[POST Universe] Base
Nov. 15th, 2008 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vernajastPairing: YonKaka + Naruto, in varied forms.
Rating: PG13
Squick: Graphic imagery, character death, more than Kakashi's fair share of angst
Note: As always, Kakashi is Kakashi, but slightly different, again. Naruto is always the same Naruto. And Minato is never the same person twice, only Kakashi imposing that face over everyone else...except...here he isn't...memories are the real Min. Still don't know where this series is going. ;)
Post (#1 in the Post Universe)
Line (#2 in the Post Universe)
Italics = past memory
Plain text = present
(fades in and out)
Boentine. Scarred earth and twisted steel and broken spirits.
Naruto is toddling about their makeshift camp, fingers dipping delicately into the soil at his feet, tasting. His eyebrows are tightly knit together, the face of a connoisseur.
The child's hand chokes the neck of a plastic soda bottle, his prized possession. That Kakashi hasn't sold it (he even has the top, and altogether, worth so much more) is a testament to the necessity of the boy's continued happiness.
They haven't dined on crow or man in months, a well-kept secret. One look at the boy's immature face stretched thin with hunger, and sustenance is seldom far. He is just a tool, a means to an end. It is true because Kakashi tells himself that every evening.
Human compassion is an inbred weakness. Kakashi throws a rock that bounces off of the child's back, drawing forth a cry and a feral growl. I am strong.
His feet crunch on the dry, dead grass as he shifts and turns his back on the boy and the valley that spreads itself below them. They should never have come here.
They are lining up and regrouping on the green fields of a small valley in the place once known as Aubergine, once known as France. Once known for wine and beauty, and the grass already runs red. They are bleeding for the cause, and Kakashi hears General's orders more often than he cares to count. It is a scathing reminder that the man himself reclines in a temperature controlled zeppelin some leagues away, but they are right here dying for him.
Thinking accomplishes nothing, so Kakashi gets on with what he is trained to do, eyes catching on the sunny hair of his lover-captain across the small space of a few crumpled bodies. A smile, a brief moment in which they are alone amongst thousands before the world comes crashing in on them, and Kakashi only has to scream, "I love you!" but he doesn't.
The concussive blow is nearly as damaging as the initial fires. The taste of accelerants and rare fossil fuels is acrid, sizzling his tongue. His body tingles, but it is nothing. It is nothing, he assures himself, because he cannot see, and that is infinitely worse than the death he feels all around him. Trembling, now-pale fingers dig into his eyes, scooping away debris and blood from a cut on his forehead, and blessed light seeps in between swollen lids.
Though not much else. He cannot see, something is wrong, and—
"MIN!"
How the enemy brought such a weapon so very far is beyond reason.
"Min, where the fuck—"
That they had developed it without so much as a rumor is incomprehensible.
"Min..."
And the launching capability...
Silver hairs float between his fingers in a clump he's pulled from the nape of his neck. Silver, not black, and will he ever get used to the change? If he could cry, he wouldn't, but his eyes burn, and he assures himself in the comfortable dance of denial that it is only the sun on the fields below. It is the glint of light on the twisted ruins of the Eiffel Tower on the horizon. It is nothing.
Naruto's bare feet on the soil are black like his hair was, once, and for the first time in not too long enough, he tries to imagine the boy with the General's yellow hair, much the same as his Min's.
Min's blond, wheat field hair is a halo around his sleeping face when the enemy - yellow, red, brown, black, grey from a sunless land, pale and scarred or tan caramel, always 'enemy' —pour over the hill, but it isn't half past two yet. It isn't nearly time, and Kakashi's eyes slide closed.
Min stirs and nuzzles and pokes and finally rolls his eyes and rolls out of bed and rolls into his armor. His lover is too peaceful to wake, but there is a boy at the flap and, "The enemy are almost upon us, sir. General says move out," so he resigns himself to disturbing the beautiful image of dark hair and dark eyes and ruddy pink lips he kisses just after a hastily muttered,
"Thank you, and yes, and put that artillery there."
Kisses, then pokes again—"Kakashi, get the hell out of bed!"—and rings the comm, "General, sir, this is Min Namikaze at Boentine..."
