navy = flashback
Evading. Keep away. Don't --
"Damn it, Zelgadis!"
Zelgadis cried out in shock as his head rocked to the side, the blow so sharp and powerful that he could feel the sting in his cheek in spite of the protection of his armor-like skin. Cowering back, he raised his arms in an attempt to shield himself from the Red Priest's wrath.
No! Sorry! Won't do it again!
"Oh, hell, Zel. I'm sorry I did that, but -- "
Zelgadis felt his upper arms seized in a vise-like grip. He whimpered his terror as his entire body was shaken as vigorously as if he were a bottle of oil and water that someone was trying to mix.
"But, you've got to come back!"
Sorry! So sorry. What did I do? Please, don't shout!
Don't... hit... again...
The strangeness of what had just happened finally wormed its way through Zelgadis' fear and slowed his fractured, whirling thoughts.
Things... did not fit.
He was being shouted at. Rezo never raised his voice, even in anger.
He had been struck. His cheek still tingled slightly. His grandfather never punished him using physical force. The Red Priest had created his chimeric body and was intimately familiar with the impervious qualities of his skin of stone. His master always chose to inflict punishment from within rather than from without.
Warily, Zelgadis dared to open his eyes a crack. His confusion was complete when a polished, black breastplate and a blue shirt swam into focus.
Not Rezo's colors and his master was as likely to wear armor as he was to have shaken him so hard.
"All right! You opened your eyes! Now, talk to me."
Rezo did not possess biceps that were nearly twice the size of his own. The Red Priest never spoke to him in such an encouraging tone.
What was happening to him? Who had --
"C'mon, Zel! Say something! You can do it!"
All the fragmented clues coalesced with nauseating suddenness into a single, cohesive answer.
Gourry!
The name freed Zelgadis from the last of the clinging memory tendrils which had come so close to smothering him and restored his reason.
Gourry stood in front of him. Gourry's hands were on him. Gourry's biceps were bunching as if the swordsman were about to --
"G -- Gourry, don't!" Zelgadis gasped. "Please. Don't shake me."
"Thank god, Zel. Are you all right?"
"I -- y -- yes," Zelgadis stammered even as his stomach did a slow, queasy roll. Desperately trying to firm his tenuous connection with reality, he concentrated on the pressure of the hands on his arms, hands which gripped with what would be bruising force for a normal human.
"You don't look all right. You're shaking."
"I'll -- " Oh, god! Zelgadis swallowed down the bile rising in the back of his throat. No! It was bad enough that Gourry had been forced to cast the lifeline which had dragged him out of the quicksand trap of his past, he was absolutely not going to further test the limits of the swordsman's tolerance by throwing up all over him!
"You sure you're all right?"
"I -- I'll be fine," Zelgadis haltingly interjected in between his shallow, panting breaths. "Jus -- just gi -- give me a moment."
"Well, I guess, if you say so, but... you scared me, Zel."
"I am sorry," Zelgadis apologized, hoping that Gourry could hear the sincerity in his voice in spite of its weakness. His eyes fell shut as the swordsman finally released him and stepped back a pace. His hands crept up to hug himself, a poor substitute for the anchor the other man had unknowingly taken away.
"No, I'm sorry."
"W -- why?" Zelgadis managed, though he had already turned most of his attention inward. He had no right to use Gourry as a foundation anyway. The swordsman did not deserve to be so burdened. It was his task and his task alone to wall away his memories and regain control of himself.
"I didn't believe you, but I should've known better. You never lie. You do understand, don't you?"
Distracted by examining the shambles that had once been his first line of defense against the Red Priest, Zelgadis simply nodded his answer to that quiet question. The breach in his barrier was wide, but not irreparable. For now, he would just thrust everything back through the hole and slap a makeshift lid over it. Later, when he was granted some time to himself, he could mortar the lid with something more permanent than --
"Zel? I thought you said you didn't have any tears left."
