05-Jul-2000
Title: Visiting Old Friends
Author: Traed
Warnings: None really... Kinda deathfic
Archive: If anyone wants it sure, just let me know
Pairing: 1+2 implied
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em more's pity...but boy don't I wish!
Note: Ok...first GW fic, so please, feedback appreciated...and um...the poem came first and of course it's Heero's pov. but I just got caught up and had to explain..or expand...it just demanded to be written. let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy.
P.s. In case it's kinda vague ('cause I'm loony like that) the story is Relena's pov.
it's night,
the fever won't leave my skin
and the taste of strawberries is light in the air
stirring vague memories of you
I don't remember anymore,
not really
all I have are thoughts that travel like the wind's
elusive tease
whispering always of gunmetal black
I have always thought to see meaning in the words
you left
but now I am blind
and I think you meant always
for me to never really see
I have wanted to touch
but my hands got too big
or too old
I wear the years now
but sometimes I can still see yesterday
and I keep hoping for tommorow
you have promised me in words
you have sacrificed us for me
you are visiting old friends and renewing old aquaintances
and in my dream I see you smile
wait for me wicked death
I will come looking for you in my next life.
Heero was the last, and he died as he had lived, hard and with stoic determination. When I think back upon it now I realize he was courting death, inviting its final touch. There was no fear there, but then it *is* Heero we're talking about, there was never any fear there. But this was different, as if he had a secret he shared with the reaper and the burden of keeping it had finally worn on him. So when I got the call I wasn't particularly suprised, more like relieved and a bit wistful. I did not begrudge him his peace, it had been hard fought for and hard won. If anyone deserved it he, no *they* did.
They had never stopped fighting, not really. The war may have been over but there were always battles to be fought, and fight they did. In my more introspective moments when I sometimes mused upon fate and the vagaries of the universe, I think they were born to fight, as if it was written in some devine scroll that the souls of these five would always struggle, and so they had throughout the length of time eternal.
Duo was the first, and I remember as if it were yesterday, turning on the viewer and hearing the news of a failed terrorist attack that had claimed the lives of several. It wasn't of anymore consequence to me at first other than the obvious horror such things inspired, until the camera that was surveying the scene happened to focus on the face of one of those responsible for stopping the incident and there was Heero looking as shell-shocked as it was possible for him to look. I remember thinking many things in the brief second the camera was on him the most ridiculous of which was -he still has beautiful eyes.- Then,-he looks dead, why is he still breathing? Can't you see he's dead?- and that was the truest thing that I have ever witnessed. Heero was nothing more than a walking corpse, that could still breathe. Duo had died taking a bullet for him. Duo had died saving Heero's life never realizing that without him, for Heero there was no real life to save. Two people died that day...we only buried one body.
Heero didn't attend the funeral, none of them did, and it took quite a while for me to understand what I viewed at the time as a callous disregard for a fallen comrade. They were waiting... to them Duo wasn't so much dead as he was away. And that was the secret, that they kept that was always whispering itself to me. Duo was visiting old friends and renewing old acquaintances, that's what his epitath said 'Here Lies Duo Maxwell He Is Visiting Old Friends And Renewing Old Acquaintances'. They were all waiting to join him. And join him they did.
One at a time they all fell, Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei. But not Heero, never Heero. Life was playing a game with him reluctant to give up the prize. All the others died young (or relatively young in comparison)... I found it somewhat ironic that the one least attached to life was the only one to hang onto it so long. And of course this being Heero he had to go out with a bang.
Even as he was clothed in age he never really lost any of the agile hardness that made him who he was... at an time where other men his age were senile and drooling on themselves Heero could still manange to take on a man 3 times younger than him and still manage to wipe the floor with him. So it was really no surprise to get a call informing me that Heero had died stopping space pirates from smuggling large amounts of teranium alloy (responsible for making bombs we call Nothing because that's exactly what it does, it leaves nothing... it can destroy whole entire planets if mixed with the right chemicals) into earth's atmosphere.
As each of them had gone, time after time the same epitath was used over and over again. Heero's was different though, his simply stated, 'Wait For Me'.
His was the only funeral I didn't attend, because I had finally figured the secret... I too am waiting. I too am hoping to visit old friends and renew old acquaintances.
The end
note: critical feedback welcome...what did I do wrong and what did I do right...was I way out there?
(:./traed/visiting)
