05-Dec-2000
Title: Waltz #1
Author: by Sparcck
Rating: R
Archive: Please! Just drop me a line and let me know where it's going.
Genre: Angst, shonen ai, yaoi [1x2, 3+4]
Warnings: Yaoi, angst, some sap. What more could you want?
Spoilers: Endless Waltz mostly, but probably a bunch of episodes, too.
Pretty much the entire Gundam Wing universe. But seriously, you should
probably have seen Endless Waltz before reading this. I mean, if you
haven't seen it, you'll still understand what's going on, but the movie will
be spoiled for you. And I mean right away, first paragraph. You've been
warned ;)
Summary: During Endless Waltz, Duo learns to deal with life without Heero,
and remembers why he started fighting in the first place.
Disclaimer: Do I own them? Of course not. Will you sue me? I hope not. All
characters, names, places, etc. belong to Bandai, Sunrise, and Sotsu Agency.
I'm not making any money off of them, please don't sue me, and so on.
Note: This is my first unbetaed story (*gasp!*), but I'm pretty sure I
edited the hell out of it. So enjoy!
Thanks: To Chrissy, for not only suffering through my Gundam obsession, but
obsessing just a little herself. Aren't the boys beautiful? To
Shinigami.org, for providing me with such a lovely 1x2 wallpaper and for
being an all around wonderful site and for all the great people at Gundam
Wing Addiction who write the G-boys as lovingly as I hope I do. Haven't
checked out these sites? And you call youself a Gundam fan...
Feedback: All comments, criticisms, flames, marriage proposals, and death
threats should be sent, with care, to sparcck. I would love to
hear from you, cos this is my first GW fic.
/this be thoughts/
*this be italics*
~/this be a flashback thought/~
Everytime the day darkens down and goes away
pictures open in my head of me and you.
Silent and cliché all the things we did and didn't say
covered up by what we did and didn't do -
going through every out I used to cope
to make the repetition stop.
What was I supposed to say?-"Waltz #1", Elliott Smith
AC 198
Thoughts of him hit me at the weirdest times, but the whole thing always feels like yesterday.
For the first time in my life, I was speechless. There were no words as I watched Heero take aim for the last time; anything I was meaning to say dried up in my throat, replaced by an anxious lump.
And when the Wing Zero all but dissolved before my eyes, the video feed breaking up in the hot glare of the explosion, I thought I'd never have words again, never be able to think through the horrible screaming that was echoing through my head.
He was gone. My eyes burned from the light, and I listened to the screaming that I had no control over, that no one could hear but me.
I look up from my study of the salvaged mech parts I'm supposed to be sorting through and see Hilde approaching. I stand and wipe my gloved hands together, watching almost disjointedly as she comes closer, a broad smile on her face, holding out a clipboard for me to look over.
I don't know what possessed me to invite her to be my business partner.
I have even less of an idea of why I invited her to my bed, and it's been so long I couldn't even begin to remember what I was thinking at the time.
The paper she's pushed into my hands blurs as he explodes again and again in my brain.
I look up at her as she speaks and I can hardly stand the look in her eyes. I smile thinly. All I can think is that her hair is too dark, her face too animated, her eyes not the right shade of blue.
/God./
Let me start over.
I knew we wouldn't be together forever. I had to know. He was just too perfect and flawed and beautiful all at once.
And we were soldiers; we weren't supposed to want happiness.
But we were happy after peace settled in AC 196. And that should have been enough for me.
I knew it wouldn't last. I knew that something would come up, and Heero would ask me the favor I'd been waiting for him to ask me since the war ended. He would ask me to let him go. And I didn't know if I'd be strong enough.
It's pretty funny, really, when I think about it. Me, Shinigami, afraid to let go, afraid of death. But it's easy to *be* the God of Death; much more difficult to bow to him.
It was out ritual: Heero would ask me for favors. He would never tell me to do anything, even though he should have, you know, to keep up his Perfect Soldier façade. But, no, he would ask, knowing that I was the one person he *could* ask, because I would never say no.
/Dammit, why could I never say no to him?/
I'll never forget that morning when he silently asked me the first favor in a string of favors that I knew would be the last he would ever ask of me. It was the question I had been dreading, the question I had managed to make myself believe would never come, with fake smiles and barking laughs and terrible jokes.
Only he knew the me I was hiding. And he looked at me stonily when I started up, his left eyebrow lifting in what only I could tell was a mixture of amusement and melancholy.
Amusement and melancholy: Yuy style.
