Title: Promises to Keep
Author: Ryoko no Shinigami
Warnings: Extreme angst, melodrama, death, and sap. Implied yaoi between 1x2.
Notes: This was inspired by Robert Frost's poem, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'. The poem at the end is the last four lines of that work. This is a fairly common concept, (Duo reminiscing after the war about his previous life,) with what I hope is an uncommon twist.
Dedication: To Shen'a'dra, Voodoo Fighting Weasel, *Sparky*, and Hitokiri-san. I know I always say, 'Getting me to promise something is easy, but getting me to stick to that promise is hard.' You four can rest assured that for you, I will always keep my important promises. Love ya lots.
I think it's impossible to pinpoint the exact moment when you fall in love with someone. It's a process of growing, and, like growing, you don't know it's happened until it's too late and you've already done it. Loving Heero was like that. I woke up one day and realized that I loved him, but by then it was too late.
It started innocently enough. We were afraid, and when you're afraid, you reach out for anyone, anything to comfort you. Little by little, our fears came out, and by the time we realized what had happened, we each held so much of each other's heart that when we looked at each other…we knew.
That's not to say I didn't try to stop it. I tried to convince myself that I was just fooling around, that he was just fooling around. It was just hormones. It was just loneliness. But it wasn't fooling around, or hormones, or loneliness. It was love.
I fought it, sure. Imposed upon myself long periods of being alone, without him. Tried to push him away by being annoying. But it didn't work, and he saw through it all. Then I knew I had lost, and I had broken my promise.
He wasn't the first person I'd ever loved, though he probably thought he was. After all, where could a gutter snipe like me, alone and without a family, find any source of companionship? He couldn't know what it was really like.
I did have a family, of sorts. A family made up of all the other urchins and gutter children, in a gang like that. We looked out for each other, stole for each other, lied for each other. On occasion, we died for each other.
Solo was like that. So different from Heero. So alive always, so vibrant and outgoing. He was our unspoken leader, and he took care of us. And I loved him.
We were just children. Scared, frightened. Often cold and hungry. That's one thing I remember well. All my other memories have been worn smooth, like a stone that's been often handled. But the burning cold and aching hunger I remember so clearly I can almost feel it again.
And that was what brought us together. Cold, hunger, and that human need for companionship. And we found it in each other. That was how our group was forged, because we were all frightened and homeless, and we didn't want to be alone any more.
Really, not much different from us five, back during the war. We weren't as cold as often, and we seldom went hungry. But we were terrified, always. Most people will never know what it's like, fearing for your life every single second of every day. Even in that time of war, most people only feel terror once in a while. But terror is a fleeting thing. The body and mind can't sustain terror for long periods of time. After a while, it all settles down to a deep-seated feeling of quiet dread. And that's what brought us all together. We were so different, even down to our basic desires. But we were frightened, and we didn't want to be alone.
Which is why, sometimes, after a long battle, we would just curl up together on the floor of whatever run-down place we're staying, under the blankets all together. The heat of all five of us kept us warm. Sometimes, somebody started crying. It could be any of us. It had been all of us, at one time or another. No one else said anything, we just edged a little closer together.
It was like that on the streets, too. Find a deserted place to sleep for the night, and whoever's there curls up back to back, trying to preserve body heat by drawing their knees up to their chests. Trying to fight off the hunger by pressing their thighs into their stomachs.
The group was a fluid mass. There were the few smaller teams who were inseparable, and they all knew each other. Then there were the ones who were mere acquaintances. And at any time one of these individuals or smaller gangs would wander off, to join another group or to be alone again. But Solo and I were different.
We were a pair, Solo and Duo. And the night, when we all tried to sleep simply because we couldn't keep awake, always found us two together, arms around each other, simply for warmth and to not be so alone. And his breath warmed my forehead. And we each told the other that we were in love, and it was true.
And I loved him, simply because he was Solo. Always risking more than anyone else. Always ready to do a little more. Always taking care of the small kids. Of course, we were all scrawny and undersized, but there were other kids there who were no more than toddlers, their parents caught in a burning building or crushed in a rock fall. The war was indiscriminate as to whose parents were killed. Anybody could wind up on the streets.
