DISCLAIMERS: I own nothing, which is a shame. But then again, if I owned it
all, then this wouldn't be called "fan fiction." The song is by the Eels,
called "Flower." It's great, and it sets the tone of the fic.
NOTES: This is all in first person, so no POV changes like I usually do… or do I? Eh, who cares? I haven't written in forever, anyway.
THE FIC: Flower
BY: Maxwell-Yuy
Turn the ugly light off god
Wanna feel the night
At night I can hear the blood running through my veins, as dark and cold as the world around me, like a whisper of a ghost. Blackened angels greet me while I dream of dying. I've lived my whole life fading out of existence like dust in the wind with no home and no destination, no friends, no purpose. I live for the night, even though if anyone were to see me they'd think me dead.
I'm so numb I can't feel anything anymore. After so long, you tend not to notice the pain. You don't even notice what little love there is, either. Small triumphs? There are none. There's just the sense of pain… but it's not actually pain. It just hurts inside where no one can heal it.
Everyday it shines down on me
Don't you think that I see
I get up and put on that little mask of mine. Such a simple action… Smiling, that is. They say it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. I for one find it much harder to smile; and yet I smile all the time, every day. For some reason, mankind has come to the belief that anyone who seems happy and cheerful for the most part is automatically oblivious to the world. I found that out when I was really young.
Don't you think that I see what it's all about
Don't they know that I can see it all? It hurts, and I deal with it by hiding the pain. I watch them when they stare; I see them. They think that the world is a joke to me. Well, it's not. I don't know anything anymore. All I have ever seen is death and pain. Sorrow is a curse that shrouds my existence. Every part of me, down to the sparse glowing ambers of compassion that lie breathing their last within my heart have felt the pain of war. Nothing of this magnitude can spare victims.
Hard to look the other way
While the world passes me by
It's agony. It's agony keeping up this charade for my friends. They need me to be happy. They need it so that they can keep themselves together. So that they can laugh at times of crisis, of hate. But it isolates me. They pass me by; excluding me from any serious talk about the war and the results of it. My duty is to shrug it off. But damn, it's killing me. I can't release my feelings, and I don't' even know if I feel them anymore. Even the perfect soldier can have a break down publicly. Didn't he do that when he killed Noventa by accident? There are no breaks for me. If I don't laugh or tell a joke… it's like the world is ending. No one knows the real me.
And everyone is trying to bum me out
I'm caught in a never-ending ocean of pain, trying hard to swim to the surface, to catch a breath of air. It seems that everyone is adding more weight, and I can't keep swimming with the guilt and burdens of a soldier that force me to the ocean floor. The most stress: it comes from my closest friend and my worst enemy. Heero. He ignores me for the most part. When he does talk, it's to give me an order or to yell at me. I saw the hate in his eyes the other day. That angelic cobalt blue that I thought could show me kindness or love… that demonic baby blue that twists my tattered heart and tears me into pieces. I saw the flash in his eyes, the glimmer of hatred as he and Wing swooped in front of me to save me in a battle. His eyes… they looked down on me with such fury, disgusted by my inability to do my job. Hating me for compromising the mission. He'll never trust me. He's always trying to back me up, because he knows that I'm flaky, that I'll fail. It's taking its toll.
It's a pretty big world god
And I am awful small
I know he saved me cause he thinks I'm a screw up. I'm so insignificant. Compared to the mission, I'm but one drop of water in a rainstorm. When we got back, I couldn't face him. I just stared out the window, occasionally seeing his reflection in the glass while I wasn't really focused on anything. I know he was staring at me. I don't think he knew that I saw him. He was so quiet, but in an unusual way, as if to say that Duo Maxwell isn't good enough to die in battle. I'm small enough as it is, no one will remember me. So what does it matter if I become a statistic? A number on a chart to tell the young generation about a war they're not supposed to comprehend. But… I am that younger generation… and I do comprehend
Everyday they rain down on me
Flower in a hailstorm
Back when I started to see the world for what it is, I was such a young kid. I should have been playing with friends, not contemplating life and death, not questioning the dogmatic dictations of society. I was such a small child; lost in the raging torrents of life. I didn't stand a chance.
