By Shannon, the Twisted Link Worshiper
Author's Note This is the second of my little five story series. I don't know; this all came to me in some form of a dream… more or less…. Ah, I know, I'm so sorry, I can't write anything without music, but I swear, this is the only true songfic in the whole set, promise, even if it turns out to be crap. It was just too perfect not to use! Besides, dear sweet Duo should like singing, I think. Pairing's a 2x1, of course. Music belongs to Boxcar Racer ("Watch the World"), and Gundam belongs to a zillion other people, none of whom happen to be me… sad thing as it is…. Well, go to! Enjoy!
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Are all angels made of glass? Do they all have transparent souls and eyes like perfect round globes of ice? I wouldn't know about all angels; I've only met one, and all I can say about him is that he is so delicate, even the most tiny sigh could make that particular angel could crumble into thousands of tiny jagged shards.
He's a dark angel, not the glowing white jobs you like to see encrusted in church windows, like the one with the golden hair that lived in the stained glass above the altar at Maxwell Church. Sure, he's not as romantic as a church angel; he doesn't have the flowy white robes or the silver shoes or even the wings for that matter, but he sure as hell is just as beautiful. Aw fuck it, way more beautiful, more earthbound, something that just makes him all the more real for me. I don't care what the hell anyone has to say about me! Nothing any bastard in this damn universe could do to change the fact that I adore him.
And don't even bother to waste your damn precious breath to ask me how or why I feel the way I do. I couldn't even begin to explain it to you. For God's sake, I couldn't even begin to explain it to myself! It's one of those stupid things you read about in books, when the hero falls in love with his best friend, and as you're reading along, you can't help but think in the back of your head that it's the most idiotic far-fetched thing any moron who could wield a pen half-way right could ever think up and publish. Then it happens to you, and you're the hero falling in love with your best friend. Next thing you know, your life's something out of a story, and you don't know how the hell it ends, or even how to go onwards. Not that I'm a hero or anything. The fuck why would the Devil be the hero of anything? And like hell an angel could love Death.
I watched the smoke, as it grew darker,And blew up through the ruff.
We've been to hell and back together. The shit that's we've been through by age fifteen would make a lesser man puke his brains out (though that would actually be kind of cool to see). I'm a pretty cowardly son of a bitch to say the least, even though I do like to call myself the God of Death. But you know, it makes me stronger to think that I have my angel to protect me. Yeah, so he'd shoot me into a wedge of Swiss cheese if he heard me say that, but I don't think that he really realizes how much he means to me, nor how much I mean to him. Go ahead and call me arrogant for saying so, but there's a soul underneath all that perfect soldier bullshit, a very kind, loving gentle soul who has a tender embrace and warm skin.
I watched the feds, saw them panic,
As the fire grew.
Even amongst all the confusion of that damned war, I still had my silent angel to keep me strong. When I was hurt, he'd soothe my wounds as I slept, lonely, he would be there… even when I cried, he'd quietly lend a shoulder to lean on, never saying a word yet somehow managing to speak a symphony of words to me. I should have been more angry with OZ, I guess, but you know, if it hadn't been for them, I would never have met him, you know? So they stole away the only family I had ever known; they also brought me the best thing that ever happened to my miserable life: Heero. Explosions, gunfire, screams, death, it all went whistling by deaf ears that were keen only to him, even if there was rarely anything to actually hear.
I saw Virginia get rid of Langley,
And its secrets too.
Of course, everything comes with its hidden truths. He had secrets from me for quite a while, though, admittedly, I had quite a trove of stashed secrets of my own. Our relationship probably didn't get off on the most gracious foot, what with the whole incident with the gun and Relena. Back then he seemed to be the type who would murder you in cold blood for even seeing his face. Ha, the more you knew, the more painful your death was going to be at his hands. I could swear he would slit my throat for freaking laughing too loud, or laughing at all for that matter. Yes, my angel was a very violent creature, an angel of death, perhaps? He wanted to remain a mystery to the world, with secrets and riddles being all that remained of him when he was gone. He never seemed to understand that it made the pain so much easier to bear if you shared what was making your soul pale with grief. He would have killed himself in no time going like that, I bet. He was bleeding from the inside out, and he didn't even care. And it pissed me off to no end that made me that someone with such beautiful eyes would want to die so bad, even more so than I wanted to. I decided that I would live just to prove him wrong, that there was more to life than plain existence and a desperate want for an easy escape.
