Ping. Ping.
Trowa stirred gently from a Zen like sleep. His body was deeply relaxed and
calm, and he was hesitant to move at all from the lingering sleep that
harbored in his muscles. He strained his ears to hear, but couldn't find
anything. He arched his back, rising up on both elbows and putting himself
closer to the window, trying to fully awaken. What noise had woken him up?
Ping. Ping.
There it was again.
Pebbles bounced off his window. He rose, adjusting his boxers as he went
and pulled up the blinds. Below, mired in the shadows, were two figures.
Both were dressed in black, with strong, lithe bodies accentuated by the
outfits. One wore a priest's collar, and had a long braid swung over his
shoulder. When he stepped forward, out from the shadows of the tree, he had
a shining pair of cobalt eyes, and a few streaks of dark paint streaking
his cheeks and the area around his eyes. Trowa has to rub the crusted sleep
from his eyes at least twice to make sure he was actually aware of what he
was seeing. This wasn't the kind of thing that frequently happened to the
teen and he was half-assured that he'd taken some sort of drug before he'd
gone to sleep, and that this was merely a side effect. He unlocked the
window and let the glass slide over his head, as he leaned out, poking his
shoulders, head and bare chest through the window.
"Duo?" he called, his voice still racked with relaxation, "What are you--?"
"Trowa Barton. My name is Shingami. My associate, Wing," He nodded, cocking
his head to the side in order to gesture at the figure in the shadows
behind him. Trowa was positive that the boy was Heero. There was no
mistaking the dark chocolate bangs, even in the dark, and his eyes had an
eerie glow that never left them. The boys were best friends, along with
Trowa and a couple of others. He couldn't imagine why those two were there.
"And I have selected you for a charter and elite memberships in the secret
society known to mere mortals as EDITE. Please put on one pair black pants,
one black shirt, one pair black socks, and one pair black shoes. But, the
golden rule, not to be forgotten," he added, his teeth glowing as his lips
curled back into a sly grin, "is that you may not wear any underwear. At
all."
Despite his lack of rest, Trowa couldn't help but crack a slight half-smile
and gently shake his head. He had no idea where Duo was going with this;
when it came to Duo, idea usually fell into three categories: the Good, the
Bad, and the Ugly. God only knew which one this crazy scheme would fall
into. All he knew as he went into his closet and stripped himself of his
sleepwear was that he was sucked into Duo's riptide, and had to go along
for the ride. He just hoped that Duo Maxwell would be good to him.
Half an hour later, there was a grand assembly of five, sitting on a small
and not terribly well-made quasi-pier (basically some conveniently placed
two-by-fours and logs, with the occasional nail to snag your elbow on, and
a stripe of wood glue, errantly placed to remind you that some effort was
made to secure this death trap,) hanging a meter or so off the edge over a
river. Three sat with their backs to the rushing water, trying not to
shiver. None of them had realized just how much having underwear meant to
them until they were sitting alone in the forest at two in the morning
without it. Duo stood before them, hands on his hips, with Heero behind him
in a bodyguard stance, ready to kick ass and take names, should the need
arise.
"Brethren," Duo began slowly, drawing out his voice and pulling it down to
a healthy old man voice, which opened him up for all sorts of torture from
a miniscule, but sleep-deprived, peanut gallery.
"Dude, cut the crap," Wufei called back. Heero's active foot slid forward
just an inch, as the Chinese boy wrapped his arms around his chest,
gripping them at the elbows. "It's late."
"Silence, young Wuf-Bear, for Shinigami is easily angered and shall cast
infidels into the raging waters of TTK river," Duo retorted, his eyes
holding a slight, but innocent, flash to them as he spoke.
"TTK?" asked Quatre, called Sharkbait.
"All will be explained in due time, my young apprentice." Duo knocked his
braid back across his shoulders, so that it drifted down his back and
snorted before he continued. "You have all been summoned here to, if you
dare, be named as elite and prestigious members of EDITE."
"Which is...?"
"An acronym."
There was a silence following the time in which Duo had pointed out the
blatantly obvious. When they realized that this would require further
prodding, Wufei asked, "Which stands for...?"
Duo's lips curled over his teeth with a wicked grin. "Everyone Dies In The
End." A very small wave of tension snapped through the "crowd," an electric
whip slapping their backs. Sharkbait looked to Nanashi for some kind of
support. He put one hand on the gentle blonde's shoulder. He wasn't sure
what was going to happen, but somewhere deep inside he was almost positive
that he should have shut the window and gone back to sleep when he had the
chance. "Also known as the Super Suicide Society." Oh, yeah. He was
definitely wishing that he had left this one alone.
"Duo... what are you talking about?"
"Suicide, one of the leading causes of death in this country and others.
Call this a combination between being a statistic and being an occult
member." Heero didn't move throughout this. There was no nervousness in his
eyes, no quaking fear behind the bodyguard façade. He remained stone
silent. Everyone else sat thinking the same thought that only Quatre has
the audacity to say.
"Duo..."
"Shinigami," Duo corrected, with an air of superiority tainting his usually
placid and joyful voice.
"Shinigami... I have very limited, if any interest in suicide." Quatre was
always polite in his answers, never directly saying no, but anyone could
tell how much he wanted to throw something at Duo and run. The kid had a
hard time even retching out the word 'suicide,' as though if he didn't
think it or say it, then it would never happen to anyone.
"Neither do I, young Sharkbait. At least, not now. But suppose that
somewhere in the future, your life goes wrong, terribly horribly awry.
Wouldn't you want somewhere to go? That's us. We are the fire escape of
your life, if you will, the emergency exit procedure at thirty thousand
feet. We are your easy way out."
"You are weak," Wufei replied suddenly, rising to his feet. His pelvis
jutted forward as he seemed to drop back and rest on his spine. "You're
trying to guide us through the doors of shame. Things are not easy in this
life, and that is why we call it that. Life is hard, but only the
dishonorable would consider the road that you've inspired."
Duo's face didn't flinch throughout. He was in a Zen, placid and calm; even
Wufei's ramblings would not shake him, not right now. His eyes watched
Wufei's mouth as they formed the harsh words that spit across his ears
before they dissipated into nothingness in the river. When he was certain
that the speech was over, he looked calmly into the yon man's eyes, and
spoke to him, his voice gentle, but with the pretenses still intact. "Wuf-
Bear, you were only selected; we've led you to the water, but only you can
drink. If you want to leave, you're free to go at any time. No one's
holding you here, save for one condition." Wufei stared at Duo, his
confusion haphazardly masked with an icy glare. A click was heard and the
cold gleam of a knife shone in the moonlight, dappling the ground in
between the drooping branches, held by Heero's steady hand. "You tell
anyone about EDITE, about what we do here, or that you have any information
on it, and we will find you. We will hunt you down, and when we do, I'll
hold your shoulders against the ground while Wing here," He gestured over
to Heero, who took a small step forward, allowing the artic reflection of
the knife to enter his Prussian eyes, "will take your balls." Wufei notably
paled, even in the darkness. His icy glare faded into an expression of
terror, and you could visibly see his arms tense in and effort not to
instinctively cup his fingers around his crotch to protect it from Heero's
sporadic pursuits of the blade. "We will bury them separately, and you will
never ever find them. Are we clear?"
A silent moment passed between the two of them, and that gave Wufei time to
reapply his standard mask of anger. "Crystal," he answered, his teeth
clenched together. Duo stepped back easily, leaning against nothing in
particular to put his body at a relaxed angle, and Heero followed suit,
although he remained in his standard-issue pseudo-soldier straight-spine
position, closing the knife and letting it slip back into his pocket before
anyone was really sure that they had understood what just happened.
"You may go. Catch you later, Wufei." For that one instant, Duo was not
Shinigami, but rather himself, the Duo that Trowa had come to recognize.