Most people don't live like that. Most people have some security, even in war. Most people never see the things I saw before I was six years old. Very few see what I saw every day in battle. I think the battlefield makes anyone a little crazy.
And I was Solo's best friend. When we stole, we stole as a pair, one being a diversion, one grabbing whatever he could. We shared everything, from a chocolate bar I took from a shop to the thin blanket we dug out of a rubbish heap.
We lived a better life together than anyone on the streets had a right to expect. But the plague changed all that.
We saw the horror of the sickness spreading. Little children fell on the sidewalk, searching for comfort, and passersby walked around them. The only man I ever saw react to one of the dying ones was when a small boy coughed blood on his shoes. And the man kicked him, and walked away. There is no room for compassion in war, and less in sickness.
Travelling the back alleyways that were our streets, we saw the bodies of those who had crawled there to die. But we weren't scared, Solo and I, because we were together, two halves of the same whole.
I wasn't even afraid when Solo became sick, only worried. This was a boy who I had seen take on grownups. He was indestructible as far as I was concerned. Besides, life without Solo was inconceivable. If he died, it stood to reason that I would die, too.
When he got worse, I tried to get the vaccine. And I was so angry when I saw it all going to the richer people, the ones who were less likely to be touched by the sickness' curse. I stole it, and brought it to Solo, to cure him.
He wouldn't take it. He told me to give it to the others, to take it for myself. And because he was Solo, and I never questioned him, I did it. But I made sure to save some for him.
It was too late. I saw that when I got back to the abandoned building where he lay. He shivered, even though it was hot out. The sweat on his brow dripped off him, and his eyes were bloodshot. He was hacking, and a thin red stream trailed out the corner of his mouth.
What could I do? I took him in my arms, and cradled his head against my shoulder. When he was awake, I talked to him of all the fun we would have when he got better, whispering what I knew were lies in hopes that by wishing hard enough, they would come true. When he was delirious, or unconscious, I sang to him in a soft, lilting voice, not knowing what I said, probably nothing but a tuneless melody.
When the others came to see him, I fought them off like a savage, turning on the very children who had been at the center of our group. But Solo was the core. All of us revolved around him, tiny starving planets around a boy sun. If one of them said he was dying, I attacked him especially. It wouldn't be true if I didn't say it.
Solo stayed like that for three days, and I stayed with him, without food or water. Near the end of those three days, Solo woke up. He threw his bony arms around my neck, his body shaking as if in a terrible wind. He seemed so frail now, this boy who once could have done everything, who was so strong. He coughed, and it racked his whole body, the blood from his lungs staining my shirt. With effort, he raised his eyes to my face. He had clear blue eyes, now marred and filled with blood. But he saw me, and whispered,
"Do you love me, Duo?"
I had told him so many times how much I loved him. But I couldn't force the words out of my parched throat. So I nodded, and held him closer.
"More than anyone," I rasped.
His whisper was so faint, I almost couldn't hear it when he said, "I love you, Duo. Don't forget me. Don't ever…love…promise…"
"I…I promise…" I whispered, not knowing what I was promising to do.
He fell back into his delusional nightmares then. Once, in his dreams, he called out my name, his head tossing on the thin blanket. But he never woke up again. Less than four hours later, he was dead.
He was less than ten years old.
I lay with him for almost a day. Solo was dead, and I completely expected that I would die also. But, as he had told me to do, I had taken the vaccine. I would not die. It was when I realized this that I think I was most afraid. Because I was alone, and I could not find Solo again.
I wrapped his body up in the sheet, and hoisted him on my shoulders with difficulty. There was no one else to help me. All the others had drifted off long ago.
There was only one place to put him, only one place worthy of my only friend. There was a tiny park, in a slightly better part of the colony. In one night, I carried him there, sometimes stumbling, falling to my knees. But Solo never touched the ground. I wouldn't let him.