Only then does he sink back onto the cot, and they laugh when it breaks beneath their weight. It too has seen its share of abuse, and neither is surprised. They both know it won't be needed once the French arrive en masse.
'This is war,' the General used to say.
The same man's child has yet to speak properly in all the months, nearly a year, they have been together, and Kakashi is almost sure it is past due. He fears the day that Naruto speaks and the heavens crack open (again) to rain death on friend and foe alike.
Kakashi's fingers twitch for revenge, but he is as impotent against the boy as he was the man. After all, it was Naruto's beautiful, cum-for-me father who used to say, "This is war," who used to say, "And you are my weapons."
General's orders.
Naruto will find his voice. Kakashi knows.
He observes that the boy has taken it upon himself to eat more dirt. Small, muddy fingers press smudges into his scavenged clothing, like tiny, bloody fingerprints that will never wash away, and Kakashi shifts in and out of the paper-thin sheath of his reality. He resigns himself to remembering the color of the sky and dry, waving wheat, how he misses canned vegetables, and the sirens hurt his head again, always, forever.
Trembling, now-pale fingers dig into his eyes, scooping away debris, blood from a cut on his forehead, and blessed light seeps in between swollen lids.
Though not much else. He cannot see, something is wrong, and—
"MIN!"
How the enemy brought such a weapon so very far is beyond reason.
"Min, where the fuck—"
That they had developed it without so much as a rumor is incomprehensible.
"Min..."
And the launching capability...
A flash of pain and a broken thought come together in Kakashi's fettered mind to play out the moments before and there it is: the launching capability wouldn't have been an issue.
General's orders, he hears it plain as the heart not thudding in his chest because it has stopped, stopped.
General's orders, it makes so much fucking sense that he swears he can see the smug look on the man's face, though he's only viewed it from a distance twice before, when Kakashi was green and virginal and ready to die for something. The juggernaut tower of global justice seemed as good a god as any, until Kakashi found a sunshine-beautiful man to worship instead.
"MIN!" This is how gods fall.
It is no use and he knows it, but he can't accept this, like he can't accept that man's continued existence when his Min is dead. Min is dead! He's been frantically pacing and searching since the fitful return of his vision, but it's no use. Min is dead, and had Min died in his arms, it could have been poetic, but poetry means nothing here. Min's dead, somewhere that isn't his arms, and he can't accept it.
(ash, unrecognizable, and Kakashi walks by three times, colorblind to the charred blond strands and never knowing those burnt out hollows used to be blue iloveyous, and we really were so close to that poetic ending, after all...
Min loved poetry.)
He is dragged from the scene of mutilated dreams by rough hands, eyes closed and blurred, only left with the memory of color: wheat blond hair, sky damning eyes, a world of scarred remnants and what we could have had.
Without a word, the man with silver hair—like so many others who were there and what did they do to us?—snatches the bottle from the ground beside Naruto, thumbing on the cap and then stuffing it away in his pack, ignoring the squalling child. He can use the money to buy a book of pre-war poetry, should he ever find such a thing and even if he'll never read it himself. Min loved poetry.
He tosses a stick to Naruto, who immediately occupies himself with the destruction of a nearby ant hill, a young god appeased.
We are only truly capable of destruction, Kakashi muses as he watches, and the boy's genes seem particularly volatile. Not that it matters. The General is dead, lover or no. The war is over. And anyway, there is no one left to fight.
Eventually, they run out of soldier-bots to send, and lasers no longer fall from the sky to annihilate the unseen evils of the foreigner, equitably labeled "Echo 1" or "Target B" or simply referred to as 'the anomaly'—human lives reduced to techno babble and stripped of meaning in so few syllables the head spins.
It is stalemate.
The machinery of war has stopped grinding arduously forward against the rushing red tide, but battle continues in a new form born of ancient combat: man facing man on the field of his homeland.
And the enemy - yellow, red, brown, black, grey from a sunless land, pale and scarred or tan caramel, always 'enemy' - pour over the hill, but it isn't half past two yet. It isn't nearly time and Min, I love you, come back to bed.
