~The angels, they burn inside for us. And are we ever, are we ever gonna learn to fly?~
^^ YAY I FINALLY FINISHED IT! *Squees with much joy* So here is the fic that I've probably spent a good five posts rambling about. I think I am rather happy!
Title: Angels or Devils
Song: "Angels or Devils" -Dishwalla
Rating: PG-13 just for some mild language and inferences
Pairing: NoojxBaralai, NoojxBaralaixGippal but it is all mainly mildly Waffy and thoughtful.
Warnings: Waffy-ness? And a lot of introverted thought-discussion. Umm.. and No smut in this fic.
This is the last time,
That I'm ever gonna come here tonight...
This is the last time,
I will fall into a place that felt so sore inside...
Footsteps echoed on the darkened pathway up Mushroom Rock Road, slow and paced, weary as though bearing the weight of the world. Accompanying the steps was the soft scraping of a cane. Nooj was walking a path he knew too well, a path that condemned him two years ago to stabbing agony. Stars winked in the sky above and the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the distant shores reached his ears. The path Nooj was walking went directly to the Den of Woe, dropping into the depths of the Mushroom Rock Road ravines.
"This is it... My last time. The last night I will ever come here. Time to say goodbye to the memories and the pain. But I'll indulge in one last night of agony." Nooj whispered to himself as he halted to stand at the gates of the Den of Woe. Those bejeweled gold gilded gates to his personal hell were softly illuminated by the light of the ten spheres set into the sockets on the gates. Going inside the Den was not his plan, he had simply come to look and remember.
Remembering was exactly what he did too. He could remember every single detail of that morning when he'd walked down this path with Baralai and Gippal beside him, nervous but talking calmly as the walked through the foggy morning air.
Nooj sank to his knees and then sat back against the hard rocks as he gazed at that softly illuminated gate cast in the beams of moonlight that only barely reached down into the ravine. And he was puzzled, at how he could feel so whole yet so broken all in one moment, lost in his memories and thoughts. How was it that over the course of two years his very world felt like it had been upended and then suddenly now it was back on it's feet again. Back to being okay, because everything had been settled. The factions were dissolving, the truth about what happened two years ago when he'd shot Baralai, Gippal and Paine being revealed, and his own heart being slowly nudged back together as his friends of two years ago started to trust him, and each other once more.
Somehow it all still hurt and really scars left by time did indeed run deep. The deepest scar was the one left on his heart that fateful day as beyond his control, beyond his willpower to supress the action caused by the malicious spirit of Shuyin, he raised his gun and aimed and then fired. It hurt worse than if he'd turned his gun on himself and sent that bullet tearing straight through his heart. And the memory of it brought tears to his eyes, tears of pain and agony that he mourned and greived over. He rarely cried, holding it all in until he would sheerly break down in an emotional torrent and sob bitterly for the irreperable deeds that he committed inadvertently. The past could be forgiven, but never forgotten, it was something that Nooj had clung to for the past two years, living in memories of happier days before their separation.
And as he was sitting the sounds of footsteps, two sets of footsteps that he knew all too well, approaching on the pathway grabbed his attention and he savagely wiped the tears from his eyes though his body would not give him heed and the tears still flowed regardless of how much he wiped at them.
And I can see the pain in you,
And I can see the love in you,
And fighting all the demons will take time,
Will take time...
"Nooj?" the soft voice of the Praetor cracked the silence with the gentless of a book being opened, just a whisper of sound that licked lightly at the air. Nooj raised his eyes slightly then to see Baralai and Gippal standing there between the naturally formed stone archway that marked the only exit back out of this place and the ravine.
"We thought you might be here. Or rather, Baralai did. After you disappeared when the conference he got really worried. I did too sorta.." Gippal said, walking over and standing a bit closer to where Nooj was slumped against the rock wall.
"I am fine. There really was no reason for either of you to worry. I am not... going to commit suicide or anything like that if that is what you suspected. I am past that now, for the most part at least." Nooj said quietly and the rawness in his voice was the largest revealing factor that he had been sobbing painfully to himself within the darkness of these chasms.
"Nooj... Why did you come here then, to this place? It is not as though there is anything here for you. And, you have us now." Baralai asked, moving directly beside the solemn deathseeker and shifting to his knees, tilting his head to get a better look into those tortured brown eyes.
"I came back to say goodbye. To close the door on the memories of the past and set them away in the album of my mind. And to indulge myself in one last night of hurt because my guilt and grief still lingers so deeply." Nooj murmured and stared at the dirt between his feet, his head partially lowered as tears slipped from his eyes once more. And he was a little bit annoyed with himself, allowing himself to show such a fragile part of himself, the sensitive pained part. But these were his friends, and even more so, they were the other pieces of his soul.
"Nooj, ya know.. You're really just silly. We would've come here with you, you knew that, right?" Gippal asked, grinning slightly in that way of his that was almost puppy like, so sweet that he could work his way into anyone's heart and not be refused or cast aside.
"I knew. But this is my pain, I have to get through it on my own." Nooj murmured, glancing up at Gippal and then at Baralai before gazing skyward.
"You don't always have to be brave and strong Nooj. People won't be mad if you admit now and then that you do need other people and do want their help. In fact if you do they will more than likely be willing to help you work through whatever is paining you, I know I am willing to help you. Won't you let us both get you through this, let us share some of your burden because it's weighing you down when you do not have to carry it alone, not any more." Baralai said and his words sounded sagely before he rested an arm around Nooj's shoulder, stroking his hair lightly.
"I guess.. I could let you brats help.. if you two are that hell-bent on doing so." Nooj replied, giving a broken but wry laugh, his voice still racked a bit from his silent sobbing earlier.
