Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, the boys aren't mine. >.< Not making any money off it, either. Gundam Wing
and all characters belong to someone who is not me, namely Bandai and Sunset.
Warnings: 2x1, dark, angst, swearing, violence, deathfic. Features dark!Duo. Did I mention dark? R for
language, violence, and death/suicidalness
Kagi's notes: I don't normally see 1x2/2x1 being this dark, and I don't write them this way as a general rule.
This is pretty opposite of how their two characters are stereotypically
displayed. I don't generally support this kind of bastardization of Duo (or any
of the guys, for that matter). Just... exploring the possiblity. Duo POV on this
part.
Thanks: to Amanda, Somali, DreamWeaver, Nenya85, Katran_sama, Briar Eve and others who left
reviews or took the time to tell me what you thought; I live for feedback!
Thanks much to Hiriyou for betareading -- I'm going to go ahead and post this
without hearing back from you the second time, because I think it's done, and I
want to post it today for the holiday. *evil grin* I'm just twisted like that.
^_^
Dedication: this part is dedicated to Moonraven, who isn't going to read it, because it's a deathfic. ^_~
She did, however, make me read Mikkeneko's 'Torn', which gave me the last bit
of inspiration I needed to finally finish this part. Thank you!
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Death's Angel
Part Three: Angels Fall
by Kagemihari
I didn't care, I didn't. Not in the slightest.
I don't need him. It doesn't matter, what happens to him.
I can live without him just fine. I can replace him just that
easy, I can find someone else. Someone else with a fire inside. Someone else to
control. It doesn't have to be him. I just don't give a damn.
My heart didn't stop when I saw all the damage to his machine. I
didn't freeze in horror when he stumbled out of it, limping, bleeding, and
finally crumpled, exhausted on the ground.
I watched him fall, and lie as if dead; saw his broken form
bleeding life away. Glittering crimson rivulets streaming on the ground.
He didn't move, and I didn't care.
I didn't cry a single tear. My heart didn't suddenly break under
the weight of my illusions, as they shattered. I didn't feel like I was broken
too; I didn't wish I could die. I didn't fear the dark, cold days without him.
Life without his heat. I just... didn't care.
He would be gone, lost, at peace finally -- but robbing me of the
one bright point of clean fire in my bloody, frozen, forsaken life. It didn't
matter -- I was better off without him. Without his love, without his caring
touch, without that insufferable patient devotion, no matter what I did. No matter
what I said. That heart-wrenching smile beneath the sad, bruised eyes.
I didn't need him, really. I didn't care at all.
I didn't get angry, I didn't snap, I didn't hate him for making
me so afraid to live without him. I didn't want to hurt him the way he was
hurting me. Because, of course, I wasn't. I wasn't afraid, or hurting. I never
let him become such a part of me that it felt like it was I who was now
injured, bleeding.
I didn't scare myself with the strength of my sudden agony and fear.
I didn't scream in pain and anger, I didn't hit him, hurt him. I didn't want to
make him suffer in return. I didn't let myself take out all my rage and terror
on his wounded frame.
I didn't care. At all.
I was always good at lying to myself.
But I could never lie to him -- damn
him. He always knew, always saw right through my walls and shields as if they
weren't there; and I used to hate him for it. He never fought back against me,
ever, just calmly looked me in the eye -- me, not Shinigami, not the mask I wear.
He saw right through, to my raw and naked soul, and he knew, he knew... God it
hurt!
How dare he, how dare he
make me care? How dare he steal my soul, my heart? I never wanted this! Never wanted to want anyone or anything like
this. But now, I need it -- damn him!
Look how weak he's made me, how easily he makes me bleed, scream.
God, I want to kill him
for this! -- does he have any idea what I've paid to build these walls? What kind
of pain and blood and tears went into making my defenses? And Mr. fucking
Perfect Soldier just blew them all away; shattered them to smithereens.
Annihilated with a breath, as if they were made of dust -- or fragile, brittle
glass.
//Fuck you! I
hate you! Look what you've done to me... no... please, no more... just -- leave me
alone! And that's what you're doing, aren't you? You're going to leave me
alone... I can't depend on you. I can't let myself need you like this. I'm only
going to lose you, just like everything else I've ever cared about.
You've walked
into my heart and stole my soul against my will; and now you're such a part of
me that I can't live without you... but I have to. I have to, and I can't -- and
you're to blame for this! You bastard... you've destroyed me, broken me, and I'm
torn and in pain and it hurts... //
I feel betrayed, abandoned, by you and my own will. Cut to the
quick -- it's a quaint phrase, yet that is how I feel: slashed open on a gut
level, so deeply that it bypasses any rational response. I don't even think, I
just react. I shake with the force of my anger, laid open to this devastating
loss, and I have only one defense left -- attack.