That's it, right there. That's where it would happen. And towards the end, there were times when I had to restrain myself from reaching a hand out and running a finger along that eyebrow.
He probably would have hurt me for that, no matter how much he cared.
AC 196
I leaned against the doorframe, just watching him as his fingers flew over the keys, the strings of data flashing glowing blue lines across his face.
He was talking to himself. He does that when he's concentrating.
"...deceased two years after her birth, father unknown."
I was speaking before I even thought about it, something he had always admonished me about. Well, not out loud. But a patented Shut Up Maxwell look always conveyed the meaning he wanted.
"The world's celebrating Christmas and here's some guy working his ass off." I stretched my arms over my head, and delighted in the brief wander of his eyes over my body. I walked to him languidly, loving the look on his face.
I glanced at the monitor, at the name of the person he was researching. "You know, I had no idea Trowa had a niece," I said absently, more interested in the way his long fingers lay over the keys.
He was staring at me amusedly. "So the records say. But the Trowa we know isn't the real Trowa Barton."
Oops. I grinned. "Right. I almost forgot."
We sat in silence for a moment, and his expression changed as he watched me, the corners of his mouth drooping down. He stood abruptly and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, moving for the door.
"You going?" I asked, although I knew the answer. I had been watching the news when the report about Relena came in.
I knew this was the moment; my insides twisted.
Heero paused at the door, then looked back over his shoulder, his face hard, his eyebrow raised so high it was almost hidden under his unruly bangs. "Yeah." He hesitated. "Relena's been kidnapped." He was out the door before I could say anything.
A little piece of me shattered quietly. Out loud, I laughed to an empty room. "Huh." I raised my voice, taking on the standard I'm a Laugh Riot tone "Well, well. Looks like someone's got a crush."
I heard Heero's footsteps slow, then stop, and I caught a faint but distinct, "Omae o korosu." His footsteps came back and he stuck his head back in though the door. "Are you coming?"
/Of course I am, you idiot. Of course I am. I love you. I could never say no. This is what you need to ask of me. I knew you would. But I wish-/
"Of course I am."
"Good."
I grinned at him. "Whatever you say, Heero-chan."
He rolled his eyes, probably sorry he ever told me what that meant. "Duo..." he said threateningly.
I just kept grinning at him, and he finally cracked a tiny smile.
"Baka. Let's go."
Of course Relena had managed to get herself into a mess.
No, I don't mean that. She was doing her job, and she was doing a good job. She's a good girl. Strong. Loyal.
But she wanted Heero, anyone could see that. And that was something I took exception to.
So we had to go after her. And even though I knew this was the beginning of the end, I thought maybe this was the one time my instincts were wrong.
I prayed to a god I hadn't believed in for years that I would be wrong.
As we rode toward the colony, I stared out into space and my thoughts turned to our last real moments of happiness. I knew the battle ahead, and I knew my time with him was drawing to a close.
"Heero, turn off the light. I wanna go to bed."
"A few more minutes, Duo." I could hear him clicking away at his laptop.
I was silent for all of all of thirty seconds when I sat up in bed and whined, "Heero-chan."
His face appeared in the doorway, exasperated, but with a light dancing in his eyes that was only for me. "Duo, I told you -"
He casually ducked the pillow I threw at him and it sailed over his shoulder.
He was gone from the doorway, only to reappear a few seconds later to toss the pillow back at me. He sat on the edge of the narrow bed, kicking off his sandals, and methodically undressed. I rolled onto my stomach and moved my feet to give him more room and myself better leverage to pull his shirt over his head.
"I thought you wanted to sleep," he said, slipping under the thin blanket and pulling me against him.
"I do." I pressed kisses over his bare shoulder and smiled when I caught a soft sound from his throat.
"That's not sleeping, Maxwell."
"Nope."
He caught my chin and crushed his mouth to mine so hard I could feel his teeth behind his lips. There was an urgency there that I never felt before, and he yanked off the band that was keeping my braid together, tangling his fingers in my hair.
I pulled back. "Heero."
"Hn." He took my ear lobe between his teeth and smoothed my hair down my back.
"There's a change coming. Very soon, I can feel it."
He rolled me onto my back and scraped his teeth down my throat. "So serious, Duo."
I feigned hurt. "Oh, so only you get to do the silent hero routine? Pun intended, of course. You know, sometimes I think abou- Ah!"
His hand had traced the path his mouth would take, skimming lightly down my chest and over one nipple. I shivered and brushed a hand through his hair.
