Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: PG
Warnings: Deathfic (kind of... you'll see), yaoi, gore, angst
Pairing: 1x2x1
Archive: Gundam Wing Addiction
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Don't sue. College kids are like L2 kids; we got nothin'.
Notes: Yeah, I know it says deathfic. But it'd be real hard to do a series centering around a pairing if one of them dies. So yeah... just wait for it. *slams doors and locks everyone in* WATCH! I said wait for it!!! Also, this fic was inspired partly by Ra's "Only" and the trailer for that new movie "The Butterfly Effect," if that gives you any sense of how this fic is going to work. So hang in there.
"The "Butterfly Effect", or more technically the "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", is the essence of chaos."
--- Fritjof Capra
"I'm only falling through the cracks
I'm only losing my will to live
I'm only broken and beaten down
I'm only... I'm only..."
--- Ra, Only
Only Butterflies Part 1
It had been a terrible battle.
None of the Gundams looked better for wear. And Wing was one of the worst of the five. The side of the mecha's chest was caved in, as if it had taken a hard blow. Metal was gouged away from the surface of the machine, exposing sparking circuits beneath the mech's metal skin.
But they were all alive. They had all made it. It was a bright day, a cheery day, even with the small forest fires set by thermonuclear weapons and downed mecha. Duo and Wufei scouted ahead as they made their way through the woods.
Without warning, Wing dropped out of the sky overhead like a shot bird.
"01 down!" Trowa shouted from behind them. Quatre gasped over the comlink. His voice was stricken. Duo and Wufei turned in surprise.
Wing hit the meadow with such devastating impact that the sound was heard more than thirty miles away in the rural countryside, stirring birds into startled flight, waking farmers from their beds.
Duo watched with wide eyes, hands frozen on the controls, his throat closing up as he watched his partner's mech tumble across the meadow, wings ripped away like the wings of a fly, limbs twisted into thousands of scorched and distorted fragments of gundanium. The dark cockpit hatch fractured into a spiderweb of a thousand cracks, but did not shatter.
It ended up on its side, wings torn completely away and lying on the other side of the field in a twisted wreck, one arm almost torn out of the mech's torso. The machine's fingers twitched convulsively in an almost human gesture that was chilling, even though Duo knew it was just random bursts of electrical signal being shot down the damaged arm.
Duo stopped Deathscythe and leapt the twenty feet to the ground, landing in a flat-sprint, breath burning in his chest.
Why... why did he... what's wrong?
~*~
The red emergency lights on the inside of Wing's cockpit had come on. Although the clearsteel was tinted, he couldn't see anything but the dim shape of Heero's still body inside, and the hatch was jammed. He slammed his fists on the convex surface of the cockpit hatch.
A few bright blue butterflies still fluttered in the meadow like pieces of living sapphire, indifferent to the catastrophe that had just occurred.
And the fires that were turning the woods and meadows to ash.
"Heero, Heero, open up! What's wrong, buddy?! Why the crash and burn!?"
Duo's voice was light and cheery, but there was an undercurrent of terror in it as chilling as death in an amusement park. Derailed rollercoasters and fallen ferris wheels.
He hit the cockpit hatch again, his voice angry this time. "Heero, open up, dammit! I can't get in! Let me in!"
Finally, there was a slight, almost invisible movement from within the cockpit, and the cockpit hatch began to lower in a slow, shuddering movement, creaking as it went because of some damaged mechanism in the inner part of the door.
The cockpit was dark, but the inside of it was bathed in that low red light. It seemed as dim as a cave compared to the brightness of the daylight.
"... Heero?"
Heero was slumped sideways in the cockpit seat against the side, his head tipped towards Duo where he stood at the shattered cockpit. His eyes were rolled to one side, to Duo's face, and blood trickled from his nose where it had hit the console on impact.
But blood trickled from his mouth, too, in a steady stream, and that was not from hitting anything. That... that was...
He whispered as Duo's shocked violet eyes took him in, and his voice was harsh and ragged, thick with blood, speaking of something irrevocably torn, even as he calmly spoke the same words Duo had heard from him before, over and over.
Duo would hear them in his nightmares.
"... Mission accomplished?"
"Yeah, fine, it's fine," Duo said softly. "Why did you... land-" Duo's eyes widened further as he saw the cockpit on the right side of Heero. It was warped inward, busted and torqued.
The Wing pilot was impaled like a butterfly on a pin.
Heero's tank top on that side had gone a dark, muddy maroon. The whole cockpit was filled with the sheared-copper tang of blood. It was splattered across the dashboard in dark streaks. The Wing pilot's right arm was broken, bone shining through blood in wet splinters.
But his palm was pressed flat against the button that opened the hatch. "Heero... oh, Heero..."
Heero had begun to gaze off into the distance, but when Duo spoke, his voice a horrified murmur, he brought his eyes back to focus on his partner with an effort. They were clear, sparkling blue and deep. Hellishly aware.
"It... doesn't hurt... I tried... tried to get back to safehouse..."
Duo climbed into the cockpit and grabbed Heero's shoulders, meaning to pull him forward, off of the twist of gundanium that was embedded deeply into his upper body. His hips looked strangely unhinged, as if they weren't attached to the upper part of his body.