Trowa soon realized that who you were here would never even compare to who
you were in anywhere else in the world. EDITE was about suicide; that was
its sole operation. It was their reality. In the dream world, Duo was silly
and Heero occasionally attempted to follow suit. EDITE was for when clowns
like Duo fall down, when the Quatres of the world stumble and when the
Heeros and the Trowas realized that they couldn't be who they were sure
they wanted to be. EDITE was the angst, condensed into a platform just over
the edge. EDITE was the place to jump from when all you wanted to do was
fall.
Duo shrugged off Wufei's departure with ease. "I was hoping for an even
number anyway," he replied easily. "Wing? If you would please?" Heero
nodded, and disappeared for a moment behind a tree. He re-emerged with an
average sized box, bigger than shoe but smaller than refrigerator, and
passed it into Duo's waiting hands. Then, they waited. The whole thing was
filled with a grandiose mysticism and bravado, the kind you know is meant
to scare you, and give you that Sword-of-Damocles kind of feeling that you
just can't shake, no matter what you try to do it. Then, Duo knelt down on
one knee, setting the box in front of him gingerly, like a delicate
porcelain doll. Trowa and Quatre subconsciously leaned forward; they
couldn't help but anxiously anticipate what lay beneath the lid.
"Shinigami?" Trowa asked, his voice barely a breathy whisper as he kept
himself mindful of the use of the nicknames, "what is this?"
"This..." Duo began slowly, reaching inside, "is the crown jewel of the EDITE
society." He pulled his hands out, and Quatre gasped as he saw the
contents. Glinting in the moonlight, with the river as a soundtrack, was a
black barrel, protruding from the handle of a gun. The metal was solid and
cold as the light caught in Trowa's eyes. Duo tossed it back and forth from
hand to hand like some kind of toy.
"Holy shit, Duo."
"Shinigami," Duo corrected absentmindedly, his eyes never leaving the steel
in front of them.
"Cut the crap!" Trowa exclaimed, rolling forward onto his hands and knees
so that he was eye-to-eye with Duo. "This is serious. You're only fifteen
years old. How did you get a gun?" It was true that Duo didn't look his
age, but there was no way he could have passed for someone who didn't need
I.D. to buy a firearm.
Duo's only answer for a moment was a smile, gently sliding from the corner
of his lips up his mouth into a slim curve of mischievous grin. He let the
gun fall a little looser in his hand as he tilted his wrist downward and
looked up at Trowa. "Oh, this? This one's mine. It was the other three that
caused me trouble." Trowa's jaw dropped.
"The other three?"
Duo turned the box around, his face never changing. "See for yourself."
Trowa stared, utterly slack-jawed at the box. Inside was a hole where one
should be, and then two stacked on top of each other beside the one that
lay alone. Guns. So many freaking guns. Stuffed into one side was an
unsealed envelope that barely even caught Trowa's eye.
"This isn't right, Duo. This is sick. This is twisted. This... this is crazy.
I mean what are we going to do? Blow our brains out tonight?"
"Not unless you want to," Duo replied. He let the gun slide across his idle
fingers until the handle pointed at Trowa. Trowa abruptly snapped
backwards, jumping from the gun like one would a snake.
"You're insane! You're a fucking whack job!"
"No, you're insane!" Duo cried out, rising above Trowa's scrambling frame.
"You've spent almost all of your life lusting for death, pining and preying
after it. Here I am, giving you your chance, your perfect opportunity. You
could do it right now. We'd throw your body in the river, no worries.
You've got pain, but you can take it all away. Why won't you?"
"Because I'm only fifteen," Trowa answered, finally managing to stand up.
He brought himself before Duo's eyes again. "I don't know what pain is."
"What do you want, a fucking dictionary? This is it, right here! Life is
your pain!"
"That doesn't mean I want to die right now!"
"Why not? What's ahead of you?"
"Duo," Heero began slowly. Everyone's head swung back in the silent vacuum
that his voice's absence had left. Duo didn't even bother to correct him
about the names. "You said this wasn't about suicide."
"It's not," Duo replied, a note of panic slowly crawling into his voice as
it sauntered up his throat.
"You said you didn't want it."
"I don't."
"Where's the pressure?"
"I just don't—"
"Why should Trowa want it more than you?" Duo opened his mouth, but Heero
kept going, abruptly cutting him off. "Why should any of us? You're the one
who got the idea. Why aren't you the first to go?"
"You want me to?" he screamed back. "Is that what you fucking want, Heero?
You want to see me out first?"
"Duo, I didn't—" He was interrupted by his own mind. Duo had already pushed
the gun against his temple, and pulled back on the trigger. No one moved.
Quatre looked ashen, as though he might pass out. Trowa's eyebrows were
arched, his green eyes wide with shock, and none of them could bring
themselves to utter a word. Duo's body fell to the ground, abruptly
stopping when his butt hit the hard-packed trail dirt. He smirked, and sat
back, staring at the gun, still in his hand.
"Damn," he said slowly. "Now I have to change them out again." Quatre
stared. His lips quivered ever so slightly, and the look on his face was
indescribable, a combination of mourning and shock and tension. Heero and
Trowa didn't change at all. Duo was the only one who moved at all, turning
the gun over in his hand. "Now we know which one's not loaded."
Trowa couldn't take it anymore. He spat out, "There's a not loaded?"
"Yeah," Duo replied, standing up easily and letting his body droop back
onto his pelvis. "You didn't give me enough time to explain everything.
There are four guns, ne? But only three are loaded."
There was a pause, a silence, as everyone mulled this over.
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Heero responded.
"You'd think that. But you would be wrong. All four of us will be together
when our apocalypse comes." That was what Duo had decided to call the day
they all died. Their Apocalypse. "The first three will shoot each other.
The one who doesn't get a bullet will toss the bodies into the river, along
with the guns, the box, and the statement." No one could say anything. Duo
had obviously spent too much of his free time occupied with suicide, and
intricate ways of committing it. "Then... he'll go in the river himself and
drown. Pretty good, ne?" No one really wanted to argue with Duo's suicidal
theories.
"That's still pretty stupid." Except, of course, for Heero, who was always
quite eager to point out the flaws in plans, and accept criticism for
himself.
"In what way?" Duo asked, folding his arms, and waiting. He could easily
accept any challenge the Heero threw at him. It was getting over the hurdle
and finishing the job that were his downfall.
"Why we would be together?"
"Because we've all gone to shit?"
"Heero's right, Duo," Trowa interrupted, even though it wasn't exactly his
place to do so. Quatre, who still subconsciously believed that Duo had just
shot himself right before his own turquoise eyes was having difficulty
forming any kind of conscientious thought at all. "Why would we all be in
the same place at the same time with a mind to kill ourselves?"
"I don't know exactly," Duo replied, though if anyone were closely watching
his eyes they would be able to see that he did know. "I've just... got a very
strong intuition about this. If I'm wrong, then I owe you a Coke." Trowa
smirked. Duo was often like that; he could go from being deep and
philosophical to farcical in a second, zero to sixty. Then, Duo pulled out
the envelope, and had them all read over the pseudo-charter. They agreed to
the terms and conditions named therein, and signed it all in blood, with
their nicknames (sans Quatre, who couldn't bring himself to write out the
whole length of the name 'Sharkbait,' and was therefore only required to
put down S.B.) Duo slammed the box shut and the group huddled around as he
and Heero buried it at the base of a tree. "Brethren," he added, in a low,
soft voice. "Hope we don't have to dig this up."
They were fifteen when they signed.
Amazingly, their high school proceeded like anyone normally would. They had
their fair share of angst and break-ups, with all of the memories and the
grades for college. The skipped the prom to hang out with some stoners, and
got busted, even though only Duo was smoking. Still, they made their way up
to the university level. They didn't split up too much, though Quatre had
to leave two years later after his father's death, in order to take care of
the family business. Duo skipped out on the call of higher learning, and
drove around the country, taking odd jobs until he got word that Heero was
graduating. The two shared an apartment, and Heero worked a standard nine-
to-fiver, while Duo held down his own mechanics shop/parts warehouse. Heero
gradually moved away after a promotion, and Duo didn't follow. Even though
the two were closer than anyone else, there was always a reason for what
Duo did, and this would prove to be no exception. After college, Trowa
couldn't find a job, so he joined the circus, as an acrobat and a knife-
throwing target.