I wanted to just enjoy it, what I knew was out last time together, but, as always, my mouth ran off ahead of me. "Heero, do you ever get scared?"
He paused, then rested his cheek on the flat of my stomach, his long fingers running along the waistband of my boxers. "I'm a soldier."
"So am I."
"So you should know the answer to that already."
"I get scared," I whispered, and was horrified to find my eyes wet.
He pulled himself up, over me, and pressed his chest to mine lightly, so I could feel his ribs rising and falling against me, slowly, slowly. "What are you afraid of?"
"Death," I said before I could stop myself.
He touched my cheek.
I turned my face into his palm. "I know it's crazy. I've been doing his work for so long, but I still can't..."
"You have to learn to let go; then he can't hurt you."
"Heero..."
"My Shinigami," he said softly and he kissed me again.
When we made love, it was gently and slowly. He pinned my hands to the bed, lacing his fingers through mine, as he moved inside me and I dug the back of my head into the pillow, thrusting my hips up at him. I was gasping for air, and I thought I would never be able to think again.
He was always so silent, but this time he was making soft noises and whispering things I couldn't make out, couldn't concentrate on through the feeling of him inside me.
Tears squeezed out from the corners of my eyes and I closed them, hoping he wouldn't see.
His thrusts slowed. "Look at me," he ground out.
I opened my eyes, and his face was so close, his breath hot on my face.
/God./
I started talking and couldn't stop, needed to make sure he knew everything. "...Heero, ah geez, Heero, I want to... gotta... I- God. God, I love you, Heero, love you love you love you-"
And when we both came, he drew in a shuddering breath and cried my name sharply, painfully.
"Duo!"
He collapsed, his body a welcome weight against mine.
My arms slid around his lithe waist, and I felt him shudder and start to shake. I smoothed his damp hair back from his forehead and skated a light breath across his ear.
"Ai shiteru," he whispered, his voice trembling. "Itoshi no baka. Ai shiteru."
I smiled.
He fell into an uneasy sleep, while I stayed awake the rest of the night, listening to him breathe.
Staring out at the depths of space, I suddenly felt cold, colder than when I woke up this morning and he was gone. Colder than when I flipped on the news to see the report of Relena's disappearance.
But not as cold as I knew I would be when I next crawled into a bed and it wasn't our bed, and it never would be again.
He was so silent next to me.
I started rambling. "We went through all that trouble just to obtain peace. Now somebody's gotta help maintain it, right?"
No response but the sound of his even breathing.
I turned to face him and he was fast asleep, his arms crossed over his chest, looking like he could jump up and fight at any moment. The Perfect Soldier.
It was hard for people to remember sometimes that he was more than the Perfect Soldier, that he was human, too. He once told me, in a rare moment of naked emotion, that I was the only one who he trusted completely because I was the only one who had ever treated him like a human being, and that he fell in love with me for thinking he was infallible.
"Aa, you screw up all the time," I said teasingly.
"Baka," he growled, but his hands were stroking my hair and there was a tone in his voice that still makes my knees tremble.
Imagine Heero Yuy trusting only you in this whole world, loving only you. The thought filled me with a kind of awe.
I smiled and clenched my hands in my lap so I wouldn't touch him. /Not now./ "If you wanted to sleep," I said softly, "why didn't you just say so?"
The ensuing battle to get into the colony was a blur. I was Shinigami, even without Deathscythe there with me, and I could practically see Heero wrapped in the wings of Zero.
/This is too soon./
Over the hail of gunfire and explosions, as I barely eked us past a collision with an enemy mobile suit, I shouted, "Am I impressive, or what?"
Heero didn't miss a beat. "Yeah, I was counting on your skills right from the start."
I winked at him as a stray blast from a buster rifle hit our right wing. "You've just made my day."
He really did, but I knew I was good. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through me as we maneuvered past suit after suit, the cannon fire missing us by a hair's breadth.
Later, I would silently thank Sally and Noin for backing us up after me and my big mouth told them we could handle it.
There were two mobile suits ahead, our last adversaries before entering the colony. "Hold on tight," I shouted. "I'm gonna punch through!" I hit the propulsion tank deploy and our shuttle detached, the tank slamming into the mobile suits and exploding around us.
"Outta my way," I cried as we screamed through the blast.
We screeched to a halt on the tarmac and quickly scrambled to get to our stolen suits that we had taken along for the ride.
"I am Shinigami," I whispered, staring up at the Leo that would replace Deathscythe for the rest of the battle.
Behind me, Heero brushed a light hand over my shoulder, the feeling shooting through me even through the heavy suits we wore. "We meet up later," he said. "At J7-53."