When I got there, I went to the only tiny grove of trees, off to one side. Less than twenty earth pines grew there, their heavy trunks close together. There, we had sometimes hidden from people chasing us, to revel in the spoils of the hunt. I dug him a grave with my hands till my fingernails broke, then found a stick and kept digging. When I hit the rocks four feet under the soil, I shifted them to make a hollow. Finally, when his grave was acceptable, I laid Solo in. I took the sheet from around him, though. There were so few, and so many of us went cold. I couldn't waste it. Solo wouldn't have wanted it that way.
For the second time in my life, I had lost everything I cared about. Once, the parents I didn't remember, and now, the only friend I had ever known.
I was around seven years old. And I cried.
Several years later, I lost everything once again, during the Maxwell Church massacre. And I cried then, too. And then I simply ran out of tears. No one else, none of the people I killed or saw killed, none of them were worthy of my tears after that.
I thought of Solo often, before and after that. I thought of his last words. He said he loved me, and then…
"Don't ever…love…promise…"
I agonized for hours over what he had said. What had I promised him? Don't ever what?
I don't know how I came to the conclusion that he had meant I was never to love anyone else. Maybe it was because by that time, after Sister Helen and Father Maxwell were killed in the Church, I was convinced that anyone I loved would be killed, simply by association of me loving them. Maybe it was because I wasn't able to love, for fear of losing everything again. Either way, Solo's meaning was clear.
I had promised him never to love again.
Which was why I nearly went crazy, after realizing I had fallen in love with Heero. I had betrayed Solo, had violated his memory. I had sworn never to love again, and now…
That was what brought me to be standing again in the small grove of trees, in the tiny park on L2 Colony. It had been more than ten years, now, but I still knew exactly where he was.
In more than ten years, I had grown. I will always have the look of someone who was starved as a child, but I put on some inches. What was then skin stretched over bone was honed by the war and more regular food into muscle. I wasn't hungry any more. I had a job, and a home, and a lover. Even though it was winter, and the weather simulator made cold and snow, I didn't feel the cruel chill because of my coat, something I would never have thought of owning back then.
I knelt beside his grave. I knew I had grown, because the hollow that had easily hidden two starving boys in hiding was now barely big enough for me to stand. And I thought back to Solo, the Church, my training as a pilot, the war…the eventual peace.
And I thought back further, as far as I could. My earliest memory was of telling Solo I had decided to name myself Duo, because if he was Solo, together we'd be a duo.
Farther back there, somewhere, must be memories of my parents. I must have had parents once, but now, the memories are inaccessible. One day, maybe I'll reach them, and know finally how they died, how they came to leave me on the streets to starve.
Part of me wanted to lay down beside Solo again. I wanted to lay there, and just…stop. The trees were quiet, the snow brushing through the pine needles the only sound.
And it was then that I had a moment of startling clarity. A memory I thought I had forgotten, of me and Solo and a group of boys. We were huddled around a small fire, sitting on the floor or on packing crates someone had thrown out. We were talking about wishes.
"If you could have anything in the world, what would you wish for?"
One boy said a warm coat. Another said a feast, with all the food he could eat. One boy, who had just joined us after his mother was killed in the crossfire of a gunfight, said he'd choose family. When it was his turn, Solo said,
"Love."
None of us knew what to make of this. Here we were, cold, starving, and homeless, and more than warmth, food, or security, he wanted love?
"Because love is like warmth," he said, "and if you have someone to be hungry with, it isn't so bad, and as long as you're not alone, you're safe."
He was wiser at eight than I can ever hope to be.
And it was then that I knew that Solo would never have forbidden me to love. If anything, he was forbidding me to stop loving. That was like Solo, always looking out, to try to make sure that I was safe, even when he was dying. It was my stupidity that had made me blind to his meaning.
The tears running down my face were icy in the winter air as knelt and laid my hand for the last time upon his grave, the light coating of snow burning my bare hand. And then I turned and walked out of the tiny group of trees, into the gathering dusk. Back through the now-peaceful streets. My sacrifices, and those of others, had brought peace to these streets. We still had to work to uphold the peace and prevent another war, but there were no more roving packs of starving children. No more children here were growing up like me, with nothing.
I walked back to Heero who was waiting for me. I had promised him I would come back.
'The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.'
