[Gemini Festival] "Smoke and Mirrors" Prologue and Act 1 - R/NC-17 (fanfic)
I haven't finished to write this fic *yet*... I hope I'll be able to finish it, and post it all before the Gemini Festival comes to an end *crosses fingers*. If not, I *promise* to finish it ASAP, anyway, after the Festival's finished. *determined*
Title: “Smoke and Mirrors”.
Author: Nemesi.
Fandom: Saint Seiya.
Genre: Mystery. Romance. Fluffy and mushy stuff ahead, plus angst.
Word Count: Prologue: 230. Act 1:1387
Characters/Pairing: Aiolos/Saga.
Overall Rating: ***R***
Chapter Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Saint Seiya, its characters, places and themes belong to Masami Kurumada and Toei. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: AU. Un-betaed. Slash. Blood is mentioned repeatedly. Also, beware of scenes of malexmale sex ahead, albeit none of them is *too* graphic.
A/N: Prepare yourselves for quite a ride. It might come to you as surprise, especially if you are unfamiliar with my earlier production in other fandoms but: I delight in writing twisted, what-the-hell plots with super-natural, mystery and horrors elements, which are ikely to confuse and flabbergast the reader…
Summary: "Love, sleep and death go to the same sweet tune;
Hold my hair fast, and kiss me through it soon”
~A.C. SWINBURNE "In the Orchard"~
* * * * *
PROLOGUE
It was a nightmare.
The chill of the night, velvet robes heavy upon his shoulders and chest, a high collar stifling him. The touch of metal was cold in his hand, and against his face. Something delicate laid before him. Something fragile and precious, like glass or gold. A nest of white gauze, silk and ribbon, pale pink in colour. Blue eyes were peering at him from above ripe, sleep-flushed cheeks. Red lips, and a dimpled, toothless smile. The smell that reached him was that of honey, lavender and peach.
Shadows were everywhere, they surrounded him completely. Living shadows that leapt and crouched and chanted his name - Saga, Saga, Saga - a low, toneless drone, like water bubbling, or snakes hissing.
He watched, a little wonderingly, as his own hand came up, high above his head. The blade in his fist glinted gold. The eyes watching him fluttered shut, then opened again, sleepily, long eyelashes creating small, delicate shadows.
His arm jerked back down.
And hit.
Blood seeped, gushing. It splattered his hand, coated his fingers, seeping in the fabric of his sleeve, staining the silk, the gauze, the ribbon.
Aiolos’s blood, spreading everywhere.
His body, between Saga and his target.
His hand, clenched around the blade.
His eyes, raging at first, then sorrowful, denying, betrayed. Lastly, they emptied themselves completely, as Saga’s hand came up again, to fire a lethal blast.
* * * * *
ACT 1 - TOLLING BELL
Saga woke up screaming, tangled in sheets.
Icy sweat ran down his back in rivulets, plastered locks of long hair to his neck and cheeks. As he inhaled in mouthfuls, willing his heart-rate to slow down, his body began to shudder, more violently as the seconds passed.
A sob tore out of his throat and, suddenly, Saga felt compelled to get up and run away from everything, somewhere where the nightmare might not reach him anymore, just run, run, run, legs pumping and lungs flaming, up to the end of the World.
Then hands descended upon Saga’s shoulders, and it was all he could do to keep from bolting. A comforting whisper flowed into his ear, low and gentle. Saga’s shivers lessened, then gradually disappeared. Gratefully, Saga eased back and into the embrace his lover was offering, expelling a sigh.
For long moments neither said, nor did anything. Then Aiolos gathered Saga’s hair in a single, golden strand and, moving it aside, began placing kisses on his lover’s exposed neck and shoulder, murmuring reassuringly all the while.
Saga closed his eyes upon feeling the warm, moist breath of his lover spill against his skin. With a deep breath, almost a sigh, he turned partially towards Aiolos, feeling his lover’s hand slid against his side and settle on the curve of his hip.
“Bad dream?”
“Is there any other kind?”
Saga’s voice was not half as steadily as he would have liked. He paused for a moment, then exhaled shakily.
“Aiolos… it was that nightmare. That nightmare again.”
Nightmares were a plague that had been haunting Saga since puberty, and that grieved him even now, well into his way towards adulthood. Usually, he could not recall much of his nightly visions when awake - just disjointed images, feelings, a few lines spoken by a character or another during the dream, or the oddest details like a candle flickering, reflected in a mirror, or a particular scent like flowers or parchment.
Often, he’d dream of steamy water, and of a room not unlike that of the Kyoukou, but darker and housing an oppressing presence. What he dreamed the most about was a voice like an snake hissing lowly, whose words he could hardly decipher. And the picture of mask: a disquieting thing of black metal, with ruby eyes glinting like flames in the dark.
Tonight’s vision, however, was one as disturbing as it was common. This particular nightmare had come to Saga so often through the years, it had become almost familiar to him.
