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MWAHAHAHA
Wrote. A lot. Well, not really, but I feel productive, for once. *happy*
I have decided that the sequel to Sera's marvelous zombielove fic will be an arc. Because I can't be bothered to keep the parts the same length nor try to write it all in order.
And yes I know that some of you have seen most of it, but it was friends only, wasn't it? *confused* And now the first bit is finished. I just need titles. And a beta lecture. Feel free ^^;
here is Sera's fic
http://www.livejournal.com/users/windandwater/366441.html
4 AM.
Two hours to live again.
Finished.
Two hours to die again.
Drop by drop.
6 AM .
Emptiness.
When the first rays of the sun brush me, I drag myself up from the slab of cold stone I was laying on, hoping somehow to melt through it to join him underground. It didn't work of course. It never does.
The sun is hurting my eyes. I hate him. Die, sun. I curse you.
I want the moon to be back. I want her full, above me, because it means the night isn't ended yet, because it means the two hours...
Two hours. Two hours of bliss, for 364 days and 22 hours of hell.
I'll see you next year, Heero, love. But it's so far away.
I know, I know. I only live for those two hours. If I didn't have them, if I thought you weren't there anymore, if I believed there was nothing after, and you had just... been erased... I'd have killed myself long ago... even by holding my own breath if our friends had taken away from me every other way. Knowing that you're still there somehow is the only thing that keeps me going. But...
But now, faced with the unavoidable wait, I can't help but feel crushed under the weight. It's so long, so hard, so cold, to live all year without you, love, for two hours of satiating my flesh in your embrace.
I am not saying that I don't want to do it anymore, that I don't want to wait for you... Even if I had two minutes with you every twenty years, I'd still wait for you. Long for you, desire you, dream of you. I love you, Heero.
I miss you so much already. It's always sharper right away after you've left me again to slide back in your tomb. It will be weeks before the sharpest edge fades a little and I can breathe again, but even then, I won't be free of the emptiness. I only feel alive when I'm with you, my love.
And you're dead. Heh. But then we always knew I was fucked up, didn't we?
I don't know how long it will be before I follow you. Not too long, I think. I miss your embraces, but at least I get to have them... two hours a year. But your simple presence behind me, your smirks, your shy smiles, your comments to the movies I force you to watch, your annoyed glares when I track mud inside the house, your failed attempts at cooking for me, the way your mind would meet mine over a mission plan or a chess board or even something as simple as tennis, matching, knowing mine, your so tender hands taking mine in between yours, and the way you'd stare at our rings, glinting side by side, and your hand brushing my shoulder in support before a mission...
I don't track mud inside the house anymore. I don't play chess either. I've grown tired of playing again those games I played against you. Even against your memory, I still lose every time.
That may be because every time, I can't help but play the moves I played then, as if doing anything else was sacrilege against your memory.
I miss your love surrounding me, and while those two hours of sharing our bodies and hearts give me sustenance for the rest of the year, I miss your mind. I miss your voice. I miss the way you inspired me. I miss your calmness to counter my agitation, miss your method opposing my irrationality, I even miss us butting heads over silly matters like the order in which we had to wash the dishes or the color of our furniture.
Not everything we shared was sexual, and while I need making love with you like I need to breathe, it doesn't mean that I need the rest of you any less.
As I walk to the iron gates separating the place my love rests from the rest of the world, that world I have to walk alone, I already know that this year, the void threatening to devour me won't be so easy to keep at bay.
Already my resolve is weakening.
Maybe next year I'll give you more than two inches of hair and a few drops of blood.
Maybe next year, you'll take me under with you.
I want to sleep in your arms again.
--------------------------------
One year later
------
2 AM. Here we are again, Heero, my love.
As I had predicted, it's been a hard year. Harder than ever. Missing my love so much. Having to deal with a new bout of mother-henning by Quatre; I wasn't cautious enough and he realized that my "obsession" still ran just as deep.
