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meliorism (n.) - the belief that the world gets better; the belief that humans can improve the world.
It is half past 5 AM and Tieria can’t sleep.
It’s not like he doesn’t sleep.
In all honesty, usually he’s the first one to drift away and dream of glimmering stars and wiring that adorns him like a lavish necklace and buzzing interfaces speaking to him in binary codes.
The very first rays of warm sunlight sift through the curtains, spattering the room with warm colours. Tieria names all of them, staring at the usually white walls as they turn to yellow, orange, and purplish pink.
Tieria’s gaze drifts towards the man lying beside him, face buried in the pillows. The light paints his auburn hair fiery scarlet, his pale hands a gentle shade of gold. Only the black eye patch remains the same.
Tieria debates for a while whether to wake him or not, but then decides against it. He sneaks out from underneath the linen covers. The material rustles, brushing against his ankles and knees. It takes him a while to sit up.
His feet touch the wooden floor, warm from the early heat of the sun. Summer will be in full bloom any day now. Tieria doesn’t need calendars and calculations to tell him that anymore. It’s purely instinctive and irrational knowledge, gathered from absolutely insignificant data, unprocessed and never quantified.
He dresses quickly, puts a blue cardigan over a cream-coloured shirt and runs down a winding staircase, never touching the railing. He opens the heavy, double-leaved door and a tepid gust of southern wind turns him in the right direction on one of the narrow, cobbled streets of Dublin.
Come with me .
***
He can’t believe it’s over, but what baffles him even more is the sole fact that he lives. He’s supposed to carry on when there’s nothing for him to do, after he’s been stripped of his purpose.
They’re all being sent away to different regions and countries, to find themselves in the peaceful world they created. They’re not supposed to contact each other, and they’ll never have to intervene again. If the need arises once more, Veda will select other Gundam Meisters.
It’s done.
“…Allelujah and Marie, I thought you’d like to go together…” Sumeragi chants cheerfully, and the mentioned couple blushes like they’re high school sweethearts, and not grown up soldiers retiring after years of war. “There’s a nice apartment waiting for you in Tokyo. Say your goodbyes and off you go!”
Both stand up; Allelujah rushes to Sumeragi, and Marie envelops Feldt in a tight hug. Tieria hears Sumeragi lecturing the young man on consequences of excessive alcohol consumption. He stares at his feet awkwardly, until he realizes Marie is standing right next to him. He momentarily springs out of his seat. It would be inappropriate of him if they exchanged greetings while he was still sitting.
The woman looks up at him with young, hopeful eyes and takes both of his hands in hers.
“Just… be okay, alright? I’ll pray for you every day.”
The corners of his mouth turn slightly upwards. It is customary to smile in situations like that, regardless of your true feelings.
“Thank you for your consideration. I wish you all the same,” he says, his voice as stern as ever.
Marie shuffles away from him, and he thinks she must be relieved. She’s finally allowed to find a place where she belongs.
The thing is, Tieria knows he won’t be okay. His place is in space. His place is with Veda. His place is where no human can reach. And now he can’t reach there, either.
He briefly tries to imagine his life on Earth, probably in a big city where it’s relatively easy to remain anonymous. He’ll take up a job that involves a lot of paperwork. He’ll suffocate in a small flat without the vastness of stars to fill in the emptiness. He’ll watch the world change painstakingly slowly, while he remains the same, without any direction, without relief. Drowning in guilt.
That’s when he realizes he’s been spacing out for the past five minutes or so. This never happens, or at least, never happened until now.
“Hey, Tieria, are you here at all?”
Oh.
There’s a familiar face smiling at him with warmth he doesn’t deserve. The man almost died twice because of him, but it never stopped him from smiling at Tieria, from caring for Tieria, from keeping Tieria out of trouble. It makes him feel small and worthless, but never angry – and he dislikes that, because anger gives him strength, and right now he feels incessantly weak.
“Of course I am here, Lockon Stratos.”
“Then come with me.”
The words are simple and straightforward, but it takes Tieria a minute to fully comprehend what’s just been said. He stares helplessly at Sumeragi, trying to come up with words that would convey how inconvenient and inappropriate that would be.