During his years traveling with the group, Trowa found himself falling head
over heels for Catherine; romance is never far away when the scantily-clad
object of your affection is throwing paring knives at your head. He loved
the circus and everyone in it, though he couldn't bring himself to bring an
honest woman out of Catherine. He didn't realize how much he should have
done it until he was thirty years old and there was a bomb planted in the
nightclub, where all of the people in the circus had been celebrating.
Trowa had stepped out in order to go across the street, and pick up some
chocolate for Catherine and condoms for them to share. When he came back,
the place was in flames, with a fire truck soon arriving on the scene.
Police, firemen, and paramedics prodded him with questions, but he couldn't
say anything. The flames glimmered in his eye, and when one of the firemen
brought back what remained of Catherine's headband the next week, only one
word wormed its way into his head.
Quatre found himself in a predicament that didn't considerably outweigh
Trowa's. After taking over his father's company, he ran it in a way that he
considered to be efficient, and cost-effective, as well as environmentally
friendly. He was wrong on all accounts. First, he discovered the rapid loss
of money that his company was suffering. Then, he found out that his only
major surviving rig had just been nearly demolished by activists, who found
themselves obligated to destroy the evil company of 'the man.' The damages
his company suffered after pollution totaled to millions. The remainder of
his family's seemingly never-ending fortune had been mostly squandered on
his sisters and mindless investments. When all was said and done, he had
enough money to buy a sandwich, a Coke, and a one-way ticket that returned
him to his hometown. On the whole train ride there, Quatre let his eyes
wander over the desolate scenery leading him into Kansas. One word was on
his mind.
Heero's troubles were fairly standard-issue, when you consider what had
happened to the others. His promotion quickly fell out beneath him, and was
unable to find another one. He couldn't find Duo's contact, and couldn't
ask him for a job. After discovering the heinously bad investments he'd
made, he went home to find his wife in bed with another man. He didn't know
what to say. He just walked out, closing the door behind him and leaving
the key in the lock. He didn't really care who else found them. He was
certain she hadn't heard him. He wandered to a bus station and dumped his
briefcase and tie in a garbage can. He used the money left in his wallet to
buy a ticket back home. As the night rolled past him, with a slowly warming
bottle of gin clutched in his hand, he remembered the words: "We are the
fire escape of your life."
EDITE.
Trowa sat on the platform, staring out into the river before him. The
waters flushed below him, and the memories of this place seeped back into
his brain. He remembered that night, when he'd become and 'elite and
charter member' and when his blood had crossed the typewritten page. He
was sure he would never need it, and only signed to suit Duo's fancy. Now,
he was staring at the river, formally called Twinkie The Kid river (TTK) by
the EDITE members, wishing that he knew where the box was buried as he
fought back the tears from his lonely eyes.
"The river's eyes are watching you," came a voice from behind him. Trowa
turned, letting his stubbled chin brush over one shoulder. "Be grateful for
it, because when everything falls apart, he's the only one who'll be able
to pick up the pieces." Behind him was a man, leaning against a tree, with
his braid still tucked behind one shoulder. Trowa couldn't believe the kid
had kept it all these years. Suddenly, he remembered where they had hidden
it, almost fifteen years ago that night.
"Hey, Duo. I haven't seen you in awhile." Trowa turned back, as his braided
friend stepped forward. He reached into his back pocket and magically
produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, then tapped one into his pale,
waiting palm. As he put the white roll between his lips, he offered the
pack to Trowa, who offered him a half-hearted shrug in return. "Might as
well," he replied, taking one. "Staying in shape isn't doing much good
now." Duo lit him up, and then let the lighter's gentle flame fall on his
own. They both stared in silence at the river.
"You came for EDITE, didn't you?"
Trowa sighed heavily, and wiped one tear from the corner of his watery
green eye. "Yeah... I did."
"I heard about the nightclub thing. I'm sorry, man. On the up side,
everyone thinks you're dead."
"And that's good why?"
Duo shrugged in response. "I guess it's not so much 'on the up side' as it
is 'cruelly ironic.' I mean, EDITE's all about not having a meaning, about
how there isn't a purpose. And now..." Duo stared at Trowa, who dragged off
his cigarette before shooting Duo a half-angry look.
"Thanks," he replied, his voice flat and level, with just a hint of sarcasm
managing to taint it.
"No, hey, that's not what I meant." He sighed, and then, after a moment
looked back at Trowa with that coy gleam in his eyes that made the other
man swear he was fifteen years old again. "Besides, I've got good news."
"Really?"
"Sure do." Duo dragged off his cigarette again, before he added, "Shinigami
ga jigoku kara mai modotte kita ze." Trowa smiled in spite of himself. He'd
taken Japanese with him for a little while. The only phrase that Duo was
able to retain for more than a week was that one, 'the God of Death is back
from hell.' It'd become his trademark, almost like a television
catchphrase, and he'd said it frequently, all the way through their senior
year.
"Shinigami! Nanashi!" called a deep voice. They both pivoted their heads
around their necks to see a tall and lean man with spiky black hair. He was
wearing a button-down white shirt, half buttoned down from the collar and a
pair of gray wool pants.
"Wing-man!" Duo exclaimed. "I see you stuck with the baby face look too,
man."
"Yeah," he answered, absentmindedly stroking the smooth skin of his pallid
cheeks. "My girlfriend used to like it."
"Oh, yeah," Duo added, his voice growing softer. "Sorry to hear about that
man."
"Eh." Heero shrugged it off gently, like there was nothing to it, that it
was just one of those things that happened. Yet, he'd come to fulfill his
promise to EDITE, at the young age of thirty. "Light me up, would you?" Duo
tossed the back Heero's way.
"Keep 'em," he replied offhand. "They're shit to me anyway."
"Who gives a fuck?" Trowa replied, blowing a gentle smoke ring out into the
air. "With any luck at all, the three of us will be dead in a few minutes."
"Four," came a light and somewhat effeminate voice from the east. A blond
man sporting a thick mustache emerged from the shadows, approaching them
slowly.
"Lo and behold!" Duo cried, running to throw one arm around the newcomer's
shoulder. "Our buddy, Sharkbait! EDITE has reunited. Want a smoke, good
friend?"
"No. I don't smoke."
"Does it make a difference now?" Trowa muttered. Quatre's turquoise eyes
followed the voice.
"What?"
"You came here to die," Duo filled in. "What could stop you from smoking?"
Trowa let his eyes trace over Duo's motions and gestures, his body stance.
This kid was supposed to be gently over thirty, yet there was no way anyone
would think of him as a day past nineteen, twenty tops.
"I suppose... nothing..." Quatre began. Heero fell easily back into his role as
the strong and silent wingman. He extended the pack to Quatre, who took one
and let Heero extend the flame to him before cautiously lighting it.
"Okay, kids," Duo announced, "who wants to hear the great news?"
The depressed men half-glanced, half-glared at the braided idiot. He
grinned wickedly, even faced with patented stares of death. "The gun box is
not the only thing we've got hidden out here." He reached into a hollow in
the tree, revealing an old wooden box, lightly smeared with some viscous
white substance. He rubbed against the top with his sleeve. "Once you clear
the sap off, it becomes a lot more appealing." When he popped it open,
there were two bottles glistening with a transparent, caramel-colored
liquid, with two resting beneath them.
"Duo... what is this?"
"This, my friend," he began slowly, as his spider-like fingers drew out one
of the bottles carefully, "is some scotch. I bought them for five bucks a
pop when we were kids."
"How'd you get scotch?"
