Clair De Lune
I'd like you to know I saw the whole thing.
From the moment he stepped out of Wing's cockpit, it was like I was
stuck in an old fashion picture reel, where I could watch but couldn't
do anything.
I watched his Gundam explode into light. I watched him sacrifice his
own life in one instant of shrieking metal before his Gundam collapsed
to the ground like so much junk.
I watched him die. And for all my usual knack for speech, I could only
think of one word to immortalize the occasion.
No.
*****
A few days later, I was lodged up with another Gundam pilot, sprawled
out on a bed in another borrowed room. For all that this was supposed
to be a solo operation, I sure was ending up with a hell of a lot of
people.
And lucky me, I'd found an old, crumpled pack of cigarettes in my
bag...OK, don't start. I know how bad they are for you and that they
turn your lungs into a gooey tar pit and on and on, but let me tell you
something. When you've lived on the streets and you've been cold, and
hungry and tired for what feels like a fucking eternity and you know
that tomorrow is going to be the same, and the next and the next...well,
sometimes you'll do just about anything not to feel that way anymore.
There are worse things than smoking a few ciggies so be glad that my
bad habits only go so far.
Anyhow, I was smoking one of the less mutilated ones and staring up at
the ceiling fan. How quaint. A hideout with a ceiling fan, and even a
goddamned piano somewhere. I could hear someone playing right now. My
money is on the Winner kid. Those other guys looked about as likely to
play the piano as they did to moonlight in drag on off weekends.
He was playing some song that I vaguely recognized, moonbeams or
something. He was a little like me, I guess, music soothes the savage
beast and all that various bullshit. Suits my mood anyway.
This day was my day to mourn, I'd decided. At any given time, I usually
allow myself one whole day to think about a person that I've lost,
mostly because if I give myself more than that I'd either wind up
pushing a battered grocery cart full of plastic bags down the street
and talking to myself or I'd spend the rest of my life on my fucking
knees, praying.
I know a lot of dead people.
Anyway, this was Heero Yuy's day, even if I hadn't really known him all
that well, he'd been my bunkmate for a few weeks and...I'd liked him, in
some way. I mean, it's not like he was all that important to me, but
we'd started a game together and now we were never going to finish it.
That's my fault, I don't mind telling you. In my little fog of
horniness and curiosity about him, I'd forgotten one of the most
fundamental truths of the world.
Martyrs were made to die.
Do you know what I remember most clearly about him? If you guessed his
eyes please deduct 200 points from your final score, although I admit,
it'll be a hell of a long time before I stop thinking about them.
Nope, it was his tennis shoes. Those butt-ugly, mustard yellow
sneakers, and, hell, I don't even know where you can find shoes that
ugly. Spandex-R-Us probably, where he bought the rest of his clothes.
I especially remember how those shoes looked with a pair of spandex
shorts puddled over them. The first time he'd hopped into bed with me
he'd still been wearing the damn things.
The last time he'd been wearing a school uniform. I'd dropped by his
room for a minute, just long enough to tell him I was going and to work
out a couple of details on our next mission. When I'd turned to walk
away, he'd stopped me cold with exactly the last thing I'd ever
expected to hear him say.
"Do you think we could have sex one last time?"
I'd just stared at him, as if monkeys had started to fly out of his
nostrils. He had such a way with words, didn't he? To think, all that
time I'd been fucking the reincarnation of Don Juan and I hadn't even
known it.
Now, you've got to understand how totally bizarre that was. Heero
hadn't liked to -ask- me for anything, and he'd never come right out
and asked for a quickie. That's why I, in all my infinite wisdom,
blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.
"But it's not 11:30."
He'd blinked and his expression had been so utterly crestfallen that
I'd started laughing. Somehow between that and him grabbing me, we'd
ended up on his way-too-small-for-a-decent-fuck bed, the door just
barely closed and our pants around our ankles because we'd been too
eager to actually remove clothing. Just pushed a few things out of the
way and let the important parts out to play.
I wonder if he'd had any idea how kinky that would have looked if
someone had walked in the room. Not just because I was a boy fucking
another boy up the ass but because of the way we were both dressed, we
probably looked like a priest getting it on with an altar boy.
By then we'd been fucking each other long enough that we'd gone through
every traditional position I could think of and a few that anyone over
the age of thirty shouldn't attempt outside the presence of a licensed
physician.
This time was still different, somehow. Almost desperate and I wonder
now, if he'd known something that I hadn't.
Great, he'd already been a superhero, now he had been a fucking psychic
too?
I'd barely noticed it at the time. Afterward, he'd been his normal,
talkative self, forsaking the school uniform for his I'm-so-fucking-
confident-I-tuck-my-shirt-into-these-shorts clothes. I'd actually
risked my life to snap the waistband of said shorts, but it would have
been worth dying just to see the expression on his face. He's so cute
when he...
I mean, he -was- so cute. He was cute. He...was...
I didn't even realize the music had stopped until I heard a soft voice
say, "You shouldn't smoke."
Quatre. I made a face at him. Like I was going to have time for it to
kill me? Anyway, this was my day of mourning. If I wanted to enjoy one
cancer stick then I damn well could.
