The song is Sting's Ghost Story, from his album Brand New Day. I'm very guilty of, when reading songfics, skipping over the lyrics, (hee, I'm probably not the only one) but it will probably, in this case, not only flow better but make more sense if you read the lyrics. Particularly because the lyrics tell the story themselves.
If you need a feel of the music, the only real accompaniment is a single guitar plucked in a slow, delicate fashion. The song is sung more like someone reciting a poem, and in a rather vulnerable voice.
Thoughts or memories /...../
I watch the western sky
The sun is sinking
The geese are flying south
It sets me thinking
"And it's going to be another cold winter this year. The sky is clear tonight, but expect to be shovelling your driveways tomorrow folks." The radio announcers sickeningly slick and cheerful voice doled out the weather report. Duo only listened with half an ear, watching the birds outside his window take to the sky.
"Winter again, huh?" he said to no one in particular. His breath crystallized into puffs of mist in front of his eyes. He made a mental note to fix the heater in his apartment, but he knew, just like last winter, he'd always find excuses to put it off.
I did not miss you much
I did not suffer
The cold kept him occupied. All year, he could get by with one distraction after another. His days in the spring enjoying the fierce winds and the pouring rain. The summers were made for him. Life was filled with pools, ice cream, and parks.
He was a hedonist by nature, and it would have been a crime against himself not to enjoy it.
Fall was a burst of colors ... that last struggle of life proudly displaying what beauty they were capable of even as the trees were loosing that last battle before their long sleep.
He had never so much as frowned once, after He left. Not a single tear.
What did not kill me
Just made me tougher
Things just never got to Duo. He never let them. He'd be useless, after all, if he did. There was just too much in his life to mourn. If he started now, he'd never be able to stop.
Why should His leaving bother him in the slightest? It was just one more bad thing in a line of many. Besides, no one died this time. Which is more than can be said for some of other times.
Duo grinned to himself at the thought. /What doesn't kill me, makes me tougher. And you can't kill Death baby./
I feel the winter come
His icy sinews,
Another gust of cold air rattled the window loudly, snapping the ex-pilot out of his thoughts.
"Damn," He sighed and concentrated on keeping his hands steady while he got a fire started in the fireplace. The cold was making the muscles in his arms and fingers jump and tick just enough to keep the match from the tinder and paper beneath the logs from catching.
He sighed and irritably blew his bangs out of his eyes.
"I hate winters."
/They remind me of you./
Now in the firelight
The case continues
Duo sat back, just on the edge of the ring of warmth that the fire emitted. Somehow it didn't feel right for him to sit anywhere closer to the blaze. He was reluctant to leave the cold.
/There's probably a reason for that./
"Shut up." He whispered to himself, wrapping a colorful afghan around his shoulders. After a thoughtful pause, he smirked. "Great, now I'm talking to myself."
Another night in court
The same old trial
The same old questions asked
The same denial
/The cold reminds you of Him./ A sarcastic voice accused him. /Everything does./
"Heh, He was an icy bastard huh?" Duo loosened the blanket from around his shoulders and leaned back away from the fire, unconsciously embracing the cold with a bitter smile. "One more Duo no baka and I would have gone sane."
/You still care for Him./
"Never," he denied.
/You kept the blanket He gave you./
/A quick flash of memory superimposed itself over his view of the fire merrily destroying the logs. In it was the face of Heero, some few Decembers back, in front of that same fireplace handing him a colorful afghan.
It wasn't anything expensive. It looked more like something a grandmother would make than something the Perfect Soldier would offer the God of Death. In any other circumstances, Duo would be clutching his sides and rolling on the floor with laughter but... Heero's face...
His features were indifferent, but his eyes were hopeful and vulnerable. He was afraid of Duo laughing at him.
Duo just smiled, took the blanket and wrapped it around the two of them./
"It was useful," was all he offered up in his own defense.
/You never repair the heater./
"I never get around to it."
/Since when did you start lying?/
"Shut up."
The shadows close me round
Like jury members
I look for answers in
The fires embers
Duo frowned to himself and gazed deep into the dwindling fire, listening to the occasional pops of the wood, and the heavy scent of smoke.
There was nothing else to do...
"I should get more wood.."
/So quiet./
"What I'd give for a TV out here." He lamented.
/The silence gives you time to think./
"I thought I told you to shut up." He asked irritably. He was past the point of caring if he sounded insane, talking to himself. There was no one to hear him anyway.
/The silence reminds you of Him./
"I don't give a rats ass about Him." Duo stood up abruptly and started pacing the small confines of the chilly room.