"I've got connections," he replied easily, tossing a bottle to Trowa. The
bottle felt like the kind that mouthwash came in to his waiting hands. This
must have been some cheap shit. It dawned on Trowa then what 'connections'
meant. Duo had a fake I.D. "At any rate, these babies have been gently
aging in the natural habitat of deciduous trees, planted for our benefit by
the city officials, for about fifteen years. With the exception of
Sharkbait, this should be the best drink any of you have ever tasted."
An hour passed from the first fiery sip, and then two more. The boys, now
men, smoked and drank and talked about how much of their lives had turned
so quickly into absolutely worthless shit.
"Those fucking environmentalists," Quatre sobbed, slurring his words
accidentally. "I've got the best safety record out there and they blow up
my shit, which takes all the fucking money I've got to clean up. I can't
sue them of course, there's too damned many! They're a 'government funded
organization!'" A loud snuffling sound came from his nose as he sucked back
in the sliding mucus. "Bastards." He wiped his nose against one arm and
tossed his cigarette butt into the river. "Those damned hippies ruined me,
and they've got nothing to show for it. There's more crap in their precious
ocean now, and it's all their goddamned fault! STICK THAT IN YOUR CRACKPIPE
AND SMOKE IT YOU FUCKING TREEHUGGERS!!"
"Hey, Sharkbait," Duo soothed, as he let one arm slip over the blonde's
shoulders. "No worries, right? It'll all be over soon. Here," he added,
raising the bottle in Quatre's hands to his lips as though he was guiding a
baby's bottle to its mouth. "Just relax," he whispered, petting the
blonde's head as snot was smeared all over the sleeves of his shirt. "It'll
be okay. This will all be over soon. This will all go away. I promise."
Quatre just nodded and sucked down more scotch. Heero let his eyes fall on
the gentle caress of Duo's hands over the soft hair of Quatre's head. In
the moonlight, he looked like an angel, guiding the lost to his home.
Finally, the scotch and the cigarettes were gone. Four pretty much drunk,
and depressed, men went to the tree with braided limbs. Beneath it, Duo
unearthed the box, a square wooden one that none of them had seen in
fifteen years. It was not as beautiful or sacred as any of them had
remembered, but it would do for its purpose. Duo opened it slowly, letting
some of the dirt slide out from around the cracks. He swiftly brushed it
away, and pulling out the envelope. He prepared himself to speak, as he
stood. One finger slid across the seal.
"Brethren," he began, having risen to his feet. "Now, I will read to you
our sacred doctrine, the backbone of the EDITE organization. This is a
document that all four of us signed in blood fifteen years ago:
'We the people, the original, charter, and elite members of the secret
society Everyone Dies In The End (hereafter referred to as EDITE) have
found these truths to be self-evident: first and foremost that everyone
dies in the end and that the only meaning to life is taking the scenic
route to death. Second, we find that no matter how many people tell you
that you have a solid and concrete reason to live, if your mental plane is
anywhere above that of a five-year-old, you know that everything that keeps
you here will only lead you further from the ultimate goal, the
aforementioned death. We are all, without doubt at the time of signing this
document, of sound mind and body. We know without doubt that sometime in
our lives we will need EDITE more than we need the air that we breather,
more than the blood that our hearts pump, and more than the lives that
aren't even really ours in the first place. Whether or not we will use it
is truly up to the individual (as few things are.) This is truthfully an
acknowledgement of the infinitesimal insignificance of ourselves and our
lives and all that can be done. We are pawns in a cosmic game and we know
it. This is a route to the outward place, a road to the beyond and a way to
prevent the exhaustion of resources for our fellow human beings, in the
hopes that they may one day crack the code into submission." Duo's eyes
were dark and solid as he finished. Gingerly, he replaced the document in
its unsealed envelope. Then, he pulled the guns from their nests and
distributed them.
At last, with the moon, clear overhead, gently sifting through the trees
onto the grass, the four of them stood together, in a square with both of
their arms extended, a gun in hand. Duo stood across from Quatre, his eyes
misted by his bangs and the darkness, and, in truth, tears. "You ready for
this, kid?"
Quatre wanted to say something that sounded wonderfully bold and unafraid,
but those words wouldn't come. He'd come here at the end of his rope, with
nowhere else to turn, no other door to go through. Now, at ground zero, he
wondered to himself if there was any window he could have fit through.
Trowa was beyond caring about anything; as far as he was concerned, death
was the only option, the only thing worth any kind of consideration. Heero
was hesitant only because of this sudden energy he felt around Duo. He
knew, too, that this was his only way. He didn't want to learn, didn't want
the help that could've been given. This was his point and purpose; beyond
it, there was nothing.
Duo saw it all coming.
"Brothers," he said slowly. Their heads turned up to him. "So ends us," The
eyes of the other refocused. "So ends EDITE. Enjoy the ride."
Quatre wanted to cry out as he pulled the trigger, but the bullet that
caught between his eyes quickly silenced him. It was quick and painless for
them all. The air smelled of blood and gun smoke, as three bodies lay on
the ground. Only Duo was left standing.
He smiled slightly as he came to Quatre. The blood on his forehead still
gleamed in the moonlight as Duo brushed back some of the blond locks.
Gently, he kissed the top of his head. For a moment, a silver mark flashed
there, but it faded shortly. Duo followed suit on Trowa then turned to
Heero.
"Okay, kid. Wake up time." Slowly, the shadow rose off the corpse, emerging
from the lonely body that lay on the ground.
"Did he have to fucking shoot me?" Heero muttered, rubbing one hand against
his forehead as he began to take a more solid form. His face was no longer
mature; he looked like he was eighteen again, matching Duo.
Duo shrugged, and pulled out a cigarette. "Poison takes too long and
stabbing is gross, especially if you miss. Trust me you're better off."
"How many times did you have to do this, Shinigami?"
Duo dragged half-heartedly off the cigarette, letting his eyes drift
towards the stars above him. "Around fifty, I think."
"Dying that many times has got to suck."
"You get used to it," Duo replied easily. He tossed Heero the pack and a
lighter, which was caught expertly. Where they had come from, Heero had no
idea. He lit one then surveyed the scene. Duo was knelt beside the
envelope, running his finger across one signature, before folding it up
again. Heero looked down at Quatre.
"You killed Sharkbait?"
Duo sighed and nodded.
"I thought you liked him."
Duo threw Quatre's gun into the river, filling its place with his own. He
ran one hand over the blonde's forehead again, letting his fingers glide
over the smooth skin one last time. "Deus mortis venit ex inferno." Heero
looked down at him, with a slight expression of confusion. He'd understood
the Latin—the god of death is back from hell—but didn't understand his
expression. Duo could sense that as he made his reply. "I did like him. He
was a good kid. That's why I made sure it was me who shot him. I trusted
myself to be good to him. See the shot?" Heero nodded. "He didn't feel a
thing. I've used it dozens of times on kids like Sharkbait. He didn't want
to go." They stayed there together in the silence, Duo's hand still holding
Quatre's wan, still head. Then, Heero broke the tacit silence of mourning
between them.
"What happens now?"
Duo rose, letting the cigarette hang in his mouth as he arched his back.
"Someone will find the bodies and read the note. They'll eventually be
identified and filed as 'homicide/suicide.' You and I will disappear for a
little while, and then start all over again, when we've got a new body for
you."
"Just don't go too far, okay?" Heero whispered, "You're getting harder to
find."
"That's how it goes. You'll understand everything as you get further in."
"I don't think I'll ever understand how you could bring yourself to shoot
Sharkbait."
Duo dropped his cigarette butt on the ground, smashing it beneath his boot.
"After you've taken the souls of children, babies, and good honest mothers
with responsibility, it gets easier." He stared Heero, straight in his
Prussian blue eyes. For the first time, Heero saw the pain that followed
Duo through his life reflected back at him. "When you make orphans out of
lovable boys and girls, guys like Sharkbait are a lot easier. Let's get out
of here okay?"
Heero nodded and followed Duo, as they both disappeared into the shadow of
the woods, with no one to follow them.