"Now that is the Nooj we know and love! And yes, you cannot get rid of us brats so easily." Gippal teased and gave Nooj a light punch to the shoulder before flopping down at the older man's other side.
"You know Nooj.. You don't have to try to get over everything in one night either. I mean, things have just barely been resolved and you are trying to settle everything within yourself but it will take time to fight away the inner demons and salve the scars they've left until they've finally gone." Baralai said, always the caring advisor.
"Yes, I suppose so." Nooj simply replied, almost at a loss for words and so he just continued gazing skyward toward the distant stars and the others gazed off with him into that deep dark cloak of night that draped the sky.
The angels,
They burn inside, For us....
And are we ever,
Are we ever gonna learn to fly?
"You remember when we made that promise to each other about flying an airship?" Gippal asked, his one eye cutting over to the other two. The both nodded very quietly, Baralai being the first to acknowledge and then Nooj the second.
"Well, we should still do that. We should find an airship and just go off, anywhere we wanted and we would not have to explain anything to anyone. We could just be us, the way things were supposed to be." Gippal explained his question further.
"We'd be without our pilot though. And I don't really think I deserve to be captain, after all that's happened." Nooj muttered and at his words Baralai ducked his face right in front of Nooj's nearly startling him with the sudden movement and the expression on the young Praetor's face.
"Well, you'll have to be our captain and our pilot. You don't get a say in this Nooj because I know Gippal would agree with me on that sentiment and so since majority rules then you must do what we want. I don't want to hear any more of this about you not deserving to be captain either. I would tell you if you were not deserving to be captain." Baralai said smirking slightly then and Nooj arched an eyebrow, looking over to Gippal who was laughing quietly to himself and then back at Baralai looking into his eyes.
"Very well... But I'm going to have to learn to fly. So no promises that I won't have a couple crashes early on." Nooj smiled softly.
The devils,
They burn inside, Of us...
And are we ever gonna come back down?
Come around...
"I thought Nooj, when you shot all of us that it had all been a lie, that you had been faking all along just so that you could hurt us in the end. But then when Shuyin possessed me, made me fight against Spira, made me fight against you. I realized how helpless you really were then because I tried my hardest but I couldn't get through, couldn't make him go away." Baralai said softly as he had moved to sit a bit more comfortably.
"Yes... I was screaming inside when it happened. But, that devil of the past is buring away now. It is something that I now know I don't have to hold on to." Nooj whispered and Gippal gave an amused smirk that had both Nooj and Baralai raising a brow.
"What in Yevon's name are you smiling about?" Baralai asked softly, tilting his head to peer over at Gippal who looked way too self satisfied.
"Oh nothing, I just knew it all.. I knew everything would be alright between us in the end. That's the whole reason my faction was impartial, because I knew everything would be okay in the end and I was not going to drive a deeper wedge between all of us when there was a good chance we could patch things together." Gippal said, seeming highly amused with his forsight over it all.
"And you say you forsaw all this happening even when the factions were having bloody massacers and the wars were breaking out you knew that everything would be peachy keen?" Nooj asked, and shook his head in disbelief.
"Yup. I saw it coming waaaay back then. As soon as I knew you two were both alive I knew everything would be okay." Gippal nodded and looked over at the other two.
"You just know everything don't you. You smart aleck Al Bhed..." Baralai said with an amused coyness and returned the grin on Gippal's face.
"Of course! I am a genius after all." Gippal bragged and Nooj gave him a light shove, evoking resounding laughter from all three of them. All of them laughing in a place where they never imagined to ever be sitting and talking and laughing. But this was part of the healing, this was part of the mending that had to be done.
A momma's gonna worry 'bout,
The things that could make us cold...
"It was funny... you know. Before we came looking for you Yuna gave a sphere transmission to Gippal and I, and yet it was not her who spoke to us but the guardian and black mage, Lady Lulu.. Apparently Yuna told her everthing, about the factions, what is on the crimson spheres. Everything." Baralai began thoughtfully, sitting back and folding his hands over his lap. Gippal grew quiet to listen, since it had really been Baralai who had conversed with Lulu for the most part.
"And what did she say about all of it?" Nooj asked quietly, casting thoughtful brown eyes toward Baralai.
"Well, she asked how we all were doing. I told her we were good, but that you had disappeared and gone off on your own suddenly. And she told me that it was important to go after you, that if I let you go this time I might not find you again or that you might become cold and jaded and unfeeling about all of it. She was worried that things could not be mended.. and I do not know how but she knew how I really feel, about you and Gippal, how much I love you both." Baralai whispered and Gippal nodded.
"Yeah, she just kinda read Baralai and I like open books and then told us what we needed to do. And then we set right off looking for you." Gippal added softly.
"I think she knew because... she knows what it is to love. You can't empathize if you cannot relate. But she can, she knows about both the joys and the pains of love. And, she saw something in the three of us apparently that the realized needed to be brought to attention. I was.. originally a little upset that you'd followed me, but I want to thank you both. For being here for me." Nooj replied, embracing the other two.
This is the last time,
That I'm ever gonna give in tonight...
Are there angels or devils crawling here?
I just wanna know, what was I?
What is clear to see...
"Why didn't you just tell us back then, that it wasn't your fault?" Gippal asked gently, looking at the deathseeker who was calm yet held that ever morose air about him.
"Would either of you have really believed me. After I had seemingly turned and in cold blood shot you both in the back would you have beleived me if I'd showed up trying to explain. At best I'd be thought crazy, at worst I would've been accused of lying." Nooj shrugged quietly. Baralai gave a soft sigh and set his arm on Nooj's shoulder, fingers resting over where beneath the vinyl of his bodysuit shoulder met with metal in a scarred conjunction.
