The Garden of Everything

It started with a kiss. And a slap. That was once he was drunk and she was angry. Then followed a series of unexpected incidents, which will push them into a play of destiny. Whatever happens, there will always be a place for them, together, in eternity. In the Garden of Everything.

Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD ~sniff~

Chapter 1: Heliopolis conflict

It was late at night. A bright full moon had risen, pouring its silver tender light downwards the land, and some stars were seen off to the east coast. Evening winds were taking a parade through the tree branches, making the leaves swaying gracefully in a silent dance. An October night in Orb, as cool and breezy as usual.

Some late pedestrians were walking hastily to Heliopolis – the grandest subway stations this side of Orb. The 22:40 subway was about to leave.

A fairly tall figure was staggering towards the subway doors. Fortunately for him, hardly had he got inside the car when those sliding doors shut. More fortunately, there was no one in the car he had entered, save for a young boy sitting and reading some book with great concentration. Perfect. It meant there would be no inquisitive eyes or annoying, curious questions, which were the last things on earth someone in his situation needed.

A ding-dong sound rang cheerfully through the air. Without any delay the subway left, with its headlight tearing the eternal darkness down.

Athrun Zala tiredly collapsed on the floor. Everything before him went blurred, as though his eyes were covered by a thin layer of mist. He gasped and breathed heavily, struggling to catch some air. His lungs were arid as hell, burning up and screaming for oxygen. Swallowing made his throat sore and Athrun started to feel the fire from the lungs flared up, spreading elsewhere and boiling his whole stomach. Needless to say, he was pouring with sweat. His gorgeous midnight blue hair was a little bit messy, yet somehow still in an artful arrangement as though it was meant to be – and providing that there was ever a girl there, she could definitely find it sexy. Suddenly a cluster of headache arose, breaking him off into every single cell. Beautiful sharp emerald eyes closed tight in a painful grimace.

The subway radiated with heat and Athrun didn't find enough air for him to catch his breath at all. It felt extremely hot there. Hot like hell. In a cool, peaceful October night in Orb.

Well at least, that was what he thought.

"What a stupid joke" Athrun muttered. Feeling so suffocated, he started to loosen the silk tie to catch breath more easily, threw it aside and afterwards, took off his expensive tux coat. The black coat was wet, of which reason unknown, but certainly not because of its owner's sweat dropping.

No, this was far more than a joke. This was a stupid insult. Never in his wonderful life had the 18-year-old charming, noble, rich, high and mighty Athrun Zala got drunk. NEVER! Swear to God, he could hang out night after night with his dudes, drink a bottle of Bourbon - his favorite – on his own. And never, ever, get drunk.

However, that night, on that subway train, Athrun Zala the great was really, really drunk.

In more exact words, although he hadn't dropped his sanity halfway until then, to say that he was just tipsy had been a slight understatement.

"Dammit! What the heck did that jerk Dearka made me drink?"

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"Interesting" The girl murmured, a faint smile on her face, which was hidden under a green cap. She was reading the novel that Miriallia Haw, her best friend, had given her earlier. The book entitled "Into the Night" and as far as Cagalli was concerned, it was truly amazing.

Cagalli Yula Athha, 18, is an ordinary girl. She is an ordinary student of Orb University, an ordinary staff of Archangel Café, and an ordinary daughter of an ordinary family. She enjoys sports, and prefer staying home studying to going out looking for some boyfriend. In her opinion, boyfriends bring girls nothing but troubles. Just take Miriallia and Tolle: sometimes Cagalli feels sick with all of their mushy lovey-dovey thing. OK, she knows that they love each other – hell, in view of what they often show off on the streets, it's not impossible that the whole world know – but it doesn't mean they have to kiss each other like there is no tomorrow right in her house and in front of her every time Tolle comes there - EWW! Actually Miriallia is very sweet and nice, she would never do something like that had it not been for Tolle Koenig - the stupid, arrogant, boring, demanding boyfriend of hers (Apparently those are Cagalli's thoughts about him, not Mir's). As of two years ago, since dating with Tolle, Miriallia seemed to have lost her strong-mindedness. She always pretends to be happy and pampers Tolle as if he was a little vulnerable kid; despite sometimes being tired. And the worst part was Cagalli had to put up with that bastard as well.

