13-Jun-2000

I revised it, hope no one minds the re-post. *cowers* I'm dedicating this to TB, because her cheerful support have helped me with my own writer's battles! ^_^ Thanks also to Neophyte for her feedback, and Tyr as always for the gift of archiving.

Title: An Account of the War
Author: AKI
Archive: Tyr, at GWing Addiction
Pairing: 2 and a peek at 1
Rating: None. Teensy bit of shounen-ai
Warnings: I'm starting this at 3:30 am, this just keeps getting worse and worse...and I'm sleepy too. No great literature here.
Spoilers: Maybe some, nothing severe. Do you really care?
Notes: Duo's POV. Funny how they always tell writers to stick to what they know. War is something I know NOTHING, zip zap zero, about. *shrugs* So it goes. It'll just be unconvincing.
Feedback: C&C begged for. Shamelessly, in fact.
Disclaimers: Ahh, GWing. What I would do to own it...What I would do if I did. *grin*

An Account of the War by Aki

This pen is scratchy. Not much of a start for an account of the war, but it's true. Heero would tell me to use a computer. But I don't think that would work any better. Pens are more real and they flow. Even the scratchy ones. But I said this would be about the war and I'll stay on topic. Duo Maxwell never lies.

I don't really know why I'm doing this. There must be ten thousand books about every war known to man. I read one of them once; it was mostly boring and sometimes neat and all weird. Some things they did were strange and archaic, but others were exactly the same. That was a little depressing, I thought. We might have come up with better ideas than running around blowing things up in the past three hundred years. Anyway even though I understood the fighting part pretty well, it didn't feel very much like the person who wrote it--Richard Green-something--knew what he was talking about. I get the impression that all his wars were on paper.

I guess that's part of the reason why I'm writing this. Only people who fight in wars understand them. And that's because blood doesn't have anything to do with making speeches or moving lines on maps. Blood is blood. Dead bodies are dead bodies. They don't ever mention a lot about blood or dead bodies in speeches, I've noticed. Sure, they talk about dying, but they leave out the flies and the stiffness and the smell. Seems like that's what I remember most after missions--missions cause a lot of burning and dying and explosions and they all combine to form this odor, part smoke and part blood and part something else entirely. Maybe brimstone. The smell of destruction, I call it. Might as well be the smell of war.

Come to think of it, I really hate that smell. It's heavy in your nostrils and seems to linger no matter how far away you get, or how many times you wash yourself. After my first battle I cleaned every inch of myself with soap twice over, and I could still taste it, rancid in my mouth. Of course that could have been just my imagination; I could still hear the people screaming and the missiles whistling too and that can't possibly have been real. That was the first time I realized that when you're busy, you don't notice the smell or the screaming as much. So another reason I'm doing this is maybe just because it's something to do. Sometimes in between missions we just lie low and damn, it gets boring after a while. There're only so many times you can tinker with your Gundam--after a while there's just nothing left to do. And unlike Heero, I can't handle just sitting and waiting, or planning, or whatever it is he's doing. With the war this messy and nasty, writing it down will kill a lot of time.

Plus, I guess it's something to leave behind. What I can't stand about OZ is that they twist everything like scrap metal, molding it into whatever they think sounds good. But if I write this down, some day people will hear our side of it. Maybe then, they'll understand. Because no matter what they say we did, this is how it really went. This is the truth as seen by me. Maybe it's only the truth of one kid, caught in one moment. But hell, it's all I have. We see the truth like light through a crack anyway, and everyone's looking through a different wall. In war you make your choices and you have to stick to them. Otherwise you just lose your nerve completely and become useless. I've seen it happen to men who can't take it. Their sense of purpose snaps, just like that, and they start crawling under benches and looking out at you, asking "Boy? Are you a priest? Will you save me?" Or they cry, or stare at the floor. Or they run away. Some of them just never get it back.

Not that I blame them; war has a funny way of taking things away from you. Life, for one, and liberty, and justice for all (where have I heard that before?) Even when you're lucky and don't die, it chips away at you. You lose your hope, and you worry all the time. Your memories get more distant one by one because it feels like there was always fear, always pain and uncertainty. And that's just if you're not fighting in it. If you are then it gets even harder because then there is only the war. Every now and then when we're not on a mission I get confused because it seems unreal. It seems unreal when birds sing, or kids laugh, or a student worries about his last history test, because I still remember the fighting and I have to go back to it soon. It makes me feel like I have double-vision, but I still make as much as I can out of those times. They're all that I have standing between me and the war.

You know, Heero once told me something in one of his rare fits of saying more than ten words in a row. It was probably my fault. I asked him--jokingly, of course--why he couldn't laugh more. And he got a terrible look on his face--I don't know what he did, he wasn't angry or anything. But it was terrible anyway. His voice was very quiet and he said that he'd laughed when he was killing. I get the impression that he doesn't do a very good job of keeping it out. He doesn't even understand that he has to. That's why he never relaxes, that's why he's always thinking and planning, and that's why he's going to go crazy one of these days. Maybe he already is. I guess that's why I have a masochistic urge to help him; it hurts me to see anyone losing a fight to their own demons. Besides, he takes my mind off mine.