Speaking of his eyes, I swear to God that there has never been a pair of eyes more amazing than those faultless Prussian hued rings. It was the first thing I ever noticed about him, his eyes that is. I was actually going to shoot for the kill that one time, the Relena incident when we first met, until I saw his exotic slanted Oriental eyes glittering in the pale sunlight, the same colour as the ocean that swam behind him. The first bullet, I missed because I was too distracted by the way those darkened cobalt orbs were wet with remorse and grim reality, the many depths to what he truly felt inside as vast and bottomless as the sea. And then by the time I was ready to fire the gun again, he was staring at me intently, ivory black irises shining from beneath those thick lashes, and there was no way in hell I was going to be the one to mist over those magnificent pools of azure blue. Even when he was being a perfect asshole to me, despite my friendly disposition and abundant charm towards him right off the bat, I could see the sadness in those eyes and then, then I knew that there was certainly something more to him than what lay on the surface.
I held your hand and sat there knowing,
That we'd make it through.
But that was only the first time we met. The bastard looted my damn Gundam and then ran off in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye, so you never would have believed the shock on either of our faces when we ended up together on future missions. Our meetings were all accidental, really. I never got official orders like the other pilots did, being as I stole Deathscythe on my own and worked according to my own feelings, screw the rest of the world, thank you very much. Man on revenge here; move over! Yeah, so I'm no better than he was, stealing Gundam parts and all that. I just happened to be better at it, that's all, 'cause no one really knew what happened to Deathscythe whereas when he ripped me off, I knew exactly who had been playing junkshop with my Gundam.
Anyway, when we started this pattern of running into each other all the time, I began just hanging off of him like a disease (well, that was the way he would look at me). His missions started to become my own, and even though he never smiled much, despite my constant wise-ass commentary and endless laughing, I could tell he appreciated my company somewhat. I'm guessing it must be lonely being a beautiful angel like him. All he wanted was a friend and I was the sap who was more than willing to comply. Call it another one of my damned personal missions, but I was determined to unlock the melancholy soul that lived bottled up inside that cold shell and set him free. You know, he might not have smiled much, but I could always see the faintest traces of a satisfied grin whenever I held his hand and told him it would all be okay. It was all sure to be okay.
I saw this man dispose of hunger,
And soap operas too.
When I was a kid, I never had too much. Basically just a street rat scrounging around in trashcans and rubbish heaps to get by. Stealing was no problem for me, but I'd be damned if I would ever lie. I couldn't take anything fake. That's probably the big reason as to why I couldn't stand OZ as much as I did. Their whole organization was built upon lie after lie, making empty promises to the colonies and even to the people who made up their ranks and loyally followed a band of cowardly deceiving bastards. After enough bad fortune to last three people six lifetimes, between the Maxwell Church Tragedy and my old buddy Solo kicking the bucket 'cause of that damn plague that ripped through L2, I decided that if I was going to give my life any meaning at all, I would have to take matters into my own hands. Bingo, reasoning behind Deathscythe's kidnapping right there, among a few other things. OZ was going to pay for taking away the things that meant so much to me, my friends, the people who treated me like family, Maxwell Church, my only home. But I hadn't been forsaken quite then, because I was sent packing to another home: my angel. He's my home now, and wherever he goes, I'll be there for him.
He seemed to lust for something more than just battle. Oh yeah, sure, he would never in a zillion years, come hell or high water, admit that to anyone, least of all me, but it was just so damn obvious that you almost wanted to kill him for holding out on you. Want to know how? Only s moron wouldn't be able to notice that his eyes give it away. They always do. He had that glare of ice, frozen glassy spheres of blue that seemed to melt into these muddled pools of longing and sadness, wet as if he were going to cry. You know, I think what he wanted more than anything was to be loved. And God, how I wanted to love him, hold him close and stroke those messy cypress-tinged bangs from his face, telling him that it would all be okay as I kissed him goodnight. So it was a wild hope that he would ever let me do those things to him, but I think he liked to know that I was always there. I think….
I saw this field that grew perfection,
Full of things you do.
You know how I mentioned how I could never quite shut up? There's another thing the bastard pretended to hate. He always acted like he found me imperfect and a damn stupid waste of creation if there ever was one. He liked to do that, making it seem like he couldn't stand a single thing about me, but if you looked real hard, as I was inclined to, you could tell that it was all just a white mask to shield anything he might have thought of as a weakness. It was always his eyes that gave it away, you know. He seemed to think that everything had to be perfect, never letting things just happen because of chance. That damn disposition of his sometimes made me want to rip that mask off his face and grind it to ribbons beneath my boot. He said he didn't believe that luck was what shaped destiny, and that only people could choose the course of the future, so naturally he didn't take to my talk of talking risks and just hoping for the best, knowing that in the end everything would work out just fine. No, that kind of thrill wasn't good enough for my angel. He had to have everything perfectly planned out and ordered. No room for luck with him. Guess he never took into account that it was all just luck, chance and fate conspiring together to make my heart change the way it did.