See? Nothing but trouble! That's why Cagalli doesn't care about boys. Actually she doesn't care about looking for a boyfriend. Not all boys are stupid like Tolle Koenig, Cagalli knows that. Her childhood friend and used-to-be Archangel co-worker Ahmed El Fasi, for instance. He was so nice a guy: sweet, caring, pleasant, always smiling. Rumors had been going round the Archangel staff for all these years that Ahmed had a big crush on Cagalli. Every when asked whether it was true or not, the brown-haired tan boy always refused to answer with a discreet smile. Cagalli, on the contrary, always got frustrated. Where the hell did they get that stupid idea from? Ahmed…liked her? No way! That sounded so… stupid. She never thought he could ever like her. Well, she does care for Ahmed, but merely like a close friend. And after years being his close friend (Even though he had been residing somewhere in Libya since last year), Cagalli felt that his feeling towards her was nothing but the same. Gosh, those gossipy Archangel fools sure should learn to mind their own business.

Speaking of gossip, it was indeed what made her take this late subway. As they live next-door Mir and Cagalli usually get home together, but tonight Miriallia had to visit a relative who had recently moved to a new flat three blocks away from Archangel Café. After the shift at 10 pm Mir told Cagalli to wait, but the brown-haired girl herself was locked up in the changing room in nearly thirty minutes listening to Flay Allster's endless story about a cute boy she had met at the Kusanagi Mall. Mir, certainly, couldn't find her way to get out. And Cagalli, certainly, was never a patient person. Half an hour later she received the book from Mir with a sulky face and made a mad dash towards the station. Thank God the train hadn't left yet, or else she would be waiting in another bloody twenty minutes. And if she had, that red-headed Oh-my-God-I'm-so-hot Allster would have regretted the day she was born.

'At least this book was worthwhile' Smiling inwardly, Cagalli concluded in satisfaction. She was so into the story that wasn't aware of someone's approach. The next thing she knew, that mysterious person pulled her up and rubbed her waist into his – yep, his arms. Cagalli had a sinking feeling immediately.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye thus the tomboy girl barely had a chance to react. Being hauled all of a sudden she wanted to scream out of surprise. It was too late though.

In an instant; he pressed his lips on hers, kissing her passionately.

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Okay, Athrun Zala was NEVER a gay.

Alright, fine, it was true that girls never topped his to-care list, and although they always willingly threw themselves at him in bunches any time anywhere, he neither ever laid his eyes on someone particular nor consider having a serious relationship… – so what? That, if any, only proves one fact that he is a man – heck, a hot man – one hundred percent inside out.

Despite the fact that whatever he had been doing was definitely not something a man usually does, practically no one could blame him; no one could be skeptical of his gender. He got drunk. And as you know; people, including Athrun Zala, can – and sometimes like in THIS particular case, WANT TO – do stupid, crazy things when they're drunk.

Like telling your jealous girlfriend that you're dating some hot babe. (That's exactly what Dearka did two months ago to his latest ex, and as a result, it took three weeks for his poor black eye to recover).

Like driving mad at full velocity, crashing into a wall, destroying it as well as the car and miraculously survive like a stupid protagonist in some stinking action film. (Way to go, Heine!)

Or, even worse: Like kissing a total stranger of the same gender.

'Uhm... This is… so… weird.' Athrun told himself dully.

Yep, so weird. This boy's lips were too… delicate. At first, Athrun couldn't feel anything. However, he soon acquired a taste for it; whereupon a strange feeling preoccupied his mind. Following this all of the earlier uncomfortable feelings disappeared without a trace. Another flame inside Athrun awakened, this time he couldn't name it.