When he tried to shift Heero's weight, the Japanese boy let out a single ear-piercing shriek of agony, and Duo backed away, raising his shaking hands in a sick parody of surrender, as if saying, Okay, okay, I won't move you, just please... don't scream anymore. Please don't make that sound.
How... how did he fly? Duo thought feverishly, the tears running down his face before he even realized they were there. He didn't feel them. His whole body felt numb, chilled to the core. He moved forward again, meaning to put his arms around the Wing pilot, but hesitated, knowing that you weren't supposed to move people that were badly injured, because you could make it worse... or even kill them.
But looking at the way Heero's body was twisted across the cockpit seat, seeing the snarl of metal piercing Heero's side, he figured there wasn't much more he could do to hurt Heero anymore. Duo's stomach lurched.
He was about as hurt as he was going to get.
Duo wrapped his arms around Heero and hugged him gently, feeling the warmth of blood soaking into his habit.
"Please, Heero... please please please..." He closed his eyes, speaking the words like a litany.
Heero's eyes fell on him again, rolling horribly in their sockets, since it didn't seem that the Wing pilot could move his head. Heero's voice was childlike for a moment. Confused.
"... Duo?"
Duo laid next to Heero wearily, resting his shoulder against the same jagged side of the cockpit that had mortally wounded his partner, tears cutting trails down his face, so Heero could look into his eyes. He put one quaking hand on the Wing pilot's face. "Please... please, dammit," He cried hard, shaking his head in violent negation. "Look what you did to yourself, Heero... All... banged up..."
Heero's answer was choked. Blood ran down his chin. "Gomen... gomen nasai."
Duo tried to tell him that he was going to be fine, that they'd get him out and fix him up, but the truth was there for even Heero to see, and Duo couldn't lie to him. Duo never lied. And he knew death when he saw it.
Duo closed his eyes, feeling his face twist into a terrible snarl. He tried to repress the wounded noise rising in him, but the sob wrenched itself from his chest with a wretched force. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He wouldn't. He looked up and met Heero's eyes with a fierce intensity, not blinking, even through the tears coursing down his face and the sobs wracking him. He wanted to see Heero for who he was... not what he was.
Not what they made him.
I never... never even had a chance...
"Heero... don't go," he whispered. "I... I love you."
"Is he all right?" Trowa asked softly from behind him. Duo didn't turn around, but he saw their shadows on the grass. "He's all right, isn't-"
Then the shadows shifted until Trowa was in a position to see for himself, and there was a choked, gasping sound. Somewhere behind him, Duo could hear Quatre crying. Duo ignored him grimly. He didn't care. Nothing mattered but Heero.
Duo vaguely registered Wufei as the Chinese pilot came to kneel by him, pressing close by, looking into Heero's face.
Heero spoke, words badly slurred, his speech almost incoherent. He twisted his bloodied face in frustration, then growled out a single word. "Wing."
His eyes flickered to Wufei for a moment, and then came back to rest on Duo again. He spoke again, and fresh blood trickled over his bottom lip. "Fire."
Duo's brow furrowed slightly. "What, Heero... I don't understand."
"Fire," Heero repeated thickly, sparkling blue eyes searching Duo's fervently for comprehension. "Fire."
"Don't strain yourself, Yuy," Wufei said suddenly, his voice soft and full of saddened compassion. He leaned forward, and Duo could see the Shenlong pilot's profile in the edge of his vision. "I understand you."
"Duo..." Heero's eyes burned into him. "Play."
"Play... what, Heero?"
Heero closed his eyes for a moment, eyelids fluttering, and then Duo saw the fallen pilot's good hand rocking back on his wrist before slowly swinging forward. Like the follow-through for a shot in-
Duo grabbed Heero's hand and squeezed it. When he relaxed it, he felt Heero's answering squeeze, weak but sure.
"Basketball?"
Heero opened his eyes and nodded.
Duo didn't understand. Heero was confused, thinking back on one of the few things they had ever done together, outside of the war and the Mission. He couldn't for the life of him think of what basketball had to do with anything.
"Fire," Heero repeated, his voice blood-choked and desperate.
"Yeah, sure, Heero, no problem," Duo whispered. "Just calm down, buddy, just relax, don't hurt yourself."
Heero looked into his eyes. Duo felt like he was drowning in those cobalt depths, eyes that for once didn't seem cold to him. "Duo... dozo... yoroshiku."
"Yeah, Heero." Duo smiled, tears brimming over in his eyes. "Always."
Heero was suddenly looking past him, expression faintly curious, as if Duo wasn't there. He took in a labored breath, let it out.
He did not take another one.
And then Heero wasn't there, either.
Duo waited, that smile frozen on his face, holding his breath as he waited for Heero to take another one. His eyes grew panicked as realization struck him, and he grabbed Heero's shoulders roughly, shaking him. The Wing pilot's head lolled bonelessly on his neck.
"Heero... Heero!"
Wufei put a hand on Duo's shoulder. "Maxw-... Duo... he's gone."
Duo shoved away from him furiously, scrambling to his feet. He whirled and ran past Trowa and Quatre, almost knocking the Heavyarms pilot into the dirt.
Duo could hear Quatre's voice crying after him as he ran through the meadow and into the burning woods beyond, the high grasses slapping at him, the indifferent butterflies scattering at his passage.
"Duo! Duooo!!"
TBC...
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