Trowa stirred gently from a Zen like sleep. His body was deeply relaxed and
calm, and he was hesitant to move at all from the lingering sleep that
harbored in his muscles. He strained his ears to hear, but couldn't find
anything. He arched his back, rising up on both elbows and putting himself
closer to the window, trying to fully awaken. What noise had woken him up?
Ping. Ping.
There it was again.
Pebbles bounced off his window. He rose, adjusting his boxers as he went
and pulled up the blinds. Below, mired in the shadows, were two figures.
Both were dressed in black, with strong, lithe bodies accentuated by the
outfits. One wore a priest's collar, and had a long braid swung over his
shoulder. When he stepped forward, out from the shadows of the tree, he had
a shining pair of cobalt eyes, and a few streaks of dark paint streaking
his cheeks and the area around his eyes. Trowa has to rub the crusted sleep
from his eyes at least twice to make sure he was actually aware of what he
was seeing. This wasn't the kind of thing that frequently happened to the
teen and he was half-assured that he'd taken some sort of drug before he'd
gone to sleep, and that this was merely a side effect. He unlocked the
window and let the glass slide over his head, as he leaned out, poking his
shoulders, head and bare chest through the window.
"Duo?" he called, his voice still racked with relaxation, "What are you--?"
"Trowa Barton. My name is Shingami. My associate, Wing," He nodded, cocking
his head to the side in order to gesture at the figure in the shadows
behind him. Trowa was positive that the boy was Heero. There was no
mistaking the dark chocolate bangs, even in the dark, and his eyes had an
eerie glow that never left them. The boys were best friends, along with
Trowa and a couple of others. He couldn't imagine why those two were there.
"And I have selected you for a charter and elite memberships in the secret
society known to mere mortals as EDITE. Please put on one pair black pants,
one black shirt, one pair black socks, and one pair black shoes. But, the
golden rule, not to be forgotten," he added, his teeth glowing as his lips
curled back into a sly grin, "is that you may not wear any underwear. At
all."
Despite his lack of rest, Trowa couldn't help but crack a slight half-smile
and gently shake his head. He had no idea where Duo was going with this;
when it came to Duo, idea usually fell into three categories: the Good, the
Bad, and the Ugly. God only knew which one this crazy scheme would fall
into. All he knew as he went into his closet and stripped himself of his
sleepwear was that he was sucked into Duo's riptide, and had to go along
for the ride. He just hoped that Duo Maxwell would be good to him.
Half an hour later, there was a grand assembly of five, sitting on a small
and not terribly well-made quasi-pier (basically some conveniently placed
two-by-fours and logs, with the occasional nail to snag your elbow on, and
a stripe of wood glue, errantly placed to remind you that some effort was
made to secure this death trap,) hanging a meter or so off the edge over a
river. Three sat with their backs to the rushing water, trying not to
shiver. None of them had realized just how much having underwear meant to
them until they were sitting alone in the forest at two in the morning
without it. Duo stood before them, hands on his hips, with Heero behind him
in a bodyguard stance, ready to kick ass and take names, should the need
arise.
"Brethren," Duo began slowly, drawing out his voice and pulling it down to
a healthy old man voice, which opened him up for all sorts of torture from
a miniscule, but sleep-deprived, peanut gallery.
"Dude, cut the crap," Wufei called back. Heero's active foot slid forward
just an inch, as the Chinese boy wrapped his arms around his chest,
gripping them at the elbows. "It's late."
"Silence, young Wuf-Bear, for Shinigami is easily angered and shall cast
infidels into the raging waters of TTK river," Duo retorted, his eyes
holding a slight, but innocent, flash to them as he spoke.
"TTK?" asked Quatre, called Sharkbait.
"All will be explained in due time, my young apprentice." Duo knocked his
braid back across his shoulders, so that it drifted down his back and
snorted before he continued. "You have all been summoned here to, if you
dare, be named as elite and prestigious members of EDITE."
"Which is...?"
"An acronym."
There was a silence following the time in which Duo had pointed out the
blatantly obvious. When they realized that this would require further
prodding, Wufei asked, "Which stands for...?"
Duo's lips curled over his teeth with a wicked grin. "Everyone Dies In The
End." A very small wave of tension snapped through the "crowd," an electric
whip slapping their backs. Sharkbait looked to Nanashi for some kind of
support. He put one hand on the gentle blonde's shoulder. He wasn't sure
what was going to happen, but somewhere deep inside he was almost positive
that he should have shut the window and gone back to sleep when he had the
chance. "Also known as the Super Suicide Society." Oh, yeah. He was
definitely wishing that he had left this one alone.
"Duo... what are you talking about?"
"Suicide, one of the leading causes of death in this country and others.
Call this a combination between being a statistic and being an occult
member." Heero didn't move throughout this. There was no nervousness in his
eyes, no quaking fear behind the bodyguard façade. He remained stone
silent. Everyone else sat thinking the same thought that only Quatre has
the audacity to say.
"Duo..."
"Shinigami," Duo corrected, with an air of superiority tainting his usually
placid and joyful voice.
"Shinigami... I have very limited, if any interest in suicide." Quatre was
always polite in his answers, never directly saying no, but anyone could
tell how much he wanted to throw something at Duo and run. The kid had a
hard time even retching out the word 'suicide,' as though if he didn't
think it or say it, then it would never happen to anyone.
"Neither do I, young Sharkbait. At least, not now. But suppose that
somewhere in the future, your life goes wrong, terribly horribly awry.
Wouldn't you want somewhere to go? That's us. We are the fire escape of
your life, if you will, the emergency exit procedure at thirty thousand
feet. We are your easy way out."
"You are weak," Wufei replied suddenly, rising to his feet. His pelvis
jutted forward as he seemed to drop back and rest on his spine. "You're
trying to guide us through the doors of shame. Things are not easy in this
life, and that is why we call it that. Life is hard, but only the
dishonorable would consider the road that you've inspired."
Duo's face didn't flinch throughout. He was in a Zen, placid and calm; even
Wufei's ramblings would not shake him, not right now. His eyes watched
Wufei's mouth as they formed the harsh words that spit across his ears
before they dissipated into nothingness in the river. When he was certain
that the speech was over, he looked calmly into the yon man's eyes, and
spoke to him, his voice gentle, but with the pretenses still intact. "Wuf-
Bear, you were only selected; we've led you to the water, but only you can
drink. If you want to leave, you're free to go at any time. No one's
holding you here, save for one condition." Wufei stared at Duo, his
confusion haphazardly masked with an icy glare. A click was heard and the
cold gleam of a knife shone in the moonlight, dappling the ground in
between the drooping branches, held by Heero's steady hand. "You tell
anyone about EDITE, about what we do here, or that you have any information
on it, and we will find you. We will hunt you down, and when we do, I'll
hold your shoulders against the ground while Wing here," He gestured over
to Heero, who took a small step forward, allowing the artic reflection of
the knife to enter his Prussian eyes, "will take your balls." Wufei notably
paled, even in the darkness. His icy glare faded into an expression of
terror, and you could visibly see his arms tense in and effort not to
instinctively cup his fingers around his crotch to protect it from Heero's
sporadic pursuits of the blade. "We will bury them separately, and you will
never ever find them. Are we clear?"
A silent moment passed between the two of them, and that gave Wufei time to
reapply his standard mask of anger. "Crystal," he answered, his teeth
clenched together. Duo stepped back easily, leaning against nothing in
particular to put his body at a relaxed angle, and Heero followed suit,
although he remained in his standard-issue pseudo-soldier straight-spine
position, closing the knife and letting it slip back into his pocket before
anyone was really sure that they had understood what just happened.
"You may go. Catch you later, Wufei." For that one instant, Duo was not
Shinigami, but rather himself, the Duo that Trowa had come to recognize.