Flower in a hailstorm I'm living for the drought
I wanted to learn what I could, but I couldn't take the onslaught of the common man. It's a good thing to absorb the world, but I couldn't wait for life to let up. I didn't want to grow up; it shouldn't have been necessary. And when I finally found shelter, it was taken from me, too.
I could throw it back at them
But then I play their game
Everyone is trying to bum me out
It's scary how much power I have now. The same people who treated me worse than their trash now depend on me to save them from a tyrannical government. I want to do what's right, but it's hard sometimes. I see their world, I see what they waste, what they take for granted, and I fight the urge to take all that away from them. When you lose everything, you gain character. These people are drones, superficial beings that plague society. Everything to them is money or profit. People don't matter, the numbers do. When I'm on a mission, I can easily press a button and wipe their world out. I can take their companies, their banking accounts, and their identities away from them. I can blow up or hack into their futures. I can make them suffer like I did. But I can't… it's not my style, and frankly, it's depressing.
When I came into this world they slapped me
And everyday since then I'm slapped again
I didn't have a family. I'll never know who they were, where I came from. The first people I can recall knowing didn't know a thing about me; they'd just stumbled upon me. After that, I'd had some people look after me, but never for long. They'd stay so long as I was useful, so by the age of five I had wised up a lot and decided to stay on my own. But even then… I can still see the burning church. And if you look closely, you can still see the fires and tears in my eyes.
Tomorrow's king: an unsightly coward
You see, I know I'm gonna win
I was the only survivor of that because I wasn't brave enough to save anyone else. I'm the most disgusting creature ever created. I left them behind. I was scared, too scared to search for anyone, but not too scared to run out of the building. That was the last day of my childhood. I lost everything that day, but I moved on. I had a purpose after that, and I knew I'd get the better of the bastards that committed the heinous act of murder in that church.
I did, too.
Turn the ugly light off god
Don't wanna see my face
I look in the mirror, and I can't tell who I see. When it's time to get up, I do so lazily, because it's hard to face myself. I go down the stairs; I greet the others. I don't remember the last time I really noticed Quatre making coffee, or Wu-Fei taking a bite of his toast while reading philosophy. I can't recall the last time I really took notice of the side- glances that Trowa gives Quatre, or Quatre's slight blush. I don't remember the last time I took the time to see Heero reading the news and glaring at me from above the crisp pages. Life has become blurred around the edges. I hear a voice far away, almost every morning. It tells me to make myself presentable, or so I think it says. I can't really tell, I can't hear the words, but I just know. When I get up, a figure that seems to look an awful lot like Quatre smiles at me in a pitiful way, and I reflexively grin back and run off to get ready for the day. But upstairs, everything slows down even more. And when I reach the mirror, I look into nothingness.
Everyday it will betray me
Don't you think that I know
Why can't I be the person that I see? Why don't people see me depressed, obsessed, a lost soul begging to be found… no one will ever find me. I see my face again; I see the truth, the vacancy. And when I turn around, it'll betray me. I'll smile, I'll laugh, and everything will be perfectly covered up. No one will know what's going on inside my head, and that's a good thing… I think…
But I yearn for someone to go to, someone to hold onto when I need to cry, when I have to let it all go. I can't hold it all in forever. I need an outlet, and I'm not getting one, I know. I know a lot of things. People who can't express themselves, people who can't show who they really are, how they really feel… we observe. We know a lot about everyone. We know exactly what's going on… or we think we do.
Don't you think that I know what they're talking about
They don't think I'm good enough to be a pilot. They don't think I'm smart enough to be in their elite group. I hear them when they speak, I'm never taken seriously. When I threaten to do something, they laugh. They don't think I have it in me to do anything truly brutal. Well, I don't call myself the God of Death for nothing. Anyone can kill anonymously from within a gundam, but it takes a lot more to kill personally… To be there, bathed in blood, to feel life dying. I've done that, and I'll do it again. I got upset the other day. They were talking about a mission without me, again. They always leave me out of planning missions. I overheard them talking about civilian casualties. My heart stopped when they said that in order to overtake this one base, they'd have to destroy a church that was built into the side of the base, too.
