"I came from the utter fields
Carving shame on the tender shields
On my path I wandered high
Declaring war beneath the sky
The hate I carried, boiling within!"
--- Borknagar, The Mountains Rove
"Curl like smoke and breathe again
Down your throat, inside your ribs
Through your spine and every nerve
Where I'll watch and I wait
And yield to the hurt..."
--- Audioslave, The Last Remaining Light
Only Butterflies Part 2
Feeble Screams From Forests Unknown
Duo's breakdown wasn't all at once. He ran through the burning woods blindly, ran without paying attention to what direction he was going. He cried out wordlessly, the sound of his voice feral and animalistic, even though he couldn't even hear himself screaming. He wouldn't have heard Quatre's shouts after him if the Sandrock pilot had yelled directly into his ear.
He slowly became less aware of his surroundings, listening to the woods crackle and burn around him with ears that didn't hear it. He ran without realizing he was running, passing a herd of deer that bounded terrified past him in the opposite direction, trying to escape the small flames which were quickly erupting into a wildfire.
Calm down, calm down, he thought feverishly, even as one of those tortured sobs passed his lips and he dashed through the underbrush blindly, heading into the smoke of the wildfires head-on.
But Heero... Heero is...
He shook his head furiously as he ran, barely ducking to avoid having his eye gouged out by a low tree branch. It slapped him across the face, drawing blood in a deep gash.
He didn't even feel it.
The smoke blew into his face as he ran. He tore through a thicket with a fierce snapping sound, pushing his way through, not feeling the thorns and brambles that ripped at his bare arms and hands, tearing at his shirt. He took deep, whooping gasps of the smoke, trying to maintain enough oxygen to keep going.
He flew up a smouldering slope in a staggering sprint, hands outstretched in front of him as if begging for mercy, his hair now loose and framing his face, sticking to his tear-slicked cheeks.
Exhausted, coughing, he stumbled and fell into the dead leaves, his face buried in cool, soft earth. It smelled of decay. He dry-heaved violently, but he hadn't eaten anything in awhile, he never ate before missions, and there was nothing to throw up.
His breath entered his lungs in a shriek and he exhaled in a series of gasping, moaning sobs, grasping handfuls of rotting forest floor convulsively.
Duo saw Wing take the blow in his mind, saw it burst inward in a snarl of jagged metal teeth, saw Heero thrown around the cockpit like a ragdoll, shoved up against those terrible gundanium spikes by the force of the impact.
He could see the widening of Heero's cobalt eyes, the agony in them.
And then the lethal determination that flooded them along with the tears of pain, as Heero decided that he would pilot anyway, his arm so badly shattered the splinters of bone had pierced his skin, his back broken, staked to his own mech.
"No!" Duo shrieked. "No... no..." His voice faded into a wracking cough.
Exhausted, he sank against the earth, feeling the dampness of it, so different from the heat of the surrounding fires. His cut cheek rested against the debris of the forest floor as he closed his eyes, feeling the forest burn down around him.
The world had been turned upside down in less than an hour.
"Maxwell, you idiot!"
There was a crashing in the undergrowth behind the place where Duo had fallen, fallen with no intentions of getting up again. Wufei emerged from the thickets, his face scratched and covered with a sheen of sweat, his usually immaculate white pants covered with ash. The fires were burning more fiercely around them.
When he saw Duo sprawled across the ground, his face softened with compassion. His friend's face was concealed with a thick curtain of tangled hair, full of branches and dead leaves. Duo was slumped as if all the wires holding him up had been cut, his face pressed into the dirt, hands relaxed and palm up, as if pleading.
He slowly walked over to Duo, kneeling beside the other pilot. "I'm... sorry, Maxwell," he said softly, putting his hand on Duo's head in a gentle gesture. The expression on his face was that of someone who had known great loss himself, and was remembering it. "I'm so sorry."
Duo opened his eyes. They were empty, emotionless, even though his face was flushed from crying and streaked with tears. He blinked and nodded slowly, but couldn't speak.
Wufei had an arm around him, was trying to pull him to his feet. Duo didn't help him. "Come on, Duo," Wufei whispered, grunting with the effort to breathe in such thick smoke and lift the American at the same time. "He is dead... but we are not. If we want to stay that way, we have to get out of this place."
"And what if we don't?" Duo murmured, his voice almost lost under the overwhelming sound of the flames around them.
Wufei stilled a moment, then whispered again into Duo's ear. "Then death by fire is not a very good way to go."
As if to agree with him, a burning branch fell from overhead, barely missing them as Wufei jerked Duo out of danger, pulling Duo to fall wordlessly against him, the flames reflected in his dark eyes.
"I think we've worn out our welcome here," Wufei muttered, throwing Duo's arm around his shoulders, dragging the other soldier along. The American pilot would barely stand on his own, much less walk.
When Wufei had finally managed to bring Duo back to the clearing, he intentionally steered them behind the fallen, scorched hulk that had been Wing, moving until they were at the foot of Shenlong. He pushed Duo gently until Duo was sitting on the foot of the Gundam, his hair hanging in his face, his shoulders slumped. Wufei wiped the back of one arm across his forehead, smearing blood there.