Trowa soon realized that who you were here would never even compare to who
you were in anywhere else in the world. EDITE was about suicide; that was
its sole operation. It was their reality. In the dream world, Duo was silly
and Heero occasionally attempted to follow suit. EDITE was for when clowns
like Duo fall down, when the Quatres of the world stumble and when the
Heeros and the Trowas realized that they couldn't be who they were sure
they wanted to be. EDITE was the angst, condensed into a platform just over
the edge. EDITE was the place to jump from when all you wanted to do was
fall.
Duo shrugged off Wufei's departure with ease. "I was hoping for an even
number anyway," he replied easily. "Wing? If you would please?" Heero
nodded, and disappeared for a moment behind a tree. He re-emerged with an
average sized box, bigger than shoe but smaller than refrigerator, and
passed it into Duo's waiting hands. Then, they waited. The whole thing was
filled with a grandiose mysticism and bravado, the kind you know is meant
to scare you, and give you that Sword-of-Damocles kind of feeling that you
just can't shake, no matter what you try to do it. Then, Duo knelt down on
one knee, setting the box in front of him gingerly, like a delicate
porcelain doll. Trowa and Quatre subconsciously leaned forward; they
couldn't help but anxiously anticipate what lay beneath the lid.
"Shinigami?" Trowa asked, his voice barely a breathy whisper as he kept
himself mindful of the use of the nicknames, "what is this?"
"This..." Duo began slowly, reaching inside, "is the crown jewel of the EDITE
society." He pulled his hands out, and Quatre gasped as he saw the
contents. Glinting in the moonlight, with the river as a soundtrack, was a
black barrel, protruding from the handle of a gun. The metal was solid and
cold as the light caught in Trowa's eyes. Duo tossed it back and forth from
hand to hand like some kind of toy.
"Holy shit, Duo."
"Shinigami," Duo corrected absentmindedly, his eyes never leaving the steel
in front of them.
"Cut the crap!" Trowa exclaimed, rolling forward onto his hands and knees
so that he was eye-to-eye with Duo. "This is serious. You're only fifteen
years old. How did you get a gun?" It was true that Duo didn't look his
age, but there was no way he could have passed for someone who didn't need
I.D. to buy a firearm.
Duo's only answer for a moment was a smile, gently sliding from the corner
of his lips up his mouth into a slim curve of mischievous grin. He let the
gun fall a little looser in his hand as he tilted his wrist downward and
looked up at Trowa. "Oh, this? This one's mine. It was the other three that
caused me trouble." Trowa's jaw dropped.
"The other three?"
Duo turned the box around, his face never changing. "See for yourself."
Trowa stared, utterly slack-jawed at the box. Inside was a hole where one
should be, and then two stacked on top of each other beside the one that
lay alone. Guns. So many freaking guns. Stuffed into one side was an
unsealed envelope that barely even caught Trowa's eye.
"This isn't right, Duo. This is sick. This is twisted. This... this is crazy.
I mean what are we going to do? Blow our brains out tonight?"
"Not unless you want to," Duo replied. He let the gun slide across his idle
fingers until the handle pointed at Trowa. Trowa abruptly snapped
backwards, jumping from the gun like one would a snake.
"You're insane! You're a fucking whack job!"
"No, you're insane!" Duo cried out, rising above Trowa's scrambling frame.
"You've spent almost all of your life lusting for death, pining and preying
after it. Here I am, giving you your chance, your perfect opportunity. You
could do it right now. We'd throw your body in the river, no worries.
You've got pain, but you can take it all away. Why won't you?"
"Because I'm only fifteen," Trowa answered, finally managing to stand up.
He brought himself before Duo's eyes again. "I don't know what pain is."
"What do you want, a fucking dictionary? This is it, right here! Life is
your pain!"
"That doesn't mean I want to die right now!"
"Why not? What's ahead of you?"
"Duo," Heero began slowly. Everyone's head swung back in the silent vacuum
that his voice's absence had left. Duo didn't even bother to correct him
about the names. "You said this wasn't about suicide."
"It's not," Duo replied, a note of panic slowly crawling into his voice as
it sauntered up his throat.
"You said you didn't want it."
"I don't."
"Where's the pressure?"
"I just don't—"
"Why should Trowa want it more than you?" Duo opened his mouth, but Heero
kept going, abruptly cutting him off. "Why should any of us? You're the one
who got the idea. Why aren't you the first to go?"
"You want me to?" he screamed back. "Is that what you fucking want, Heero?
You want to see me out first?"
"Duo, I didn't—" He was interrupted by his own mind. Duo had already pushed
the gun against his temple, and pulled back on the trigger. No one moved.
Quatre looked ashen, as though he might pass out. Trowa's eyebrows were
arched, his green eyes wide with shock, and none of them could bring
themselves to utter a word. Duo's body fell to the ground, abruptly
stopping when his butt hit the hard-packed trail dirt. He smirked, and sat
back, staring at the gun, still in his hand.
"Damn," he said slowly. "Now I have to change them out again." Quatre
stared. His lips quivered ever so slightly, and the look on his face was
indescribable, a combination of mourning and shock and tension. Heero and
Trowa didn't change at all. Duo was the only one who moved at all, turning
the gun over in his hand. "Now we know which one's not loaded."
Trowa couldn't take it anymore. He spat out, "There's a not loaded?"
"Yeah," Duo replied, standing up easily and letting his body droop back
onto his pelvis. "You didn't give me enough time to explain everything.
There are four guns, ne? But only three are loaded."
There was a pause, a silence, as everyone mulled this over.
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Heero responded.
"You'd think that. But you would be wrong. All four of us will be together
when our apocalypse comes." That was what Duo had decided to call the day
they all died. Their Apocalypse. "The first three will shoot each other.
The one who doesn't get a bullet will toss the bodies into the river, along
with the guns, the box, and the statement." No one could say anything. Duo
had obviously spent too much of his free time occupied with suicide, and
intricate ways of committing it. "Then... he'll go in the river himself and
drown. Pretty good, ne?" No one really wanted to argue with Duo's suicidal
theories.
"That's still pretty stupid." Except, of course, for Heero, who was always
quite eager to point out the flaws in plans, and accept criticism for
himself.
"In what way?" Duo asked, folding his arms, and waiting. He could easily
accept any challenge the Heero threw at him. It was getting over the hurdle
and finishing the job that were his downfall.
"Why we would be together?"
"Because we've all gone to shit?"
"Heero's right, Duo," Trowa interrupted, even though it wasn't exactly his
place to do so. Quatre, who still subconsciously believed that Duo had just
shot himself right before his own turquoise eyes was having difficulty
forming any kind of conscientious thought at all. "Why would we all be in
the same place at the same time with a mind to kill ourselves?"
"I don't know exactly," Duo replied, though if anyone were closely watching
his eyes they would be able to see that he did know. "I've just... got a very
strong intuition about this. If I'm wrong, then I owe you a Coke." Trowa
smirked. Duo was often like that; he could go from being deep and
philosophical to farcical in a second, zero to sixty. Then, Duo pulled out
the envelope, and had them all read over the pseudo-charter. They agreed to
the terms and conditions named therein, and signed it all in blood, with
their nicknames (sans Quatre, who couldn't bring himself to write out the
whole length of the name 'Sharkbait,' and was therefore only required to
put down S.B.) Duo slammed the box shut and the group huddled around as he
and Heero buried it at the base of a tree. "Brethren," he added, in a low,
soft voice. "Hope we don't have to dig this up."
They were fifteen when they signed.
Amazingly, their high school proceeded like anyone normally would. They had
their fair share of angst and break-ups, with all of the memories and the
grades for college. The skipped the prom to hang out with some stoners, and
got busted, even though only Duo was smoking. Still, they made their way up
to the university level. They didn't split up too much, though Quatre had
to leave two years later after his father's death, in order to take care of
the family business. Duo skipped out on the call of higher learning, and
drove around the country, taking odd jobs until he got word that Heero was
graduating. The two shared an apartment, and Heero worked a standard nine-
to-fiver, while Duo held down his own mechanics shop/parts warehouse. Heero
gradually moved away after a promotion, and Duo didn't follow. Even though
the two were closer than anyone else, there was always a reason for what
Duo did, and this would prove to be no exception. After college, Trowa
couldn't find a job, so he joined the circus, as an acrobat and a knife-
throwing target.