They should never have come to Boentine.
Rating: PG13
Squick: Graphic imagery, character death, more than Kakashi's fair share of angst
Note: As always, Kakashi is Kakashi, but slightly different, again. Naruto is always the same Naruto. And Minato is never the same person twice, only Kakashi imposing that face over everyone else...except...here he isn't...memories are the real Min. Still don't know where this series is going. ;)
Post (#1 in the Post Universe)
Line (#2 in the Post Universe)
Italics = past memory
Plain text = present
(fades in and out)
Boentine. Scarred earth and twisted steel and broken spirits.
Naruto is toddling about their makeshift camp, fingers dipping delicately into the soil at his feet, tasting. His eyebrows are tightly knit together, the face of a connoisseur.
The child's hand chokes the neck of a plastic soda bottle, his prized possession. That Kakashi hasn't sold it (he even has the top, and altogether, worth so much more) is a testament to the necessity of the boy's continued happiness.
They haven't dined on crow or man in months, a well-kept secret. One look at the boy's immature face stretched thin with hunger, and sustenance is seldom far. He is just a tool, a means to an end. It is true because Kakashi tells himself that every evening.
Human compassion is an inbred weakness. Kakashi throws a rock that bounces off of the child's back, drawing forth a cry and a feral growl. I am strong.
His feet crunch on the dry, dead grass as he shifts and turns his back on the boy and the valley that spreads itself below them. They should never have come here.
They are lining up and regrouping on the green fields of a small valley in the place once known as Aubergine, once known as France. Once known for wine and beauty, and the grass already runs red. They are bleeding for the cause, and Kakashi hears General's orders more often than he cares to count. It is a scathing reminder that the man himself reclines in a temperature controlled zeppelin some leagues away, but they are right here dying for him.
Thinking accomplishes nothing, so Kakashi gets on with what he is trained to do, eyes catching on the sunny hair of his lover-captain across the small space of a few crumpled bodies. A smile, a brief moment in which they are alone amongst thousands before the world comes crashing in on them, and Kakashi only has to scream, "I love you!" but he doesn't.
The concussive blow is nearly as damaging as the initial fires. The taste of accelerants and rare fossil fuels is acrid, sizzling his tongue. His body tingles, but it is nothing. It is nothing, he assures himself, because he cannot see, and that is infinitely worse than the death he feels all around him. Trembling, now-pale fingers dig into his eyes, scooping away debris and blood from a cut on his forehead, and blessed light seeps in between swollen lids.
Though not much else. He cannot see, something is wrong, and—
"MIN!"
How the enemy brought such a weapon so very far is beyond reason.
"Min, where the fuck—"
That they had developed it without so much as a rumor is incomprehensible.
"Min..."
And the launching capability...
Silver hairs float between his fingers in a clump he's pulled from the nape of his neck. Silver, not black, and will he ever get used to the change? If he could cry, he wouldn't, but his eyes burn, and he assures himself in the comfortable dance of denial that it is only the sun on the fields below. It is the glint of light on the twisted ruins of the Eiffel Tower on the horizon. It is nothing.
Naruto's bare feet on the soil are black like his hair was, once, and for the first time in not too long enough, he tries to imagine the boy with the General's yellow hair, much the same as his Min's.
Min's blond, wheat field hair is a halo around his sleeping face when the enemy - yellow, red, brown, black, grey from a sunless land, pale and scarred or tan caramel, always 'enemy' —pour over the hill, but it isn't half past two yet. It isn't nearly time, and Kakashi's eyes slide closed.
Min stirs and nuzzles and pokes and finally rolls his eyes and rolls out of bed and rolls into his armor. His lover is too peaceful to wake, but there is a boy at the flap and, "The enemy are almost upon us, sir. General says move out," so he resigns himself to disturbing the beautiful image of dark hair and dark eyes and ruddy pink lips he kisses just after a hastily muttered,
"Thank you, and yes, and put that artillery there."
Kisses, then pokes again—"Kakashi, get the hell out of bed!"—and rings the comm, "General, sir, this is Min Namikaze at Boentine..."