I died. I ran in. I tried to convince them that they couldn't do that, but there was "no other option." It didn't matter that the people inside did nothing wrong. It didn't matter that my own experiences were still haunting me after all these years. The church was part of the foundation of the base; it had to be destroyed, too. I told the guys that I'd kill myself before I took part in any such mission, and the only response I got was a look of pity from Quatre and a glare from Heero. As I turned to leave, I heard Heero say he could convince me to go on the mission with them by the end of the week.
Well, the week is nearly over, the mission is in 48 hours. And I'm not going. It's sad, really. I tell them that I'll kill myself, and they don't even care enough to worry about me or check up on me. It's as if I don't exist, like I'm already gone. But I'm going to show them. They think I'm full of idol threats, but I'm not. I mean it. I will kill myself by the end of the night. It took a while to decide on a method, though. If I use a gun, it'll be too quick and painless for trash like me… and the shot would alert the guys. But if I slit my arms from wrist to elbow and back, I can really suffer, I can really die the way I should: covered in blood and alone. But that may not be too slow, because someone might find me, and then I'd be saved. Drugs are too painless, so I can't O.D.
My final decision was to slit my arms and wait it out, but I've got a gun handy, too. Just in case anyone stumbles upon me or chooses to look for me to go over the mission. So far, the whole floor in this tiny room is covered in blood; the carpet is being soaked. It's nice to know that when I'm found, I'll leave such a mess, they won't know what to do with me.
I think I hear someone coming down the hall. It's a shame; I didn't even get a quarter of an hour to suffer. I reach for the gun; it's cold in my hands. Cold like my heart, black like my soul. I turn it in my fingers, snap off the safety. Surprise, surprise, guys.
If they step on me tonight
they're gonna pay someday
everyone is trying to bum me out
NOTES: This is all in first person, so no POV changes like I usually do… or do I? Eh, who cares? I haven't written in forever, anyway.
THE FIC: Flower
BY: Maxwell-Yuy
Turn the ugly light off god
Wanna feel the night
At night I can hear the blood running through my veins, as dark and cold as the world around me, like a whisper of a ghost. Blackened angels greet me while I dream of dying. I've lived my whole life fading out of existence like dust in the wind with no home and no destination, no friends, no purpose. I live for the night, even though if anyone were to see me they'd think me dead.
I'm so numb I can't feel anything anymore. After so long, you tend not to notice the pain. You don't even notice what little love there is, either. Small triumphs? There are none. There's just the sense of pain… but it's not actually pain. It just hurts inside where no one can heal it.
Everyday it shines down on me
Don't you think that I see
I get up and put on that little mask of mine. Such a simple action… Smiling, that is. They say it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. I for one find it much harder to smile; and yet I smile all the time, every day. For some reason, mankind has come to the belief that anyone who seems happy and cheerful for the most part is automatically oblivious to the world. I found that out when I was really young.
Don't you think that I see what it's all about
Don't they know that I can see it all? It hurts, and I deal with it by hiding the pain. I watch them when they stare; I see them. They think that the world is a joke to me. Well, it's not. I don't know anything anymore. All I have ever seen is death and pain. Sorrow is a curse that shrouds my existence. Every part of me, down to the sparse glowing ambers of compassion that lie breathing their last within my heart have felt the pain of war. Nothing of this magnitude can spare victims.
Hard to look the other way
While the world passes me by
It's agony. It's agony keeping up this charade for my friends. They need me to be happy. They need it so that they can keep themselves together. So that they can laugh at times of crisis, of hate. But it isolates me. They pass me by; excluding me from any serious talk about the war and the results of it. My duty is to shrug it off. But damn, it's killing me. I can't release my feelings, and I don't' even know if I feel them anymore. Even the perfect soldier can have a break down publicly. Didn't he do that when he killed Noventa by accident? There are no breaks for me. If I don't laugh or tell a joke… it's like the world is ending. No one knows the real me.