During his years traveling with the group, Trowa found himself falling head
over heels for Catherine; romance is never far away when the scantily-clad
object of your affection is throwing paring knives at your head. He loved
the circus and everyone in it, though he couldn't bring himself to bring an
honest woman out of Catherine. He didn't realize how much he should have
done it until he was thirty years old and there was a bomb planted in the
nightclub, where all of the people in the circus had been celebrating.
Trowa had stepped out in order to go across the street, and pick up some
chocolate for Catherine and condoms for them to share. When he came back,
the place was in flames, with a fire truck soon arriving on the scene.
Police, firemen, and paramedics prodded him with questions, but he couldn't
say anything. The flames glimmered in his eye, and when one of the firemen
brought back what remained of Catherine's headband the next week, only one
word wormed its way into his head.
Quatre found himself in a predicament that didn't considerably outweigh
Trowa's. After taking over his father's company, he ran it in a way that he
considered to be efficient, and cost-effective, as well as environmentally
friendly. He was wrong on all accounts. First, he discovered the rapid loss
of money that his company was suffering. Then, he found out that his only
major surviving rig had just been nearly demolished by activists, who found
themselves obligated to destroy the evil company of 'the man.' The damages
his company suffered after pollution totaled to millions. The remainder of
his family's seemingly never-ending fortune had been mostly squandered on
his sisters and mindless investments. When all was said and done, he had
enough money to buy a sandwich, a Coke, and a one-way ticket that returned
him to his hometown. On the whole train ride there, Quatre let his eyes
wander over the desolate scenery leading him into Kansas. One word was on
his mind.
Heero's troubles were fairly standard-issue, when you consider what had
happened to the others. His promotion quickly fell out beneath him, and was
unable to find another one. He couldn't find Duo's contact, and couldn't
ask him for a job. After discovering the heinously bad investments he'd
made, he went home to find his wife in bed with another man. He didn't know
what to say. He just walked out, closing the door behind him and leaving
the key in the lock. He didn't really care who else found them. He was
certain she hadn't heard him. He wandered to a bus station and dumped his
briefcase and tie in a garbage can. He used the money left in his wallet to
buy a ticket back home. As the night rolled past him, with a slowly warming
bottle of gin clutched in his hand, he remembered the words: "We are the
fire escape of your life."
EDITE.
Trowa sat on the platform, staring out into the river before him. The
waters flushed below him, and the memories of this place seeped back into
his brain. He remembered that night, when he'd become and 'elite and
charter member' and when his blood had crossed the typewritten page. He
was sure he would never need it, and only signed to suit Duo's fancy. Now,
he was staring at the river, formally called Twinkie The Kid river (TTK) by
the EDITE members, wishing that he knew where the box was buried as he
fought back the tears from his lonely eyes.
"The river's eyes are watching you," came a voice from behind him. Trowa
turned, letting his stubbled chin brush over one shoulder. "Be grateful for
it, because when everything falls apart, he's the only one who'll be able
to pick up the pieces." Behind him was a man, leaning against a tree, with
his braid still tucked behind one shoulder. Trowa couldn't believe the kid
had kept it all these years. Suddenly, he remembered where they had hidden
it, almost fifteen years ago that night.
"Hey, Duo. I haven't seen you in awhile." Trowa turned back, as his braided
friend stepped forward. He reached into his back pocket and magically
produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, then tapped one into his pale,
waiting palm. As he put the white roll between his lips, he offered the
pack to Trowa, who offered him a half-hearted shrug in return. "Might as
well," he replied, taking one. "Staying in shape isn't doing much good
now." Duo lit him up, and then let the lighter's gentle flame fall on his
own. They both stared in silence at the river.
"You came for EDITE, didn't you?"
Trowa sighed heavily, and wiped one tear from the corner of his watery
green eye. "Yeah... I did."
"I heard about the nightclub thing. I'm sorry, man. On the up side,
everyone thinks you're dead."
"And that's good why?"
Duo shrugged in response. "I guess it's not so much 'on the up side' as it
is 'cruelly ironic.' I mean, EDITE's all about not having a meaning, about
how there isn't a purpose. And now..." Duo stared at Trowa, who dragged off
his cigarette before shooting Duo a half-angry look.
"Thanks," he replied, his voice flat and level, with just a hint of sarcasm
managing to taint it.
"No, hey, that's not what I meant." He sighed, and then, after a moment
looked back at Trowa with that coy gleam in his eyes that made the other
man swear he was fifteen years old again. "Besides, I've got good news."
"Really?"
"Sure do." Duo dragged off his cigarette again, before he added, "Shinigami
ga jigoku kara mai modotte kita ze." Trowa smiled in spite of himself. He'd
taken Japanese with him for a little while. The only phrase that Duo was
able to retain for more than a week was that one, 'the God of Death is back
from hell.' It'd become his trademark, almost like a television
catchphrase, and he'd said it frequently, all the way through their senior
year.
"Shinigami! Nanashi!" called a deep voice. They both pivoted their heads
around their necks to see a tall and lean man with spiky black hair. He was
wearing a button-down white shirt, half buttoned down from the collar and a
pair of gray wool pants.
"Wing-man!" Duo exclaimed. "I see you stuck with the baby face look too,
man."
"Yeah," he answered, absentmindedly stroking the smooth skin of his pallid
cheeks. "My girlfriend used to like it."
"Oh, yeah," Duo added, his voice growing softer. "Sorry to hear about that
man."
"Eh." Heero shrugged it off gently, like there was nothing to it, that it
was just one of those things that happened. Yet, he'd come to fulfill his
promise to EDITE, at the young age of thirty. "Light me up, would you?" Duo
tossed the back Heero's way.
"Keep 'em," he replied offhand. "They're shit to me anyway."
"Who gives a fuck?" Trowa replied, blowing a gentle smoke ring out into the
air. "With any luck at all, the three of us will be dead in a few minutes."
"Four," came a light and somewhat effeminate voice from the east. A blond
man sporting a thick mustache emerged from the shadows, approaching them
slowly.
"Lo and behold!" Duo cried, running to throw one arm around the newcomer's
shoulder. "Our buddy, Sharkbait! EDITE has reunited. Want a smoke, good
friend?"
"No. I don't smoke."
"Does it make a difference now?" Trowa muttered. Quatre's turquoise eyes
followed the voice.
"What?"
"You came here to die," Duo filled in. "What could stop you from smoking?"
Trowa let his eyes trace over Duo's motions and gestures, his body stance.
This kid was supposed to be gently over thirty, yet there was no way anyone
would think of him as a day past nineteen, twenty tops.
"I suppose... nothing..." Quatre began. Heero fell easily back into his role as
the strong and silent wingman. He extended the pack to Quatre, who took one
and let Heero extend the flame to him before cautiously lighting it.
"Okay, kids," Duo announced, "who wants to hear the great news?"
The depressed men half-glanced, half-glared at the braided idiot. He
grinned wickedly, even faced with patented stares of death. "The gun box is
not the only thing we've got hidden out here." He reached into a hollow in
the tree, revealing an old wooden box, lightly smeared with some viscous
white substance. He rubbed against the top with his sleeve. "Once you clear
the sap off, it becomes a lot more appealing." When he popped it open,
there were two bottles glistening with a transparent, caramel-colored
liquid, with two resting beneath them.
"Duo... what is this?"
"This, my friend," he began slowly, as his spider-like fingers drew out one
of the bottles carefully, "is some scotch. I bought them for five bucks a
pop when we were kids."
"How'd you get scotch?"