I avoid him now. He's a true friend and I'm missing him, but I've grown tired of his pitying looks. He's as obsessed with healing me from what he perceives as temporary insanity as I am with not letting go of Heero. He doesn't understand that if I let go of Heero, there will be nothing of me left, that it won't be anything else than another form of that suicide he made me swear not to try ever. I avoid Trowa too since most of the time when one is, the other is too, but at least Trowa doesn't nag me. I think that, if he doesn't understand, he accepts, at least. I'm lucky he isn't the kind of guy who will let a friendship die from lack of meetings. I could spend years without seeing him, and when I chance upon him, everything would be the same as before. No anger, no resentment, no demands, just a calm, faintly amused presence.
Wufei's discovered a new depth to his friendship with me. He didn't ever talk about it, and he's too proper and too honorable to openly or discretely propose anything, but I'm not stupid. I know.
He knows I'm not stupid, he knows that I know, but we never talk about it. He's a lot like my husband in some aspects, but they're only general things. They're the same kind of people, driven, dedicated, silent but always watching, hiding dry wits behind an aloof act. But it isn't Heero's soul that shines through his eyes.
He doesn't realize that I'm even less of an idiot than he believes. I know things that he doesn't know himself.
Sometimes, when he looks at me, it's his Meiran that he sees in my eyes. He's nearly as "obsessed" as I am; he just does a better job at hiding it from others; from himself. He thinks he has let go. Fat chance.
Even if I could let another man into my heart anyway –which I can't; Heero's been branded into my soul – even if I could change my affection and respect for Wufei into something akin to romantic interest, even if I wasn't devoured alive by the pain of seeing him so alike and yet so different from my Heero, we wouldn't have a good relationship. You can never compete with the ghost of your companion's true soulmate. He should realize that. I did.
I'm sad for him, because he lost Meiran before they realized what they had and now, he doesn't want to face what he's lost. I'm sad for him, because he wouldn't feel so tortured if ever he only accepted to see the hole in his life. At least he could attempt to build around it, instead of crossing and crossing it, and wondering why he trips every time.
And I bet he's never thought of going to her tomb and offering his hair and his blood –not that I know if this ritual would work for him. Maybe he needs another ritual, with symbols that would be his own. Maybe he just can't, because I'm some sort of... what was it called ? Medium? Necromancer? In that case I'm lucky. Lucky to have received the gift that permits me to see Heero again. Two hours a year.
Two hours of lovemaking. 364 days and 22 hours of searing loneliness. This last year, I've fully realized something.
This isn't enough.
---
I have read, and researched. Finally questioned the gift I had received. Most of what I found was bullshit, RPG stats, dark fairytales. Of course zombies –what an ugly word- are not supposed to exist. But I'm nothing if not dedicated, and the stakes are more than enough motivation. And at least, the feeling of doing something at last helped me to soothe the gaping hole in my heart, to stall the pain. But every time I failed, every time I hit a dead end, it came back even harder. I think it was that for the first time since Heero had been torn from me, I allowed myself to hope. Hope hurts.
My hope told me that I was still more alive than I had believed. It was battered and bruised along the year, but every time I thought it would finally die, it was fed and nurtured by my knowledge that one way or another, this is the last year... the last I spend without my other half.
This year, when the two hours end, either I will have Heero with me, or I will be dead. And be with Heero. Either way I see it, I win.
---
Finally, I stand before the grave. The moon is out tonight, as always for this night of the year. I'm grateful. I need to see what I'm doing, because this year, the ritual will be different.
From what I understood of my research, when I give Heero blood, I give him the energy he needs to come back to me. When I give him my hair, I give him an anchor in reality, in materiality. I give him something of a bridge to his own body. Well, more like the bridge is still here but broken and my blood only serves to reinforce it to help Heero come across. There are other details, but they're not as important.
When I give Heero part of my body, his body comes back to life. But he –his soul –is using so much strength trying to hold it together, trying to stay with me, that he can't use even one ounce of energy for anything else. There is only enough for his body and the purest form of himself, his deepest essence. That's why I only ever hear my name and that ai shiteru that tears at my heart, just before he has to leave again.
If I want his soul to come back...
Blood, of course, because blood holds power. But my hair... I thought long and hard about that. It's a symbol, sure. My braid has always been a symbol, to me and to him. But it's also solid, something I can touch, and... I don't know how to explain.
Anyway, two inches won't be enough this time. According to the books, the strength of the ritual is proportional to the valor of the offering.