Owari
Author: Ryoko no Shinigami
Warnings: Extreme angst, melodrama, death, and sap. Implied yaoi between 1x2.
Notes: This was inspired by Robert Frost's poem, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'. The poem at the end is the last four lines of that work. This is a fairly common concept, (Duo reminiscing after the war about his previous life,) with what I hope is an uncommon twist.
Dedication: To Shen'a'dra, Voodoo Fighting Weasel, *Sparky*, and Hitokiri-san. I know I always say, 'Getting me to promise something is easy, but getting me to stick to that promise is hard.' You four can rest assured that for you, I will always keep my important promises. Love ya lots.
I think it's impossible to pinpoint the exact moment when you fall in love with someone. It's a process of growing, and, like growing, you don't know it's happened until it's too late and you've already done it. Loving Heero was like that. I woke up one day and realized that I loved him, but by then it was too late.
It started innocently enough. We were afraid, and when you're afraid, you reach out for anyone, anything to comfort you. Little by little, our fears came out, and by the time we realized what had happened, we each held so much of each other's heart that when we looked at each other…we knew.
That's not to say I didn't try to stop it. I tried to convince myself that I was just fooling around, that he was just fooling around. It was just hormones. It was just loneliness. But it wasn't fooling around, or hormones, or loneliness. It was love.
I fought it, sure. Imposed upon myself long periods of being alone, without him. Tried to push him away by being annoying. But it didn't work, and he saw through it all. Then I knew I had lost, and I had broken my promise.
He wasn't the first person I'd ever loved, though he probably thought he was. After all, where could a gutter snipe like me, alone and without a family, find any source of companionship? He couldn't know what it was really like.
I did have a family, of sorts. A family made up of all the other urchins and gutter children, in a gang like that. We looked out for each other, stole for each other, lied for each other. On occasion, we died for each other.
Solo was like that. So different from Heero. So alive always, so vibrant and outgoing. He was our unspoken leader, and he took care of us. And I loved him.
We were just children. Scared, frightened. Often cold and hungry. That's one thing I remember well. All my other memories have been worn smooth, like a stone that's been often handled. But the burning cold and aching hunger I remember so clearly I can almost feel it again.
And that was what brought us together. Cold, hunger, and that human need for companionship. And we found it in each other. That was how our group was forged, because we were all frightened and homeless, and we didn't want to be alone any more.
Really, not much different from us five, back during the war. We weren't as cold as often, and we seldom went hungry. But we were terrified, always. Most people will never know what it's like, fearing for your life every single second of every day. Even in that time of war, most people only feel terror once in a while. But terror is a fleeting thing. The body and mind can't sustain terror for long periods of time. After a while, it all settles down to a deep-seated feeling of quiet dread. And that's what brought us all together. We were so different, even down to our basic desires. But we were frightened, and we didn't want to be alone.
Which is why, sometimes, after a long battle, we would just curl up together on the floor of whatever run-down place we're staying, under the blankets all together. The heat of all five of us kept us warm. Sometimes, somebody started crying. It could be any of us. It had been all of us, at one time or another. No one else said anything, we just edged a little closer together.
It was like that on the streets, too. Find a deserted place to sleep for the night, and whoever's there curls up back to back, trying to preserve body heat by drawing their knees up to their chests. Trying to fight off the hunger by pressing their thighs into their stomachs.
The group was a fluid mass. There were the few smaller teams who were inseparable, and they all knew each other. Then there were the ones who were mere acquaintances. And at any time one of these individuals or smaller gangs would wander off, to join another group or to be alone again. But Solo and I were different.
We were a pair, Solo and Duo. And the night, when we all tried to sleep simply because we couldn't keep awake, always found us two together, arms around each other, simply for warmth and to not be so alone. And his breath warmed my forehead. And we each told the other that we were in love, and it was true.
And I loved him, simply because he was Solo. Always risking more than anyone else. Always ready to do a little more. Always taking care of the small kids. Of course, we were all scrawny and undersized, but there were other kids there who were no more than toddlers, their parents caught in a burning building or crushed in a rock fall. The war was indiscriminate as to whose parents were killed. Anybody could wind up on the streets.
