wip: now and then, here and there
nabuca and shuzo
what else...
They were never alone.
Listening in on their every whisper, in the barracks. In the mess hall. In the toilet. Through the depressions in the concrete walls, caused by the piffling of rifle fire and the creaking of time and the slip-ups in the ranks. Everyone was waiting for him to make a mistake.
x
He awoke at the stutter in his breathing, at first. Unused to his presence to begin with. That last battle should have been fresh in his mind, yet here he was, preoccupied with -
The quiet pains of nightmares appeared only later. Each time he nudged Shu awake, the boy mumbled and grasped and wearily repeated something that was not mother or father or the name of a place long-since buried in blood.
Laurel. Laura. Rue...
He could have said, you saved me. Instead he said goodnight.
x
There was something about the rise of his voice in the dust of the training grounds, that always left him questioning. The stick he used to trace letters into the hill of sand beneath their feet. The strange combination of eyes, and hair, and cheekbones, and -
"Japan! But... it's nothing like this place." Shu looked up at him, and the meaning of the scratches would have been clear if only Nabuca could read. He was standing far enough away so that he would have time to shoot if necessary. Far enough away so that they couldn't touch.
x
And when the bunk creaked into the weight of a second person, he opened his eyes.
"Are you...." mouth dry. He had been dreaming of the tinted flood that would carry Shu back to the land of the setting sun. For one faint, weak moment he cradled the fingers that had shook him; a solid, dry warmth that he just as quickly brushed to the side.
Shuzo looked at him. Yawned. And climbed back down while Nabuca cursed himself in the dark.
x
Run away with us.
He did, whenever he dared let the wisps of imagination settle into the edges of his thoughts. Sometimes they died before they even breached the outmost layers of the kingdom. Sometimes they made it to the desert, shivering through the night behind a bank of sand, and were found the next day. Or they ran forever, enough food and water stolen for a lifetime, but no villages were left to settle in because no one would take them in. But still, he would have. Had he not known the eyes of Lala Ru boring into him from behind Shu's outstretched hand.
Because in his dreams they had always escaped alone.
x
what else...
They were never alone.
Listening in on their every whisper, in the barracks. In the mess hall. In the toilet. Through the depressions in the concrete walls, caused by the piffling of rifle fire and the creaking of time and the slip-ups in the ranks. Everyone was waiting for him to make a mistake.
x
He awoke at the stutter in his breathing, at first. Unused to his presence to begin with. That last battle should have been fresh in his mind, yet here he was, preoccupied with -
The quiet pains of nightmares appeared only later. Each time he nudged Shu awake, the boy mumbled and grasped and wearily repeated something that was not mother or father or the name of a place long-since buried in blood.
Laurel. Laura. Rue...
He could have said, you saved me. Instead he said goodnight.
x
There was something about the rise of his voice in the dust of the training grounds, that always left him questioning. The stick he used to trace letters into the hill of sand beneath their feet. The strange combination of eyes, and hair, and cheekbones, and -
"Japan! But... it's nothing like this place." Shu looked up at him, and the meaning of the scratches would have been clear if only Nabuca could read. He was standing far enough away so that he would have time to shoot if necessary. Far enough away so that they couldn't touch.
x
And when the bunk creaked into the weight of a second person, he opened his eyes.
"Are you...." mouth dry. He had been dreaming of the tinted flood that would carry Shu back to the land of the setting sun. For one faint, weak moment he cradled the fingers that had shook him; a solid, dry warmth that he just as quickly brushed to the side.
Shuzo looked at him. Yawned. And climbed back down while Nabuca cursed himself in the dark.
x
Run away with us.
He did, whenever he dared let the wisps of imagination settle into the edges of his thoughts. Sometimes they died before they even breached the outmost layers of the kingdom. Sometimes they made it to the desert, shivering through the night behind a bank of sand, and were found the next day. Or they ran forever, enough food and water stolen for a lifetime, but no villages were left to settle in because no one would take them in. But still, he would have. Had he not known the eyes of Lala Ru boring into him from behind Shu's outstretched hand.
Because in his dreams they had always escaped alone.
x