... Heero loves my hair. I'm not sure he'll be happy with me. But to have him back with me...
...Bah! Hair grows back.
I settle down on Heero's grave, my back against the headstone, like every year. The position is familiar. Soothing.
Okay... so what now? Ah, right. Flour and rum. The sources I have all say it helps invoke the ghosts. As I say, even if it does no good, I don't see how it can do bad. I sprinkle the grave with flour before liberally splashing the rum over it. Good rum too, tested it. Tempted to taste it again, just for a drop of warmth in the ice that my body is turning into, but I resist. It's for Heero, not for me.
I place the candle between my legs, over where Heero's chest should be. I made it myself, following tons and tons of constraints and age-old methods and whatnot. Maybe it isn't really important, maybe it's just superstition. Maybe it isn't. Never hurts though.
They say you have to use a silver or copper or whatever knife with such and such engravings, but I've found that the one thing really important isn't the symbol it is for everyone, it's the symbol it represents for you. I use the knife he gave me for the anniversary of our first meeting. Gundanium. Deathscythe and Wing. I've been using it every year. It will do just fine this year too.
Now the hair and the blood. I throw my shirt away, undo my hair, let it fall free down my back. It feels nice. It's the last time I'll feel that gentle tickling along my hips before a while, if it works. I grab a first strand. The blood, as always, comes from when I cut through my hair too fast; I don't especially care nor feel the pain.
I can't help but feel a twinge when I look at my hand and there is a freakishly long lock of hair in it, brushing patterns into the flour; I cut it close to the scalp. Maybe I shouldn't cut the next ones too close, I'll look weird otherwise. There is blood from my cut hand slowly dripping down the length. My hair looks wet, and black from being against the light. It looks alien. Was it really part of me?
I raise it above the flame and watch the still dry ends catch. It stinks. My eyes water. From the smoke of course. It's a thick, dark, nasty-smelling smoke.
You see, lots of ethnicities believe that to offer anything to the spirits, who live in the (duh) spiritual plane, you have to burn them. The fire purifies and sends from one world to another. It's that belief that made man begin to burn his dead.
When my hair stays in this world, so does the power I give Heero, and so... It makes sense for me.
Now comes the hard part.
Every time I've done this before, all along, I've been thinking 'come back to me. I need your embrace. Come back to me.' And that's what you've done, Heero, my love. But that isn't what I need to think about this time.
Another strand goes. 'Snip', says the blade. 'frrr' says the flame climbing the lock. The smoke turns darker, thicker when it reaches the part where my blood is seeping through.
I need you to stay with me. Over everything else, that is what I need. I will even sacrifice your embraces to have your presence with me. So... stay with me. Please.
Please. I'm sorry I can't say more, I'm sorry all my words have deserted me.
Snip, snip. fffrrrr.
Please.
Snip.
Nothing is happening. Nothing at all. I'm afraid. I know it's not probably going to happen before the end of the ritual, but... at least a sign, a hint that I'm on the right track...
... okay, that's it. Enough of being a sissy. I gather a big fistful of hair and pull it over my shoulder. The knife is dark from my blood; I notice that it's because I'm holding it too close to the blade. I don't care.
Do that and I'll kick your ass so hard that you will feel my sneaker in your throat.
...
I think I will cry, when I have laughed enough.
He's here. He's see through and blurred, but he's here.
And like a moron, I only realize that I'm going to throw myself at him when I nearly knock the candle down. I bet I'm as horrified as he looks. Here, nice candle. Stay in place, okay? I'm not throwing myself at him, I swear, it would be idiotic, I'd probably go right through him. So stay with me, nice, pretty candle that I handmade and respect your father, because the two hours aren't finished yet and if you fucking go out, I'll ... use you for something gross. Or something.
Of course melting wax doesn't hurt. Red skin is in anyway. Ow, motherfucker. Or is it fatherburner?
I don't think I've laughed that hard in... gods, has it been seven years already?
You're nuts, anata.
Yeah, I love you too, Heero.
Honest, I do.
I have decided that the sequel to Sera's marvelous zombielove fic will be an arc. Because I can't be bothered to keep the parts the same length nor try to write it all in order.
