09-Jan-2001
See part 1 for all disclaimers and general warnings.
Additional warnings: Disturbing imagery, some gore; oh, yeah, and HeeroTorture.
AC 198
After the war, I couldn't believe how easy it was to adjust to normal life. Duo and I had spent so much time worrying what would become of us when we weren't soldiers, but in the end, it was as simple as knowing that whatever happened there was a warm bed and a firm shoulder at the end of the day.
Domestic Heero. Duo once tacked a post-it to the fridge once with that written on it, adding the trademark symbol to the end. It amused him for days.
Americans find the strangest things funny.
There were still nightmares -- horrible images of blood and death and pain that was worse than anything I'd ever seen during the war. Some nights I would wake to find Duo sitting on the kitchen counter, his hands clenched so hard his palms bled from where his nails had dug in. And some nights, I would sit up with a gasp and blindly reach out for him, wrapping my hands in that warm hair and forcing myself to keep breathing.
But we never talked about it. It was unnecessary.
With us, words in general were almost unnecessary.
Until our last night together, the night we somehow both knew we would need to hold onto, because chances were one of us wouldn't live to see another one.
The air outside bites into my neck and I flip up the collar on my jacket, wishing for once I had listened to Duo and bought myself a winter coat. I have no idea where to go, what to do. My duffel bag with my whole life in it bounces against my back and something hard pokes out of it, digging into my shoulder.
I sigh, watching my breath fog the air in front of my face, warming my suddenly cold nose.
My whole life. Not exactly.
How did we both know what would happen that night?
How did I not see this coming?
AC 197
"Heero," he whispered.
"Hn." Not now, Duo. Just don't. I took the soft flesh of his earlobe into my mouth, hoping he would just drop it.
"There's a change coming. Very soon, I can feel it."
I know, baka, of course I know. "So serious, Duo," I said and let my lips play over his neck, baring my teeth and scraping them gently against the vein that pulsed there.
"Oh, so only you get to do the silent hero routine? Pun intended of course."
I paved a way down his body with my hand, wanting him to just shut up and feel and remember. I didn't know how to say it, so I said it against his skin, laving one nipple and smiling when he gasped, his words effectively cut off.
His hands moved through my hair, convulsively grasping and releasing and he arched against me. I thought I had won the battle, and I moved lower, flicking my tongue against his stomach and slipping the tips of my fingers under the waistband of his boxers.
His stomach jumped when he took a quick breath. I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing him too well after all this time.
"Heero," he whispered again, and I put my cheek to his abdomen, feeling the muscles contract and relax as I brushed soft fingers back and forth over the downy hair there.
"Do you ever get scared?"
The question startled me. Fear. It wasn't something we ever really talked about, because there was never room for it. I hated being out of control, and the thin threads of anxiety I felt from time to time was always burned away by the anger that followed on its heels.
"I'm a soldier," I said quietly, willing him to understand.
"So am I."
"So you should know the answer to that already." Maybe I winced at the harshness of my voice, but I can't be sure.
"I get scared," he whispered, his voice hitching up at the end.
I slid myself up so I was eye to eye with him, and my heart ached to see them overly bright. "What are you afraid of?"
His eyes narrowed, in pain or in anger, I couldn't tell. "Death."
Now I was the one whose breath stuck, and I cupped a hand around his cheek. Do you see? A voice in my head whispered. Do you see how you're killing him?
"I know it's crazy," he said quickly, closing his eyes and turning his face into my palm "I've been doing his work for so long, but I still can't..."
"You have to learn to let go."
I have to learn...
"Then he can't hurt you."
"Heero..."
"My Shinigami," I said. He was. He was my life, my death, my every breath and thought.
And I had to learn how to let him go.
We didn't speak anymore, because I think I forgot how.
This is what he did to me. This was the only loss of control I would ever accept.
And then he said it, just barely gasped it out. "I love you, Heero, love you love you love you..."
Neither one of us had ever said it out loud before. I guess I just thought it was also unnecessary.
I was wrong. It was the most incredible thing I've ever heard, and I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, as I fell over the edge.
I collapsed on top of him, shaking, feeling like my skin had been turned inside out and all of my nerves were exposed.
He held me as tight as he could, his competent hands smoothing over my back and damp hair.
"Ai shiteru," I whispered, and I didn't even care that my voice was thin and trembling. "Itoshi no baka. Ai shiteru." Please understand.
I barely felt him smile against my cheek as I drifted into unconsciousness.
I'm so sorry.
I recognized Shinigami when I saw him, even though he looked nothing like the image of him I carried in my head, or even the pictures I had seen as a child when Odin taught me the Shinto legends.
"Why? Why do they all die?" Duo sounded ragged, speaking through heaving breaths.
I blinked. Duo?
He didn't even look at me from where he knelt in front of the God, and I tried again.
Duo? Duo!
I clutched my throat, but couldn't force the words out.
"There's more, isn't there? He won't escape, will he?"
Dare?
Shinigami was silent still, raising his long blade to rest on Duo's throat, tilting his face up.
Duo smiled slowly. "I understand now."
Nani? I don't-
Silver flashed quickly, I felt a moment of displacement, and suddenly there was sticky warmth over my hands. I looked down and saw Duo's upturned face smiling at me, his head too far back, Gods, it's too far back...
"I see," he gurgled, and blood fountained from his split throat and tracked down his chin from the corners of his mouth.
I looked at my hands, at the blood spattered over them, and I tried to say
"Iie."
but no sound came out. Duo...
"...Iie..."
"You're-" Duo pitched forward, his head wetly hitting the ground with a sickening smack, and the stench of blood filled my nostrils.
I didn't...
"...Onegai..."
Red stained the hem of my white robes as the liquid pooled over my sandaled feet.
He was trying to say...
"I am..."
I flung the scythe away from me with a soundless cry and my robes swirled around my feet. Iie!
I am...
I recognized Shinigami when I saw him, even though he looked nothing like the image of him I carried in my head, or even the pictures I had seen as a child when Odin taught me the Shinto legends.
Oh...
I jerked awake, my body spasming painfully. My hands reached out instinctively for the form next to me and I felt the prick of tears when I encountered a warm, alive body.
I had to remember to breathe.
My laptop, in the workroom, beeped shrilly.
Ninmu.
I started. I hadn't thought about that word in a year.
I touched his forehead gently, before disentangling myself and easing out of bed.
Ninmu.
Relena had been missing since last night, when she never returned from a meeting on a fairly new colony.
...Ryokai.
The dream flashed into my head.
"He won't escape, will he?"
"I was already lost."
The apartment was silent as I moved through all the rooms slowly, trying to burn the memories of this place into my mind.
I stopped in the kitchen, staring at the counter, my eyes burning as different scenes played through my head.
Duo sticking that ridiculous note to the refrigerator.
Duo kneeling in shards of a dish he had dropped, looking up at me with solemn eyes, asking me how to say "shit" in Japanese.
Duo waving an ice-tray in the air, cursing quite well in my own tongue.
Duo sitting on the counter, staring at his feet as they swung listlessly, bumping his heels on the cabinet doors.
Duo telling me he wished he could cry.
Duo asking me to hold him.
Duo...
I heard the television click on in the other room. I moved silently down the hall, stopping just outside our room, watching as Duo absently fingered a strand of hair, his sharp eyes -- ever alert, even if he hated the morning -- flicking over the images on the screen.
He was still when the news was announced, but I saw something in his eyes crumble.
It's time.
I'm sorry.
End Part 6
(:./sparcck/waltz6)