Most people don't live like that. Most people have some security, even in war. Most people never see the things I saw before I was six years old. Very few see what I saw every day in battle. I think the battlefield makes anyone a little crazy.
And I was Solo's best friend. When we stole, we stole as a pair, one being a diversion, one grabbing whatever he could. We shared everything, from a chocolate bar I took from a shop to the thin blanket we dug out of a rubbish heap.
We lived a better life together than anyone on the streets had a right to expect. But the plague changed all that.
We saw the horror of the sickness spreading. Little children fell on the sidewalk, searching for comfort, and passersby walked around them. The only man I ever saw react to one of the dying ones was when a small boy coughed blood on his shoes. And the man kicked him, and walked away. There is no room for compassion in war, and less in sickness.
Travelling the back alleyways that were our streets, we saw the bodies of those who had crawled there to die. But we weren't scared, Solo and I, because we were together, two halves of the same whole.
I wasn't even afraid when Solo became sick, only worried. This was a boy who I had seen take on grownups. He was indestructible as far as I was concerned. Besides, life without Solo was inconceivable. If he died, it stood to reason that I would die, too.
When he got worse, I tried to get the vaccine. And I was so angry when I saw it all going to the richer people, the ones who were less likely to be touched by the sickness' curse. I stole it, and brought it to Solo, to cure him.
He wouldn't take it. He told me to give it to the others, to take it for myself. And because he was Solo, and I never questioned him, I did it. But I made sure to save some for him.
It was too late. I saw that when I got back to the abandoned building where he lay. He shivered, even though it was hot out. The sweat on his brow dripped off him, and his eyes were bloodshot. He was hacking, and a thin red stream trailed out the corner of his mouth.
What could I do? I took him in my arms, and cradled his head against my shoulder. When he was awake, I talked to him of all the fun we would have when he got better, whispering what I knew were lies in hopes that by wishing hard enough, they would come true. When he was delirious, or unconscious, I sang to him in a soft, lilting voice, not knowing what I said, probably nothing but a tuneless melody.
When the others came to see him, I fought them off like a savage, turning on the very children who had been at the center of our group. But Solo was the core. All of us revolved around him, tiny starving planets around a boy sun. If one of them said he was dying, I attacked him especially. It wouldn't be true if I didn't say it.
Solo stayed like that for three days, and I stayed with him, without food or water. Near the end of those three days, Solo woke up. He threw his bony arms around my neck, his body shaking as if in a terrible wind. He seemed so frail now, this boy who once could have done everything, who was so strong. He coughed, and it racked his whole body, the blood from his lungs staining my shirt. With effort, he raised his eyes to my face. He had clear blue eyes, now marred and filled with blood. But he saw me, and whispered,
"Do you love me, Duo?"
I had told him so many times how much I loved him. But I couldn't force the words out of my parched throat. So I nodded, and held him closer.
"More than anyone," I rasped.
His whisper was so faint, I almost couldn't hear it when he said, "I love you, Duo. Don't forget me. Don't ever…love…promise…"
"I…I promise…" I whispered, not knowing what I was promising to do.
He fell back into his delusional nightmares then. Once, in his dreams, he called out my name, his head tossing on the thin blanket. But he never woke up again. Less than four hours later, he was dead.
He was less than ten years old.
I lay with him for almost a day. Solo was dead, and I completely expected that I would die also. But, as he had told me to do, I had taken the vaccine. I would not die. It was when I realized this that I think I was most afraid. Because I was alone, and I could not find Solo again.
I wrapped his body up in the sheet, and hoisted him on my shoulders with difficulty. There was no one else to help me. All the others had drifted off long ago.
There was only one place to put him, only one place worthy of my only friend. There was a tiny park, in a slightly better part of the colony. In one night, I carried him there, sometimes stumbling, falling to my knees. But Solo never touched the ground. I wouldn't let him.
