Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, yaoi, shounen ai, gore, death, angst, skewed religious themes...
Pairing: Implied 1x2x1, Solox?
Archive: Gundam Wing Addiction
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Don't sue. College kids are like L2 kids; we got nothin'.
Notes: If you read this (I hope you read this *sniffle*) and go, "Who in the heck is that Jeremiah guy?" then you might want to read "White Band Prayer" (my POV piece for the "Through Different Eyes" Fanfic Contest".
I didn't realize until after I had already written and posted the story that the White Fang rebel in "White Band Prayer" and Jeremiah in "Me and my Shadow" are the same person.
"Now I will tell you what I've done for you
50 thousand tears I've cried
screaming, deceiving, and bleeding for you
and you still won't hear me... (I'm going under)
Don't want your hand this time I'll save myself
maybe I'll wake up for once
not tormented daily defeated by you
just when I thought I'd reached the bottom
I'm dying again..."
- Evanescence, "Going Under"
Me and my Shadow
I'm crying again. Dammit, I never cried before him. Never. But he lied. They all lied. And they always do. Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not kill...what a fucking riot.
They say they're your friends. That they'll always be there for you. But one order sends that promise flying out the fucking window. One order sends your best friends flying through the air like burnt rag dolls. And what is it all for?! What in the hell are we fighting for?!! I don't see any fucking prize! And now he's dead! He died for nothing!
What the hell am I crying for... he never said he was my friend. He never even told me his name. I had to find it out for myself.
I put my fist through the opaque glass shower door, sending shattered glass flying. The one sound that I can make people hear. I talk all the time... but no one ever knows. No one ever says a word. They just brush it off. But not anymore. I'm going to be heard. And even if no one else in the world or colonies is going to acknowledge his death, I will. I'm going to fucking rail and scream and rant, because I always was a loudmouth and because he deserves it.
Quatre's banging on the door. Telling me to open it. But I won't. I won't look at him. Quatre... I don't want to know his name, either. Get away. Don't you know it's death to be near me? Get the fuck back!
He didn't die right off, I'll give him that. I knew he was stronger. So cold and beautiful, like a statue that could never be brought to his knees. But I touched him and he didn't kill me. He touched me back, and he lived. He was supposed to keep living!
He embraced Death and it just became another part of him, like brushing his teeth or doing his mission debriefings on that damned laptop.
Fucking me became another thing he did without thinking, like always choosing the seat in the back of the classroom, bowing his head so his face couldn't be seen easily. Instinctive as breathing.
It meant more than breathing to me.
It let me feel like one half of a whole again. Now I'm just shattered. And there's no one to pick up the pieces this time.
We surrender, but we will not hand over the Gundams.
J, if I could kill you...
I look in the mirror. But I can't see myself. There's two of me, and both of them are hiding. I can see Solo. But when I whirl to look, he's not there. I always see him, but he's never there. He's not there! I can see him but he's not there!
I think I'm going crazy.
Quatre's banging on the door now. I'm scaring him, but I don't really care. He's still got that Barton kid to hold a torch for. But I don't know what's still keeping me here. I'm bleeding, but I don't care about that, either. It's nice to see me bleeding for once, instead of someone else.
I didn't love him. I didn't. I did not love him. I didn't, I didn't...
It's just that the memory of him won't go away.
Little stuff is driving me crazy. Like the way he never used to make a sound when I would crawl into his bed in the dorms, sliding my way up his body. He never made a noise, not a whimper, not a moan, not a scream. Even when he came, it was just that violent arch of his back, eyes closed tight, jaw clenched. Completely silent.
And it's other stuff, too. The feel of his skin under my fingertips, rough with scars. I liked the texture of them under my tongue, too, although that's a hell of a thing to remember, and I wish I didn't.
Oh, I wish I didn't.
The smell of him, dammit! Like gunpowder and warm metal and mecha oil, all mixed together with something richer, more human.
Right before the Mission... one last time.
I can smell him on me. Even under the sickly sweet sheared-copper smell of the blood, I can still smell him on me.