“We are not a couple,” is all he blurts out. The woman chuckles, but the sound is drowned out by Lockon’s obnoxiously loud laughter.
“Come on, even Setsuna has someone waiting for him down below on that scary pile of rocks. You can’t just go like that.”
For a brief moment, Tieria is absolutely speechless. Sumeragi uses this opportunity to ask them a question that sounds innocent enough.
“Is Dublin okay?”
When they reply, they do it in unison, though Lockon hesitates a second longer than Tieria does.
***
Although it’s past dawn already, the city is still empty and quiet. There are no blue collars rushing for the morning shift. No smoke rises from chimneys of old, deserted factories, now treated as a testimony of an era gone by.
Tieria has to strain his shins not to dart through the steep streets. He’s still learning how to appreciate the slow life.
It was really hard at first, when Lockon (Neil, he corrects himself) caught him by the hand when he set off running in the alleys, unsettling other pedestrians. The man threw an arm around Tieria’s shoulders (making him feel smaller than usual) and lead him to a park, where they sat down on a bench in silence that Tieria perceived as both counterproductive and uncomfortable.
“Weren’t we supposed to go shopping?” he asked, looking up at Neil, only to find the man staring somewhere far off into the distance.
“Yes, but that would be pointless if we didn’t enjoy ourselves a little.”
“I don’t understand,” Tieria snapped angrily. “What’s so enjoyable about being inefficient?”
Neil chuckled and rested his chin atop of Tieria’s head. Suddenly, Tieria felt weirdly light-headed. The man’s neck leaning against his cheek was warm and strong and alive. The park swirled around them in a blur, as if they were frozen in time, and the remaining world rushed towards gods know where.
Tieria felt the eye patch brushing the side of his head, but for once, he didn’t feel the crippling uncertainty he always connected with the goddamned thing.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his nose almost touching Neil’s neck, fingers folding and unfolding nervously while he tried to find a comfortable place for his hands. “This would have never happened if…”
“If I wasn’t willing to do this. For you and for some other, rather selfish reasons. So don’t ever talk to me like that, you’re making me look bad.”
It made Tieria want to smile, and he would have, if not for the prickling sensation in the corners of his eyes.
Tieria takes a turn into a narrow alley, that feels slightly cooler than the main street.
***
At first, everything is new and strange. It’s not exactly uncomfortable, though having solid surface beneath his feet all the time makes Tieria slightly queasy.
The flat they live in is clean, but at the same time it’s filled with the smell of dust and old age that just won’t go away no matter what.
“That’s how things smell on Earth, Tieria,” Neil says and Tieria scoffs. He doesn’t like being lectured on how things should be.
They sleep on a queen-sized mattress – at first it is because when they arrive they’re too exhausted to think of anything else. When they wake up they can’t agree on anything, and then they slowly stop mentioning that matter altogether.
That’s when Tieria discovers that Lockon is not only Lockon. That there’s also a person called Neil and Lockon was that person. At first it confuses him endlessly, as his mind tries to project two separate images onto one individual. But then he just gets used to it, just like he gets used to the feeling of another being shifting under the covers next to him, breathing, muttering, having nightmares, reaching out in search for some kind of sustenance.
Neil is very much like a figure in a dream. Tieria discovers him through small events and cameral scenes. Neil is always happy to provide physical support, but he withdraws when somebody (when Tieria) tries to touch him. Neil doesn’t eat much for dinner, because he indulges himself at breakfast. Neil always listens, smiles and understands, but refuses to be understood.
After a month or two, Tieria starts being secretive – or that’s how Neil sees it. He disappears from the flat for long hours and comes back exhausted, barely making it to the mattress before falling asleep. Neil doesn’t ask any questions, just takes off his glasses if he doesn’t manage to put them away in time.
And then, on a bright Tuesday morning, when they’re both having tea in the kitchen (no chairs, just some pillows and quilts and an old trunk serving as a coffee table), Tieria forgets himself while opening a letter he found in the mail.
“I got in,” he whispers with an odd mix of disbelief and satisfaction in his voice. “I really got in.”
