Death Meets One Billion and Six
Pair: Zechs, Sandman's Death.
Warning: end of the series + Zechs = ANGST. Crossover with the Sandman comics.
Note: Third in the Sandman crossovers series. You don't need to read those to get this, and you don't need to know anything about Sandman, either. You do, however, need to know GW.
Summary: Zechs drifts in space waiting to die, but unfortunately, nothing ever works for Zechs the way he plans them.
.
.
He counts a star for every life that he has taken.
Forty one, forty two, forty three...
There aren't enough stars.
Sixty seven, sixty eight, sixty nine...
He tries to breathe to pass the time, but when he realizes that stopping would make it go much quicker, he starts whispering the numbers instead. He has only killed about thirty people with his bare hands, maybe three or four hundred with the aid of a mobile suit... nothing, really, in comparison to the others. Zero Four killed thousands during his rage on the colonies. The one they called the God of Death killed tens of thousands in his first raids on Earth.
Two hundred and five, two hundred and six, two hundred and seven...
Zechs remembers the video feeds taken of Deathscythe.
Five hundred, five hundred and one, five hundred and two...
He remembers Epyon. Zero. So many machines, built for the annihilation of life. Heavyarms--heavy... arms. What kind of name is it, to be known as a gundam pilot?
The kind of name that a child whimpers to his father, when he tugs on a frayed cotton sleeve and begs for him to look under the bed for the monster.
One thousand six hundred sixty six, one thousand six hundred sixty seven, one thousand six hundred sixty eight...
He isn't hiding under the bed. He isn't hiding in the closet.
Zechs hides under the covers, and when the children crawl inside and go to sleep, he rapes them of their parents and thrusts them into group homes, into the care of a thousand other children that he had made orphans, too.
He thinks of regrettable vengeance as he listens to them when they cry and grow up and give their essays to Mrs. Kinsey, the language arts teacher.
'I want to be a gundam pilot when I grow up.'
'My hero is the warrior prince Milliardo Peacecraft.'
'When I die, I want to go in a blaze of glory.'
He wonders if there is a word for it. A word for an orphan, making an orphan of others. An orphan of an orphan of an orphan of an orphan.
Forty thousand two hundred sixty eight and ninety one, forty thousand two hundred sixty eight and ninety two, forty thousand two hundred sixty eight and ninety three...
He had ever had a chance in the first place? What is it, to be abandoned to the throes of war?
He thinks of Treize, and his face grows hot. How will he ever face the other side now?
Sixty seven thousand seven hundred and seventy seven, sixty seven thousand seven hundred and seventy eight, sixty seven thousand seven hundred and seventy nine...
Treize used to say there is a star for every soldier who'd died in battle.
Each one of them represents a dream that had been stolen.
At sixty seven thousand seven hundred and eighty, he remembers the one about end of the world.
It goes like this:
Once upon a time, there was a man who built a giant canon.
He pointed it at the Earth.
Billions died.
One million one hundred and eleven, one million one hundred and twelve, one million one hundred and thirteen...
There aren't enough stars.
One million four hundred and seven, one mill--
"Hello, Millardo."
He forgets his place. He forgets when she floats into the still-sealed cockpit. She is drifting in space without a suit, breathing pure vacuum because there is nothing at all to breathe in here. She is Gothic, skin translucent, eyes black as night, lips stained sin. Her hair is black too, scattered in a long, tussled Halloween night mesh. The only color on her figure is a large golden ankh hanging from her neck, like a sliver of the sun twisted by her shadows. Its stark color is sharp in the frozen space between them, for he is so cold and deep into the madness, the hypothermia, the depression...
She's eating a liquorice stick. She chews, rolling the black candy with her dark red tongue.
His long-dormant stomach growls weakly. He almost whimpers, until he realizes that he cannot... his throat is swollen by dehydration, by breathing this infected, stale air, and by dying, by freezing, by whispering too many numbers when--oh dear God, he's lost count. He's lost count and he's going to have to start all over again.