And yes I know that some of you have seen most of it, but it was friends only, wasn't it? *confused* And now the first bit is finished. I just need titles. And a beta lecture. Feel free ^^;
here is Sera's fic
http://www.livejournal.com/users/windandwater/366441.html
4 AM.
Two hours to live again.
Finished.
Two hours to die again.
Drop by drop.
6 AM .
Emptiness.
When the first rays of the sun brush me, I drag myself up from the slab of cold stone I was laying on, hoping somehow to melt through it to join him underground. It didn't work of course. It never does.
The sun is hurting my eyes. I hate him. Die, sun. I curse you.
I want the moon to be back. I want her full, above me, because it means the night isn't ended yet, because it means the two hours...
Two hours. Two hours of bliss, for 364 days and 22 hours of hell.
I'll see you next year, Heero, love. But it's so far away.
I know, I know. I only live for those two hours. If I didn't have them, if I thought you weren't there anymore, if I believed there was nothing after, and you had just... been erased... I'd have killed myself long ago... even by holding my own breath if our friends had taken away from me every other way. Knowing that you're still there somehow is the only thing that keeps me going. But...
But now, faced with the unavoidable wait, I can't help but feel crushed under the weight. It's so long, so hard, so cold, to live all year without you, love, for two hours of satiating my flesh in your embrace.
I am not saying that I don't want to do it anymore, that I don't want to wait for you... Even if I had two minutes with you every twenty years, I'd still wait for you. Long for you, desire you, dream of you. I love you, Heero.
I miss you so much already. It's always sharper right away after you've left me again to slide back in your tomb. It will be weeks before the sharpest edge fades a little and I can breathe again, but even then, I won't be free of the emptiness. I only feel alive when I'm with you, my love.
And you're dead. Heh. But then we always knew I was fucked up, didn't we?
I don't know how long it will be before I follow you. Not too long, I think. I miss your embraces, but at least I get to have them... two hours a year. But your simple presence behind me, your smirks, your shy smiles, your comments to the movies I force you to watch, your annoyed glares when I track mud inside the house, your failed attempts at cooking for me, the way your mind would meet mine over a mission plan or a chess board or even something as simple as tennis, matching, knowing mine, your so tender hands taking mine in between yours, and the way you'd stare at our rings, glinting side by side, and your hand brushing my shoulder in support before a mission...
I don't track mud inside the house anymore. I don't play chess either. I've grown tired of playing again those games I played against you. Even against your memory, I still lose every time.
That may be because every time, I can't help but play the moves I played then, as if doing anything else was sacrilege against your memory.
I miss your love surrounding me, and while those two hours of sharing our bodies and hearts give me sustenance for the rest of the year, I miss your mind. I miss your voice. I miss the way you inspired me. I miss your calmness to counter my agitation, miss your method opposing my irrationality, I even miss us butting heads over silly matters like the order in which we had to wash the dishes or the color of our furniture.
Not everything we shared was sexual, and while I need making love with you like I need to breathe, it doesn't mean that I need the rest of you any less.
As I walk to the iron gates separating the place my love rests from the rest of the world, that world I have to walk alone, I already know that this year, the void threatening to devour me won't be so easy to keep at bay.
Already my resolve is weakening.
Maybe next year I'll give you more than two inches of hair and a few drops of blood.
Maybe next year, you'll take me under with you.
I want to sleep in your arms again.
--------------------------------
One year later
------
2 AM. Here we are again, Heero, my love.
As I had predicted, it's been a hard year. Harder than ever. Missing my love so much. Having to deal with a new bout of mother-henning by Quatre; I wasn't cautious enough and he realized that my "obsession" still ran just as deep.
I avoid him now. He's a true friend and I'm missing him, but I've grown tired of his pitying looks. He's as obsessed with healing me from what he perceives as temporary insanity as I am with not letting go of Heero. He doesn't understand that if I let go of Heero, there will be nothing of me left, that it won't be anything else than another form of that suicide he made me swear not to try ever. I avoid Trowa too since most of the time when one is, the other is too, but at least Trowa doesn't nag me. I think that, if he doesn't understand, he accepts, at least. I'm lucky he isn't the kind of guy who will let a friendship die from lack of meetings. I could spend years without seeing him, and when I chance upon him, everything would be the same as before. No anger, no resentment, no demands, just a calm, faintly amused presence.