“Hey, hey, stop what you’re doing right now and show me that piece of paper, would you?” Neil almost snatches the letter from Tieria’s hand, but stops his fingers an inch or so from the paper. Tieria reluctantly hands it over.
“Now, that’s good, that’s excellent! My parents would be proud. I mean, they probably would’ve wanted me and Lyle to go to college if they were…” Neil gasps when he turns the page to look at the results of his entrance exams. “You are a freaking genius.”
It’s clear that Neil expects Tieria to either act smug or try to dismiss his obvious success at this “silly human thing”. But Tieria just stares at his hands and is neither smiling nor not smiling, just sort of… glimmering, and that’s enough to make Neil lean in and lock their lips together.
Tieria thinks this is probably the best way it could happen, and he shivers slightly when Neil cups his neck with one hand. Human contact can still astound him with how bizarre it feels.
There’s another entity, a separate being, dedicating its entire physical manifestation to expressing something as fleeting as affection.
Tieria repays in kind, though he doesn’t know much about those matters. He’ll learn soon enough.
***
“Why are you so early today, miss?” asks the old man, owner of the bakery, as he packs a fresh baguette into a paper bag. Tieria doesn’t bother to correct him.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he replies, and he leans slightly on the solid wooden counter. The bakery is hidden in a basement of an old townhouse, and few people stop by. The bread can be bought at the nearby market, anyway. Tieria just likes the cramped, warm space filled with smell of dough and work. It buzzes and hums like a beehive, and, oddly enough, this makes him feel at peace.
“You should try drinking some lemon balm tea. Or the mixture my wife concocts… I forgot what it’s called…” the man mutters under his breath and hands him the paper bag. His eyeglasses nearly fall off as he kneels down in a frantic search for something under the counter. Finally, he fishes out a small stick-it note, and scribbles something with a worn out pencil. “Yes, I think these are the ingredients. Works like a charm.”
“Thank you, and see you tomorrow.”
Tieria nods; it’s still rare of him to smile, but it’s not an impossible occurrence either.
He doubts the concoction will “work like a charm” for him, but he still doesn’t know his limits. He can get drunk, that’s for sure, but it takes a bottle or two of liquid that tastes vaguely like sanitizer, and he’s not up for such a sacrifice, especially since he hates the feeling of losing control. He was designed to be a human devoid of human flaws, but somehow that only made them more prominent. His mind is a brilliant prism of swirling colours others cannot perceive. Sometimes, it gets confusing. Sometimes, the words hold too much meaning. That’s why he always strives to be as precise as possible.
***
On some nights, he’s filled with longing no one else could ever feel, and he leans against the window, staring at the stars. To his eyes the vast, dark space is just as alive as the main streets in Dublin on a working day.
That particular evening, he stands there long enough for his feet and hands to grow ice cold. His brain goes into a limbo, exploring every unwelcome possibility he wouldn’t dare ponder in the light of day. He wonders if he’s a failed experiment. It’s actually quite probable, considering all of his misgivings. Perhaps he’ll just flicker out one day, without warning.
That, as far as he’s considered, would be fairly acceptable.
He presses his cheek against the window pane and closes his eyes and tries to reach out, like he did so often in the past, even after they came to Dublin. And, just like every other time, there’s nothing to hold on to. Just infinite uncertainty of his own fickle mind. He’s cut off forever, and it’s as if he’s lost a limb and he still cannot get over it, like he’s supposed to do.
That is one of the things that make him painfully aware of his own misgivings.
He’s about to get up, when he hears a gentle rustling sound and feels the touch of steady, warm hands, wrapping soft fabric around his shoulders. Not so long ago he’d lash out, he’d try to escape, but he knows that right now, there’s hardly a thing he’d like to escape.
“Why are you up so late? You’ve got work in the morning, it’s really irrational of you to…”
“From what I’ve seen, you’ve been up to some pretty irrational things yourself, so I thought I might join in.” Neil’s voice ends in a low rumble that Tieria could feel when leaning against his chest.
„It is rather… inappropriate of me to be thinking about this,” Tieria said, voice calm and level. “Especially since we’re here, and none of that should matter anymore.”