Yeah, me, the God of Death, a hellish little devil, started to fall in love with God's most perfect angel.
I saw this box get rid of heartache,
And cure cancer too.
Sister Helen told me once that the heart was the most important thing a person had. I swear that woman was like a mother to me. Everything she said seemed to make sense. Even when she tried in vain to convince me that there was a God, she could make it seem like there was some point behind religion, or at least made me understand why she was so dedicated. "Love," she used to say, stooping down so that she could look me in the eye, "Love is the most valuable emotion people have. You can't let anyone take advantage of your heart, Duo, because that will lead to deceit and anger, which would only make more fighting. You hate the fighting, don't you?" And I would nod vigorously at this, my heavy braid smacking me in the back, until she gave me a reassuring hug. "Science may bring us answers for physical pain, like sickness, but no pill can heal a wounded heart. Let your actions always come from your emotions, so that you won't ever have to feel what it's like to have a bleeding heart."
When I told Heero about that, my angel sat in silence for a while, just watching the void of space drift by us before he spoke, telling me that once, a man from his past named Odin or something like that, had said something very similar. He looked at me strangely when I put my hand over his, patting his knuckles as I whispered something about wanting to be at his side because I didn't want him to regret the value of friendship. I think he accepted that, because he genuinely smiled at me for the first time afterwards.
When I awoke, I sat there hoping,
This is what we'll do.
He used to be adamant in his position that dreaming was silly. I personally thought that it was even stupider of him not to place any hope in dreams. But what can you do? It's almost depressing how damn sappy I can be. Aw, he was always right in everything he did, not letting a single element, be it me or OZ or even Sister Helen's God, get in the way of what he had set out to do. I wonder if he had set out to attain any dreams, though…. Surely when we first met, he wouldn't have known what it meant to wish for something from the heart if you looked it up for him in the dictionary and shoved the definition in his face, but now, just watching him, his eyes, you can see that he's changed since then. I mean now when you look at him, his eyes seem kind of glazed over, like the war just doesn't do it for him anymore. I know it doesn't. He told me so.
"Duo?" he'd said as his eyes roamed out over the stars from the single window in our dorm, voice low and monotone. It had been way back when we were boarding together during the war sometime, my angel sitting on the room's only chair which he had dragged from the desk to the window, arms folded on the sill as he watched a shooting star cross the heavens. He paused for a moment before he spoke again, like he was debating whether or not to continue his query. "Duo, what does it feel like to desire something?"
"The hell do you mean by that Hee-chan?" I'd bounced gleefully to his side, kneeling beside the chair and looking up at him with my big dumb eyes. His eyes were plain and simple amazing, but the way mine just got all wide and childlike made me look even stupider than I was sure I already did. So I don't have much self-esteem. You can go ahead and sue my ass; it won't change a thing.
"This war… this war was begun by people who believed in something and wanted to bring about change, ne?" he went on, still examining the countless pinpricks of stars that dotted the deep purplish-blue sky, the two colours melding together like lovers all over each other.
"Yeah," I shrugged. I could tell he was trying to get at something, but this kind of discussion seemed so alien to a person like my angel that I had no idea quite what to make of it, even though I had made it almost a hobby to know everything there was to know about him. "So what?"
"So I'm just a tool then, for other people to attain their dreams," he said wistfully, his head dropping into the cradle of his folded arms. "What about me, Duo? Can't I dream? Am I fated to just shape my world around the philosophy of others?"
"Of course you can dream," I had said in as comforting a voice as I could muster, considering the excitement that was most definitely steaming out of my ears that my perfect angel actually felt regret... felt anything at all. "You can dream whatever you want! Why should a bunch of idealistic assholes be the ones who dictate what you believe? You should fight because you think it's right, not because anyone told you to. You act according to your dreams, so that you'll get what you desire one day. Do you believe in what you stand for?"
"Yeah," he said softly, his eyes turning from the window to the top of my head. I felt his eyes on me, like I always do, and I looked up at him with those retarded eyes of mine.