Wufei's discovered a new depth to his friendship with me. He didn't ever talk about it, and he's too proper and too honorable to openly or discretely propose anything, but I'm not stupid. I know.
He knows I'm not stupid, he knows that I know, but we never talk about it. He's a lot like my husband in some aspects, but they're only general things. They're the same kind of people, driven, dedicated, silent but always watching, hiding dry wits behind an aloof act. But it isn't Heero's soul that shines through his eyes.
He doesn't realize that I'm even less of an idiot than he believes. I know things that he doesn't know himself.
Sometimes, when he looks at me, it's his Meiran that he sees in my eyes. He's nearly as "obsessed" as I am; he just does a better job at hiding it from others; from himself. He thinks he has let go. Fat chance.
Even if I could let another man into my heart anyway –which I can't; Heero's been branded into my soul – even if I could change my affection and respect for Wufei into something akin to romantic interest, even if I wasn't devoured alive by the pain of seeing him so alike and yet so different from my Heero, we wouldn't have a good relationship. You can never compete with the ghost of your companion's true soulmate. He should realize that. I did.
I'm sad for him, because he lost Meiran before they realized what they had and now, he doesn't want to face what he's lost. I'm sad for him, because he wouldn't feel so tortured if ever he only accepted to see the hole in his life. At least he could attempt to build around it, instead of crossing and crossing it, and wondering why he trips every time.
And I bet he's never thought of going to her tomb and offering his hair and his blood –not that I know if this ritual would work for him. Maybe he needs another ritual, with symbols that would be his own. Maybe he just can't, because I'm some sort of... what was it called ? Medium? Necromancer? In that case I'm lucky. Lucky to have received the gift that permits me to see Heero again. Two hours a year.
Two hours of lovemaking. 364 days and 22 hours of searing loneliness. This last year, I've fully realized something.
This isn't enough.
---
I have read, and researched. Finally questioned the gift I had received. Most of what I found was bullshit, RPG stats, dark fairytales. Of course zombies –what an ugly word- are not supposed to exist. But I'm nothing if not dedicated, and the stakes are more than enough motivation. And at least, the feeling of doing something at last helped me to soothe the gaping hole in my heart, to stall the pain. But every time I failed, every time I hit a dead end, it came back even harder. I think it was that for the first time since Heero had been torn from me, I allowed myself to hope. Hope hurts.
My hope told me that I was still more alive than I had believed. It was battered and bruised along the year, but every time I thought it would finally die, it was fed and nurtured by my knowledge that one way or another, this is the last year... the last I spend without my other half.
This year, when the two hours end, either I will have Heero with me, or I will be dead. And be with Heero. Either way I see it, I win.
---
Finally, I stand before the grave. The moon is out tonight, as always for this night of the year. I'm grateful. I need to see what I'm doing, because this year, the ritual will be different.
From what I understood of my research, when I give Heero blood, I give him the energy he needs to come back to me. When I give him my hair, I give him an anchor in reality, in materiality. I give him something of a bridge to his own body. Well, more like the bridge is still here but broken and my blood only serves to reinforce it to help Heero come across. There are other details, but they're not as important.
When I give Heero part of my body, his body comes back to life. But he –his soul –is using so much strength trying to hold it together, trying to stay with me, that he can't use even one ounce of energy for anything else. There is only enough for his body and the purest form of himself, his deepest essence. That's why I only ever hear my name and that ai shiteru that tears at my heart, just before he has to leave again.
If I want his soul to come back...
Blood, of course, because blood holds power. But my hair... I thought long and hard about that. It's a symbol, sure. My braid has always been a symbol, to me and to him. But it's also solid, something I can touch, and... I don't know how to explain.
Anyway, two inches won't be enough this time. According to the books, the strength of the ritual is proportional to the valor of the offering.
... Heero loves my hair. I'm not sure he'll be happy with me. But to have him back with me...
...Bah! Hair grows back.
I settle down on Heero's grave, my back against the headstone, like every year. The position is familiar. Soothing.
