Life Without You
'There is one pain I often feel, which you will never know. It is caused by the absence of you.'
-Unknown
"Duo?"
"Hm?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
He sat up, hearing the tone of his best friend's voice. Subdued. Slightly fearful.
"You already did, but of course you can, 'Fei."
The boy sent a half-hearted glare at him. "Don't call me that."
"'Course, 'Fei."
The other sighed before leaning back to lie on the ground once more. They were on a hillside beside their current safehouse, staring at the sky and thinking. Duo leaned back as well, and waited for Wufei to gather his thoughts.
"Duo, what...what do you fear?"
Duo blinked—talk about unexpected. But he sounded so anxious...so he thought about it.
He was surprised at how much pain the action caused him.
So much pain that he decided to do what he did best—run and hide, at least metaphorically.
"Shinigami don't fear nothing, 'Fei!" he crowed jovially, smiling brightly.
Unfortunately, Wufei was not fooled—at least not that time. "Double negative," he pointed out. "So you fear something."
His smile faltered, and vanished. He turned his head back to the sky, gaze distant and sad.
"I dunno, really...fire, I guess. Silence. Being alone. Losing..." his voice trailed off, lost in distant memories...and some not so distant.
"Losing?" Wufei asked softly, his tone strange.
His eyes closed, trying to block out the pain in his heart. "Losing the people I love, again."
Wufei's voice was even softer. "People you love?"
He shrugged. "Heero. Trowa. Quatre. Howard. Hilde. You."
"Oh," was all his friend said in reply.
He had no idea how much this hurt with him sitting right there, asking him what he feared. Asking him who he loved. Because if Duo weren't such a coward, the only thing he would have said would have been 'you.'
But he didn't say.
The strange, sad moment passed, the war passed, a year passed and Mariemaia passed, and they never spoke of that strange conversation again. Still, Duo didn't say.
And three years later when he stood alone in front of a simple granite headstone, long left by the others, with tears falling silently down his face and being borne away by the wind, he finally said the words that he had before now been too much of a coward to say, far too late to mean anything to the one they were meant for.
"I fear life without you."
...and this was a strange fic for me to write. I'm sitting outside, trying to write Shadows of Yesterday, feeling guilty about Song of the Eclipse and Death's Masque, and this line that's been stuck with me for days suddenly pops into my head along with Duo and Wufei.
And...it appears I actually managed to write shonen-ai. Or whatever you call this. Whoaaa. o.o
So—strange, sad, wistful, maybe actually pretty good? Tell me your thoughts. Thanks to piinkiice and their story Don't You Need Me? for inspiring this. The 'I fear life without you,' line comes from that story. I hold no claim to Gundam Wing or the quote at the top, either.
SOY fans—keep waiting patiently, I'm on the second page of Welcome to Hell. :)
—Erin