Why was I missing then
That whole December?
I give my usual line
I don't remember
/Decembers used to be a happy time./ The voice had softened, becoming sad in tone. Duo still paid it no more mind. /Do you remember?/
"I can remember a not so happy December."
/But nothing else./ The sarcasm in his mental voice returned.
"Right."
Another winter comes
His icy fingers creep
Into these bones of mine
These memories never sleep
//"I love the winter." Heero confessed quietly.
Duo snorted. "Thats not something I expected to hear out of you."
"Why?" He asked, genuine curiosity tinting his voice.
"Dunno, it's pretty, but it's all dead." Duo complained. "I love the fire so much more. It's deadly maybe, but at least it's alive."
"And that from Shinigami."
"I'm just Duo these days." Duo grinned lazily and leaned against Heero's stiff back. "So what is so great about winter."
"Snow flakes."
"Huh?" Duo asked eloquently.
"Snow flakes." He repeated, pointing out the window. A few pieces of fluff were meandering their way down to the ground from the bloated, black clouds above. "Do you know no two are alike?"
"And thats why you like them?"
"It's a part of it. They remind me of why we fought for everyone." Heero's face hardened with the effort of trying to articulate what was on his mind. He pressed one finger to the glass, tracing where a snowflake was pressed by the winds to the surface of the other side. "Like that one... it's delicate, destined to die almost right after they are born. But no matter how many more that one snowflake is replaced by, there will never be one just like the snowflake that just melted."
Duo stared thoughtfully at the melting flake before another burst of winter winds obscured it in a flurry of other flakes. He gave Heero a measuring look before leaning back against his partner.
"Pretty eloquent koi."
"Hn."//
"I hate the winter."
/Do you really?/ The voice asked quietly.
And all these differences
A cloak I borrowed
We kept our distances
Duo tossed another log on the fire, willing it not to go out. Right now, he needed its exuberant life and its encompassing warmth.
/Warmth../
"All I asked for was a little comfort." He whispered to the fire.
Why should it follow that
I must have loved you?
/Sounds like love to me./
"What do you know?"
/I know you./
What is the force that binds the stars?
I wore this mask to hide my scars
"He didn't. He doesn't know me." Duo glared at nothing in particular.
/You didn't let him./
"What was I supposed to do? Paint a great big sign over my head? Sorry, that's not my style."
/It would have been better than the great big smile./
"This isn't about me."
/Of course it is. Who else do you ever think about? After all, you said that you don't care about Him, didn't you?/
"I..."
What moves the earth around the sun?
What could I do but run and run?
Afraid to love, afraid to fail
A mast without a sail
/It's not too late to go back.../
"I can't... it's been too long... and the last fight... He went to Her. I'm sure of it." Duo clenched his eyes shut, collapsing next to the window, as deep into the cold as he could get without fear of freezing to death.
/And if He didn't? What if He's waiting for you?/
"Then maybe..."
The moon's a fingernail
And slowly sinking
Another day begins
Duo gave a quick glance at his wrist watch. He'd been up all night, work was in only a few hours.
"Another night wasted."
>/It doesn't have to be./
"Oh?" Sarcasm and challenge dripped off his tongue.
/You could take off work. You could go see Him./
"What if I don't want to?"
And now I'm thinking
That this indifference
Was my invention
When everything I did
Sought your attention
/Why keep pretending? From the moment you met him, everything you did revolved around him somehow./
//Laying out on chest of Deathsycthe, "I wonder if that guy ever looks at the moon?"
Reading the papers the hospital had on Heero before burning them and busting him out in Duo's traditional, extravagant style.
Frantically asking an amnesiac Trowa where Heero was.
Worrying for his health and sanity as he saw Heero take off in Wing Zero, having fought with that beast himself.
Finally stealing a kiss from Heero's surprised lips.
Flying and furious words from two men who were too different and too alike.//
You were my compass star
You were my measure
You were a pirate's map
Of buried treasure
All the good times came flooding back, drowning the fights in the rush of small smiles, of hints of trust, of December nights together when only they had each other for heat. Duo made a small sound in the back of his throat but refused himself anything more. No more signs of defeat.
/So you do care./
"A little.."
/Why?/
If this was all correct
The last thing I'd expect
The prosecution rests
It's time that I confessed
I must have loved you
"I must have loved you." He sighed softly. Duo leaned his cheek against the frigid pane of the window, imagining it was Heero.
Inside, the last embers in the fire died.
Outside, it began to snow.
TBC
Nixers
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