A touch, as gentle as Gourry's previous slap had been harsh, feathered over Zelgadis' cheek, bringing his mental repairs to a faltering standstill. As the swordsman's hand slid down to cup his chin, his own rose to take its place, his fingers tracing the rock-like clusters which lined his jaw and then falling away again. For a small eternity, he studied his fingertips, and the droplets of moisture which beaded on them, as intently as if they were the text of an obscure magical scroll, one that was written in a language he could not understand, but desperately needed to decipher.
"Zelgadis?"
"I -- I guess I was wrong," Zelgadis finally whispered, wide eyes stumbling up to find the swordsman's.
"It was Rezo, wasn't it? That Red Priest guy we killed? The one who made you a chimera?"
Zelgadis mutely averted his face, sliding his chin off the fingers beneath it. His shivers, which had nearly subsided, surged into renewed strength on hearing the name of his master.
"And, you were remembering him, weren't you? Even though you were talking to me, you weren't here with me. You were with him."
sh'ting
The Red Priest's chimes tinkled restively from beyond the unmended barrier.
"You were so far gone, Zel. It must've been bad."
Red mist oozed through the gap.
"You must've hurt, even killed, so many for him. You've suffered so much..."
The mist spread out wide, fan-like, seeking... hunting. Zelgadis cowered, reduced once more to a small, quaking thing as he tried to hide. The crimson, diaphanous vapor, smelling of blood and decay, clung like cobwebs when it finally found its prey.
"Suffered! That's right! He had Shabranigdo in him! Shabranigdo was the mazoku's Dark Lord and mazoku feed on human suffering! He must've done everything he could've to hurt you bad!"
As pleasurable as this is, Zelgadis, it is not the pleasure I seek...
Shaking his head hard, Zelgadis tried to thrust the Red Priest's whisper away.
"I bet he -- No! He wouldn't!"
Oh, god. Oh, please, Gourry, let it be. Please, god, don't let him know!
As though delighted with Gourry's insight, Rezo's laughter stormed the barricade and burst back through, its noise a painful dissonance that melded with the growing horror in the swordsman's voice and spiked through Zelgadis' mind.
"He couldn't! He was your grandfather! But, no... He really wasn't your grandfather anymore, was he?"
Shoulders creeping up to his ears, Zelgadis slipped his hands beneath his bangs and covered his eyes like a child playing peekaboo, but he could no more conceal himself from Gourry's line of reasoning than he could from the Red Priest's grave defying mastery of him.
"A -- and, while you were gone, you also said something about being given to 'Rezo's minions'!"
Zelgadis flinched, a single, whole body convulsion, at the flat, unyielding certainty in the swordsman's voice.
"Zelgadis, how many times did Rezo and his goons rape you?"
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no!!!
He knows!
Zelgadis stopped breathing as what was left of his soul was plunged into poison. Rezo's amusement increased, becoming a deafening death knell which easily overpowered Gourry's voice.
"Damn Rezo! Damn all the rest of them, the rotten sons of bitches!"
You will always be mine.
The Red Priest's sibilant whisper beckoned and, with nothing remaining with which to resist, Zelgadis relinquished his control to it.
Yes, Rezo. I am yours. Always.
"Zel? I'm so sorry."
There would finally be an ending. Succumbing meant being drawn into oblivion with the Red Priest, yet even spending an eternity as Rezo's plaything was sweeter than enduring a life without Gourry in it.
Please, Gourry. Someday, please for...
"I hope you can forgive me."
...give me...
Gourry's words punched through Rezo's susurrations, battering them into unintelligibility, yanking Zelgadis back from the edge of surrender and plunging him instead into a state of confused upheaval.
Why? Why on earth would Gourry be asking for his forgiveness?
Gathering all his courage, Zelgadis lowered his hands and chanced a look at Gourry, his mystification only deepening when he took in the misery radiating from the swordsman's bowed head and hunched stance.
Misery? Not loathing. Not disgust. He -- I haven't -- He does not think --
But... But, why?
"I've been acting so stupid! Compared to you, I've got nothing to complain about, and because I'm such a sniveling babe, you had to relive that!"
