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Morphine Allergy by Starsea

Morphine Allergy

By: Starsea

Rating: PG-13


I'm lyin' here on the floor where you left me
I think I took too much
I'm crying here, what have you done?
I thought it would be fun


"Have any of you either been to something like this before?"

We all look at each other. I shake my head. Xavier and Sanjouin shake their heads. Kai sighs.

"Yeah. Once." He glances up at us. "I told them that it isn't all fame and glory, but they insisted."

The man smiles. "I remember you...Kaitou, wasn't it?"

Kai nods, barely. The three of us shift uncomfortably. Kai may be cool but he's not usually rude. I'm starting to realise how much he dislikes being here.

"Well, as Kaitou-kun said, this is a very delicate procedure. Don't expect immediate results. And don't expect the memories to be pleasant."

"Sensei?" Xavier, always the curious one, raises his hand.

"Hai?"

"Why do we forget these memories in the first place if they're meant to help us?"

Aya-san smiles, templing his fingers. "Well, Xavier-kun, because death can be an incredibly traumatic experience for the body, and if you think about it, most of your past lives have probably died from some kind of disease, or war or fight. The peaceful death bed would have been as much a myth to our ancestors as it is to us." He sighs. "Death acts as a kind of morphine if you will, so the soul starts over afresh. This is especially useful if you've had a painful lifetime, or if you've inflicted pain on other people. You work out the karma, of course, but the actual memories don't torment you. The soul remembers them as lessons. Any irrational fears are probably hangovers from your previous lifetimes."

We all look down at the ground, thinking. Xavier, who's afraid of things flying at him. The first time we all went paintballing, he ended up in a sobbing ball on the ground. Sanjouin is afraid of suffocation, of the darkness, even though, from what his mother can tell him, he never 'nearly drowned' as a child. Okay, so fear of the dark is a pretty normal fear, but not when you're fifteen! Me? I'm afraid of fire. Don't ask me why. My parents don't understand it either. If it was rational, maybe I could get over it. Kai...Kai doesn't seem to be afraid of anything. Except maybe letting us down. He's always there for us. What is he afraid of? It's in the past. It can't hurt us now.

Something else that binds us: we're all allergic to morphine. Our bodies react to it in a painful rash, turning red, protesting vigorously. I stare at my pale hands, the veins beneath the skin. What has programmed us against being alseep?

~ Kai ~

I stare at them all, enthralled, desperately eager to have their problems solved. Why can't they understand? These things can never be solved in one fell swoop. It takes time. Patience. They're not very good at those things. Justin volunteers to go first. I clench my fingers and feel the nails press into my skin. White nails. White skin. Everything about me is white except my eyes. They're grey. Xavier once called me a diamond: he meant it as a compliment to the way I never give up, but it's true, I look like one.

Justin closes his eyes. I know what he's going to remember. I know why he's afraid. I know all too well...

I can't stay on your life support,
there's a shortage in the switch,
I can't stay on your morphine,
'Cuz it's making me itch
I said I tried to call the nurse again
But she's being a little bitch,
I think I'll get outta here...


Waking up, seeing him lying in her arms. Bleeding across her soft white gloves, rain of blood dripping onto the ground. Shujin. Prince. Wake up. Why are you just lying there. Your skin is so white...

BITCH! You bitch! I stared down at my hands. Look what you made me do! I...I killed him. I killed my master. My friend. No. NO!

Tears running down my face. What have we done? How long have we been asleep? Why did we follow her? Why did we believe her? Why didn't I stop them? But I was so eager...so trusting...I wouldn't let it happen again! In the shadows, I saw her carrying his body. His dead body. The body that I had killed. No, not killed. Still alive, they said. But no reaction. Nothing. My prince...I must-

"Wait-! What are you going to do with him?!" Head aching so badly, the white cleansing power dying from me, my fallen soul reaching out desperately as it went. My head aching as it thought for itself once more. For such a brief time.