Of all the nightmares he’d experienced, this was the one that hurt him the most: the picture of himself attacking Aiolos shook Saga to the core. Anguish, self-disgust and hate always came on this nightmare’s wake, hitting him as hard as physical blows. Never, no matter the cause, no matter the cost, would Saga willingly hurt Aiolos. Never. Not to save his own life, not for Her sake, or the Earth’s. Never. Never. No matter what.
The first times that nightmare had come to him, Saga had taken heart in the fact that, as lethal as his final blast may be, Aiolos survived it unscathed. Yet, as the years wore on, and more details came to add themselves to the picture, Saga wasn’t so sure anymore that Aiolos did survive, at the end of the dream.
It was as if something told Saga that the nightmare went further on than what he saw. That some parts were missing - parts he would see, if only he remained asleep a little longer - in which the Sagittarius lost his life.
Concentrating hard, Saga tried to recall his nightmare to the detail, looking for something that would explain what made him so sure that Aiolos died shortly after the end of the nightmare. Yet, even as he tried, pain speared itself through Saga’s temples, and a cry erupted from his parted lips.
Aiolos moved swiftly, touching the tip of his fingers to the pulse throbbing on Saga’s forehead. Funny, how the pain receded suddenly, like a wave crashing ashore and then retreating to the Sea. Saga was so used to those small miracles, by now, he needn’t even question them anymore. He filed them up as works of Aiolos’s loving cosmo, and gratefully accepted the small respite.
Slowly, Saga turned his face enough to kiss Aiolos’s hand in thanks as it moved away.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Saga just shook his head, not trusting himself to speak, yet. Aiolos kissed his shoulder once more, soothingly. As they lay back down on the bed, Aiolos’s arms came around Saga, as if to shield him. It was a risible notion - a Saint such a Saga, needing protection? And yet, Saga buried himself deeper into his lover’s embrace, not unlike a child seeking comfort in the arms of someone he trusts.
Glancing up - half-ashamed of his neediness, but delighted with their current position - Saga was welcomed with a smile. Kind and warm and understanding, not to mention utterly adoring. But Aiolos’s eyes - his warm, gentle eyes - were full of something like concern, and also like forgiveness.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” Saga admitted quietly.
Aiolos shrugged, reaching up to touch Saga’s hair.
“I’ve been awake for some time, actually. You know that I like…”
“…watching me while I sleep. I know.” A smile crept over Saga’s lips, pale but heartfelt. “Sagittarius Aiolos, the brave Guardian of my dreams.”
“I made a poor job, if nightmares managed to elude my guard, and trouble your sleep.” His expression faltered and fell for a moment, then softened as he tenderly ran his knuckles across Saga’s cheekbone. “I might have to make it up to you, somehow. Don’t you think?”
Leaning in, Saga pressed his lips to Aiolos’s own, taking him completely off-guard, albeit not unprepared. It was a chaste and gentle kiss, which lasted long.
“Sometimes I wonder if you are for real,” Saga murmured against Aiolos’s mouth. “Or what I’ve done to deserve someone like you in my life.” Turning fully, he tucked a leg between Aiolos’s own, settled his weight properly against Aiolos’s side and buried his face under Aiolos’s chin. Possessiveness was one of Saga’s most marked traits.
Aiolos brushed his cheek across the top of Saga’s head, and settled there, inhaling his lover’s scent.
“There will never be anyone else, for me.”
“Won’t it?” Saga curled more around his lover, holding onto him with such force, it would have bruised an ordinary man. “How do you know that one day I won’t say, or do something that will chase you away from me? Something that will make you stop loving me altogether?”
“I won’t ever stop loving you,” Aiolos responded, running his fingertips down Saga’s back. “Whatever you may do.”
“Like a moth loving the flame that consumes it,” Saga replied bitterly.
Echoes of the Nightmare came suddenly to his mind. Blood - Aiolos’s blood - leaking and flowing and dripping slowly down - plick, plick, plick, one, two, three drops, and then another, and one more - a steady trickle that covered Saga’s hand, that chilled it, despite its damp warmness, and tinted it red.
“Love might be dangerous, at times. But who would want to be protected from love?”
“No one could spare himself from love; and I doubt anyone would want to,” admitted Saga, his shoulders unwinding under Aiolos’s tender ministrations. “Love is also addictive, in a sense. It is to me, at least.”
Aiolos hummed in agreement, still trading his fingers up and down and in lazy circles across Saga’s back. Saga arched under his touch, like a content, sleepy cat.
“Addiction,” he murmured, feeling drowsy. His breathing evened out, as Aiolos touched him, and his relaxation deepened. “Addicted,” Saga’s lashes fluttered; his mouth slackened. “To you.”
On the verge of sleep, as his consciousness swayed precariously on the chasm between awareness and oblivion, a treacherous notion crept into his mind, into his soul. What would he do - how he could even survive - if Aiolos was ever taken from him, like it happened inside the nightmare?
As if on cue, Aiolos’s mouth descended over his, tongue slipping inside, silencing his thoughts. Saga sighed into Aiolos’s mouth, as sleep cupped its hands around his head, coaxing him into sweet reverie.
His nightmares were not defeated; but momentarily, they were forgotten.