'This is… strange…'

Athrun closed his eyes slowly, trying to carve the moment on his memory, much as he didn't know what that was for. It was just… Those lips were the softest thing he had ever touched. Weirdly enough, this was totally not like all the previous kisses he had had: sticky, strawberry-flavored (which someway was the most annoying fact to him, did they all use the same brand of lipstick or something?), overenthusiastic as hell, but absolutely tasteless - whoever he kissed, it was no difference. On autopilot he kissed those girls who were dazzled merely by his attractive appearance and money; made them feel proud and satisfied. And that was all. There never was any emotion from him.

However, this… This was... totally different.

A total contrast of which he had imagined. No, no, not disgusting at all. Very good actually, and that was just to say the least.

No strawberry-flavored lipstick.

Succulent.

Tasty.

Luscious.

'Huh? How the-? Did I just think-? This is... really... strange...'

Having quickly shoved those wandering thoughts deep down in his dull consciousness, Athrun paid full attention back to the little task which he had been enjoying doing. He could felt the green cap male froze in position, unresponsive and emotionless in exactly the way he did when kissing those girls. The bluenette vaguely felt as if standing in front of a mirror kissing himself. He resisted the urge to shudder in self-disgust, and instead, throatily let out a growl of something akin to sensual pleasure. Ah yes, impassive as they were, there was still something quietly warm and inviting from those young, soft lips that made him couldn't help but feel aroused.

Wa – wait a minute… Wasn't this boy… a boy? And still he felt… aroused?

'Oh crap, am I becoming a real gay? Heck, am I already a real gay? What the hell is going on here?'

To Athrun's relief, the floating mind of his turned out to be still capable of asking some logical questions. But then he waited, quite tiredly, and no response received from his reason, which always appeared to be dominating all the time. Seemed like it had decided to retire to somewhere outside his mind beforehand; or perhaps the sneaky devil of alcohol had chased it away as it was, who knows? Either way, it didn't matter much. He hadn't been thinking really straight in the first place, so why care?

'Nah, never mind…'

In a slow and almost coaxing motion, Athrun tentatively pulled the other male closer and deepened the kiss; gently suck on the side of his mouth. That was the moment when incomprehensible fiery feelings swimming inside him reached another level. And let's just say that Athrun Zala was completely blindfolded by his drunken stupor so that he couldn't recognize that that boy's body was way too lithe for a boy's, not to mention it had much more curves than necessary. In fact, Athrun totally forgot that he was kissing a boy, and heck he didn't give a damn care if he was. He loved it. Enjoyed it. Damned it. This endless flow of puzzling foreign sensations was drowning him into a pool of insanity, and to make it worse, he had no intention of getting out.

Passion, confusion, shame and surprise inwardly mixed together into a dangerous force, seething in his brain, impelling him to surrender. For a moment, Athrun could swear that his legs were melting away. Easy to tell: he did surrender.

It was so not good a thing, because THE Athrun Zala never surrendered to anything that easily. That idiotic Dearka Elsman, of course, was the one to blame.

'Man, never thought that kissing some random guy would be this good. I can stay like this forever.'

That was the very time Athrun thought he felt the boy's lips moving very slightly against his, as if going to part open and welcome him to explore inside. Maybe it was just his half-dazed imagination, because no such thing happened. And, tough luck for the I-always-get-what-I-want bluenette, wish not granted for the first time. It lasted only for about more than fifteen seconds from the moment their lips met. He yearned for more with all his heart, as he wanted to know where these strange feelings might lead him. But the boy broke the kiss – After all, what more do people expect from an innocent boy sexually assaulted by a stranger of the same gender?

Being violently pushed away, Athrun had to hold on tight to the nearest post to keep balance. His eyes went blur, then clear, then blur, then clear again. Everything was obscurely swinging and dancing before him. Athrun's frown intensified. He shook his head, trying to regain the sight and stared at the boy in front, eyes flew wide open. His heart beat furiously and stopped out of the blue.

'Holy crap' was the first and only thought echoing in his mind.