"I've got connections," he replied easily, tossing a bottle to Trowa. The
bottle felt like the kind that mouthwash came in to his waiting hands. This
must have been some cheap shit. It dawned on Trowa then what 'connections'
meant. Duo had a fake I.D. "At any rate, these babies have been gently
aging in the natural habitat of deciduous trees, planted for our benefit by
the city officials, for about fifteen years. With the exception of
Sharkbait, this should be the best drink any of you have ever tasted."
An hour passed from the first fiery sip, and then two more. The boys, now
men, smoked and drank and talked about how much of their lives had turned
so quickly into absolutely worthless shit.
"Those fucking environmentalists," Quatre sobbed, slurring his words
accidentally. "I've got the best safety record out there and they blow up
my shit, which takes all the fucking money I've got to clean up. I can't
sue them of course, there's too damned many! They're a 'government funded
organization!'" A loud snuffling sound came from his nose as he sucked back
in the sliding mucus. "Bastards." He wiped his nose against one arm and
tossed his cigarette butt into the river. "Those damned hippies ruined me,
and they've got nothing to show for it. There's more crap in their precious
ocean now, and it's all their goddamned fault! STICK THAT IN YOUR CRACKPIPE
AND SMOKE IT YOU FUCKING TREEHUGGERS!!"
"Hey, Sharkbait," Duo soothed, as he let one arm slip over the blonde's
shoulders. "No worries, right? It'll all be over soon. Here," he added,
raising the bottle in Quatre's hands to his lips as though he was guiding a
baby's bottle to its mouth. "Just relax," he whispered, petting the
blonde's head as snot was smeared all over the sleeves of his shirt. "It'll
be okay. This will all be over soon. This will all go away. I promise."
Quatre just nodded and sucked down more scotch. Heero let his eyes fall on
the gentle caress of Duo's hands over the soft hair of Quatre's head. In
the moonlight, he looked like an angel, guiding the lost to his home.
Finally, the scotch and the cigarettes were gone. Four pretty much drunk,
and depressed, men went to the tree with braided limbs. Beneath it, Duo
unearthed the box, a square wooden one that none of them had seen in
fifteen years. It was not as beautiful or sacred as any of them had
remembered, but it would do for its purpose. Duo opened it slowly, letting
some of the dirt slide out from around the cracks. He swiftly brushed it
away, and pulling out the envelope. He prepared himself to speak, as he
stood. One finger slid across the seal.
"Brethren," he began, having risen to his feet. "Now, I will read to you
our sacred doctrine, the backbone of the EDITE organization. This is a
document that all four of us signed in blood fifteen years ago:
'We the people, the original, charter, and elite members of the secret
society Everyone Dies In The End (hereafter referred to as EDITE) have
found these truths to be self-evident: first and foremost that everyone
dies in the end and that the only meaning to life is taking the scenic
route to death. Second, we find that no matter how many people tell you
that you have a solid and concrete reason to live, if your mental plane is
anywhere above that of a five-year-old, you know that everything that keeps
you here will only lead you further from the ultimate goal, the
aforementioned death. We are all, without doubt at the time of signing this
document, of sound mind and body. We know without doubt that sometime in
our lives we will need EDITE more than we need the air that we breather,
more than the blood that our hearts pump, and more than the lives that
aren't even really ours in the first place. Whether or not we will use it
is truly up to the individual (as few things are.) This is truthfully an
acknowledgement of the infinitesimal insignificance of ourselves and our
lives and all that can be done. We are pawns in a cosmic game and we know
it. This is a route to the outward place, a road to the beyond and a way to
prevent the exhaustion of resources for our fellow human beings, in the
hopes that they may one day crack the code into submission." Duo's eyes
were dark and solid as he finished. Gingerly, he replaced the document in
its unsealed envelope. Then, he pulled the guns from their nests and
distributed them.
At last, with the moon, clear overhead, gently sifting through the trees
onto the grass, the four of them stood together, in a square with both of
their arms extended, a gun in hand. Duo stood across from Quatre, his eyes
misted by his bangs and the darkness, and, in truth, tears. "You ready for
this, kid?"
Quatre wanted to say something that sounded wonderfully bold and unafraid,
but those words wouldn't come. He'd come here at the end of his rope, with
nowhere else to turn, no other door to go through. Now, at ground zero, he
wondered to himself if there was any window he could have fit through.
Trowa was beyond caring about anything; as far as he was concerned, death
was the only option, the only thing worth any kind of consideration. Heero
was hesitant only because of this sudden energy he felt around Duo. He
knew, too, that this was his only way. He didn't want to learn, didn't want
the help that could've been given. This was his point and purpose; beyond
it, there was nothing.
Duo saw it all coming.
"Brothers," he said slowly. Their heads turned up to him. "So ends us," The
eyes of the other refocused. "So ends EDITE. Enjoy the ride."
Quatre wanted to cry out as he pulled the trigger, but the bullet that
caught between his eyes quickly silenced him. It was quick and painless for
them all. The air smelled of blood and gun smoke, as three bodies lay on
the ground. Only Duo was left standing.
He smiled slightly as he came to Quatre. The blood on his forehead still
gleamed in the moonlight as Duo brushed back some of the blond locks.
Gently, he kissed the top of his head. For a moment, a silver mark flashed
there, but it faded shortly. Duo followed suit on Trowa then turned to
Heero.
"Okay, kid. Wake up time." Slowly, the shadow rose off the corpse, emerging
from the lonely body that lay on the ground.
"Did he have to fucking shoot me?" Heero muttered, rubbing one hand against
his forehead as he began to take a more solid form. His face was no longer
mature; he looked like he was eighteen again, matching Duo.
Duo shrugged, and pulled out a cigarette. "Poison takes too long and
stabbing is gross, especially if you miss. Trust me you're better off."
"How many times did you have to do this, Shinigami?"
Duo dragged half-heartedly off the cigarette, letting his eyes drift
towards the stars above him. "Around fifty, I think."
"Dying that many times has got to suck."
"You get used to it," Duo replied easily. He tossed Heero the pack and a
lighter, which was caught expertly. Where they had come from, Heero had no
idea. He lit one then surveyed the scene. Duo was knelt beside the
envelope, running his finger across one signature, before folding it up
again. Heero looked down at Quatre.
"You killed Sharkbait?"
Duo sighed and nodded.
"I thought you liked him."
Duo threw Quatre's gun into the river, filling its place with his own. He
ran one hand over the blonde's forehead again, letting his fingers glide
over the smooth skin one last time. "Deus mortis venit ex inferno." Heero
looked down at him, with a slight expression of confusion. He'd understood
the Latin—the god of death is back from hell—but didn't understand his
expression. Duo could sense that as he made his reply. "I did like him. He
was a good kid. That's why I made sure it was me who shot him. I trusted
myself to be good to him. See the shot?" Heero nodded. "He didn't feel a
thing. I've used it dozens of times on kids like Sharkbait. He didn't want
to go." They stayed there together in the silence, Duo's hand still holding
Quatre's wan, still head. Then, Heero broke the tacit silence of mourning
between them.
"What happens now?"
Duo rose, letting the cigarette hang in his mouth as he arched his back.
"Someone will find the bodies and read the note. They'll eventually be
identified and filed as 'homicide/suicide.' You and I will disappear for a
little while, and then start all over again, when we've got a new body for
you."
"Just don't go too far, okay?" Heero whispered, "You're getting harder to
find."
"That's how it goes. You'll understand everything as you get further in."
"I don't think I'll ever understand how you could bring yourself to shoot
Sharkbait."
Duo dropped his cigarette butt on the ground, smashing it beneath his boot.
"After you've taken the souls of children, babies, and good honest mothers
with responsibility, it gets easier." He stared Heero, straight in his
Prussian blue eyes. For the first time, Heero saw the pain that followed
Duo through his life reflected back at him. "When you make orphans out of
lovable boys and girls, guys like Sharkbait are a lot easier. Let's get out
of here okay?"
Heero nodded and followed Duo, as they both disappeared into the shadow of
the woods, with no one to follow them.