"No!" Zelgadis croaked, alarm wrenching the denial from him. Gourry could not think that! He swallowed hard to clear the rust from his voice, and was able to continue more evenly, "I didn't tell you any of this to belittle your ordeal, nor did I do this for any other reason but -- "
"Ordeal? Not compared -- "
"Gourry -- "
"What I went through was nothing -- "
"Gourry, will you just shut up for a moment!" Zelgadis ordered, concern and exasperation mixing in him, both emotions lending his voice strength and finally pushing Rezo and his memories firmly back where they belonged. He paused, steadily meeting the pained light shining in Gourry's azure eyes, until he was certain that the swordsman would remain silent, then softly stated, "You might believe that the magnitude of my experience was greater than yours, and perhaps that is so, but nonetheless, that does not invalidate your responses. What Fibrizzo did to you was just as real and just as horrible as what Rezo did to me."
"Yeah, but H -- Hellmaster didn't r -- rape me, or let -- "
"I thank every deity I can think of that he did not, Gourry!" Zelgadis snapped.
"But -- "
"What happened to me," Zelgadis continued, his voice softening, "Is insignificant in any other context except for serving to prove to you that someone knows what you've been through and that nothing that happened was your f -- "
"It's not insignificant, Zel."
"It -- it has to be."
"Zelgadis!"
"Please, Gourry," Zelgadis softly pleaded, the fierceness which had blended into the pain in Gourry's eyes driving his gaze earthward, "Let it be. Permit me to focus on you."
"But, Zel... all that you went through. And, it's my fault that you went through it all over again!"
"No!" Zelgadis contradicted, glancing up in time to see Gourry start to turn away from him. The steel which straightened his spine also laced his tone as he sharply denied the swordsman any responsibility in the matter. "It is my own fault. I freely chose to risk a confrontation with my past because you are important to me, my friend."
"I -- I am?"
"Yes, you are," Zelgadis firmly answered, although internally he winced, knowing that there was no one to blame other than himself for placing that particular hesitant uncertainty in the tiny voice which emerged from behind Gourry's slumped shoulders.
Tension tightened Zelgadis' muscles as Gourry slowly swung around to face him and he fought an irrational urge to flee from the swordsman's unreadable expression. He could feel himself start to tremble again as the other man stepped forward and was fairly vibrating by the time Gourry stopped only inches away from him.
"Thank you, Zelgadis."
"Wha -- ?" The startled inquiry died a quick death as Zelgadis' breath was pushed from his lungs by the strength of the arms which suddenly wrapped around him. He stiffened, instinctively resisting as they tightened further, but then abruptly relaxed and allowed Gourry to pull him snug to his chest.
"I can never thank you enough for all that you've done for me."
Not knowing how to answer the swordsman's whisper, Zelgadis simply rested his cheek against Gourry's breastplate, the polished metal softer to him than any pillow, and as his arms tentatively crept around the other man's waist, he felt a weight carefully settle atop his head.
"B -- but I want you to know that it's all right, that -- "
As the muffled voice above him broke off and the arms around him tightened yet again, Zelgadis felt his lips stretch in the beginnings of a contented smile. If only he could stay right where he was forever; he had not felt this safe and protected since he had been a young child.
The silence which enveloped the glade was different from before. It was comfortable, companionable, close. It eased the rawness of Zelgadis' spirit even as it spread a final healing touch over his defenses, denying the Red Priest's shade any ability to harm him further that day.
"Hell, I'm no good at this, but, Zel, I want -- "
"It's all right, Gourry, I know," Zelgadis soothed as the swordsman's words died again. No, his friend was not the most articulate of people, yet, he did not have to be. The eloquence of his body spoke for him. The tenderness with which Gourry held him clearly expressed all the comfort the other man could not express with words. "But," he murmured, his smile widening a little, "Am I not the one who is supposed to be comforting you?"
Though reluctant, when the beautiful chuckle that rippled across the body he held turned into a hiss of pain, Zelgadis pushed against Gourry's arms.
Part 6 | Fanfiction