The push was forceful enough for HIS loose green cap to fall off. A stream of golden hair softly fell lowering back, cascading around HER slender shoulders. HER lips shivered gently. HER gorgeous amber eyes widened in pure shock.

Too bad Athrun couldn't see how beautiful they are, because he was drunk.

All he could realize was… "A… a girl?"

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Cagalli was stunned by the hard and abrupt feel of someone's warm lips against hers. Her mind went completely blank in those goddamn timeless fifteen seconds. And now she couldn't help cursing herself for that.

She stood there like a stupid stone, dazed, powerless, unable to think, unable to move. She did perceive the contact, yes, but simply could not resist it – truth be told, not in the least. But that wasn't the worst yet. As if planned, right at the moment she was forced to lean closer to his chest, the remaining curse-deserving senses abandoned her. From then on the only thing she could do was struggling hopelessly alone with the incapability of breathing. Then, fifteen seconds later, from who-knows-the-hell-where, sanity kicked in.

She blinked, only at the sixteenth one. And felt like slapping herself.

Since when did it take fifteen seconds to acknowledge that you were sexually assaulted by a total stranger? What on earth had possessed her that didn't let her shove the stupid thug away sooner? Heck, she even let him pull her closer and yet didn't protest one bit! And even … even almost accepted him willingly! How come?

More importantly, how come, oh, how come this happened to her?

Not until Cagalli broke the kiss did she realize that the thug did not in the slightest look like a thug. 'More like a rich brat' The blonde's mind hissed in resentment while she was staring at her brand new enemy with growing deep hatred. She couldn't help wondering what the hell was such a wealthy moron like him doing on this humble subway. His attire was extremely expensive-looking, scented with a pleasant mixture of luxurious night Creed cologne and some kind of strong wine. His midnight blue hair was a little bit mussed in some kind of arrangement which she found stupid. His vivid emerald eyes narrowed in an intensively suspicious frown before quickly becoming widened in pure shock: "A… a girl?"

Too bad Cagalli couldn't see how beautiful they are, because she was angry.

Well, to be more precise, in the next ten seconds, her mood changed from utmost shock to climactic anger. And that was not a good thing once the kick-ass tomboy Cagalli Yula Athha switched to her fury mode. Even a stranger to her like that blue-haired moron would also be aware of it, soon.

Very soon, indeed.

Because he was going to pay the price.

And it wouldn't be cheap at all, now matter how rich he was.

'Just wait and see, you bastard!'

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A deathly silence engulfed as Athrun tried to clear his throat. The dark aura around HER sent a chill down his spine. Suddenly, it seemed like there was not enough room left for him to breathe, again.

Two intakes of breath were drawn coincidentally at the most unexpected moment.

With that, all hell broke loose.

"Arggg!!!! What do you think you're doing? PERVERT!!!"

SLAP!

"OUCH!"

Enough information. Immediately Athrun's right cheek turned red like a ripen tomato. Shock and pain simultaneously struck the bluenette to his veins as the stinging was so terribly bad that almost awoke him from the intoxicated state. The sound of a small palm against his face echoed harshly in his ears, waking up all senses. Unfortunately, despite being sober enough to see the boy – no, the girl's face clearly, he didn't even have a diminutive chance.

"Damn! Hey…! I'm…Stop!" Shouted Athrun, as the blond girl started to assail him insanely with her thick, heavy hardback book. Her face filled with anger. Her hoarse shouting simply drowned his voice.

"You f- you goddamn sick, disgusting, moronic freak!! Get this! This! This! And THIS!"

After every deafening "this", Athrun get a fatal hit on his poor head. No sooner had he raised hands to cover his head than put them down clutching his stomach and grunted in pain: this girl sure knows how to kick. He was really on the verge of faint.

A raucous masculine scream sounded out as the girl continued her relentless attack with blind rage. Yet another amazing kick, this time his bending back almost collapsed miserably. With eyes shut Athrun desperately lurched for a way to step back but failed. Instead, he tripped on his bloody own coat which had been thrown away earlier.