"Right." I stepped towards the Leo, feeling off-balance and unprepared.
He caught my arm. "Accept what you have no control over."
I stared at him and was suddenly very tired.
"Shinigami or not, you will survive this."
"I-" My voice cracked. "You getting soft on me, Yuy? Just get out of here, okay? We have a war to prevent."
He nodded sharply and turned away, gracefully hoisting himself into his own Leo.
I was so afraid this would be it. And later, when Trowa sent two missiles straight for me, I was almost relieved, knowing the Leo would never be able to handle the impact. I flashed back to when I first stole my beloved Gundam from Operation Meteor, flashed back to why I was doing this in the first place.
"So this is the end," I laughed, echoing my own words of long ago, from what seemed like must have been another life.
~/"I'll gladly become Shinigami, if it's for the peace of the colony."/~
Had I really ever said that?
The missiles neared, and I really thought it was the end. I flashed to what had given my life meaning at last after years of war and casual acceptance of killing, and part of the relief I felt was in that I wouldn't have to let him go, that I would never know life without Heero Yuy.
So I closed my eyes, and I waited for the final moments.
The Leo shuddered as the missiles passed overhead and rocked forward when two holes were blasted in the ground behind me.
I was alive, Trowa's mobile suit was gone, and there was a block of ice in my stomach that told me this wasn't even close to being over.
We did meet at point J7-53 later, and I was so happy to see him that I couldn't help myself from grabbing his hand and holding it as hard as I dared when he tried to give me a pair of binoculars.
He squeezed back and I exhaled a breath I hadn't been aware I was holding.
"Heero, I - Arigato."
His eyes softened and he ran slim fingers over the inside of my wrist. "Don't thank me." He paused, then added, "Especially if you're going to botch the pronunciation like that."
I laughed despite the grave matter at hand. "Was that a joke, Yuy? An honest to god joke?" I raised a hand to his head. "Are you feeling okay?" I turned solemn before saying, "Or should I say, daijoubu ka."
He groaned to cover a smile. "Daijoubu, baka. How many more lessons am I going to have to give you before..." he trailed off, and I'm not sure I've ever seen the look on his face before.
I mean, I've seen it before on other people. But uncertainty and Heero Yuy didn't mesh. Ever.
I drew his hand against my chest and clasped it there, trying to convey everything I felt for him without saying it.
He caught the end of my braid in his other hand, and wound it around his fingers, rubbing his thumb across the taut strands. He looked me dead in the eyes. "We have a war to prevent."
My words. They sounded so much better from him.
"Yeah, we do." I sighed and reluctantly released his hand. "So where is this girl anyway? I mean, how much trouble can one person get into? Geez."
I followed Heero's gaze out over the colony to a helicarrier that was heading west. I raised the binoculars to my eyes and was able to make out the silhouettes of two slight figures sitting across from each other.
"Mariemaia?" I asked.
Heero nodded, not taking his eyes off the craft.
I looked again, calculating distance and approximate flight speed. "There's no way we could catch that. They seem to be heading towards the space port." I paused, the chill that was formerly centered in my stomach sweeping out through my limbs. The binoculars trembled in my grasp.
"They sure are in an awful rush for somebody going to earth."
"That's because they're planning to escape." His voice sounded odd, a little too flat, even for Heero.
/My Heero./
/Dammit, not now./
"Escape?" I glanced sideways at him. "Then why did they bother taking over this place?" I was proud of how calm and detached I sounded.
"Hn."
He was maddening, sometimes, in his stoicism. And there was a niggling suspicion in the back of my mind about what that unintelligible sound meant. I didn't want to face it, so instead I rounded on him, begging him to tell me what I was thinking was wrong.
"Come on, Heero. She's *Treize's* daughter."
His fingers tightened visibly on the metal rail in front of him. "I'm more concerned about the man known as Dekim." He seemed to hesitate. "I know the name Dekim Barton from. somewhere."
A memory hit me, one of Heero's nightmares that he'd woken from yelling hoarsly: The way they trained him, *who* had trained him. Add to that the way Trowa, the former Nanashi, had become a Gundam pilot after the assassination of the real Trowa Barton...
It all clicked together and
/Oh, god, no./
the chill seeped into my bones
/Please, no./
as I was forced to confront what was happening.
/Why now?/
The Bartons, the hostile takeover, the hasty departure, the Gundams: it all made sense.
"Y - you can't be serious." I half reached for him. "They're really planning on going ahead with Operation Meteor?"