"Good, so do I," I smiled dumbly, like a five-year old kid. I always felt so humbled by his presence. He was so faultless and beautiful, good at everything, the idyllic hero and I… I was just a confused little orphan klutz with a talent for staying alive. A deal with Death will get you that, you know?
"When it comes down to it," he was saying, his eyes still entranced by the almost erotic wash of those purples and blues melting together over the great sky outside our window, "People tend to believe in one of three things: miracles, luck or fate. What do you believe, Duo?"
"In luck, of course," I answered deftly, not even pausing to think about a response. "In all my years of life, from my ratty ass childhood to this very second, I've never seen any phenomenon that would lead me to believe in God."
"Don't you pray, Duo?" he asked, turning to look at me straight in the eye for the first time. There was question in those beautiful eyes of his, a slight saddened expression etched into those darkly shining circles that implored my reply. He looked extremely confused (and quite adorable with that lost look splattered over his perfectly chiseled face, I might add), the polar, yet strangely kindred enigmas that shrouded both of us almost clashing right there in the space between us. It had been his first real stab at trying to understand who I was. "Don't you believe in God?"
"Nope! If there is such a being, he's been awful good at keeping one damn low profile in my life. Not a time I can think of that he's done something kind for me." My voice had been cheerful as ever, which only went on to confuse him all the more. Someone like him would be up to his ass in bewilderment trying to figure out a dope like me. "And I don't believe in fate because the whole idea that I have no control over my life is just so irritating. I like knowing that I'm where I am because I chose to be here. Sometimes your choice is a good one, sometimes it's bad, but that's the way it goes. Makes life all the more interesting."
"I suppose I would have to agree," he said, his eyes wandering back out the window to the stars. He seemed lost out there in space, even when he was safely grounded in that shitty old dorm room with me. I wondered when he would come back down from his rocket trip across heaven, when he finally figured out his own heart.
"I believe in you, Heero, even if no one else does. We can try and make everything alright, together. Maybe there is some kind of plan that fated us to meet," I shrugged, seeing that perplexed look on his face had still not faded. "But whatever it was, it sure was lucky that we're here. It'll all work out if we go on together. It's what… friends are there for."
"So that's what we'll do then? Try and make the world better?" he asked.
I put a reassuring hand on his thigh, saying with a little pat. "It already is, Hee-chan."
If we can, we'll leave a letter and this song,
For you.
I wish there was a way for me to talk to him easier. No, not just when he decides to take off and be alone for a while… when he's here with me. Sometimes it just seems like there are no words to say, though I have to admit, sometimes we don't need words to understand each other. I think he knew just how much I loved him, even before I got the nerve to actually say it to him. Yeah, I bet he had a good time trying to come to terms with the thought that a loser like me could actually be so taken with him, but I bet it would be even tougher for him to try and sort out whether or not he felt the same about me. Right, I know, it's all that mindless dreaming again, and I'm sure I'm beginning to sound completely out of my head, but you know, I couldn't care less. I don't need other people telling me how I should live. My heart rules just about every damned thing I do, and he rules my heart, so you can just about assume that every damned thing I do, it's for him. Might I add that I'm sappy as hell, just to top the whole damn thing off?
As in regards to her, Relena that is, well, I can be pretty sure my angel doesn't love her. No, I'm not assuming too much. The eyes, remember? He just doesn't look at her with anything that could be defined as love. Hell, he even looks at me with softer eyes than he does her, and by my standards, that's saying something. She seems to be like some kind of idol for him, someone who he can look up to when things are going rough and he's lost track of what it was he was fighting for. It's like she represents all the innocent people of Earth and their children, if you catch my meaning, and there's no way in hell he would allow anything to happen to that purity. Unfortunately, she's so damn naïve, she seems to take Heero's efforts to uphold her ideals and keep her alive as some kind of romantic things, stuff that kind of makes me go red in the face with jealousy. They're too alike, you know, for anything to ever happen between them. Science has proven that only polar opposites can attract. The same charge will repel. Anyway, there's just no spark. It's infatuation on her part, honour on his. He wants to uphold her dream of a world that knows only peace. I wonder if he knows how much more I care for him than she does. She's just looking for an escape, almost as desperately as he is. I can see past his mask though. Unlike her, I have this mutual understanding with my angel. The fire of hell is connected somehow to the mists of heaven, the devil the constant companion of the angel. Heero and I have something… this bond… that Miss Relena could never hope to even gaze upon. Hide as he might, Heero knows it's there. He feels it every time our eyes meet.
And we'll write once a day,
And put it through the sea to you.