And everyone is trying to bum me out
I'm caught in a never-ending ocean of pain, trying hard to swim to the surface, to catch a breath of air. It seems that everyone is adding more weight, and I can't keep swimming with the guilt and burdens of a soldier that force me to the ocean floor. The most stress: it comes from my closest friend and my worst enemy. Heero. He ignores me for the most part. When he does talk, it's to give me an order or to yell at me. I saw the hate in his eyes the other day. That angelic cobalt blue that I thought could show me kindness or love… that demonic baby blue that twists my tattered heart and tears me into pieces. I saw the flash in his eyes, the glimmer of hatred as he and Wing swooped in front of me to save me in a battle. His eyes… they looked down on me with such fury, disgusted by my inability to do my job. Hating me for compromising the mission. He'll never trust me. He's always trying to back me up, because he knows that I'm flaky, that I'll fail. It's taking its toll.
It's a pretty big world god
And I am awful small
I know he saved me cause he thinks I'm a screw up. I'm so insignificant. Compared to the mission, I'm but one drop of water in a rainstorm. When we got back, I couldn't face him. I just stared out the window, occasionally seeing his reflection in the glass while I wasn't really focused on anything. I know he was staring at me. I don't think he knew that I saw him. He was so quiet, but in an unusual way, as if to say that Duo Maxwell isn't good enough to die in battle. I'm small enough as it is, no one will remember me. So what does it matter if I become a statistic? A number on a chart to tell the young generation about a war they're not supposed to comprehend. But… I am that younger generation… and I do comprehend
Everyday they rain down on me
Flower in a hailstorm
Back when I started to see the world for what it is, I was such a young kid. I should have been playing with friends, not contemplating life and death, not questioning the dogmatic dictations of society. I was such a small child; lost in the raging torrents of life. I didn't stand a chance.
Flower in a hailstorm I'm living for the drought
I wanted to learn what I could, but I couldn't take the onslaught of the common man. It's a good thing to absorb the world, but I couldn't wait for life to let up. I didn't want to grow up; it shouldn't have been necessary. And when I finally found shelter, it was taken from me, too.
I could throw it back at them
But then I play their game
Everyone is trying to bum me out
It's scary how much power I have now. The same people who treated me worse than their trash now depend on me to save them from a tyrannical government. I want to do what's right, but it's hard sometimes. I see their world, I see what they waste, what they take for granted, and I fight the urge to take all that away from them. When you lose everything, you gain character. These people are drones, superficial beings that plague society. Everything to them is money or profit. People don't matter, the numbers do. When I'm on a mission, I can easily press a button and wipe their world out. I can take their companies, their banking accounts, and their identities away from them. I can blow up or hack into their futures. I can make them suffer like I did. But I can't… it's not my style, and frankly, it's depressing.
When I came into this world they slapped me
And everyday since then I'm slapped again
I didn't have a family. I'll never know who they were, where I came from. The first people I can recall knowing didn't know a thing about me; they'd just stumbled upon me. After that, I'd had some people look after me, but never for long. They'd stay so long as I was useful, so by the age of five I had wised up a lot and decided to stay on my own. But even then… I can still see the burning church. And if you look closely, you can still see the fires and tears in my eyes.
Tomorrow's king: an unsightly coward
You see, I know I'm gonna win
I was the only survivor of that because I wasn't brave enough to save anyone else. I'm the most disgusting creature ever created. I left them behind. I was scared, too scared to search for anyone, but not too scared to run out of the building. That was the last day of my childhood. I lost everything that day, but I moved on. I had a purpose after that, and I knew I'd get the better of the bastards that committed the heinous act of murder in that church.
I did, too.