She turned, eyes dark, forbidding. Held a hand out. Rolled a fog over my mind.

"Forget, Kunzite. Forget..."

And I forgot. But I won't forget anymore Beryl. And I can't stand Death's morphine either. I want this pain. It is unbearable. But it lets me know I'm alive...

Now we're on the street. Silent. Oh so silent. They're all pale. All in pain. Xavier is the first one. He is the most emotional, like he has water in his veins not blood. He is the most physically fragile out of all of us. His eyes well up with tears.

"Why? Why did we do it? Why?"

There is no answer. Because we just did. Because we were human.

Sanjouin turns to me. "Can't you make us forget?" he whispers.

I want to comfort him, but there is no comfort possible. "Iie."

Justin turns and slams his fist into a tree. "WHY?! DAMMIT, KAI-KUN, WHY?! WHAT MADE US DO IT?!"

I look at him sadly. 'The road is hell is paved with good intentions' say the English. We are not the first to realise how true that is. Sadly, we will not be the last. But at least I can help them through this. At least this time I warned them.

She was supposed to help us, to be our teacher, our guide to this new mission that we were given. Instead, she led us into hell again. But now she is gone. I know that much. The Earth is cleaner for her absence. This time, we will not make the same mistakes. I glance at the line on my wrist. It is echoed on the others'. We all made the same vow out loud. But inside, I made my personal one: 'This time, I will look after them. This time, Endymion, this time...'

Always 'this time'. How many times, chances do we have left?

~ Xavier ~

I haven't moved from the spot where you left me
This must be a bad trip
All of the other pills, they were different
Maybe I should get some help...


Lying on the bed in my room. We all share this empty house. Kai's parents were bewildered when he bought it, he'd been so home-loving. At first, we were all so excited, it was like it was meant to be...

I close my eyes at the cruel words. I thought that last time too. Meeting them, our shared jokes, our shared dislikes and pleasures...our shared hell...

I punch the bed, trying to punch the memories, shatter them into a thousand pieces, get out of my head, get out get out get out!

I put my hands over my face. Once they would have come running. Not now. We are once again in hell. Silence moves through the house like a fog. Thick, nauseous, deadly, like the gas of World War I. I only wish that the silence could kill me. I was responsible for hurting people, for draining them of their life - the thought sickens me so much that sometimes, I actually vomit. I'm a vegetarian now. I go swimming. I love to swim. Loved. Moving through the cool blue water, not just the swimming pools but the sea. The rocking of the tides. So comforting. Reminded me of her eyes...

I wonder if they remember back before these nightmares. Back to the first lifetime we shared. Our first betrayal. That life was so beautiful. So hauntingly beautiful. The Earth was new, so fresh, all the animals, the birds, the beasts, the fish...So many species gone. The planet wrecked by man. We did that. We caused mankind to forget. We dragged it back to its infancy. We caused the floods and gales and firestorms. The Universe punished this tiny planet for our sins.

Yet it forgives us. Whenever I escape into the garden - which is often - I feel it humming peacefully, welcoming us back. Forgiveness. Butterflies, beetles, birds, flowers, all the same, intricate and amazing. Soothing the eye and the mind.

But not for long. I always find myself back on this bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the silence scream through the house. Tonight, I can't move. I can't read. I can't think. I can't even do my homework. How I'd love to be able to lose myself in the wonderful formulae of Maths, Physics, any science. How I'd love to be able to analyse a sonnet, a haiku, compare and contrast 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' with 'Romeo and Juliet'. I would weave words or numbers into a shawl, a blanket, and cover my shoulders. But not tonight.

Tears spill over my eyes. I'm surprised there are any left. Unbidden, a new image floats in front of my eyes. Another pair of eyes. They are blue. Mid-blue. Calm. Soft. Wise.

No. I don't want to remember this. I don't want to remember her. But my mind now has a taste for rebellion. Before it was like a well-trained dog: now it is a wolf. It refuses to forget. It is allergic to morphine.