Even if he likes to pretend like he's the spitting image of perfection, my angel can't fool me, no matter how dumb I seem. Right, so I'm loud, I cuss a lot and I can't keep my mind focused on anything properly, but I'm damn observant. And I'd have to be one blind fucking moron not to notice how hard he tries to pretend like he could care less about his friends… about me…. Yeah, I know he likes to act all high and mighty, as if the whole stupid universe could implode without him giving a damn, but you know what, there's a lot of emotion milling around inside him. He's kind of like one of those foggy glass bottles that you can't really see inside, but once you manage to rip the cork out of the top, you get a wild torrent of tangy wine. Bet if you managed to pry him open, he would pour out a lifetime of hidden woes… and sweetened memories. I often try to imagine who graces those memories, wondering if he ever thought of me as much as I think of him. You know, he really would give a damn… a big fat ass damn… if the universe went to pieces. I wonder if it could make him cry.
We'll regret all those things we thought of,
But didn't ever do.
Though his tears are cold droplets of ice, I know his heart is a heart of glass, just like the rest of him. Sleepless nights were commonplace for both of us. I frequently would awake from nightmares that left me cold and alone, shivering in the night without so much as a star to look to for consolation. The worst would be when I would dream of my angel suffering a most hideous death, the infinite ways that such a pure creature could be slaughtered gruesomely depicted in gut wrenching detail and I would hurtle back to the sweaty reality of a darkened dorm room and a creaky old cot bed, shouting his name to the shadow covered walls. It happened often, more than he ever noticed. Yeah, he noticed my unrest. While my nights went screeching by in dreams of graphic bloodlust, his were spent in a melancholy silence, lying on his bed, hands cushioned beside his angelic face on the pillow, his eyes seeming almost entranced by my nighttime fears and the salty droplets forming on my eyelashes. Maybe my thrashing about on my half of the room disturbed him more than he ever verbally could say, but I think his habit of holding me in his arms as we fell asleep was as much a comfort for him as it was for me. The way he'd hold me almost possessively close to his breast, his fingers gingerly curling around my body like he was afraid he might crush me was when I knew that he loved me more than he would ever dare to say. Did he ever regret not saying more? I sure as hell do….
If we can, we'll leave a letter and this song,
For you.
I kind of made it a personal goal of mine that I would be the one to torch his cold exterior. God, how I wanted to see his unfeeling mask roar with flames, it pissed me off so much. I wanted to see if he really could feel emotion. No, not just the little hints that there really was a person under there that he would let slip out every now and then, but a real human being that could feel pain and pleasure, happiness and sorrow… someone who's eyes became wet with tears with the bad and shone with joy with the good. It's kind of bothering me off that every time we meet, I always fail miserably with this. Maybe it's that I'm not going about the whole thing right or that he's just plain and simple difficult. Whatever the hell it is, I'm beginning to think it hurts him even more than it hurts me, the hiding that is. Yeah, so it stings my heart and my eyes when I can barely get a reaction out of him, but I'm sure it's like a ripple of fire ripping through his body when he tries to cover it up. Like I said, if you could look in his eyes, and were able to notice the way his pupils dilated the faintest bit and how his eyes narrowed when he was trying to avoid something, it would be ridiculously easy to tell when he's trying to fake you out. By now, I've figured out how to call his bluffs though, and his mask doesn't really work on me anymore. But that's not what drives me nuts. What makes me want to fall on a sword and kill myself is the way he makes such a big deal of making sure that he seems like the perfect bastard. He tries so hard to be arrogant and proud, when one good look gives away that he's dying on the inside. I know there are so many things we still have to talk about, even after knowing each other for this long. Maybe one day he will burn and that glass bottle will break, and maybe… just maybe he'll let me hold him close, and he'll hug me back.
And we'll write once a day,
And put it through the sea to you.
I'll let him go slay his dragons and chase his stars until he's satisfied that he's finished fighting his battles, both inside and out. The war he's fighting inside his head is probably more brutal for him than this fight with OZ. When he's ready to finally fly free of his chains, I think I would like to take a journey to heaven on his great feathered wings. We could go together, just me and him, and we'd take off to the sky. When we've found out who we are, he can shed his creamy white angel's wings and come back down to Earth, back to my side.
We'll regret all those things we thought of,
But didn't ever do.
Ah, he may run, he may hide, but his eyes can never lie. And you know, I'm sure that his cheeks really can be painted with tears.
When the sky seems to clear,
Who will be left but a few?
Me and you….
Owari