Turn the ugly light off god
Don't wanna see my face
I look in the mirror, and I can't tell who I see. When it's time to get up, I do so lazily, because it's hard to face myself. I go down the stairs; I greet the others. I don't remember the last time I really noticed Quatre making coffee, or Wu-Fei taking a bite of his toast while reading philosophy. I can't recall the last time I really took notice of the side- glances that Trowa gives Quatre, or Quatre's slight blush. I don't remember the last time I took the time to see Heero reading the news and glaring at me from above the crisp pages. Life has become blurred around the edges. I hear a voice far away, almost every morning. It tells me to make myself presentable, or so I think it says. I can't really tell, I can't hear the words, but I just know. When I get up, a figure that seems to look an awful lot like Quatre smiles at me in a pitiful way, and I reflexively grin back and run off to get ready for the day. But upstairs, everything slows down even more. And when I reach the mirror, I look into nothingness.
Everyday it will betray me
Don't you think that I know
Why can't I be the person that I see? Why don't people see me depressed, obsessed, a lost soul begging to be found… no one will ever find me. I see my face again; I see the truth, the vacancy. And when I turn around, it'll betray me. I'll smile, I'll laugh, and everything will be perfectly covered up. No one will know what's going on inside my head, and that's a good thing… I think…
But I yearn for someone to go to, someone to hold onto when I need to cry, when I have to let it all go. I can't hold it all in forever. I need an outlet, and I'm not getting one, I know. I know a lot of things. People who can't express themselves, people who can't show who they really are, how they really feel… we observe. We know a lot about everyone. We know exactly what's going on… or we think we do.
Don't you think that I know what they're talking about
They don't think I'm good enough to be a pilot. They don't think I'm smart enough to be in their elite group. I hear them when they speak, I'm never taken seriously. When I threaten to do something, they laugh. They don't think I have it in me to do anything truly brutal. Well, I don't call myself the God of Death for nothing. Anyone can kill anonymously from within a gundam, but it takes a lot more to kill personally… To be there, bathed in blood, to feel life dying. I've done that, and I'll do it again. I got upset the other day. They were talking about a mission without me, again. They always leave me out of planning missions. I overheard them talking about civilian casualties. My heart stopped when they said that in order to overtake this one base, they'd have to destroy a church that was built into the side of the base, too.
I died. I ran in. I tried to convince them that they couldn't do that, but there was "no other option." It didn't matter that the people inside did nothing wrong. It didn't matter that my own experiences were still haunting me after all these years. The church was part of the foundation of the base; it had to be destroyed, too. I told the guys that I'd kill myself before I took part in any such mission, and the only response I got was a look of pity from Quatre and a glare from Heero. As I turned to leave, I heard Heero say he could convince me to go on the mission with them by the end of the week.
Well, the week is nearly over, the mission is in 48 hours. And I'm not going. It's sad, really. I tell them that I'll kill myself, and they don't even care enough to worry about me or check up on me. It's as if I don't exist, like I'm already gone. But I'm going to show them. They think I'm full of idol threats, but I'm not. I mean it. I will kill myself by the end of the night. It took a while to decide on a method, though. If I use a gun, it'll be too quick and painless for trash like me… and the shot would alert the guys. But if I slit my arms from wrist to elbow and back, I can really suffer, I can really die the way I should: covered in blood and alone. But that may not be too slow, because someone might find me, and then I'd be saved. Drugs are too painless, so I can't O.D.
My final decision was to slit my arms and wait it out, but I've got a gun handy, too. Just in case anyone stumbles upon me or chooses to look for me to go over the mission. So far, the whole floor in this tiny room is covered in blood; the carpet is being soaked. It's nice to know that when I'm found, I'll leave such a mess, they won't know what to do with me.
I think I hear someone coming down the hall. It's a shame; I didn't even get a quarter of an hour to suffer. I reach for the gun; it's cold in my hands. Cold like my heart, black like my soul. I turn it in my fingers, snap off the safety. Surprise, surprise, guys.
If they step on me tonight
they're gonna pay someday
everyone is trying to bum me out