I never said anything. I always admired from afar. I was shy back then, underneath the bravado. She understood that: she was shy too. Knowledge was her cloak, just as it was mine. As it is now.

She would know what to do. I miss her. Suddenly I miss her with all of my aching, battered heart. My eyes open. My lips move, wet with salt. A whisper floats out into the room, breaking the shell of silence.

"Mercury."

~ Sanjouin ~

Where I can run, just as fast as I can,
To the middle of nowhere,
To the middle of my frustrated fears,
And I swear: You're just like a pill,
'Stead of making me better, you keep making me ill


The tarmac bites my feet as I pound down, left right left right. Lungs, heart, muscles, all working in perfect symmetry, perfect time.

This isn't unusual. I've always liked to run. The guys used to call me 'Forrest Gump', just as a laugh.

But after that session...Shit, you'd be running too.

I run anywhere, just for the hell of it, just to let me know that I'm alive. Even though I don't deserve it. Mostly, I run to a hill about five miles out of town - yeah, I'm pretty fit - and all the way up to the summit. There's a little copse of beech trees, and I can sit down and breathe in the fresh autumn air. I can be alone for a few minutes.

Now, you might laugh and say 'but running's a solitary sport'. Not so: every runner has his own personal companion, but they're all the same. Guessed yet? Every runner has his own personal shadow.

Ha ha.

I used to find that one hilarious. Not anymore. I don't laugh at much anymore. You see, when I get to the top of the hill and sit down, for an instant I forget everything. Everything. And that feels good.

But sooner or later, they come back. The memories. The fears.

We want to find him again. But we're afraid. Afraid of what he'll say. What he'll do.

It was Kai who told us about who Tuxedo Kamen really was - our Prince. Our handsome, arrogant prince. The best of us all. The only one who wasn't corrupted. Because he wasn't lonely like us: he had someone to fill his heart.

No, that's a lie. You shouldn't lie anymore, Sanjouin. Nephrite lied, not you. You're the straight one, the guy who couldn't tell a lie if his life depended on it. You should tell the truth.

Ha ha. Yeah, right.

The truth? The truth about us and her guardians? Those 'damn senshi' as we used to call them, back in the bad old days?

The truth is in the eye of the beholder. I don't know about Justin, Jadeite as he was then, and Mars. Let me tell you, she was just as beautiful, and just as unreachable. Maybe something happened, maybe not. Mercury and Zoisite, our boy Xavier, were good friends, and I think maybe they wanted to be more. There was definitely something going on between our two leaders though. You couldn't walk into a room without feeling it, I remember that! Electricity? You could have lit up a whole Christmas tree with the electricity between those two! Me? Me and Jupiter? She was sweet. So sweet. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about her, shaking my head and smiling. We had fun. So much fun. I wonder if she still likes cooking. I wonder if she still believes in romance. I hope for her sake she doesn't remember me. She should move on. She deserves that.

Every time, I come to that conclusion. Every time I realise: I'm still in love with her. So much.

But what can I do?

That session was supposed to help us, but it didn't. It just made things worse. I think Kai's come up with a plan. A plan to see him again. See her again.

God, I'm so nervous. But as Justin says: "What have we got to lose?"

After all, we've already lost everything a person can possibly lose. And we've survived. You can't drug us, trick us, put us to sleep. We're allergic to morphine. Of any kind.

It's not a happy ending. It's just a beginning.

(c) Starsea 17/11/02


DISCLAIMER: None of these characters belong to me except Aya-san. The rest belong to Naoko Takeuchi. Please do not sue. I don't have any money anyway. Me poor student, see? :) And the song ‘Like A Pill’ belongs to the artist Pink.

AUTHOR’S NOTES: This started out as a very dark story, but it's not too bad... I think. Anyway, this song was just crying out to me. Sorry to anyone who likes it.

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