I think I've gone off-topic. Heero says that happens a lot when I talk, I suppose it's the same when I write. This war account--I don't know whether I'll do a good job of it or not. I guess it doesn't matter. They've thrown me out of libraries for lesser crimes than writing a bad book. I was never any good at keeping a diary anyway. Sister gave one to me once, told me that it would help me express my feelings. I lost it in a week. She gave me another one, which I didn't lose, but which I did stuff in a drawer and forget about for a month. I think she took it back after that. I was sorry, but not because she took it away. I didn't want it to begin with, since whenever I needed to express my feelings I usually just beat someone up. Preferably the cause of the feelings.

Boy, if I didn't know any better I'd say that sounded just like Heero. Except that it wasn't like that, of course. Anyone would didn't want to beat up those rich little snots would have been more than human, and I don't even think he's all the way there. Not most of the time, anyway.

Speak of the devil--there he goes now. Will he stop and ask me what I'm writing? Nah. Waste of breath and time, he would think. He's got better ears and eyes than anyone I know, not to mention an downright creepy sixth sense when it comes to enemy position. But I swear he's missing a few senses altogether. Curiosity, for one. Humor for another. His sense of time is good enough; he's starting his workout at the exact same time as he has been for the past eight days. I should start setting my watch by him. I'll bet he's accurate to the second. He always picks the exact same place, too. Which is probably why I'm sitting here with the book propped against my knee.

I wish he didn't have to flex his muscles like that. It does terrible things to my libido which is frustrated enough as it is. Fortunately most of his workout looks painful enough that nothing on me starts flexing with him. You'd think that with a top-secret operation and an interplanetary war going on I'd have my mind on something else, but when you're a guy there're some things you just miss. You don't stay in one place long enough to get them. Stupid war. Stupid Heero.

You know, Heero's body reminds me of him. Of course it reminds me of him, I mean, it is him. But just looking at it--it's all lean muscle twisting over bone. It's a strong body, sure. One full of concavities and sharp angles, not a hint of a curve or softness anywhere. Why the hell I want it I can't say. Seeing as it's more or less useless for the following reasons:
     a) he keeps trying to die and one of these days he's bound to succeed
     b) it's pretty likely that I'm going to die too
     c) we're in war, it keeps us busy
     d) he'd rather swim with piranhas; it'd be more useful and less painful than letting me know he's human.

I guess the only thing that keeps me hoping are his hands. I've seen them kill people without any help from a gun. But this one time a Sweeper girl came down with a fever, and I was scared out of my mind. I hate getting sick on principle, but sick people just generally freak me out. Sweepers are hardy and stay healthy, which is part of the reason why I like them so much. It's probably just the memories of the plague, but I was pacing so hard before the antibiotics came that Heero said he'd go check on her if it would make me stay still. The ship doctor wouldn't let me into her room since I hadn't been inoculated yet, and the vaccine was due with the antibiotics. Heero said he had. Apparently it was part of his preparation against bioweaponry. Germ warfare and the like. Anyway he said he'd go, and he did. I followed him too--I had to. I'd seen her around on deck, a pretty girl, prettier than the ojousan who hangs around Heero all the time. She smiled at me when she came up and found me looking at the stars, and better yet, she stayed quiet. So I had to go and check on her; one good turn deserves another. Bacteria be damned.

The girl was fine, after a while. But I never really go over the shock of seeing Heero Yuy put his hand on her forehead. He did it the way you'd touch a kitten's back--light and soothing, a little hesitant. "Thank you" I heard her say, and he didn't say anything back, just stood and left. Naturally I was around the corner before him, and whistling by the time he turned it. "How's the girl?" I asked.

"She won't die," he said. And that was that, really, except that now sometimes I have dreams that his hands are on me the same way, gentle. I guess the demons don't have him entirely yet. Maybe that's no reason to go running after him, looking for--well, more than he can give, probably, but what can I say? Everybody's looking for something.

The pen skidded to a halt as the siren began to wail. "Again?" Duo muttered. Putting aside the book, he hopped down from the low catwalk and dashed out to the deck, where the rest of the crew was beginning to assemble.

Heero, doing push-ups, didn't deviate from his rhythm. He was aware that the alarm was most likely over an incoming messenger or a bluff sweep. It was too soon for the opposition to organize a counterstrike; he had ensured that their communications would be tangled for days. But after a few minutes he stopped and stood. The garage was deserted, a strange spot of stillness in the general commotion. He walked to the platform where Duo had been sitting, and looked at the book lying shut on the metal floor. For a moment his hand rested on the cover, then he flipped it up and looked at the page. He skimmed over the uneven, scrawled handwriting until he reached the last few sentences. Then his head came up, and a blank look dropped over his face. The book fell to the platform. Outside a familiar voice shouted, "Hey! Get the kids inside the hold just in case, ok?" He started and looked at his hands, curling the fingers before his eyes as if he had never seen them before. The siren grew louder. Outside the garage people were standing in scattered bunches, craning their necks at the sky. Very slowly he turned away, and went out to join the fight.

~owari

(:./aki/account)