his braid. "Sister Helen said that when we die, an angel comes to take us to heaven. But I haven't seen any angels, just a lot of soldiers, and the kids from the street..." He shuddered, and his eyes darted over my form and back to my face. "You haven't tried to hurt me yet. You have to be an angel."

Cautiously, I took a step towards him, trying to act as non-threatening as possible. His eyes widened, and he took a pace back again. I tried speech. "No, Duo, I'm afraid I'm not an angel, but I won't hurt you..."

His face fell. "I knew you couldn't be," he muttered, wrapping his thin arms around himself. "Angels only come for good kids. I'm not a good kid. I did something bad, I must have, I must have done something..."

"Duo?" I tried to take another step forward; like before, I didn't actually seem to move. Before my eyes, the image of the child Duo had been was shifting, blurring, twisting into something taller and leaner. Older. He ignored me now; he didn't even seem to know I was there any longer.

Re: Torn 6

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

"You said I was a good kid, Sister Helen, but you were wrong. If I had been good I wouldn't have killed you. You -- Father -- Solo -- it was all my fault, I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have killed you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I deserve to be punished, I know..." His eyes darted back and forth in the blackness, addressing ghosts that only he could see. The wind, which had died down for a moment, began to rise again; it carried a taint of sulfur.

All the time he spoke, Duo continued to grow; by this time he was age twelve or so, looking much more like the teenager I knew. His voice, which had started out near a whisper, grew steadily stronger in time with the wind. "You were right, Father, you were right -- sinners go to Hell. I've sinned, I've killed so many people -- people I never even knew. So much blood. Too much. No more. Please, God, I don't care if you send me to Hell or not -- just let me finish fighting the war. I know I'm damned, I don't care any more -- just let it have been worth something. Anything. Let there have been a reason for all this suffering, don't let me damn my soul for nothing, please!"

He was screaming by the time he finished, and the ground behind him burst into flame. The roar of the bonfire overwhelmed my ears; the searing light drove away the darkness, the heat burned through the last of the chill. I heard a slight sound behind me, and turned to see Heero; digging the heels of his hand into his eyes, his jaw was clenched, and his body shook as he struggled. Slowly, the fire died; the scorching heat abated and the tongues of flame sank to glowing embers. Duo didn't seem to notice this as he dropped to his knees, shuddering, bangs falling forward to hide his face. He was fully grown, now, as old as he would ever get to be.

"Duo!" I shouted, trying to move towards him, but the lingering heat drove me back again. "Stop, Duo, listen to me, please! Don't do this to yourself --"

"Do this to myself?" he repeated softly, and for a moment my heart leapt at the possibility that he was actually listening to me. Then he slowly raised his head and locked gazes with me, and the hatred and fury boiling in them seethed in time with the smoldering remains of the fire. "To MYSELF? I was the one that used me? I was the one that betrayed me? I was the one that KILLED me? I don't -- fucking -- think -- so!"

Re: Torn 6

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

With eyes full of fire, he looked for the first time towards the other pilot still seated unmoving on the black ground. His lips curled back into a snarl of pure hatred, and his voice lashed out like a whip and burned like acid. I could feel it, feel the malice driving the words even though their hate wasn't directed at me. "Heero Yuy. Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier. Heero Yuy, the machine. It wasn't enough that you led me on, to think that we were friends. Oh no. It wasn't enough that you fucked me every night after you were done killing for the day. It wasn't enough that you left me to die, no, but you had to call me back again and strip away any pathetic dream I ever had that you might have loved me! You wouldn't let me go, you wouldn't let me go, you locked me away in the darkness like your very own personal whore. But no more. I am sick of this place, I am sick of living, I am sick of fighting for every moment of the real world I can see. No more. This is the end, Heero Yuy, and if you will not let me go, then I will not let you go either. I'm going to hell, Heero. And you are coming with me."

The soldier sat there, unmoving, unresponsive. In growing horror, I stared between Duo and Heero, and desperately plunged ahead. "Duo, no --"

"Get out of here, Quatre," Duo said from between his teeth, never taking his eyes off Heero. The air between them began to shimmer as the two boys engaged in a furious, if silent, contest of wills. In the distance, a red flickering light began to grow.

"After what you just said? I can't --"

"Get OUT," he repeated, voice rising. "If you stay you'll get hurt."

The ground was beginning to shake, subtly, under my feet. The wind was screaming at a steady pace by now, scorching blasts of an air that felt like they came directly out of a furnace. I turned to Heero, to try one last time. "Heero, for Allah's sake, won't you even listen to me? Didn't you hear a word he just said? Please, you have to let him go -- you have to let him go before it's too late!" The light was growing, the wind brought it; I could see the fire racing across the blackened plane. "Please!"

He looked at me, his eyes bottomless depths of shadows. He spoke, and his voice was already the voice of a dead man.

"I would rather spend an eternity in Hell with Duo than one more day without him."

I stared at him, mouth hanging open; before I even realized what was happening, the world began to blur and fade around me. "Heero --"

"I TOLD YOU TO GET OUT!" Duo shrieked, flames springing up around him, matching the deadly bonfire sweeping across the black plain to engulf the three of us faster than the blink of an eye. "SO GET OUT!"

Re: Torn 6

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

The black plain, the two dead men on it, the fire, fell away into a blank void. No color, no sound, no sensation -- neither heat nor cold. I couldn't even feel my own body, and began to panic. Desperately, I struggled to reach something, anything -- better to face the conflagration of Duo's rage than this nothingness. I screamed out, into the emptiness, and could not even hear my own voice.

Then, I felt something -- like a gentle tugging on my arm. I heard a distant voice saying my name, a voice so full of anguish and loss that I had to go to it at once, to comfort the source of that voice. I saw a light, not the dim scorching of firelight, but gentle yellow light

as the light went suddenly dim, as something blocked it out. It took me a moment to recognize the silhouette, the figure bending over me; as it moved, I blinked and tried to follow it. The soft gasp of an indrawn breath sounded from the silhouette, at even that slight motion that I made. "He's awake..." the voice cried out, full of hope and fear. "Wufei, he moved!"

"I saw," a second voice answered; the familiar dry humor was tempered with pain and exhaustion. I blinked again, and managed to bring the scene into focus.

I was lying on a rather uncomfortable white bed in the medical wing; the overhead lighting was not the familiar white halogen, but a dimmer yellow light usually associated with backup systems. Trowa and Wufei were standing on either side of my bed; Wufei was leaning on the guardrail with the arm that wasn't in a sling. His face was white and drawn, but there were no machines attached to him. Trowa looked almost as bad, his features ravished by anguish. Tear tracks streaked his face, but his beautiful emerald eyes were bright with joy and relief. "Quatre!" he cried, voice full of tender concern. "Little one, are you all right?"

On the second try, I managed to get my voice to work. "...Yes," I made out, and cleared my throat. "I'm fine. I just had... the strangest out-of-body experience in my life... but I'm all right."

A wavering smile crossed Trowa's face, and then he abruptly broke down into a shuddering sob and gathered me into his arms. "Thank God," he whispered into my shoulder, tears leaking from his eyes. "You wouldn't wake up, I didn't know what was wrong, but you didn't wake up and I felt so helpless, oh God I thought I lost you..."

"Shh, love, it's all right," I told him softly, reaching up to return his embrace. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise..."