Oops.

"Try to run away, huh? In your dreams! Get this!" Hissed the girl while stepping drastically on Athrun's ankle. Writhing on the floor he loudly gritted his teeth so as not to make a pathetic fuss.

"Wait! It… hurts! Stop! Arghhhhhh!!!!!!!!"

For another first time in his life Athrun Zala was in a situation with his back against the wall, literally. No matter how unbearably painfully he yelled, it was no use. She merely carried on shouting vulgar language as well as hitting him mercilessly as if he was just a punching bag for practice or something like that. Damn, looked like this chick would never stop until he was beaten to the pulp.

"Get up you bastard! Be a man! Remember this! Let's see whether you dare to feel other girls up next time or not!!!"

Only after when Athrun had given up and decided to lie still suffering from the golden-haired girl's anger did a magic happened. All of a sudden a familiar ding-dong sound tinkled, for some reasons made her pause for a short while and groan in frustration. Turning her eyes back to look at him disgustedly for the last time, she clenched her fists to their extents and, without any hesitation, punched hard right on his face. Normally it would be a piece of cake for Athrun to catch and squeeze her wrist, however, that was not the case there when he wasn't even able to control his own action. Moreover, with such a great strength of hers plus such a small distance, there was no freakin' way she missed. His nose started to bleed as he groaned noisily.

"Dare to let me see your face again and you're so dead! So dead you hear me?" The girl shouted at his face wildly on top of her lungs, grabbed his hair and slammed him on the floor.

The poor emerald-eyed male was left lying there on the floor, half-unconscious. He heard the blond girl mutter something incoherent when stepping hastily over him towards the doors. Soon afterwards, the sounds of her steps fainted away.

A few seconds passed, and another fierce headache suddenly rushed in. Athrun winced; clenching his jaws tightly to prevent himself from screaming out of pain until his jaw bones was nearly crushed. Oh heavens, was he dead yet? He could feel his head spinning crazily and reaching its limit to explode. Right before emerald eyes was a dangling roof moving back and forth dangerously. At times Athrun felt everything turned black but somehow still managed to stay awake.

It took a while before all the dizziness and headaches temporarily went away. Finally Athrun found the strength to struggle with his heavy-feeling head in order to sit up. To his surprise, unlike all the thoughts about himself twisted beyond recognition with mortal injuries, he hadn't been beaten to the pulp yet. Beaten, yes, but to the pulp? Not really. Besides some brutal bruise, a bleeding nose and a swollen ankle that would make walking a little bit hard, by some mysterious miracle he was still alive - and kicking also, though not so well.

Half an hour later, the sole heir of Zala family was seen walking rather slowly along marble-paved sidewalks of the sleepless downtown Broca street towards his new apartment, handsome as ever (in spite of a faint red hand mark on the right cheek, much to his dismay), clothes a tad wrinkled, hand clutching a ragged book, and looked unmistakably pissed as his friend Yzak Joule who sometimes, in the eyes of the bluenette, was equivalent to hell.

The wind blew through his hair and when lifting his hand to tidy the messed strands up, he passed by some girls who were glancing at him, smiling flirtatiously with the hope of attracting his attention. Sadly for them, the bluenette couldn't care less. He was lost in thought, and the only thing in his head was a certain blonde who not so long ago had shown him how heaven and hell tasted. The former part undeniably blew his mind, but he came to a conclusion that he could never find the heart to enjoy the latter one.

"This is all Dearka's fault" – he mumbled irritatedly.

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"Okay Cagalli… Don't. Get. Mad. You can do it, I know you can... Calm down... Now, breathe. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exh-..."

