[Gemini Festival] "Smoke and Mirrors" Act 4 “Dream-scarred” - Rosu x Saga PG13 (fanfic)
Uhm, sadly, I'm now 99% sure I will not be able to finish to write, and to post the whole fic before the end of the Gemini Festival... sorry about that. -_-;; I promise I'll finish this ASAP, though! ...and maybe, I might compensate by posting earlier than planned that doujinshi I was keeping for the last day of the Festival...? XD;;
Title: “Smoke and Mirrors” - ACT 4 “Dream-scarred”
Author: Nemesi.
Fandom: Saint Seiya.
Genre: Mystery. Romance. Fluffy and mushy stuff ahead, plus angst.
Word Count: 1466.
Characters/Pairing: Aiolos/Saga.
Chapter Rating: PG13.
Disclaimer: Saint Seiya, its characters, places and themes belong to Masami Kurumada and Toei. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Warnings: AU. Un-betaed. Slash (implied).
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"~
* * * * *
ACT 4 - DREAM-SCARRED
Saga stood alone on the balcony of Aiolos’s Temple, barefoot and wearing nothing but a towel around his hips. He held a mug of steaming coffee in one hand, from which he took a sip every now and then. His other hand was wrapped lightly about his waist, as if he needed to protect himself from something - or as if, without that arm containing him, he’d crumble down, or melt, or burst.
A medley of noises came from the kitchenette, not far behind him - the clatter of dishes, glass chinking; the swashing sound of liquid as it was poured, the cheery clink of a silver spoon running round and round inside a ceramic bowl. The aroma of freshly-baked sweet bread and marmalade still filled the air. His fingertips were sticky with honey, still; probably tasted like it, as well. Running his tongue across his lips, Saga was trying to recapture that taste, when he felt someone approaching silently from behind.
However, even if Aiolos stepped onto the balcony, he did not move towards Saga, like his lover had expected him to do. He just leaned back against the wall, not saying anything. He was but blurred shape just at the edge of Saga’s vision, like a genie of sorts, patiently waiting for the summoning.
Saga had to stifle a smile, at the thought - what a genie Aiolos would make! He whom always knew and made real Saga’s wishes, even before his lover had a chance to voice them.
But Saga’s mind was troubled, and he sobered quickly up. He blew on his steaming coffee, before taking another sip.
“The taste of your coffee has improved, lately,” he acknowledged without turning.
“I just learned you won’t even sniff it, if I don’t load it up with sugar, syrup and cream, first.”
Saga smiled secretly into his mug. Funny, how his choice of beverage reflected is choice of lover - sweet, flavourful, with many undertones, each surprising and pleasant, and a sensuous strength as base. He wondered if he should read something, in Aiolos’s partiality to black coffee?
“Wise boy,” Saga drawled, exaggerating his accent. Then, after a moment: “What are you doing over there?”
Aiolos shrugged - Saga could almost picture the sensual ripple of his naked shoulders and chest, the way he’d be tilting his head to a side, wet curls falling forward and onto his eyes.
“Drinking coffee, thinking, enjoying the wonderful view.”
“The training grounds are hardly what I’d call a ‘wonderful view’.”
“And you assume I was watching the training grounds and not you, because…?”
Saga broke into a grin.
“Ah, a wise boy, as I said. So let me ask again: what… are… you… doing… over… there?”
What he did not say was: ‘instead than coming to me?’.
Aiolos looked down into his coffee with another shrug.
“And you? What are you doing there?”
“Drinking coffee, thinking, and enjoying the not-so wonderful view,” Saga quipped, then bit his bottom lip. The silence stretched for a second or two, then Aiolos said:
“You just about fled, back there.”
“It’s just…” that by now, even the smallest thing reminds me of my nightmares. It’s just that I saw the knife in your hand, reflecting the light and dripping fat red droplets onto your skin, and had to flee. He sighed, then glanced quickly back at Aiolos. “…nightmares.”
Aiolos looked contrite.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Remember you are the only thing that keeps them at bay, love.”
And it was no lie. Only held taut within the confines of Aiolos’s arms, had Saga been able to know some peaceful rest, during the years. Hadn’t it been for his lover’s gentle, but supporting presence, his loving cosmo that every shadow could chase away, Saga might have long lost his mind.
