Angelic Layer Fan Fiction ❯ Mystic Visions ❯ Prologue ( Chapter 1 )

AN: This fic is hereby dedicated to emptyword. Her rabid support of my other Angelic Layer fics made me get my butt in gear and start working on this one again. Everyone give emptyword a big hand, grin. For what could be a more noble goal than spreading yaoi love in what could possibly be the most yaoi-free fandom I've ever seen...?

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Prologue

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I couldn't remember the dreams, at first. At least, not properly. I would wake up in the mornings drenched in sweat and, well, quite embarrassed, and wonder why. Sometime, if I strained, I could recall the sensation of a ghostly, cool touch that seemed distant yet real. Nothing more, though, at first.

 

But as I started having the dreams more and more often, I started getting better and better at holding them in my mind after waking. When I was finally able to figure out whom it was that could cause a person such as myself to have such, uh, nightmares, I was... duly horrified.

 

X................................................................ ..........................................................................X

 

I have no idea when or how the conscious darkness behind my eyes became the darkness of my dream. I don't think I was even aware of the transition.

 

All I know is that all of the sudden he was there, standing where there had just been more nothing a moment ago. Wizard, magically human-sized - or was I doll-sized? I jumped, but felt surprisingly detached - `This is just a dream,' I thought clearly.

 

As if I wasn't already befuddled enough, Wizard reached out to stroke my face in a contemplative fashion, and murmured, “Oujiro-sama is awake.”

 

“Wha-”

 

Then he cocked his head to one side. “No... Not yet. But you are aware that you are here - and that I am here.” He laid his head on my chest; blue, fuzzy hair tickled my chin, and I felt warm. “Please try to remember me this time?”

 

I shrugged. `A dream, a dream...' “I'll try.”

 

“Good,” he said, satisfied - and then he stretched up, and kissed me on the mouth.

 

I stumbled backwards, choking uncontrollably, and a sickening thought wormed its way into my head. Please try to remember me this time... “You... what-” I took a breath or two, and composed myself enough to speak coherently. “Please... tell me you're not the one I've been dreaming about.” So it was obvious - it was the best thing I could come up with at the moment.

 

Wizard simply arched an eyebrow in a bemused fashion, and pouted. In all my years as a Deus, I had never thought of my Angel as the type to pout. “I think I liked you better when you weren't awake,” he declared, as blunt as a child, but then he reached out to touch my cheek again with cool fingers...

 

I firmly took another step back as his eyes grew half-lidded and his face got too close. “Stop that! What do you think you're doing?”

 

“Being nice,” he said innocently, but a spark in his eye hinted that he probably wasn't so naïve.

 

I rolled my eyes. “Well, I think it'd be best if you would be `nice' in a different way, understand?”

 

“But this is the best way to be nice,” he protested, fiddling with one of my buttons. “The way people like the best.”

 

I swatted his hands away, feeling vaguely irritable and rather like I was trying to talk to a four-year-old. “Not the way I like best - not from you, anyway.”

 

“Usually you do.”

 

I faltered.

 

He blinked.

 

I gaped.

 

He smiled.

 

My eye twitched.

 

“I - Don't-” I paused, and scowled at him. Logically, this was pointless. I was letting my own doll - I was letting a dream get under my skin. Hmph…

 

Skin - warm and soft and brushing mine and -

 

And suddenly I was very red indeed. I had wanted to remember these dreams? Twitch.

 

His smile widened, and he poked my cheek. “Cute,” he declared.

 

I removed his finger from my personal space, and stared down at him. Obviously, I needed to explain things very carefully to him. Obviously we needed to have a long talk or two about the differences between boys and girls, and the proper behavior for each. Obviously, at least one and probably both of us needed to see a psychiatrist. Obviously, I-

 

“I'm going to wake up now,” I told him, rather hopefully.

 

To my acute discomfort, the pout returned. “But you can't,” he insisted, hugging me whether I liked it or not. “You just got here, and I'd be bored if you left again so soon!”

 

I struggled, and grimaced. For such a short person, he was certainly strong. Breath… failing… “Well, that's… too bad,” I snapped, and his hold loosened enough for me to finally break free. My joy was substantially lessened by one look at his face.

 

Twitch.

 

I shifted awkwardly. God, he really was a child… one little thing… excuses… I shrugged it off. “Listen, I'm sorry, but you're just a dream, so…” Wake up, wake up… ugh…

 

Then he smiled again. “Oh, it's okay. I knew it would be hard for you to come to grips with at first. You'll have to get over that eventually, though.” He beamed, and waved, and I finally noticed that the shadows were starting to eat at the edges of his figure. I hesitantly waved back, feeling mildly foolish, and he laughed, and -

 

- I sat bolt upright, choking on air. Even through my shock-induced coughing fit, I managed to get a glimpse of my surroundings, and was deeply relieved. My room, wonderfully familiar; tangled up in my sheets on my bed. My desk, across the room, covered in schoolbooks and notebooks and a plant and -

 

The cliché thing to do would've been to go over to him and perhaps brush a couple stray hairs out of his tiny face, while staring at him in a deeply thoughtful silence. So I didn't. It was terribly tempting, though.

 

I guess that was the moment that I first thought it in so many words. As I resolutely tried not to look at his apparently inanimate minute little body, it occurred to me that… Oujiro Mihara was officially, certifiably, slowly but surely losing his mind.

 

TBC