"No... I can admit I would not have believed you. I couldn't have, I didn't realize what it was like to be possessed. To sit there in the back of your mind only able to watch while your body went against your will.. I know, you could not even try to tell us what happened then.. but even so, those years apart. Some small part of me that fought through my bitterness would always wish that you would come walking up the steps of Bevelle seeking me out, coming to end all the hatred and factioning and tell me it was an accident. I did not want to think that you would've intentionally done that to us." Baralai answereed after much thought. Nooj closed his eyes at hot tears that stung and wanted to escape his eyes, closing them in and not revealing them.
"What are we now? Failed leaders and former members of a broken squadron? Just a bunch of roaming devils?" Nooj murmured and Gippal tilted his head.
"What the? Don't be cryptic Nooj! Just say want's on your mind, don't just bullshit around with stuff like metaphors." Gippal said, giving the solemn deathseeker a gentle shove.
"Indeed, it is not as though we can read your mind. I really would be pleased if you'd just tell us what you're thinking." Baralai said calmly.
"What I mean is, look at us now. We have nothing now, we are not mercenaries nor leaders. We are not given true respect for we have failed in our positions. What do we do and where do we go now when we are only known as the former Maevyn, Praetor, and leader of the Machina Faction. What future do we have?" Nooj asked, and rested his face against the palm of his gloved machina hand, eyes closed as a breath of despondancy escaped his lips.
"Oh Nooj.... Worrying about the future hm? There was a time when I thought you didn't care. You really have changed, but maybe for the better. Rather I mean, there was a time when you planned to die whenever your particular lucky tomorrow would come but now I see that you're looking ahead, as though there will be a future to you, regardless of whether or not you can see it." Baralai said with a smile.
"That doesn't answer my question." Nooj muttered, not moving from his chosen position, not looking at the other two.
"Nooj, would you quit your bitchin'? You worry too damn much about everything, we'll figure it out when we get there. You don't always have to plan everything and be in control ya know. It's a lot easier than that, if you'll let future just take it's own course." Gippal said with a gentle laugh of amusement.
"Yes, besides, angels have no need for worries. You know that don't you?" Baralai said with an impish look.
"Angels?" Nooj asked, raising his head to arch an eyebrow in puzzlement only to have his mussed bangs straightened by the Praetor who was gazing over at him.
"Well, you called us wandering devils but really I think we are more like angels. You were always our guardian angel, even if you made mistakes even angels make mistakes now and then." Baralai said soothingly.
Well I can see the pain in you,
And I can see the love in you,
And fighting all the demons will take time,
Will take time....
"Okay okay, then the future can fix itself, but what about today? What about that?" Nooj asked and Baralai placed a hand over his lips giving him a firm look.
"Nooj, no more questions right now, okay? Everything really will be fine." Baralai said calmly and nodded gently.
"Yeah, we'll figure it out eventually. Besides, we've got a lot to look forward to, that airship and all. We really do have quite a future to look forward to." Gippal said and stretched out slightly, giving a gentle yawn and closing his eyes in exhaustion. It took but a couple minutes of silence until the usually insomniac Al Bhed had fallen into his deep sleep.
"He was tired... He worries a lot more than he lets on, one would never know it from looking at his hyperactive and often childish behavior. Let's let him sleep. At least for a while, there's no rush to leave anyway since there's no where we absolutely have to go right now." Baralai said in a gentle tone.
"Yes, I imagine he really must've tired himself out because usually we're the one's trying to sleep while he's up half the night tinkering with machina and whatnot." Nooj said and the bare hint of a smile met his lips, perhaps from the familiarity of a thought.
"Ah yes, the late nights and early mornings we'd spend snuggled trying to sleep, and then would just lay there together anyway with the blanket over our heads and cuddled together nuzzling for comfort just because we did not want to get up yet. I'd like to do that again." Baralai said with a soft sigh and layed his head against Nooj's chest, letting his arm drape across Nooj's waist.
"Me too, Baralai. Me too.. I have missed that far too much, especially on the mornings and nights when I was plagued with my own bouts of insomnia. I would lay awake and think of you, and yet without you there no comfort would come to me." Nooj whispered, his arms automatically curling protectively around Baralai's waist in a manner that would feel so familiar.
"You thought of me? Did you think of me often?" Baralai asked with a hopeful look in his amber eyes that stared up into Nooj's own brown eyed gaze.
"Of course. How could I not think of you every waking moment and then dream of you in those rare moments that sleep would actually come to me." Nooj replied.
"You always were a closet romantic." Baralai laughed to himself lightly, nuzzling closer and inhaling Nooj's anise-like scent.
The angels,
They burn inside, For us....
And are we ever,
Are we ever gonna learn to fly?
"Do you really think we're going to be able to find an airship, pilot it and all, like we dreamed so long ago?" Nooj asked, his fingers stroking through Baralai's silver tresses in a comforting gesture.
"Of course, I believe it with all my heart and I also know that you'll make a good captain and pilot. I trust you, if I didn't I would've asked for a reassignment way back then when the squad was first assembled." Baralai replied and gave a gentle nod to himself.
"You trust me huh? Very well but I still am going to work the both of you like dogs." Nooj said and gave a smirk.
"Oh hush, you know what talk like that does to me. Besides, not that I mind if you work me quite a bit." Baralai returned the smirk, knowing just what the deathseeker was really inferring.
