Shinigami's Song Part 2
It was warm. Duo was floating in a warm sea of darkness. He knew he was avoiding consciousness... but what was there for him in the real world but pain and memories? No, it was much nicer in here.
"...Duo... "
That voice!
"... please... wake up..."
He knew that voice!
"Just open your eyes, Duo."
Quatre! It was Quatre!"
"You need to wake up, Duo!"
Duo followed the sound of Quatre's voice... up out of the darkness and into the pain.
"Wake up for me, Duo!"
Duo slowly opened his eyes and saw the blonde boy leaning over him with his eyes tightly shut. He reached up and wiped a tear from his friend's cheek. "I never could deny you anything, Quatre."
The pilot's eyes flew open and he stared down at Duo. "Duo?!! Are you ok?"
Duo grinned at his friend. "I'm fine." But then he winced as he realized how much movement hurt. "No, scratch that... itai."
"What were you trying to do?"?
Duo suddenly felt very tired, tired of everything. "Can we talk later?" He smiled and pushed the button for a nurse. "Preferably after I'm doped up with morphine? ITAI!"
Quatre shook his head and smiled down at him. "Fine. But we will talk later."
"Yare, yare... now where is my nurse?"
~*~
Relena dried her eyes and pressed stop on the CD player, every song was a dagger in her heart. She needed to think. ~What can I do?~ She grabbed her pink cell phone and dialled a number she'd used many times before.
"Hello? Relena-sama?"
"Yes, its me." Relena released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. This time the target was different. "I want you to find Duo Maxwell. Its urgent."
"Hai! Right away Relena-sama."
The phone went dead in her hands and Relena prayed she wasn't already too late.
"I must make this right."
~*~
Duo wasn't alone. The years and the booze hadn't done much to dull his training, and the pilot of Shinigami knew someone was sneaking around his room. Someone who didn't belong there.
He carefully removed the IV from his left arm. Duo would miss the steady drip of morphine that kept his brain happily fuzzy... but for this he would need mobility.
The room was almost pitch black, but Duo could faintly distinguish the form of someone standing at his bedside table. With every intention to incapacitate the stranger, Duo leapt out of his bed. Unfortunately, he forgot that he'd been in bed for a number of days, and his legs were quite weak. The moment Duo's weight was settled on his legs they collapsed under him, and erupted in the worst case of pins and needles ever.
"ITAI!" Duo screamed and hugged his legs up to his chest, but the movement only caused more pain. So as Duo sat perfectly still in an attempt to ease his throbbing legs, the stranger calmly stepped over him and walked out the door.
"Kuso!"
Suddenly the lights in his room flicked on. Duo released his legs and covered his eyes against the sudden bright light, but it was too late. His head felt like the entire percussion section of a high school band was simultaneously pounding on his brain. The movement also revived the pins and needles in his legs. Duo tried to laugh at the irony of living through there was and then dying of pins and needles on the floor of his hospital room.
In an instant the matronly nurse was lifting him back into bed tsk-ing him for being too thin and not taking care of himself. "What would your mother think?" She admonished while she reinserted the IV.
Duo didn't have the heart to tell her that he was an orphan.
When she finally finished fussing she stood with her arms crossed. "So what was so important that you had to get out of your bed hmmm?" The look on her face demanded answers even more than her words.
Duo looked down as his hands were suddenly very interesting. "I- uhhh... there was someone in my room who didn't belong here." Duo jerked his thumb over his shoulder at his bedside table. "They were standing over there."
At the muffled gasp Duo looked up at his nurse. She'd gone deathly pale and her wide unblinking eyes were focused on a point behind him.
Dreading what he would find, Duo turned and finally blinked a few times at what he saw, a large butcher's knife embedded in the wall with a note... 'Shinigami dies.'
TBC...
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