"Hyaaaarrggghh!!!! Pissed off! pissed off! pissed off! PISSED OFF!!" A certain blonde blurted out with disbelief on the quiet street that night. She wasn't in a good mood, to say the least. Her voice could make anyone living nearby fasting asleep fall flat on the face from bed. She was walking madly on the cement sidewalk breathing raggedly, teeth gritted, fists clenched. Her eyes were practically spatting crackling fire, and her face flushed in the brightest hue of red – in fact it was so red and hot that looked almost like a little sun shining angrily in the dark. Judging from her facial expression, right now there would be no thug, robber or murderer has the nerve to get near her.

The nerve!

Of course Cagalli was pissed as hell. Heck no, ultra-pissed as hell. Heck no, ultra-pissed beyond any compare.

Damn, what a day. Okay, first she'd had the busiest day ever at the Café. She was dirty, she was exhausted, she was ravenous and all she wanted was going home to take a cool shower but that annoyingly talkative redhead Flay Allster made her take a late damn Heliopolis night subway. Oh then, for god had blessed her with all she needed, on that damn subway, she was sexually assaulted- to be exact, kissed by some rich bastard.

And what made it worst of all is, that stupid moron STOLE HER FIRST KISS.

THAT WAS HER FIRST KISS FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!! HER VERY, VERY FIRST KISS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! THIS JUST COULD NEVER BE HAPPENING!

It must have been a mistake. Please let it be just a bad nightmare. This could not be happening! Everything went utterly, totally and completely wrong! Despite the fact that the blonde had never thought seriously about her first kiss, if she could describe in one word, it must be PERFECT. Her first kiss was supposed to be PERFECT! It was supposed to be happening in a perfect place, at a perfect time, with a perfect guy! And when thinking of those perfect things, dear God, she absolutely did not mean even a scintilla of anything which happened to sound like on a goddamn night subway, in a goddamn October night, with a goddamn moronic drunken bastard at all!!! Not even in her most terrible nightmares! NO!

ALAS, FOR MILLION-TRILLIONS OF YEARS, BLOODY HELL NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

As if it she hadn't had enough, luck did appear to kick her aside with a view to smiling widely on him. Ah, she simply hadn't done with him yet! He should have been suffered from much, much more pain for all he'd done to her! Why had the subway chosen to stop at so imperfect timing anyway? Urgh, she could've slam that stupid blue head for many times more until he was dead meat, had it not been her time to go. Oh how she hated the fact that the pervert got away with that so easily! NOO! That was way too unfair! He must die! He was supposed to die! D-I-E!

Heavens please make him die of nasal blood loss! Or let something hit him in the head halfway thus he gets amnesia and never seen under the same sky with her again, for good! But come to think of it, it would surely be the best if some extraterrestrials abducted him, crushed that body into sawdust and studied his brain function to do a Nobel prize-deserving research about how stupid the Earth's biggest jerk could be – provided that the prize could ever be awarded to non-human living creatures. YES! YES! That lousy jerk should die painfully like that, for the downright disastrous, horrendous, irreversible snafu he had caused!

'Especially for the "irreversible" part' A voice within remarked bitterly. Cagalli stopped to take a sharp intake of breath, only to find herself continue stomping faster. Of course she knew that it was irreversible. Had she had all the time in the world to kill him there and then, still it wouldn't have changed anything. Her first kiss would never come back, she understood that, and THAT was what bothered her most. THAT was why he should have died. And the truth that he hadn't died, no doubt, drove her insane.

In other words, Cagalli was nearing a mental breakdown. On the way home she cursed, cursed and cursed, hoping wholeheartedly that even if everything she'd prayed didn't work out, that pervert would, at least, sneeze to death.

As the night wore on it got colder. Having decided to discard the dirty coat back on the subway train, Athrun wandered back home only with his shirt on. So he did sneeze, after all.

Luckily, yet unluckily, just not "to death".

-End of chap 1-

~Ja neh! ~

I thought of writing something before getting bored to death, and then the idea came XD Nothing much in this chapter, and I know I have so much to learn in order to improve my writing skills. Just blame my country's education for my problems of logical thinking :(( It was not easy for me to write in English, really.

Anyway I hope that you will read this. And please review, okay? I will gladly listen to all comments.

~Bows~

Yume