"Is that so? We'll I'll remember that and make sure to give you special attention and work you extra hard then." Nooj grinned and pressed a light kiss to Baralai's forehead before settling them both a little more comfortably.
The devils,
They burn inside, Of us...
And are we ever gonna come back down?
Come around...
"You know.. I think with the two of you at my side. I might be able to heal the wounds of time, both very old, and those formed in a little over two years." Nooj replied.
"Oh? Well, that's good to hear. It makes me very happy. Not just that you'll be okay, but that we can be the ones to help you. I didn't know if I could ever be strong enough a person to help you but I wanted to try, very much so in fact." Baralai replied.
"Sometimes I don't think you give yourself the credit you deserve Baralai. You are a strong man, a hell of a lot stronger than me for that matter. Even after everything that happened you still pressed on, your sense of self preservation, as well as your emotional strength have always been much greater than mine. While you were likely trying to find a way to survive through the first year after that day, I was looking for my death. In fact I was chasing it like a hell hound, I chased it right out into the ocean and tried to drown myself only to be pulled back to the shore by the chocobo knights and rescued from my desired death." Nooj gave a gentle snort and shook his head very softly.
"Well, I think you give me more credit than some times I do deserve. Though I will not disagree with you, I also do a lot of fronting. Duty and survival often took the foreground while emotions were destined to get stuffed beneath the surface and left to the background. You are lucky those chocobo knights were there and I am extremely glad they stopped you. If you had ever died I would have broken, I wouldn't have been able to bend with the wind any longer, I would've simply cracked and likely sought my own death. And, if that was not the case, then in the very least I would've hurt deeply, more deeply than any wound I've ever experienced." Baralai answered and leaned into Nooj more.
A momma's gonna worry 'bout,
The things that could break us...
"Oh, and there was something else Lulu said. She told me that, no matter what happens we should always trust each other because it is the seeds of distrust that spring into malice. She truly is a wise woman, especially considering that she really is not any older than the rest of us." Baralai said.
"She's an old soul, or so I'd assume. Especially considering that she was a guardian. Guardians had it hard." Nooj said and gazed at the star flecked sky in thought.
"Well, we had it hard too, though I will agree with the old soul thing. She is most definitely wise beyond her years." Baralai answered and curled closer in against Nooj, settling himself so he was in complete comfort.
Defy what you're given,
I give it up for love..
Take a breath, make it deep...
Because it might be,
The last one you get....
Babe, the last one...
"You know... One day, back before everything was resolved and all. I got the craziest idea, I mean the absolute craziest. It was back when the Youth League was just barely gaining strength. I had a thought of throwing it all away and breaking into Bevelle, tearing up the place until I had found you and then taking you away from it all. Ending the factioning in my own way and style. But of course I didn't follow through, just me being my typical self. Thinking of all the things I might do but never really doing any of them." Nooj said thoughtfully.
"You thought about doing something like that? I don't doubt you could've pulled it off. I sort of wish you had, of course... That would've been quite bloody because I know the Bevelle guards at that point and time would've died fighting before ever letting you through. And if you got yourself hellbent on taking me from there neither guards nor anything else could've stopped you, no matter how many lives had to be ended to do it. I sort of find that romantic though, as odd as that sounds." Baralai musingly voiced his own thoughts.
"Yes, you're right. Hey Baralai... This is really real, right? Because I don't think I can handle it if it's a dream. I don't think I could go on another day if it meant waking up to how it was before alone in my room in the cold light of the morning. I'm almost afraid to breathe because what if this ends and I'm woken up by the sun streaming through my window?" Nooj whispered then, sounding in a rare moment of actually feeling something akin to fear.
"Nooj, look at me. Look me right in the eyes." Baralai said then, leaning up just a bit so he was directly face to face with Nooj looking at him. Nooj met his gaze without caution, fear was not something he could show Baralai, not in this moment. At least, not fear of Baralai himself, the only thing Nooj feared right now was losing Baralai.
"This is real Nooj, every single bit of what you see in this moment is real, you can breathe without worrying about waking up without me here at your side. I'm not going anywhere, none of us are going anywhere ever again. So you needn't be afraid either." Baralai answered and Nooj nodded quietly.
It could make us, cruel....
It can make us, cruel....
A momma's gonna worry 'bout,
The things that could make us cold...
"And... if something goes wrong? If fate intervenes again and tears us apart, or sets us against each other. Could you handle feeling the cruelty that I know we both felt when we were separated and thrown on opposite sides of the board of fate like chess pieces?" Nooj asked, though the question was almost tentative.
"Ah yes... well, I just won't let it happen. This time I'm going to fight fate if it comes my way. I'm not going to give up and I know you won't either, you know I won't let you. I won't let things go wrong again. Last time I froze up, I was too afraid to do anything back in the Den of Woe but now I know I can stand up and handle things." Baralai said and settled himself once more. A long silence stretched between the two so that only the sound of the waves soothingly meeting the distance shore broke the quiet of the evening.
"Well then.. Let me follow you then this time. As your captain, my dear navigator, let me let you lead me. Because I know you will never lead me astray." Nooj whispered and his lips were met at those words by Baralai's lips, uniting in a soft kiss before the Praetor pulled back and let his head rest against Nooj's shoulder.
"Then I will guide you, my love. Well.. I suppose we should try to sleep, Gippal will undoubtedly wake up in a couple hours before the sun is even up and wander around making noise until we get up." Baralai whispered, closing his eyes sleepily.
"Hmm.. well, then I guess we can do like the old days and lay around cuddling until we feel like getting up. Goodnight, Baralai." Nooj whispered.