Yeah, it all made sense. It also meant we were sitting on what may as well have been a time bomb. They were going to drop the colony onto the Earth.
We tried so hard to stop them, and now we were back where we started two years ago, except this time I didn't want to go to battle, this time I had something to live for. Something real, something other than revenge.
Of course it had to be now.
I knew I was being selfish and nearsighted. But at that moment, I didn't care.
But Heero, reckless, selfless Heero, was willing to die if it meant peace. No, not just willing - he relished his part in it, yearned to fulfill a destiny he wasn't even sure he believed in.
At that moment, as I'm sure what were a hundred different emotions passed over my face, he looked away, looked towards the helicarrier, towards the Earth.
"I'll do all I can to stop them."
Not "we". "I".
My arm dropped limply to my side.
The same moment, his hand shot out and grabbed the back of my neck, dragging me towards him.
At first, the kiss was hard and desperate, his tongue parting my lips and sweeping into my mouth. I kissed him back with all I had, and I hooked my thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans, pulling him tightly against me.
His lips softened after a moment, and he tilted my head to the left, framing my face with his hands, fingers burrowing into my hair.
He'd never been even the slightest bit affectionate in public. But now he was murmuring things in Japanese against my mouth and couldn't seem to stop kissing me.
Or maybe it was that I couldn't stop kissing him, couldn't stop myself from pulling his shirt from his waistband to touch the skin of his lower back, couldn't stop myself from pushing my fingers into his hair to hold the back of his head, the silky strands sliding against my palm and bringing the sting of tears to my eyes.
/No time. There's no time./
He gently pulled away, breathing hard.
I let my hands trail off of him, running my fingers over his hips, up his sides, over his sternum.
"Arigato." He smiled sadly.
"Right back atcha, man," I said, even though my heart was breaking. I've never felt pain like that before, like my insides were on fire, like I wanted to run as far as I could away from all of this, like it would never stop hurting to remember this moment, but it would surely kill me if I forgot.
Later, running for the colony's control room, I had to force Heero out of my mind, just to make it through. I couldn't think about how he felt racing along beside me, how he sounded yelling at me to hurry up, how he smelled when I bumped into him after he skidded to a halt outside the control room door.
How can the scent of mech parts and spent ammunition make my heart ache, when thoughts of war and destruction are so far from my mind? How does he manage to make even my worst associations into good memories?
The acrid smell of the smoking rifle he was holding reached my nose and I inhaled deeply.
The doors slid open.
"What took you so long?"
Trowa, on the other side of those doors, certainly was a shock. And here I thought I was beyond being able to feel anything besides grief. Thank god for Trowa.
"How 'bout that?" I laughed, a true laugh, and even Heero cracked a faint smile. "Our objectives ended up being the same, after all."
"Give me a hand," Trowa said. "They've got quite an extensive lock on the system. It's taking me time to reestablish the colony's stability."
"Right, right," I said, giving the impression I stopped listening about three words in. It was almost a reflex now, and it was something that drove Heero crazy. For his part, he just grunted.
After a moment of tense silence, punctuated by our frantic clicking, Heero's voice sounded, hard and sharp. "We'd better hurry. They've already started sending in troops to Earth."
I glanced over my shoulder at him, the strings of data flashing glowing blue lines on his face.
~/"The world's celebrating Christmas and here's some guy working his ass off."/~
/Stop it, Maxwell. Get a grip./
My voice came from far away, as though I were standing outside myself. "I can't delete the final lock. We'll need to reconnect the lines directly."
Trowa's voice was even farther away when he spoke, and I lost track of what was happening. The world was fragmenting around me. Time was slowing down, but I was on overdrive, moving too fast, could see the end from where I sat
/Stood?/
and there was a dull pressure in my chest that was making it difficult to breathe.
I caught Heero's eye and he shook his head almost imperceptibly, then looked meaningfully at Trowa.
~/"A few more minutes, Duo."/~
~/"Duo, I told you-"/~
~/"Baka."/~
~/"What are you afraid of?"/~
~/"You have to learn to let go."/~
I blinked, and everything slammed back into normal speed.
"Okay, we're done," Trowa said, flexing his fingers.
Heero caught my eye again, and he inclined his head slightly.
/Yes, we're done. We had hardly even started./
I saw my arm reach out, saw myself press the comm link, heard my voice, far away, so far away.
"This is Duo. We've stabilized the colony and are finishing up here."
"Are you positive?" Sally looked slightly dazed from the news.
