08-Jan-2001
Well... Taking a break from 'Bent' and waiting for the beta-readers to finish with 'Always You,' I had an idea...
Suggested listening: 'Shukasai no Mae' by Arai Akino. (From Eternal Chain)
Warnings: AU (not fantasy-type AU, though)
Pairings: NOT 1+R... Take a guess
Archive: GW Addiction
Note: Trust me, the title isn't what you think
The grass was probably staining the knees of his suit - a rather expensive one, too - but he had dozens more. He let the smell of ripped vegetation permeate his senses as he stared numbly. Three years ago, to this day. He checked his watch. To this hour, in fact.
He'd failed.
That knowledge commanded his mind and memory as his forgotten body half sat, half leaned into the earth, long grown back over and sprinkled lightly with fresh cut bouquets to commemorate the day no one really wanted to remember.
'Relena Peacecraft, April 9 AC 180 - April 9 AC 195' the stone read, the words and configuration long ago memorized but passed over anyhow. Just another he'd failed to protect. The image of the bullet, senselessly discharged in a childish game, but still lethal, would be one he'd never forget. He smirked bitterly. It could join with that of a little girl, hit by a car in front of his eyes as he stood frozen. He could have saved them both! He pulled his thin denim jacket tighter over himself at a sudden cold gust that condensed his breath into a cloud that hung briefly before flittering away with the wind.
As was common for this day of the year - and many others - he spiraled into a slow burn of self-berating, unadulterated self-loathing that threatened to consume all the more, here with the one reminder he kept of her. He'd tried so hard to always protect her, hoping he could somewhere make up for little Mari... The dog's body been so cold when he picked her up, even the body's last vestige of heat stolen in the snowy winter air.
If only he'd been outside, in attendance to stop that boy from finding one of Relena's family's guns, take it from him before he and the other boys had started chasing each other with it, stopped Relena from stepping in front of them, even simply leaped in front of the bullet that wasn't supposed to be there.
He should have been outside...
"Did you kill her?" That voice... He didn't know it. It wasn't supposed to be there, asking if he had killed the one he'd spent years protecting.
"What?" he asked, enraged. He turned to view the speaker, a face just as unfamiliar as the voice. Solemn eyes, a deep blue close to violet, peered at him from under a shading fringe of ragged, auburn bangs. A round face, maybe accustomed to smiling but grave now, and a slightly expectant tilt to the eyebrows. He was dressed almost all in black, black pants and black coat, with a hint of white oxford shirt showing through the jacket's collar.
"Did you kill her?" he asked again, voice a deep, resonant tenor he hadn't really noticed before.
There no malice or suspicion in the grave expression, so he chose to answer. "Of course not."
The young man - probably about his age, he guessed - moved to stand beside him, facing the stone.
"Then you shouldn't blame yourself." The frankness of the tone surprised him. Whoever he was, he was fairly astute to see into him like that.
"What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely.
The other smiled slightly, a tad of sadness hinted to, and reached behind himself to fiddle with a long tail of chestnut hair Heero hadn't yet noticed.
"You might as well just be screaming for her avenging angel to come down and drag you to hell," he answered. "As if its entirely your fault she's dead."
"How do you know that?" Heero asked, an allusion to the desperation of something unwanted being dug up in his normally calm voice.
"I'm just good at reading people." The braided young man shrugged, a hint of a grin tugging at his lips before his whole face sobered again. "Or maybe I'm just remembering how it felt..." He trailed off, biting his lower lip.
"Why are you here?" Heero whispered, letting his eyes be drawn to the other's profile, on round eye visible, a gently peaked nose, lower lip being worried by teeth.
"Why does anyone come to a cemetery?" came the reply, in a low tone loaded with the same sort of emotional baggage Heero recognized in himself.
"No, I mean... Who were they?" He flinched at the use of 'were,' knowing how the simple tense could upset someone. Had upset him.
"I know what you meant. They're all over there." He indicated somewhere in the back left of the cemetery with a broad sweep of his black clad arm. "I used to blame myself, too, you know. It was my fault that they died, even if I wasn't the one who set the fire. it was my fault, because I survived and they didn't." The heart shaped face tilted slightly to face him. "I don't really think that anymore, but it's still hard."
"Who... Who were they? Family?" Heero asked hesitantly, realizing he was treading on thin ice.
Something broke suddenly in the blue-violet eyes, before it was covered up just as quickly. "No, not family. But the closest I'll ever have. They took care of me when no one else wanted to." Once again, that flash of internal pain. Once again, gone - or smothered - almost before it was noticeable.
"What about her?" he asked before Heero could inquire further. Waving a hand towards the stone, he continued, "Who was she?"
"Just..." He trailed off, searching for the words to describe a relationship that even he couldn't truly define. "Someone I wanted to protect."
"Protect..." his companion repeated softly. "Well... Whatever happened, you seem like a person who takes your job seriously. I don't think it was your fault."
"She was shot." Heero's voice was nearly lost, stolen by the wind.