"Goodnight Nooj... And this time, I really will be here when you wake up." Baralai answered, as they both drifted to sleep, the three former crimson squad members laying there sleeping as angels would. Sleeping as they had not slept in two years.
Title: Angels or Devils
Song: "Angels or Devils" -Dishwalla
Rating: PG-13 just for some mild language and inferences
Pairing: NoojxBaralai, NoojxBaralaixGippal but it is all mainly mildly Waffy and thoughtful.
Warnings: Waffy-ness? And a lot of introverted thought-discussion. Umm.. and No smut in this fic.
This is the last time,
That I'm ever gonna come here tonight...
This is the last time,
I will fall into a place that felt so sore inside...
Footsteps echoed on the darkened pathway up Mushroom Rock Road, slow and paced, weary as though bearing the weight of the world. Accompanying the steps was the soft scraping of a cane. Nooj was walking a path he knew too well, a path that condemned him two years ago to stabbing agony. Stars winked in the sky above and the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the distant shores reached his ears. The path Nooj was walking went directly to the Den of Woe, dropping into the depths of the Mushroom Rock Road ravines.
"This is it... My last time. The last night I will ever come here. Time to say goodbye to the memories and the pain. But I'll indulge in one last night of agony." Nooj whispered to himself as he halted to stand at the gates of the Den of Woe. Those bejeweled gold gilded gates to his personal hell were softly illuminated by the light of the ten spheres set into the sockets on the gates. Going inside the Den was not his plan, he had simply come to look and remember.
Remembering was exactly what he did too. He could remember every single detail of that morning when he'd walked down this path with Baralai and Gippal beside him, nervous but talking calmly as the walked through the foggy morning air.
Nooj sank to his knees and then sat back against the hard rocks as he gazed at that softly illuminated gate cast in the beams of moonlight that only barely reached down into the ravine. And he was puzzled, at how he could feel so whole yet so broken all in one moment, lost in his memories and thoughts. How was it that over the course of two years his very world felt like it had been upended and then suddenly now it was back on it's feet again. Back to being okay, because everything had been settled. The factions were dissolving, the truth about what happened two years ago when he'd shot Baralai, Gippal and Paine being revealed, and his own heart being slowly nudged back together as his friends of two years ago started to trust him, and each other once more.
Somehow it all still hurt and really scars left by time did indeed run deep. The deepest scar was the one left on his heart that fateful day as beyond his control, beyond his willpower to supress the action caused by the malicious spirit of Shuyin, he raised his gun and aimed and then fired. It hurt worse than if he'd turned his gun on himself and sent that bullet tearing straight through his heart. And the memory of it brought tears to his eyes, tears of pain and agony that he mourned and greived over. He rarely cried, holding it all in until he would sheerly break down in an emotional torrent and sob bitterly for the irreperable deeds that he committed inadvertently. The past could be forgiven, but never forgotten, it was something that Nooj had clung to for the past two years, living in memories of happier days before their separation.
And as he was sitting the sounds of footsteps, two sets of footsteps that he knew all too well, approaching on the pathway grabbed his attention and he savagely wiped the tears from his eyes though his body would not give him heed and the tears still flowed regardless of how much he wiped at them.
And I can see the pain in you,
And I can see the love in you,
And fighting all the demons will take time,
Will take time...
"Nooj?" the soft voice of the Praetor cracked the silence with the gentless of a book being opened, just a whisper of sound that licked lightly at the air. Nooj raised his eyes slightly then to see Baralai and Gippal standing there between the naturally formed stone archway that marked the only exit back out of this place and the ravine.
"We thought you might be here. Or rather, Baralai did. After you disappeared when the conference he got really worried. I did too sorta.." Gippal said, walking over and standing a bit closer to where Nooj was slumped against the rock wall.
"I am fine. There really was no reason for either of you to worry. I am not... going to commit suicide or anything like that if that is what you suspected. I am past that now, for the most part at least." Nooj said quietly and the rawness in his voice was the largest revealing factor that he had been sobbing painfully to himself within the darkness of these chasms.
"Nooj... Why did you come here then, to this place? It is not as though there is anything here for you. And, you have us now." Baralai asked, moving directly beside the solemn deathseeker and shifting to his knees, tilting his head to get a better look into those tortured brown eyes.
"I came back to say goodbye. To close the door on the memories of the past and set them away in the album of my mind. And to indulge myself in one last night of hurt because my guilt and grief still lingers so deeply." Nooj murmured and stared at the dirt between his feet, his head partially lowered as tears slipped from his eyes once more. And he was a little bit annoyed with himself, allowing himself to show such a fragile part of himself, the sensitive pained part. But these were his friends, and even more so, they were the other pieces of his soul.
"Nooj, ya know.. You're really just silly. We would've come here with you, you knew that, right?" Gippal asked, grinning slightly in that way of his that was almost puppy like, so sweet that he could work his way into anyone's heart and not be refused or cast aside.
"I knew. But this is my pain, I have to get through it on my own." Nooj murmured, glancing up at Gippal and then at Baralai before gazing skyward.
"You don't always have to be brave and strong Nooj. People won't be mad if you admit now and then that you do need other people and do want their help. In fact if you do they will more than likely be willing to help you work through whatever is paining you, I know I am willing to help you. Won't you let us both get you through this, let us share some of your burden because it's weighing you down when you do not have to carry it alone, not any more." Baralai said and his words sounded sagely before he rested an arm around Nooj's shoulder, stroking his hair lightly.
"I guess.. I could let you brats help.. if you two are that hell-bent on doing so." Nooj replied, giving a broken but wry laugh, his voice still racked a bit from his silent sobbing earlier.