“We’ve both lost things, Tieria. We both need to be patched up. I’m sorry if I can’t do this for you, but I couldn’t fix the world either, so maybe that’s just how hopeless I am.”
There’s a bitter edge to what he says, but that doesn’t exactly upset Tieria. It’s rare of Neil to say something so painstakingly honest. He still hides in that shell that served him all these years; he still plays at being the nice, relaxed guy, the shoulder anyone could lean on.
So Tieria does what Neil expects him to do. He leans against him, as if holding onto him was a matter of life and death, like there was some terrifying force that could rip them apart any minute.
“You, Lockon Stratos, are an exorbitantly foolish human being. And yet, you manage to make everything better.”
The painful truth about them is, while they’re supposed to be the beacons guiding humanity into a new era of peace, they’re much more like Neil’s old home and the grapevine that grows around it.
The house seems just as inviting as ever, with nothing but dust and old shadows crawling within its walls, and yet the vines wrap it up with their branches in a cocoon to protect, no matter how fickle and insignificant the support.
***
When Tieria returns, he finds the covers haphazardly thrown onto the floor and empty. A momentary surge of pure panic runs through him. He feels as if his blood turned to cooling liquid, cold and burning at the same time.
He lets the paper bag fall to the floor, as he rushes from one room to another (there are three rooms in total, if you count the kitchen and the bathroom, so it’s a regrettably brief search).
When he knows for sure he’s alone, he leans against the cold wall for a minute or two. Then, in an attempt to compose himself, he folds the quilt into a neat square and straightens out the pillows.
In the end he just crawls onto the mattress and lies down, barely daring to breathe.
What if Neil doesn’t come back?
There are times when Tieria fears that everything that’s happened to them so far is a dream that will shatter very soon. Neil will get bored and leave. Neil will go out to fetch some milk and get hit by a car. Neil will find a beautiful woman with fiery hair and freckled skin and fall in love. An asteroid will crash into Earth, leaving nothing but embers. The possibilities are endless and either of them is more probable than Neil staying in this small, dingy flat. Tieria knows best about how infinite the universe really is, after all, and they’re nothing but specks of dust.
The drapes shielding the window breathe in and out gently with the breeze. Wooden floor creaks, even though nobody’s walking on it. The whole building trembles slightly, insignificantly, as it joins into the perpetual hum of city waking to life. The door clicks open.
There’s some rustling and the sound of keys clanking against each other.
“Hey, Tieria, are you home already? Did something happen?”
Tieria shuts his eyes and forces his body to go limp. He hears Lockon stepping into the room, and an unbelievable sense of relief washes over him. He could really fall asleep like that.
“I’m fine. My sleep schedule needs adjusting, though,” he mutters and looks up at Neil. There’s a big package wrapped in brown paper cradled in his arms, and Tieria raises his eyebrows quizzically at that. “Where were you?”
“At the post office. They left us a notice few days ago and I thought I’d go and check.” Neil smiles and sits down on the mattress next to him. Tieria inhales his scent and his breathing evens out; not that he was aware of it speeding up in the first place.
Neil opens the package slowly and takes out two pieces of elaborately woven cloth. One is lilac, and the other one is green. Tieria briefly wonders what might be their use. Lockon simply takes the lilac one, lifts Tieria up by his shoulders and wraps the fabric – a shawl – around his neck. It smells of sandal wood and cloudless skies.
It takes a while, but eventually everything clicks into place. Mild bewilderment graces Tieria’s features, as he runs his fingers over the shawl.
“We were not supposed to contact the others,” he murmurs under his breath, and underlying sense of authoritativeness in his tone.
“And what good would have come out of it?” Neil asks. The green eye sparkles with mirth as he draws Tieria closer, to gather him up in his arms. Tieria runs a hand through Neil’s hair and sighs contentedly.
Sometimes, he wonders just how much does Neil left unspoken. He must have noticed the paper bag discarded on the floor – he must have seen Tieria lying on the bed still in his loafers – but he doesn’t say anything, and that’s alright.
It’s a lot like trying to lead a child with a sprained ankle through the courtyard to the safety of home. Not speaking about painful things does not make them any less painful, just slightly more bearable.