Noin had a similar expression on her face, but I could see the sparkle in her eyes. "You guys *stopped* Operation Meteor?"
I grinned. "Tag, you're it." With a wink, I cut the connection.
My skin of my face felt papery and cracked, and I wondered briefly if anyone noticed.
Voices from outside now, the dull thud of metal on metal. "We have you completely surrounded. Come out with your hands up!"
Trowa closed his eyes. "It's over."
/Over over it's over all over./
"Not necessarily," I said brightly. "I've got some mail from Quatre."
My eyes were hot and dry as we all watched Quatre's message. It's so close now, I thought. /So close and *he's* so close that I can feel his heartbeat from over here and I have to take it all in now because later-/
"This is Quatre. I have just redirected the resource disposal satellite towards the Earth."
There was a brief moment of silence where we all stood sort of at a loss, like we hadn't expected to really make it this far with so many options.
"Hey, Duo." Heero's voice was like electricity down my spine. I relished the sound of my name rolling off his tongue, and I let it seep into my pores, wanted to take him all the way inside of me, protect him, keep him with me.
"Send Quatre a message," he continued. "Tell him to send Wing Zero in the HES-88 direction."
"Are you kidding?" I couldn't help the shock in my voice.
/Please, not yet. Not ever. Please./
I looked frantically to Trowa, who was also looking at Heero with a look of mild surprise on his face.
Heero looked calmly back at me, speaking steady words, but telling me something different with his eyes. Telling me it was going to be okay, that he knew what he was doing. "I'll pick up Zero in space. I'll save time that way."
/See, Duo, baka, perfectly logical. No need to fret. We knew this day would come, and it's here now, and everything's going to be fine./
/Heero no baka. My baka.../
"Open the door! Open it now!" They were getting louder outside, but hadn't yet broken in. Ah, formal training could be such a bitch.
"Heero, why don't you take the shuttle in the fourth hangar?"
Heero nodded crisply, still looking at me.
"Duo," he said, his voice smooth, so smooth.
/It's going to be okay./
"I have another favor to ask you."
If I hadn't been numb, I think I would have shattered. /Not just another favor, koi, one last favor. *The* last favor./
I crossed my arms and looked at the floor, knowing the false smile I had plastered onto my face would have looked just that. "What's the matter, huh? You're suddenly asking me all these favors."
Trowa looked down.
Heero took a step closer to me; I could feel the heat of his body radiating off of him.
~/"Ai shiteru."/~
"Hit me. Now."
"Nani!?"
Trowa looked up at that, and I do believe Heero smiled. It broke my heart and eased my pain to see it.
"Have you gone crazy?"
Those idiots outside were still yelling. "Never mind! We'll tear down the door!"
/Great, get balls now, why dontcha?/
/A few more moments, please. How do I do this?/
Heero growled. "Hurry. Up."
I rubbed my knuckles in a big show. "Well, you asked for it. I'll give you my best punch."
I wound back, and I read the look in Heero's eyes. He didn't want to go, but he had to.
/How dare you ask this of me!/
His gaze never wavered from mine.
In a wild burst of anger that I hadn't even seen coming, I curled my fist into a tight ball and struck out blindly, as hard as I could. My knuckles crashed into Heero's cheek
/His beautiful cheek./
and I thought I heard something crack.
/How dare you! How dare you leave me!/
I was breathing hard and staring down at him and I didn't even see the punch coming, didn't see his fist before it flew up to catch me just under my ribs.
All the breath was knocked out of me and I stumbled forward, my eyesight going dim.
Heero caught me. Caught me and held me for the briefest of moments that I will remember as a lifetime.
I buried my head between his shoulder and his neck and I inhaled his rich sent of metal and gunpowder and *Heero* and I whispered, "Why? Why why why..." I grasped his arms, clinging to them for dear life, even as I felt myself slipping down into blackness.
I was screaming inside.
He rested his face against me for a moment, his cheek soft and smooth and so warm, warm like the inky darkness that was swallowing me as he held me for the last time. "For your own good," he whispered. "That's one for one."
~/"Was that a joke, Yuy? And honest to god joke?"/~
~/"Ai shiteru."/~
~/"I'll gladly become Shinigami."/~
~/"My Shinigami."/~
~/"I'm a soldier."/~
~/"I'm afraid."/~
~/"So am I."/~
~/"I told you-"/~
~/"...love you love you love-"/~
My world narrowed to the feeling of his breath feathering across my face and his arms around me, and then there was nothing.
End Part 1
(:./sparcck/waltz1)