"Now that is the Nooj we know and love! And yes, you cannot get rid of us brats so easily." Gippal teased and gave Nooj a light punch to the shoulder before flopping down at the older man's other side.
"You know Nooj.. You don't have to try to get over everything in one night either. I mean, things have just barely been resolved and you are trying to settle everything within yourself but it will take time to fight away the inner demons and salve the scars they've left until they've finally gone." Baralai said, always the caring advisor.
"Yes, I suppose so." Nooj simply replied, almost at a loss for words and so he just continued gazing skyward toward the distant stars and the others gazed off with him into that deep dark cloak of night that draped the sky.
The angels,
They burn inside, For us....
And are we ever,
Are we ever gonna learn to fly?
"You remember when we made that promise to each other about flying an airship?" Gippal asked, his one eye cutting over to the other two. The both nodded very quietly, Baralai being the first to acknowledge and then Nooj the second.
"Well, we should still do that. We should find an airship and just go off, anywhere we wanted and we would not have to explain anything to anyone. We could just be us, the way things were supposed to be." Gippal explained his question further.
"We'd be without our pilot though. And I don't really think I deserve to be captain, after all that's happened." Nooj muttered and at his words Baralai ducked his face right in front of Nooj's nearly startling him with the sudden movement and the expression on the young Praetor's face.
"Well, you'll have to be our captain and our pilot. You don't get a say in this Nooj because I know Gippal would agree with me on that sentiment and so since majority rules then you must do what we want. I don't want to hear any more of this about you not deserving to be captain either. I would tell you if you were not deserving to be captain." Baralai said smirking slightly then and Nooj arched an eyebrow, looking over to Gippal who was laughing quietly to himself and then back at Baralai looking into his eyes.
"Very well... But I'm going to have to learn to fly. So no promises that I won't have a couple crashes early on." Nooj smiled softly.
The devils,
They burn inside, Of us...
And are we ever gonna come back down?
Come around...
"I thought Nooj, when you shot all of us that it had all been a lie, that you had been faking all along just so that you could hurt us in the end. But then when Shuyin possessed me, made me fight against Spira, made me fight against you. I realized how helpless you really were then because I tried my hardest but I couldn't get through, couldn't make him go away." Baralai said softly as he had moved to sit a bit more comfortably.
"Yes... I was screaming inside when it happened. But, that devil of the past is buring away now. It is something that I now know I don't have to hold on to." Nooj whispered and Gippal gave an amused smirk that had both Nooj and Baralai raising a brow.
"What in Yevon's name are you smiling about?" Baralai asked softly, tilting his head to peer over at Gippal who looked way too self satisfied.
"Oh nothing, I just knew it all.. I knew everything would be alright between us in the end. That's the whole reason my faction was impartial, because I knew everything would be okay in the end and I was not going to drive a deeper wedge between all of us when there was a good chance we could patch things together." Gippal said, seeming highly amused with his forsight over it all.
"And you say you forsaw all this happening even when the factions were having bloody massacers and the wars were breaking out you knew that everything would be peachy keen?" Nooj asked, and shook his head in disbelief.
"Yup. I saw it coming waaaay back then. As soon as I knew you two were both alive I knew everything would be okay." Gippal nodded and looked over at the other two.
"You just know everything don't you. You smart aleck Al Bhed..." Baralai said with an amused coyness and returned the grin on Gippal's face.
"Of course! I am a genius after all." Gippal bragged and Nooj gave him a light shove, evoking resounding laughter from all three of them. All of them laughing in a place where they never imagined to ever be sitting and talking and laughing. But this was part of the healing, this was part of the mending that had to be done.
A momma's gonna worry 'bout,
The things that could make us cold...
"It was funny... you know. Before we came looking for you Yuna gave a sphere transmission to Gippal and I, and yet it was not her who spoke to us but the guardian and black mage, Lady Lulu.. Apparently Yuna told her everthing, about the factions, what is on the crimson spheres. Everything." Baralai began thoughtfully, sitting back and folding his hands over his lap. Gippal grew quiet to listen, since it had really been Baralai who had conversed with Lulu for the most part.
"And what did she say about all of it?" Nooj asked quietly, casting thoughtful brown eyes toward Baralai.
"Well, she asked how we all were doing. I told her we were good, but that you had disappeared and gone off on your own suddenly. And she told me that it was important to go after you, that if I let you go this time I might not find you again or that you might become cold and jaded and unfeeling about all of it. She was worried that things could not be mended.. and I do not know how but she knew how I really feel, about you and Gippal, how much I love you both." Baralai whispered and Gippal nodded.
"Yeah, she just kinda read Baralai and I like open books and then told us what we needed to do. And then we set right off looking for you." Gippal added softly.
"I think she knew because... she knows what it is to love. You can't empathize if you cannot relate. But she can, she knows about both the joys and the pains of love. And, she saw something in the three of us apparently that the realized needed to be brought to attention. I was.. originally a little upset that you'd followed me, but I want to thank you both. For being here for me." Nooj replied, embracing the other two.
This is the last time,
That I'm ever gonna give in tonight...
Are there angels or devils crawling here?
I just wanna know, what was I?
What is clear to see...
"Why didn't you just tell us back then, that it wasn't your fault?" Gippal asked gently, looking at the deathseeker who was calm yet held that ever morose air about him.
"Would either of you have really believed me. After I had seemingly turned and in cold blood shot you both in the back would you have beleived me if I'd showed up trying to explain. At best I'd be thought crazy, at worst I would've been accused of lying." Nooj shrugged quietly. Baralai gave a soft sigh and set his arm on Nooj's shoulder, fingers resting over where beneath the vinyl of his bodysuit shoulder met with metal in a scarred conjunction.