I didn't say anything though. If he wanted to rant about the evils of
The Nicotine, and how half a jillion people croaked each year from
catching a whiff of second hand smoke, who was I to stop him?
Instead, I blew a perfect smoke ring at his nose and he sneezed,
swiping a hand over his face and laughed, almost a giggle. Jesus, he
-giggled-, like he's a fucking girl or something. Can't I ever meet
normal people, just once?
I've met people like this guy before. Somehow, nothing touches them,
the ugliest, darkest things just roll off them like beads of water and
you would not be surprised if Bambi and Thumper pranced up to them at
any given time.
That's what you'd think anyway, but I can tell you that those people
are the most dangerous of us all, because eventually, we all have a
breaking point and when these guys hit it they either end up banging
their heads on a wall in a padded room somewhere, or they get a machine
gun, climb a billboard and start taking people out.
It's a generalization, I know, but I've seen it happen a couple of
times so trust me, if Quatre ever looks to me like he is balanced on
toothpicks, I'll be clearing my ass out of the way.
At this moment though, Quatre Raberba Winner has nothing but clear blue
innocence in his eyes, something that I'd never seen in my own, not
once in my whole fucked up life. Quatre Winner was a little rich boy, he's
never seen the dark pit that the world can be.
Once, not all that long ago, I might have hated him for that. When he'd
walked down the street in his neat, clean clothes while the rest of us
had watched from the alleys, dirty and stinking of garbage, of whatever
we'd been rooting through that day looking for a half-eaten burger,
maybe some greasy fries in a crumpled white wrapper.
Can't hate him now, though. I was like him. I'd gotten out, washed away
the filth and now I was Gundam pilot, above the crawling wretches and
did I really have the nerve to pity myself because I'd lost my flavor
of the month? At least I'm still alive which is more than I can damn
well say for a lot of people I've known.
I shouldn't want for anything, not with what I have. I shouldn't, and I
fucking well don't. I don't want Heero Yuy, I don't want anything...and I
sure as fuck don't want...I don't want...I want someone to...
Touch me. He's touching me. I don't know how he knew, but he was
running gentle hands down my thighs and wasn't it a hell of a shock
that those hands weren't as innocent as they seemed? They knew where to
touch and how to touch and I...I just...I let him do something that I
haven't allowed in a long, long time.
I let him fuck me.
I just lay there under warm hands and soft skin, and let him do
whatever he wanted to me, and if you think that isn't a big deal then I
suggest you try it sometime. He stripped my nakeder than I'd ever been,
pushed my knees up and before I knew it, he was inside me, still almost
absurdly gentle, and fuck, it felt good, to have someone, anyone,
touching me.
He wasn't Heero, too short, too slender, but he was soft in all the
right places, and hard in all the better ones. And he just gave and
gave to me, far more than he should, and if I'd been a kinder soul I
would have warned him about people like me. We'll drain you dry, take
every drop of warmth and compassion you can offer and still beg for
more. Crack your bones and suck out the marrow.
Leeches, that's what we are. Don't let us take hold of you or we'll do
the same to you as we have to others...just kill us on sight.
Kill us. Kill...us...
I sobbed, dryly, tears haven't had a place in my life for years but
this little blond was coaxing them out of me. Should have known,
desert-dwellers are great at finding an oasis. A neat trick, that,
pulling saltwater from a leach...no, that's not right. Not a leech, I'm
not even as innocent as that. I know what I am.
I'm Death.
I never meant to be, at first, but I'd carried it with me since the
moment I was born. Everything I touch withers and dies in my grasp and
I fucking well live on. I'd fought it, I swear to God that I had but
when the war began, when I saw what was happening, that they'd...that
-someone- actually needed me, I'd embraced the title grateful and
unknowingly condemned myself to be alone for the rest of my miserable
fucking life.
Because they die, they always die, from the moment I touch them. So I
don't touch Quatre, I just let him do his thing, because maybe it won't
count that way. Maybe, just once, I can have this from someone without
ruining their lives. Maybe.
I should know better, I know I should know better, and Jesus, will you
just shut the fuck up? I know, all right? I know who I am, I always
have. I know. I know.
Death.
But he was touching me. I wasn't touching him, but he touched me and I
gave into that, let it swallow me whole and for the first time in a
very, very long time, I didn't feel quite so alone.
***
The next morning found me alone again, tucked under a blanket in my
borrowed bed. I blinked away the sleep in my eyes and stretched,
wincing as a certain familiar pain made itself known. Quatre had been
gentle, but not that gentle, and the fact that he isn't here right now
gives me a pretty clear message. One-time deal, cash only, no refunds,
no returns.
I could deal with that.
It was mid-morning, the sun was out, painfully bright and I could tell
just by looking that today was going to be hot as hell, especially for
a guy who dresses in all black. A new day, mourning-time over and done
with.
I bounced out of bed, ignoring the various bodily protests. Today was
business as usual and I was going to start up with that business very
quickly.
OZ beware, Shinigami is back.
And I've got a new score to settle.
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