Okay... so what now? Ah, right. Flour and rum. The sources I have all say it helps invoke the ghosts. As I say, even if it does no good, I don't see how it can do bad. I sprinkle the grave with flour before liberally splashing the rum over it. Good rum too, tested it. Tempted to taste it again, just for a drop of warmth in the ice that my body is turning into, but I resist. It's for Heero, not for me.
I place the candle between my legs, over where Heero's chest should be. I made it myself, following tons and tons of constraints and age-old methods and whatnot. Maybe it isn't really important, maybe it's just superstition. Maybe it isn't. Never hurts though.
They say you have to use a silver or copper or whatever knife with such and such engravings, but I've found that the one thing really important isn't the symbol it is for everyone, it's the symbol it represents for you. I use the knife he gave me for the anniversary of our first meeting. Gundanium. Deathscythe and Wing. I've been using it every year. It will do just fine this year too.
Now the hair and the blood. I throw my shirt away, undo my hair, let it fall free down my back. It feels nice. It's the last time I'll feel that gentle tickling along my hips before a while, if it works. I grab a first strand. The blood, as always, comes from when I cut through my hair too fast; I don't especially care nor feel the pain.
I can't help but feel a twinge when I look at my hand and there is a freakishly long lock of hair in it, brushing patterns into the flour; I cut it close to the scalp. Maybe I shouldn't cut the next ones too close, I'll look weird otherwise. There is blood from my cut hand slowly dripping down the length. My hair looks wet, and black from being against the light. It looks alien. Was it really part of me?
I raise it above the flame and watch the still dry ends catch. It stinks. My eyes water. From the smoke of course. It's a thick, dark, nasty-smelling smoke.
You see, lots of ethnicities believe that to offer anything to the spirits, who live in the (duh) spiritual plane, you have to burn them. The fire purifies and sends from one world to another. It's that belief that made man begin to burn his dead.
When my hair stays in this world, so does the power I give Heero, and so... It makes sense for me.
Now comes the hard part.
Every time I've done this before, all along, I've been thinking 'come back to me. I need your embrace. Come back to me.' And that's what you've done, Heero, my love. But that isn't what I need to think about this time.
Another strand goes. 'Snip', says the blade. 'frrr' says the flame climbing the lock. The smoke turns darker, thicker when it reaches the part where my blood is seeping through.
I need you to stay with me. Over everything else, that is what I need. I will even sacrifice your embraces to have your presence with me. So... stay with me. Please.
Please. I'm sorry I can't say more, I'm sorry all my words have deserted me.
Snip, snip. fffrrrr.
Please.
Snip.
Nothing is happening. Nothing at all. I'm afraid. I know it's not probably going to happen before the end of the ritual, but... at least a sign, a hint that I'm on the right track...
... okay, that's it. Enough of being a sissy. I gather a big fistful of hair and pull it over my shoulder. The knife is dark from my blood; I notice that it's because I'm holding it too close to the blade. I don't care.
Do that and I'll kick your ass so hard that you will feel my sneaker in your throat.
...
I think I will cry, when I have laughed enough.
He's here. He's see through and blurred, but he's here.
And like a moron, I only realize that I'm going to throw myself at him when I nearly knock the candle down. I bet I'm as horrified as he looks. Here, nice candle. Stay in place, okay? I'm not throwing myself at him, I swear, it would be idiotic, I'd probably go right through him. So stay with me, nice, pretty candle that I handmade and respect your father, because the two hours aren't finished yet and if you fucking go out, I'll ... use you for something gross. Or something.
Of course melting wax doesn't hurt. Red skin is in anyway. Ow, motherfucker. Or is it fatherburner?
I don't think I've laughed that hard in... gods, has it been seven years already?
You're nuts, anata.
Yeah, I love you too, Heero.
Honest, I do.
no subject
evil!
... see you next week ^_~
no subject
no subject
If anything, I might encourage you to say more about Duo's sense of fatalism -- things about how the spellcasting is dangerous, but even if it goes wrong, he doesn't care because he'll either succeed or kill himself. It's not the most subtle of narratives, but then, this story isn't going to be flying on subtlety anyway.
no subject
no subject
I wub you.
You know this already, but I decided to say it again.
::sniff::