"No... I can admit I would not have believed you. I couldn't have, I didn't realize what it was like to be possessed. To sit there in the back of your mind only able to watch while your body went against your will.. I know, you could not even try to tell us what happened then.. but even so, those years apart. Some small part of me that fought through my bitterness would always wish that you would come walking up the steps of Bevelle seeking me out, coming to end all the hatred and factioning and tell me it was an accident. I did not want to think that you would've intentionally done that to us." Baralai answereed after much thought. Nooj closed his eyes at hot tears that stung and wanted to escape his eyes, closing them in and not revealing them.
"What are we now? Failed leaders and former members of a broken squadron? Just a bunch of roaming devils?" Nooj murmured and Gippal tilted his head.
"What the? Don't be cryptic Nooj! Just say want's on your mind, don't just bullshit around with stuff like metaphors." Gippal said, giving the solemn deathseeker a gentle shove.
"Indeed, it is not as though we can read your mind. I really would be pleased if you'd just tell us what you're thinking." Baralai said calmly.
"What I mean is, look at us now. We have nothing now, we are not mercenaries nor leaders. We are not given true respect for we have failed in our positions. What do we do and where do we go now when we are only known as the former Maevyn, Praetor, and leader of the Machina Faction. What future do we have?" Nooj asked, and rested his face against the palm of his gloved machina hand, eyes closed as a breath of despondancy escaped his lips.
"Oh Nooj.... Worrying about the future hm? There was a time when I thought you didn't care. You really have changed, but maybe for the better. Rather I mean, there was a time when you planned to die whenever your particular lucky tomorrow would come but now I see that you're looking ahead, as though there will be a future to you, regardless of whether or not you can see it." Baralai said with a smile.
"That doesn't answer my question." Nooj muttered, not moving from his chosen position, not looking at the other two.
"Nooj, would you quit your bitchin'? You worry too damn much about everything, we'll figure it out when we get there. You don't always have to plan everything and be in control ya know. It's a lot easier than that, if you'll let future just take it's own course." Gippal said with a gentle laugh of amusement.
"Yes, besides, angels have no need for worries. You know that don't you?" Baralai said with an impish look.
"Angels?" Nooj asked, raising his head to arch an eyebrow in puzzlement only to have his mussed bangs straightened by the Praetor who was gazing over at him.
"Well, you called us wandering devils but really I think we are more like angels. You were always our guardian angel, even if you made mistakes even angels make mistakes now and then." Baralai said soothingly.
Well I can see the pain in you,
And I can see the love in you,
And fighting all the demons will take time,
Will take time....
"Okay okay, then the future can fix itself, but what about today? What about that?" Nooj asked and Baralai placed a hand over his lips giving him a firm look.
"Nooj, no more questions right now, okay? Everything really will be fine." Baralai said calmly and nodded gently.
"Yeah, we'll figure it out eventually. Besides, we've got a lot to look forward to, that airship and all. We really do have quite a future to look forward to." Gippal said and stretched out slightly, giving a gentle yawn and closing his eyes in exhaustion. It took but a couple minutes of silence until the usually insomniac Al Bhed had fallen into his deep sleep.
"He was tired... He worries a lot more than he lets on, one would never know it from looking at his hyperactive and often childish behavior. Let's let him sleep. At least for a while, there's no rush to leave anyway since there's no where we absolutely have to go right now." Baralai said in a gentle tone.
"Yes, I imagine he really must've tired himself out because usually we're the one's trying to sleep while he's up half the night tinkering with machina and whatnot." Nooj said and the bare hint of a smile met his lips, perhaps from the familiarity of a thought.
"Ah yes, the late nights and early mornings we'd spend snuggled trying to sleep, and then would just lay there together anyway with the blanket over our heads and cuddled together nuzzling for comfort just because we did not want to get up yet. I'd like to do that again." Baralai said with a soft sigh and layed his head against Nooj's chest, letting his arm drape across Nooj's waist.
"Me too, Baralai. Me too.. I have missed that far too much, especially on the mornings and nights when I was plagued with my own bouts of insomnia. I would lay awake and think of you, and yet without you there no comfort would come to me." Nooj whispered, his arms automatically curling protectively around Baralai's waist in a manner that would feel so familiar.
"You thought of me? Did you think of me often?" Baralai asked with a hopeful look in his amber eyes that stared up into Nooj's own brown eyed gaze.
"Of course. How could I not think of you every waking moment and then dream of you in those rare moments that sleep would actually come to me." Nooj replied.
"You always were a closet romantic." Baralai laughed to himself lightly, nuzzling closer and inhaling Nooj's anise-like scent.
The angels,
They burn inside, For us....
And are we ever,
Are we ever gonna learn to fly?
"Do you really think we're going to be able to find an airship, pilot it and all, like we dreamed so long ago?" Nooj asked, his fingers stroking through Baralai's silver tresses in a comforting gesture.
"Of course, I believe it with all my heart and I also know that you'll make a good captain and pilot. I trust you, if I didn't I would've asked for a reassignment way back then when the squad was first assembled." Baralai replied and gave a gentle nod to himself.
"You trust me huh? Very well but I still am going to work the both of you like dogs." Nooj said and gave a smirk.
"Oh hush, you know what talk like that does to me. Besides, not that I mind if you work me quite a bit." Baralai returned the smirk, knowing just what the deathseeker was really inferring.
"Is that so? We'll I'll remember that and make sure to give you special attention and work you extra hard then." Nooj grinned and pressed a light kiss to Baralai's forehead before settling them both a little more comfortably.