Only then does he sink back onto the cot, and they laugh when it breaks beneath their weight. It too has seen its share of abuse, and neither is surprised. They both know it won't be needed once the French arrive en masse.
'This is war,' the General used to say.
The same man's child has yet to speak properly in all the months, nearly a year, they have been together, and Kakashi is almost sure it is past due. He fears the day that Naruto speaks and the heavens crack open (again) to rain death on friend and foe alike.
Kakashi's fingers twitch for revenge, but he is as impotent against the boy as he was the man. After all, it was Naruto's beautiful, cum-for-me father who used to say, "This is war," who used to say, "And you are my weapons."
General's orders.
Naruto will find his voice. Kakashi knows.
He observes that the boy has taken it upon himself to eat more dirt. Small, muddy fingers press smudges into his scavenged clothing, like tiny, bloody fingerprints that will never wash away, and Kakashi shifts in and out of the paper-thin sheath of his reality. He resigns himself to remembering the color of the sky and dry, waving wheat, how he misses canned vegetables, and the sirens hurt his head again, always, forever.
Trembling, now-pale fingers dig into his eyes, scooping away debris, blood from a cut on his forehead, and blessed light seeps in between swollen lids.
Though not much else. He cannot see, something is wrong, and—
"MIN!"
How the enemy brought such a weapon so very far is beyond reason.
"Min, where the fuck—"
That they had developed it without so much as a rumor is incomprehensible.
"Min..."
And the launching capability...
A flash of pain and a broken thought come together in Kakashi's fettered mind to play out the moments before and there it is: the launching capability wouldn't have been an issue.
General's orders, he hears it plain as the heart not thudding in his chest because it has stopped, stopped.
General's orders, it makes so much fucking sense that he swears he can see the smug look on the man's face, though he's only viewed it from a distance twice before, when Kakashi was green and virginal and ready to die for something. The juggernaut tower of global justice seemed as good a god as any, until Kakashi found a sunshine-beautiful man to worship instead.
"MIN!" This is how gods fall.
It is no use and he knows it, but he can't accept this, like he can't accept that man's continued existence when his Min is dead. Min is dead! He's been frantically pacing and searching since the fitful return of his vision, but it's no use. Min is dead, and had Min died in his arms, it could have been poetic, but poetry means nothing here. Min's dead, somewhere that isn't his arms, and he can't accept it.
(ash, unrecognizable, and Kakashi walks by three times, colorblind to the charred blond strands and never knowing those burnt out hollows used to be blue iloveyous, and we really were so close to that poetic ending, after all...
Min loved poetry.)
He is dragged from the scene of mutilated dreams by rough hands, eyes closed and blurred, only left with the memory of color: wheat blond hair, sky damning eyes, a world of scarred remnants and what we could have had.
Without a word, the man with silver hair—like so many others who were there and what did they do to us?—snatches the bottle from the ground beside Naruto, thumbing on the cap and then stuffing it away in his pack, ignoring the squalling child. He can use the money to buy a book of pre-war poetry, should he ever find such a thing and even if he'll never read it himself. Min loved poetry.
He tosses a stick to Naruto, who immediately occupies himself with the destruction of a nearby ant hill, a young god appeased.
We are only truly capable of destruction, Kakashi muses as he watches, and the boy's genes seem particularly volatile. Not that it matters. The General is dead, lover or no. The war is over. And anyway, there is no one left to fight.
Eventually, they run out of soldier-bots to send, and lasers no longer fall from the sky to annihilate the unseen evils of the foreigner, equitably labeled "Echo 1" or "Target B" or simply referred to as 'the anomaly'—human lives reduced to techno babble and stripped of meaning in so few syllables the head spins.
It is stalemate.
The machinery of war has stopped grinding arduously forward against the rushing red tide, but battle continues in a new form born of ancient combat: man facing man on the field of his homeland.
And the enemy - yellow, red, brown, black, grey from a sunless land, pale and scarred or tan caramel, always 'enemy' - pour over the hill, but it isn't half past two yet. It isn't nearly time and Min, I love you, come back to bed.
They should never have come to Boentine.
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Date: 2008-11-15 09:28 pm (UTC)