But it wasn't I who let that rage loose and turned it on my
hunter. It wasn't I who tapped that simmering resentment at my capture, the
agonizing grief at my betrayal, and freed it to destroy.
I stood and watched from otherwhere as Shinigami attacked, stood
tearless, bleeding dry, in shock and devastation as the God of Death lashed
out, dealing with a threat in the only way Death knows.
Total elimination of the threat.
It wasn't I who rained savage blows on the bruised and bleeding
Soldier. It wasn't I who was further enraged when he made no attempt to defend
himself. It wasn't my hands around his neck, crushing with as much force as the
rampant emotions crashing down on me. It wasn't I who found, somehow, a knife
in those same hands, and stabbed him through the heart. The same way that my
own heart had been pierced, by the torment of his tireless devotion. By the
agony of living each day with that endless promise of something I know can
never be truly mine, not for me. Not for Death.
Death can't love -- not without bringing death to the thing that
it loves. But I didn't kill him.
And I didn't feel a sharp, rending pain in my own chest as I
looked on. I was numb with shock, and I just stood and watched. It wasn't I who
killed him.
Nor was it I who saw, with vicious hatred, the look of
understanding in his eyes -- though dark with pain, there was the glow of calm surrender.
The resigned acceptance as he realized that sometimes, fear is stronger than
hope. That love doesn't always conquer all.
The relief of absolution, completion; the peace as he accepted
that you can't save Death -- only join him.
I could only stand, numbly, watching as Shinigami wreaked his
vengeance; and wondered why if felt as if my heart broke in two, was torn to
shreds and bleeding from a thousand wounds. He didn't fight back! Goddamn
him... he's gone, he's gone... god...
But it was I who saw him there, when Death's rage was spent, I
who knelt and took his dying body in my arms. It was I who recognized that
final light of sacrificial atonement, fierce joy at last in retribution. As his
eyes closed for the last time, he smiled through his cracked and bleeding lips,
mumbled, "Love you."
Love Death.
//Bloody hell... you bastard! You can't love
Death! Are you insane? suicidal? or just plain foolish?//
I heard his faintly whispered words, so tender even yet, and it
was I whose grief rose up and choked the life out of me. Who couldn't breathe
for what seemed like hours, if only minutes; not even to loose a cry of agony.
It was I then, finally, who sat and screamed, no tears, just crying out in
riven anguish.
//I knew that
this would happen! Why wouldn't you let me hate you?
Why couldn't
you just hate me?
Why? God....//
I sat and shuddered, mind and heart, and sanity,
splintering -- into scintillating razor-edged shards of irreparable defeat,
failure, covered in bright crimson -- /so
wrong, death should be dark, not bright/ -- blood that was not mine.
But it was -- oh, it was. Every last drop of his blood was mine. I
had always known it.
I'm haunted now, by the memory of his light and heat -- /love/ -- my world a thousand times darker
for having had him in it -- lost him. Hopeless in a world of endless night.
Endless cold. The one constant, my dark angel Soldier, the one thing I had come
to think might never let me down... fallen...
//You said
you'd always be there for me! But you can't; you could never promise that... It's
my fault; it's all my fault.
You should have
known better than to put that kind of hope on me. I don't deserve it, never
did. I'm not worth the price you paid. I'm the God of Death, Shinigami, death to
anyone who gets too close to me. Don't make promises you can't keep -- damn
you!//
Now I have to try to find a way to live without him. Now he's
gone, and it hurts -- it hurts! He's
gone, and I'm left with the ashes of my tattered soul. The memory of wings, of
flying; of peace I'll never know again. Oh god, it hurts like fucking hell.
I realize now, how foolish I was to ever think that he was
safe -- to think that I could play with fire, and not get burned. That I could
take my solace and never give anything back. That I could let him love me, and
never lose my heart.
How foolish of me to hope -- such a worthless emotion, to dare to
hope -- that he would be strong enough for both of us, strong enough to bring
life to Death. A sick feeling of regret and black despair twists through my
gut, of deadly self-recrimination.
I knew it, you see. I knew that it would be this way. And I couldn't save him, I was too selfish and
weak to save him from myself. He was the perfect soldier, an angel with
superhuman strength; an angel, but still -- only human after all... And I knew it.
Even angels fall.
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