Title: Shadows in Your Moonlight part 1/?
Author: Ryoko no Shinigami
Warnings: Implied boy/boy relationship. You not cool with that? Fine with me. Just don't blow bubbles of righteousness up my ass, please. Oh, and expect extreme angst. THIS HAS BEEN RATED EXTREMELY DISTURBING! It involves a severe mental breakdown, as well as disturbing descriptions of death. This is a warning to everyone who isn't comfortable with angst to back away, slowly. Oh, and please leave some pocky for me on your way out.
Pairings: 1x2
Archives: Fanfiction.net. If you want it, please just ask. I'd be flattered, really.
Notes: I don't know why, I was just getting ready to go to medieval re enactment with a friend, and all of a sudden, my angsty muse, Ryoko, came up and boinked me on the head with the Chibi Scythe of Doom ™ (hey, can I help it she doubles as my chibi muse?) Anyway, enjoy the fic
Disclaimers: Don't own 'em. All I have is a radio, a TV/VCR, a small library of anime videos, and a dog. And exactly $3.28 american. That's not even enough to buy a greasy dinner at a truck stop so suing me is a real exercise in futility.
Dedication: To Rystal, as usual, for getting me through all my own mental breakdowns more or less intact.
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Heero woke without opening his eyes, unable for the moment to imagine what could have woken him from his sound sleep. He fully came awake as he realized it was the unusual chill on the other side of the bed. Sitting up, he wondered why it was so dark before remembering the heavy velvet curtains that Duo had hung around the bed earlier that day. In fact, wasn't Duo supposed to be here? That explained the cold, but…Duo?
Heero pushed back the dark red velvet of the curtain with one hand, and his eyes flew immediately to the figure sitting in the window seat, face flooded in moonlight. Body still slim after a childhood on the streets, despite hardened muscle of hard training. Heero took a moment to savor the halo effect the pale light caused, casting a pale aura in the long chestnut strands that framed his lover's face. Then a frown flashed across his own features as he realized that what he had perceived as a heavenly glow came from the dampness on his beloved's cheeks.
He was out of bed and at Duo's side in a moment. Looking down on him, he saw that the smaller boy was hunched over his arms, which were rested on knees drawn up to his chest. Rocking himself back and forth, what had at first seemed an angelic vision now appeared the picture of human misery.
"Duo?"
The boy flinched at the sound of his own name, a wordless moan forced between teeth clenched tight.
"Duo, what's wrong? What's the matter?"
Finally, after an eternity of waiting, Duo turned to look at him.
"I'm a murderer, Heero."
A look of confusion flashed across Heero's face.
"What?"
"I'm a murderer. A cold-blooded, heartless murderer!"
With every word, Duo's voice rose until at last it became a heartbroken wail. The boy buried his face, crossing his hands over the nape of his neck, as though protecting himself from a blow he was sure would come.
Heero shook himself out of his shock. "You're a soldier, Duo. We have to kill those who get in our way. We fight for peace and…"
"No." Duo's voice took on a deathly calm as he raised his head to stare blankly ahead of him. "No. You are the Soldier. You fight for the peace and justice that the world needs. But me," he laughed, bitterly, "I am the Shinigami, God of Death, Great Demon and Destroyer of Worlds." And he looked at Heero, and his eyes pierced straight to his heart. "And I have killed innocents. Have you never wondered, Heero? About those houses around which we wage our endless battles? Have you ever really believed them all to be empty? They were homes, Heero, where children laughed and played. And we destroyed those homes. We destroyed those children." His voice took on that crazed quality again, "And I have seen them, Heero. And I hear them."
Duo raised a hand to his face, and stared at it in horror before twining his fingers through his own loose hair. "I hear them, screaming, and they never stop! And they tell me their stories, of how they hid under their beds, or in the cupboards, hidden away by their families, waiting for the fighting to stop. And they tell me how the walls of their homes fell around them, or how they went up in flames. And they were trapped. Always they were trapped, without a way to escape or to scream or to…or to…"
Duo stopped, gasping painfully for breath as he staggered to his feet. "And they never stop! I have killed too many, and their voices ring endlessly in my ears! The forgotten ones wail and scream, but the mourned ones whisper their stories to me quietly and walk on." He brought a hand up to wipe the sweat from his fevered brow.
"The quiet ones are the worst. Because I know that for every bit of peace I enjoy to finally have refuge from the wailing, there is another wailing somewhere, of a mother or father. Let me tell you a story, Heero," he pushed his lover down into the window seat and stood before him, glorious in his anguish. "Once, while on leave after a mission, I went walking in a town where we were stationed. And the town had been ravaged by war. Our war. And I saw a very old woman, wrapped in rags on a street corner. And she was wailing. And all the other people passed her by. But I stood there, staring at her, and finally I asked her, 'What makes you cry, lady?'."
And she answered me. Told me that she was a great-grandmother, and had seen her entire family, three generations of youth, her son, and his family, and her own little great-grandchild, shot by soldiers because they were suspected of smuggling goods to the other side. And I asked her, 'What side were these evil men on, lady?'."
And Duo stood there, for a single, heart-wrenching second, hands held out to Heero in entreaty. And when he spoke, his voice was a hopeless wail of loss and misery.
"They were on our side, Heero! And they killed them all, right down to the smallest newborn infant, and left the old woman to die alone! And do you know what I did? I threw the woman a coin and I walked away! I walked away!"
Suddenly, Duo's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "But now, Heero, I hear the old woman's voice. And she knows, now, that I wasn't just some boy out for a walk, but a soldier on his day off! And she knows that I could just as easily been part of the group that killed her family. And she tells me," and his head dropped to rest in Heero's lap, "she tells me that she is waiting."
Suddenly, Heero noticed the light of insanity in Duo's eyes. As Heero gasped in horror, Duo stood up again, face cheery with a falsely bright smile. "And what do I do? Why, I play the Joker, of course! Bright-eyed Shinigami, Destroyer with a Grin, that's me!" he threw out his arms as he stood before the window, as though he embraced the moon and stars and everything the night sky had to offer.
"Look at it, Heero! One star for every man, woman, and child that I've sent to their death! Isn't it beautiful? And look!" he pointed out the window, "there's the star for the infant grandchild of that old woman!" and he broke out in hysterical laughter.
Heero had wondered how long it would take for Duo's cries to wake the household. There came a tentative knocking on his bedroom door, as the soft voice of Quatre called out, muffled by the thick wood, "Duo? Heero, is everything all right?"
"All right? Of course I'm all right! Just contemplating the waste, the complete waste of all the destruction I have wrought! I could turn cartwheels just thinking about it!" and Duo laughed with childish glee.
Heero ran for the door. He wrenched it open, dove through, and pulled it shut as fast as he could. Leaning against the solid oak, he looked up panting into three sets of very worried eyes. Pushing his mussed hair out of his eyes, he whispered in a voice that spoke volumes.
"I think Duo may have just gone completely insane."