"Barton, Winner! I found him!"
The two other pilots emerged from where they had been on the front side of Wing. Quatre's face was tear-streaked, but calm. As soon as Wufei turned his back on Duo, Duo stood again shakily, walking forward with his head lowered.
Wufei turned as he saw Duo get up again, scowling. "Maxwell, sit down a moment and pull yourself together."
"Fuck off, Wufei," Duo said softly, his voice more weary than hateful. He pushed past the Shenlong pilot, pushed past Quatre and Trowa, heading off in the direction of Wing's final resting place.
Once the American pilot was out of earshot, Quatre turned to the Chinese pilot, his eyes filled with sadness. "How is he, Wufei?"
Wufei shook his head. "Did you take care of Yuy?"
Trowa flinched, catlike eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. "We... couldn't."
"Why not?"
"He's stuck," Quatre whispered, fresh tears welling in his eyes. His face was wretchedly pale. He wiped away his tears roughly, vengefully, as if ashamed to show weakness in front of his comrades.
"We couldn't move him. The metal... he's caught on it."
~*~
Duo slowly approached the open hatch of Wing again, standing over his fallen partner. Heero sagged against the side of the cockpit, limp and lifeless. He stared down into Heero's slack face, his fixed eyes. "Heero?"
He didn't know why he said Heero's name, because he knew that Heero was dead. He was grief-stricken, but not stupid. He could look at Heero and know that. He barely understood his own voice, it was so hoarse with smoke and sobs.
Some desperate part of him hoped that Heero's eyes would focus in that steely-sharp concentration that had always graced the Wing pilot's features, focus as they fell on him. But they were empty. Heero's face still held an expression of curiosity, as if he had seen something strange right before he died.
Reaching forward, his hand trembling, Duo touched Heero's left hand tentatively. It was still warm.
He remembered the first time he had ever met Heero, shooting the other boy as cold-bloodedly as he would have shot anyone else who got in his way. But he had never intended to kill Heero, any more than he would have killed the girl. He was young, they were both young, and he had always felt that they would live forever.
But for Heero... eternity had already come.
"Shouldn't have... hung out with me, buddy," Duo said, laughing, his voice soft and harsh. He kneeled in front of Heero, but it was as if his knees simply buckled beneath him. Duo didn't look up, but one pale hand reached up to brush over Heero's face, closing his eyes.
He leaned forward and put his hands under Heero's arms, trying to pull him forward and out of the cockpit. There was a sick wet wrenching sound, and the Wing pilot hung fast. Duo tried again, pulling harder, but he still couldn't jerk Heero loose.
Fresh, furious tears began to course down Duo's cheeks, and he snarled at his partner's corpse, even as his chest began to hitch with sobs. "You always were a... stubborn son of a bitch... goddamn you, Heero... damn you..."
He pulled again, as hard as he could, but Heero's arms were slick with blood, and his hands slipped free. He tumbled to the grass gracelessly.
"Goddammit!"
"Duo, don't... pull so hard." Trowa's voice came from behind him, soft.
Duo sat up, hair in a tangled cascade around his face. He spoke without turning around.
"Why? Afraid I'll hurt him?" Duo laughed, his voice on the edge of hysteria, and the sound was chilling. "Hurt him? Hurt him?!"
Duo scrambled to his feet and turned around, a terrible smile on his face. He gestured wildly in Heero's direction, arm outflung. "In case you haven't noticed, Tro, he's deader than a goddamned doornail!"
Wufei stepped forward hesitantly. "Stop it, Duo."
Duo turned back towards Heero, pulling again. He emphasized each jerk with a single word, ground between clenched teeth. His face was a horrible grimace. "They... can't... we can't... hurt him... anymore!!"
Suddenly, the Wing pilot was torn from the cockpit with a fleshy ripping sound, and the momentum threw Duo to the ground. Heero fell heavily on top of him. Dead weight.
Duo shrieked, flailing underneath Heero. Trowa was by his side in a flash, pulling Heero off of him. Quatre had his arms around Duo's shoulders. The Deathscythe pilot was shuddering uncontrollably. Duo buried his face against Quatre's chest.
"It's okay, Duo..." Quatre stroked Duo's back gently, letting Duo shake. He looked over Duo's shoulder at Wufei and Trowa, raising his eyebrows slightly. Wufei nodded, and the two kneeled beside Heero, lifting the fallen pilot in their arms.
Quatre's heart wrenched when he heard a muffled whisper against his chest. He could feel Duo's heart hammering like a caged bird beating itself to death in a cage. Duo's chest heaved with silent coughs.
"Please... please... d-don't hurt him anymore..."
"We won't," Quatre whispered, burying his face against the top of Duo's head. He sensed Duo's grief and took it into himself, drinking it like dark, poisoned water.
" ...please... "
"Never, Duo."
Around them, the woods continued to burn in the falling twilight.
TBC...
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