"She was..." Apparently he hadn't been heard well, for it took the auburn haired young man several seconds to work out the words in his mind.
"On her birthday," Heero elaborated. He knew it wasn't needed, but for some reason he wanted to tell this man.
The dark blue eyes widened, a tentative hand reached to touch his shoulder gently. "I'm sorry."
Surprising himself, Heero didn't shy away as he normally would. He'd had no real human contact since three years ago. But this - this was right. Maybe it was the open, honest nature. Maybe it was the friendly eyes. Most likely, though, it was the flash of empathy in those eyes, understanding he hadn't ever seen.
"So that's why..." A soft, indrawn breath. "What happened?"
Heero frowned, half expecting that self-hatred to return in full, surprised as it didn't. He took advantage to forge quickly ahead with the story, telling it for the first time in his own words.
"Like I said, it was her birthday. Her party. We were fifteen, and everyone was acting so stupid." He gave a forced, bitter chuckle at the memory. He'd been having fun, he couldn't deny it. "It was fun. But... Someone found one of her brother's guns. He did something for the military... I was inside, but apparently they were playing around with, thinking it wasn't loaded. And she stood in front of the one with the gun, told him to stop, someone could get hurt. He just laughed and - and shot her!" He hadn't heard his voice becoming more and more stressed, increasingly loud as he related the one story he'd never been able to tell. It hard not to notice, however, how tense his muscles had become as he literally withdrew into himself.
He sank to the grass in front of the stone, amazed at the tears that splattered onto the vegetation, that they were his own. He'd never cried, not when Relena had died, not as the funeral, not as she was lowered eternally, to right below where she was now.
But now, reflecting with this strange, blue-violet eyes young man by his side, he couldn't help but let never released tears flow. Why? Why was he crying? He didn't cry! But at the same time he knew he couldn't stop, overwhelmed as he was by something he hadn't felt in years.
Sadness. He was sad. He wasn't blaming himself, wasn't angry at his lack of power to stop the deaths. He was upset. For the first time in three years he let himself cry over her.
It was... Releasing, a sudden weight he hadn't realized he carried gone, a cloud gone from his mind as he felt the other man kneel down next to him, a comforting arm drape over his shoulders.
"I told you it wasn't your fault." The strangely familiar timbre of the other's voice was low, soothing, a tone that encouraged release.
Even after sobs quieted and his body stilled, neither moved as Heero's mind whirled. Whether the man didn't speak for lack of something to say or because he didn't feel the time was opportune, he didn't know. Nor did he particularly care, he was grateful either way. It dumbfounded him how much this one person had done for him... All in the space of less than a half hour. This man, with his curiously, beautifully large blue-violet eyes and cheery face, had touched him more than anyone... Had understood him.
On some unspoken signal, the two stood in unison, both seemingly unsure of what to do as twilight streaked the sky purple and the first stars peeked through.
Heero looked at his watch. "I'd... Better go," he mumbled. The young man nodded, turned away from the grave with him and they walked, in companionable silence, through the looming cemetery gates, past silent, stone testaments to those long gone, some mourned, some not.
Heero's car was right outside the gates, parked bare feet from the stone wall so that the passenger door was obscured by cloying brush. Fumbling for his keys, he turned back to young man, those eyes watching him expectantly, hesitantly.
"Thanks," he whispered, smiling slightly for the first time in years, an offering the other probably couldn't fully comprehend.
The other received brilliantly, with a blindingly happy grin that it his whole face. "You're welcome."
Heero found his keys, drew them from his coat pocket with a chiming sound that seemed to echo.
"I'm Duo. Duo Maxwell," the man added as an afterthought.
A smile ghosted over Heero's face, twitching long unused muscles. "Heero Yuy." Feeling that it stretched the lines of decency to continue staring, he unlocked the door, opened it. But something still seemed unfinished...
Duo wasn't too far. His decision was made, acted upon before his brutal logic could dispute, and he'd grabbed the back of the chestnut head before he really knew what he was doing. Pulling Duo's head lightly, he met it halfway, pressing his lips firmly, but cautiously, to the other man's for just a second, not long enough for Duo to pull away.
"Thank you again," he murmured, backing away and releasing Duo. His eyes were wide, shocked, as Heero got into his car, not risking another quick glance, as much as he wanted to, at the braided young man.
It wasn't until the car was invisible through an opaque cloud of dust that Duo moved. Bringing long, delicate fingers to his lips, he watched for even longer, before finally answering.
"You're welcome... Always."
Owari (Or maybe a sequel? *grins*)
There's only so many terms you can use without names... Geh.
Notes:
This is what I was in the middle of when my VCR ate my really good quality, nicely fansubbed tape of Endless Waltz... Be damn happy I didn't turn it into the giant angst-fest I could have... >.<
Also, my allowances for Heero being OOC is that he hasn't been trained to hell and whatnot. Also, I made a point of not saying 'grave' until the end. So, what'd you think?
Ryan Harbin
Please send comments to: rioroute_vilgyna@yahoo.com