He tries to reach for her, but he cannot lift his arm, and he wonders at that because there is no gravity. He wonders what kind of goddess she is, to be here like this, because he doesn't hallucinate anymore. He'd wasted those when Epyon uttered its last digital breath and left him drifting here, isolated in the universe's greatest hyperbolic chamber, frozen, clinging to stubborn life support in a barely-intact cockpit that would. not. die.
"Shh," she says, as if the sound is a word of fact to describe his poor situation, as if breathing through her teeth while her lips are pursed into an 'o' would comfort him, would hush the faded agony that he has forgotten to feel in the numbers of all the people that have died in this war because of him.
Where had he been? What number rests upon his grave? The devil says one million four hundred and eight must pass, no, one million four hundred and--
"Shh," again, so calmly, so matter-of-fact. "Don't speak. Don't think too hard."
Don't breathe.
She savagely rips off another piece of the liquorice and wetly grinds it between her teeth.
He's dying. He wants to. He did this to die, he did everything that he had done, planning to die, dying for the sake of everyone else, like Treize did, like his father, like Heero Yuy the First. He wonders what God has to say about so many sons dying for the sake of continued humanity; he tried to kill them all to save them, but they would never understand. He's come to think that when he goes to hell, he'll tell it all Lucifer, and see if the fallen angel finds it amusing. After all, God didn't.
But Treize did.
She smiles. He can smell the liquorice in her breath, even though there is only vacuum between them, between him and the void of space that he cannot breathe like she can. He tries to speak again, but there is nothing spoken. No voice, no whimper, no complaint. No last words.
One million four hundred and nine, one million four hundred and ten, one million four hundred and eleven...
"Yanno, out of all of the misunderstood renegade monarchs who have attempted to blow up the world, you're one of my favorites." He stares at her, stricken a blow, and she smiles even wider, waggling the stick in front of him placatingly. "You've kept me very busy the last few days."
Is he supposed to be sorry?
"Oh no, not nearly. You see, you're not going to die yet. I just stopped by to say hi."
Two million twenty thousand six hundred and four, two million twenty thousand six hundred and five, two million twenty thousand six hundred and six...
So, he smiles in weak delirium and manages a croaking, "Hi," to greet her.
It seems right, because he wants to be higher. Higher is where Heaven should be. He should be in Heaven.
Shouldn't he?
"Shh."
"Hi," he whispers again, frantic, and coughs so hard blood flecks on his helmet window. It splatters, bounces, floats before his eyes like little red planets, and he stares. Stares, then flinches as one collides into his cheek, his bloody cheek, tongue in bloody cheek, and--
"Shh. I told you, don't speak. You're not going anywhere."
He wants to be higher.
He wants to be high.
He says hi, and Death shushes him.
"No, you're not going die, my dear." Shaking her head, shoulder rolling loosely into a shrug, sucking on sin-black liquorice. "Nope. 'Fraid not. Sorry, sweetie."
But--
"Well, I must be going."
But she comes closer, wraps an arm around his waist, caging him in for a hug. Hugging Death, Death hugging--hugging... what number was he on, again?
Nine hundred and ninety nine million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine...
She pats the side of his helmet in the way a grandmother might pat the cheek of a child, and he feels so small, so fresh, so... wrong.
"See you later, alligator."
Winks. Clicks her tongue.
Vanishes.
And he screams.
One billion, one billion and one, one billion and two...
He screams and then his vision tunnels, his voice echoing in the walls of his own skull. He screams even after the darkness comes, even after Death lingers there like an empty threat, a punishment, no, a gift, no, observation, no...
One billion and three, one billion and four...
"Zechs?"
Light. Light and sound and air and voices, a face, an old man with a nervous grin, goatee needing trim, gray hair mussed, pink and yellow clashing patterns dancing on his retinas, making him ill.
This is the first time, and the darkness won't let him go the first time. The bungee cord of his consciousness snaps back, barred hook viciously catching his skin on the way and ripping him open. When he wakes the second time...
one billion and five...
When he wakes the second time, Death is gone and it doesn't seem like she'll ever come back.
Let him count the way:
"You've been out for two months."
One
"I thought for sure you were really dead this time."
billion
"You're a lucky bastard."
and
"You're alive, Zechs."
six.
"Congratulations."
--Fini