God is Not Here Today

God is Not Here Today

Author: pratz

Disclaimer: Sunrise. You know pratz doesn't have anything worth your money.

Notes: written and posted first on my LJ for the Gundam 00 Community.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

His shadow is life, his shadow is death;
Who is He to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
(a quote from the Veda, as put by John Steinbeck in To a God Unknown)

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Two months after the doom in Lagrange, Setsuna appears in his door. He doesn’t bother to ask how Setsuna can find his address, and he doesn’t bother to know what business Setsuna has here with him. They both are still Gundamless, the humiliation and scars from their last battle still too vivid in their mind. There was no mission whatsoever, and the world is still going on the direction where there is no place for Celestial Being.

Setsuna tells him about Allelujah and how he copes to deal with Hallelujah’s being missing, about Sumeragi who still cannot let go of her booze addiction, about Feldt who lives for Lockon’s share.

Setsuna, as indifferent as he may seem, notices a hitch of breath, a miniscule of twitch near a corner of his mouth at the name. But still, he must have the nerve to bring the question Tieria despises the most into words.

“Do you still hate Lockon?”

He hates Lockon Stratos like he never hates anyone before. He hates the late man for all the things he has and has not done. That he knows—and he knows that Setsuna knows, too.

Setsuna grunts softly, though meaning no offense. “But you never love anyone else.”

He has no obligation to reply, so he doesn’t.

“Has Veda—”

“Veda is gone,” he cuts sharply.

Setsuna closes his eyes. “Of course.”

As so sudden, his cell-phone blinks to announce a coming email. From Veda. The bastard tells him the detail of the plan for Celestial Being’s move post-Lagrange.

“From Veda?”

A hiss is his only answer.

Setsuna rises from his chair. “God is not here today, Tieria Erde,” he says. “Nor he was back then.”

Setsuna is right, but somehow, they all are still dancing on Veda’s palm. So he says nothing again.

As the door closes, he looks at the lonely cell-phone on the table. Damn Veda and its plan. If Allelujah can live without his other, so can he. The plan is still going, he knows, and though he is not against it, he will not let himself be measured by the plan. It is he who will measure the plan.

“I will break you,” he says. “I will.”

He will, he really will, even if it will break him too in the process.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Author notes: the title is a phrase taken from Exorcism: The Beginning.