The two shared a small smile, then Saga turned his attention back to his cream-topped, flavoured coffee. “I noticed they’re getting longer, recently. And more frequent.”
“What are they about?”
“Oh, I wish I knew,” Saga expelled a sigh, sounding weary and old even to his own ears. “I don’t remember them, not clearly enough, anyway. A few words here, the blurry picture of a place, a person’s face, the moves they make. I noticed that all the nightmares take place in Sanctuary - the training Grounds, the Village below, the Zodiacal Temples. The setting never moves from here. But that’s about all I can remember.
“Mostly, what remains in my mind after I’ve woken up, are the feelings I’ve felt inside the nightmare. The emotions and sensations, the impression to have long brooded in the dark. Frankly, I awake”-terrified-“horribly unsettled, disgusted, raging, and I have no idea why.”
He caught a reflection of his own eyes upon the coffee and looked away, feeling revolted.
“The only thing I was able to make out, is that in that cursed, recurring vision of mine, I”-kill you, Rosu! Gods, I kill you! I kill you. -“come to harm you.”
“It is but a vision.” Aiolos’s tone was soft and wistful, yet hinted that he felt as much sorrow as Saga was feeling, at the moment.
“I know. Rationally, I can understand it. But the fact is, they are getting stronger as time goes by. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and…” he paused momentarily, seemingly caught at the edge of a revelation. “Aiolos, I think these nightmares hold a deeper meaning than either of us realizes. They seem fragments of one single story. They might even be a message of sorts! If only I could decipher it…!”
Frustrated, Saga ran a hand through his hair, still shower-damp despite the heat. Aiolos came up soundlessly behind him. Having discarded his own mug of coffee along the way, he carefully encircled his lover’s body with his arms, not quite touching him. He grasped the railing on each side of Saga’s body, and buried his nose in the scented mass of Saga’s hair.
“The may have a deeper meaning,” he conceded softly, “However, it may be for the best, that you don’t know it.”
Saga, who’d begun to relax back into his lover’s chest, startled a whole inch away, like a cat which has burned itself on a stove.
“Whatever do you mean?” he asked, voice sharper than intended.
Flashes came to him, of himself using that same cruel and imperious tone in most of the nightmares, and Saga felt himself flush in unreasonable shame.
“Sorry,” he amended quickly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just so… frustrating.”
He felt, more than see, Aiolos nod in acquiescence against his neck.
“I think I can understand that. I’m sure, Saga: you will figure out these dreams, someday. But please consider this: if Athena, with all Her wisdom, is withholding their meaning from you, it may be for your own good.”
Saga glanced quickly, sharply, up at Athena’s Statue and the Temple immediately below, in whose scented shadows Her current incarnation resided, cloaked in mystery.
“Then She shouldn’t have sent them to me in the first place!” Saga blurted, ere drowning a swig of coffee. He relished the way the liquid scalded across his tongue and throat, almost like a punishment for his insolence.
Aiolos said nothing for a time, neither agreeing nor differing with his lover’s words. He just stood there, basking in Saga’s warmth, drinking his scent. Below them, at the feet of the Aries’s Temple, and right across the Training Grounds, the wind was raising clouds of red-tinted dust. They moved and danced, like curtains of bloody gauze, sneaking through the ruins scattered here and there like ancient bones, twirling around the cracked boulders, and whipping the trees, causing leaves to fall.
Some greener land was visible just beyond the surrounding hills - deep, dark forests, white-capped peaks, yellow-speckled valleys where the silver ribbons of rivers unfolded. The heat was such, that the air itself seemed to sway and hum, while the horizon looked glossy and polished. It perfected the illusion to be inside one of those snow globs, in which but a flick of your wrist can create blizzards.
The silence lasted a moment longer, then Saga added, almost as an afterthought:
“Unless they do not come from Her, both from another source altogether?”
At first, it seemed to him that Aiolos had stiffened, taking a sharper breath. And yet, he was sure Aiolos had not moved - couldn’t he feel, just against his back, Aiolos’s level respiration, his heart beating evenly? Confused by his own contrasting perceptions, Saga turned in the circle of Aiolos’s arms, pressing him damp, warm body against that of his lover, seeking refuge.
Aiolos welcomed him silently, holding him as tightly as if he meant to set his lover there, like a precious jewel, against his heart.