When I got there, I went to the only tiny grove of trees, off to one side. Less than twenty earth pines grew there, their heavy trunks close together. There, we had sometimes hidden from people chasing us, to revel in the spoils of the hunt. I dug him a grave with my hands till my fingernails broke, then found a stick and kept digging. When I hit the rocks four feet under the soil, I shifted them to make a hollow. Finally, when his grave was acceptable, I laid Solo in. I took the sheet from around him, though. There were so few, and so many of us went cold. I couldn't waste it. Solo wouldn't have wanted it that way.
For the second time in my life, I had lost everything I cared about. Once, the parents I didn't remember, and now, the only friend I had ever known.
I was around seven years old. And I cried.
Several years later, I lost everything once again, during the Maxwell Church massacre. And I cried then, too. And then I simply ran out of tears. No one else, none of the people I killed or saw killed, none of them were worthy of my tears after that.
I thought of Solo often, before and after that. I thought of his last words. He said he loved me, and then…
"Don't ever…love…promise…"
I agonized for hours over what he had said. What had I promised him? Don't ever what?
I don't know how I came to the conclusion that he had meant I was never to love anyone else. Maybe it was because by that time, after Sister Helen and Father Maxwell were killed in the Church, I was convinced that anyone I loved would be killed, simply by association of me loving them. Maybe it was because I wasn't able to love, for fear of losing everything again. Either way, Solo's meaning was clear.
I had promised him never to love again.
Which was why I nearly went crazy, after realizing I had fallen in love with Heero. I had betrayed Solo, had violated his memory. I had sworn never to love again, and now…
That was what brought me to be standing again in the small grove of trees, in the tiny park on L2 Colony. It had been more than ten years, now, but I still knew exactly where he was.
In more than ten years, I had grown. I will always have the look of someone who was starved as a child, but I put on some inches. What was then skin stretched over bone was honed by the war and more regular food into muscle. I wasn't hungry any more. I had a job, and a home, and a lover. Even though it was winter, and the weather simulator made cold and snow, I didn't feel the cruel chill because of my coat, something I would never have thought of owning back then.
I knelt beside his grave. I knew I had grown, because the hollow that had easily hidden two starving boys in hiding was now barely big enough for me to stand. And I thought back to Solo, the Church, my training as a pilot, the war…the eventual peace.
And I thought back further, as far as I could. My earliest memory was of telling Solo I had decided to name myself Duo, because if he was Solo, together we'd be a duo.
Farther back there, somewhere, must be memories of my parents. I must have had parents once, but now, the memories are inaccessible. One day, maybe I'll reach them, and know finally how they died, how they came to leave me on the streets to starve.
Part of me wanted to lay down beside Solo again. I wanted to lay there, and just…stop. The trees were quiet, the snow brushing through the pine needles the only sound.
And it was then that I had a moment of startling clarity. A memory I thought I had forgotten, of me and Solo and a group of boys. We were huddled around a small fire, sitting on the floor or on packing crates someone had thrown out. We were talking about wishes.
"If you could have anything in the world, what would you wish for?"
One boy said a warm coat. Another said a feast, with all the food he could eat. One boy, who had just joined us after his mother was killed in the crossfire of a gunfight, said he'd choose family. When it was his turn, Solo said,
"Love."
None of us knew what to make of this. Here we were, cold, starving, and homeless, and more than warmth, food, or security, he wanted love?
"Because love is like warmth," he said, "and if you have someone to be hungry with, it isn't so bad, and as long as you're not alone, you're safe."
He was wiser at eight than I can ever hope to be.
And it was then that I knew that Solo would never have forbidden me to love. If anything, he was forbidding me to stop loving. That was like Solo, always looking out, to try to make sure that I was safe, even when he was dying. It was my stupidity that had made me blind to his meaning.
The tears running down my face were icy in the winter air as knelt and laid my hand for the last time upon his grave, the light coating of snow burning my bare hand. And then I turned and walked out of the tiny group of trees, into the gathering dusk. Back through the now-peaceful streets. My sacrifices, and those of others, had brought peace to these streets. We still had to work to uphold the peace and prevent another war, but there were no more roving packs of starving children. No more children here were growing up like me, with nothing.
I walked back to Heero who was waiting for me. I had promised him I would come back.
'The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.'
Owari