I believe in God. It's only because of that that I can keep going on. But not the God you know.
I'm my own god. My touch is pestilence and poison. I'm the god of wrecked subway cars, high-school shootings, cancer, plague, and the guy who slits his wrists in the bathtub. Shuttle crashes, drunk drivers, bad negotiations gone terribly, terribly wrong.
I pull my arm back and shatter the mirror, hoping the reflection would shatter the same way I have.
I've tried to get rid of Solo. I can't be his god forever. He's dead already. But he won't stop looking at me. Everywhere I turn, he's always there. And he's the only friend I've had that's ever stuck around.
Even though he did die, just like all the rest.
"Go away!" I scream. I'm sobbing again, but I don't care now. "Just go the fuck away, Solo, why don't you?!" He just stares right back at me, still a little kid. Still waiting. There's blood on his face. He had been vomiting blood at the end. Just like all the rest...
"Who are you talking to, Duo?! Unlock the door!" Quatre sounds scared now. But I don't care.
I remember that day. I was screaming, screaming and breaking things too, just like I screamed when Father Maxwell and Sister Helen died.
::Somebody kill me! Come get me you Ozzy fuckers!! Somebody shoot me, for the love of God! Please!!::
But nobody did. Because you can't... kill...Death.
He's just standing there in the corner. My screaming doesn't bother him now, never bothered him before. He just watches me with dark blue eyes gone cloudy from the sickness.
Dark blue eyes like his. Like Heero.
Him standing there in his ripped jeans and dark blue denim jacket and those white hightop sneakers with the holes in the toes. I saw him, I knew him, and now I can never stop seeing him-
I took that jacket, too. I took it before they took him away. It was a perfectly good jacket; it would have been a waste to let it go. If anyone had known it belonged to a plague victim, they would have made me burn it.
Like they burned him.
And all the others.
Have you ever smelled people burning?
We could never go near the Pits. If you ever smell burning bodies, it's really hard to ever smell anything else. I don't think anyone but L2 street brats and the Holocaust Jews remember what that smells like, anymore.
He cursed me in the end, because I wouldn't kill him. He begged and screamed and cajoled, and when that didn't work he demanded and threatened and screamed some more.
- Please Kid, oh please Jesus it hurts... fucking Jerusalem... Kid, give me my knife... dammit, give me my fucking knife, I'll do it myself! -
I wouldn't give him his switchblade. I wouldn't let him kill himself. Suicides are damned.
You hear that, Heero?
But maybe we're damned, anyway.
I remember Jeremiah. His eyes were gray like gun-steel. He was immune to the plague like me. And Solo's screaming was driving him crazy. Soon he was screaming too, screaming himself hoarse just trying to drown Solo out.
- You either get him outta here, do something, Kid, or by God I'll drag him into the street myself! You see that I don't! -
In the end, it was Jeremiah who did it. He hit me so hard I almost blacked out. Took the switchblade from me, and drove it up beneath Solo's ribs. Right for the heart.
He cradled Solo against him, across his lap. Jeremiah's hair was falling in his face. Only when Solo stopped shaking, only when Jeremiah pulled back, only then could I see he was crying. Only then could I tell he was rocking, so slowly, back and forth.
He was rocking Solo to sleep.
Solo's blood was soaking, warm and dark, into his white tee-shirt, but he didn't care. Neither did I. All I knew was the last person I ever had the chance to love was dead, and I was alone again.
They were almost nose-to-nose. Staring into each other's eyes with an intensity of purpose that only the dead, the dying, and killers can have. They were close enough to kiss.
I cross myself now. Blood from my hands and arms is flecking the sink, the broken glass on the floor, the cold white tiles. I'm still crying, but no one can see me, so it's okay. Quatre is banging on the door now.
I curl up in the bathtub and turn the shower on, watching my blood stain the water pink as it swirled down the drain into darker, deeper places.
I close my eyes, willing Solo away as Quatre breaks the door down. But he's always there. Always. The same way Heero will be.
Death can't touch me. It can't take me. It can only tell me who I loved the most.
OWARI
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