The devils,
They burn inside, Of us...
And are we ever gonna come back down?
Come around...
"You know.. I think with the two of you at my side. I might be able to heal the wounds of time, both very old, and those formed in a little over two years." Nooj replied.
"Oh? Well, that's good to hear. It makes me very happy. Not just that you'll be okay, but that we can be the ones to help you. I didn't know if I could ever be strong enough a person to help you but I wanted to try, very much so in fact." Baralai replied.
"Sometimes I don't think you give yourself the credit you deserve Baralai. You are a strong man, a hell of a lot stronger than me for that matter. Even after everything that happened you still pressed on, your sense of self preservation, as well as your emotional strength have always been much greater than mine. While you were likely trying to find a way to survive through the first year after that day, I was looking for my death. In fact I was chasing it like a hell hound, I chased it right out into the ocean and tried to drown myself only to be pulled back to the shore by the chocobo knights and rescued from my desired death." Nooj gave a gentle snort and shook his head very softly.
"Well, I think you give me more credit than some times I do deserve. Though I will not disagree with you, I also do a lot of fronting. Duty and survival often took the foreground while emotions were destined to get stuffed beneath the surface and left to the background. You are lucky those chocobo knights were there and I am extremely glad they stopped you. If you had ever died I would have broken, I wouldn't have been able to bend with the wind any longer, I would've simply cracked and likely sought my own death. And, if that was not the case, then in the very least I would've hurt deeply, more deeply than any wound I've ever experienced." Baralai answered and leaned into Nooj more.
A momma's gonna worry 'bout,
The things that could break us...
"Oh, and there was something else Lulu said. She told me that, no matter what happens we should always trust each other because it is the seeds of distrust that spring into malice. She truly is a wise woman, especially considering that she really is not any older than the rest of us." Baralai said.
"She's an old soul, or so I'd assume. Especially considering that she was a guardian. Guardians had it hard." Nooj said and gazed at the star flecked sky in thought.
"Well, we had it hard too, though I will agree with the old soul thing. She is most definitely wise beyond her years." Baralai answered and curled closer in against Nooj, settling himself so he was in complete comfort.
Defy what you're given,
I give it up for love..
Take a breath, make it deep...
Because it might be,
The last one you get....
Babe, the last one...
"You know... One day, back before everything was resolved and all. I got the craziest idea, I mean the absolute craziest. It was back when the Youth League was just barely gaining strength. I had a thought of throwing it all away and breaking into Bevelle, tearing up the place until I had found you and then taking you away from it all. Ending the factioning in my own way and style. But of course I didn't follow through, just me being my typical self. Thinking of all the things I might do but never really doing any of them." Nooj said thoughtfully.
"You thought about doing something like that? I don't doubt you could've pulled it off. I sort of wish you had, of course... That would've been quite bloody because I know the Bevelle guards at that point and time would've died fighting before ever letting you through. And if you got yourself hellbent on taking me from there neither guards nor anything else could've stopped you, no matter how many lives had to be ended to do it. I sort of find that romantic though, as odd as that sounds." Baralai musingly voiced his own thoughts.
"Yes, you're right. Hey Baralai... This is really real, right? Because I don't think I can handle it if it's a dream. I don't think I could go on another day if it meant waking up to how it was before alone in my room in the cold light of the morning. I'm almost afraid to breathe because what if this ends and I'm woken up by the sun streaming through my window?" Nooj whispered then, sounding in a rare moment of actually feeling something akin to fear.
"Nooj, look at me. Look me right in the eyes." Baralai said then, leaning up just a bit so he was directly face to face with Nooj looking at him. Nooj met his gaze without caution, fear was not something he could show Baralai, not in this moment. At least, not fear of Baralai himself, the only thing Nooj feared right now was losing Baralai.
"This is real Nooj, every single bit of what you see in this moment is real, you can breathe without worrying about waking up without me here at your side. I'm not going anywhere, none of us are going anywhere ever again. So you needn't be afraid either." Baralai answered and Nooj nodded quietly.
It could make us, cruel....
It can make us, cruel....
A momma's gonna worry 'bout,
The things that could make us cold...
"And... if something goes wrong? If fate intervenes again and tears us apart, or sets us against each other. Could you handle feeling the cruelty that I know we both felt when we were separated and thrown on opposite sides of the board of fate like chess pieces?" Nooj asked, though the question was almost tentative.
"Ah yes... well, I just won't let it happen. This time I'm going to fight fate if it comes my way. I'm not going to give up and I know you won't either, you know I won't let you. I won't let things go wrong again. Last time I froze up, I was too afraid to do anything back in the Den of Woe but now I know I can stand up and handle things." Baralai said and settled himself once more. A long silence stretched between the two so that only the sound of the waves soothingly meeting the distance shore broke the quiet of the evening.
"Well then.. Let me follow you then this time. As your captain, my dear navigator, let me let you lead me. Because I know you will never lead me astray." Nooj whispered and his lips were met at those words by Baralai's lips, uniting in a soft kiss before the Praetor pulled back and let his head rest against Nooj's shoulder.
"Then I will guide you, my love. Well.. I suppose we should try to sleep, Gippal will undoubtedly wake up in a couple hours before the sun is even up and wander around making noise until we get up." Baralai whispered, closing his eyes sleepily.
"Hmm.. well, then I guess we can do like the old days and lay around cuddling until we feel like getting up. Goodnight, Baralai." Nooj whispered.
"Goodnight Nooj... And this time, I really will be here when you wake up." Baralai answered, as they both drifted to sleep, the three former crimson squad members laying there sleeping as angels would. Sleeping as they had not slept in two years.