Title: Death's Waltz - 2
Author: Sita Seraph
Genre: Angst, Romance
Pairing: 1x2, 2x???
Rated: PG-13
Warning: OOC maybe? Swearing.
It was kind of funny. He wasn't even surprised to see me. As I stood outside in the blistering cold, finally getting up the nerve to step into the light melting the snow under my feet, I was just waiting for the unexpected surprise that would enlarge his eyes and make them brighter under the fluorescent lighting of his home. But instead, he just cocked his head to the side, looking out the window at the precise moment I took my crunchy step forward. His head was tilted at such an angle that it brought an almost innocent look about him; curly strands of mahogany in open air as they tumbled down his frame, lips just slightly parted in a curious arch, and hands on his thinned hips. But his eyes, that were light and warm when he had looked at his children, were suddenly snuffed out by the winter cold that surrounded me. He looked at me indifferently, as if I was just some beggar on the street and he had no want to care or need for me. It was odd seeing how easily his emotions could be clicked on or off. But than again…it wasn't. Duo was always the one wearing his feelings on his sleeves. He was always the one to over react, to blow things out of proportions.
Isn't it appropriate to act warmly to those he cared about and cold to the ones he hated?
I sighed shakily and an air of brief fog appeared from it. For that split second of that haze appearing, Duo disappeared behind it. And when it cleared, he was still gone. I looked frantically around in the window of warmth, but there was no sign of my fathered lover, nor of the children he produced. My hand left the snow hat I was carrying and gripped the picket fence in front of me, freezing bites of snow gnawing into my already numb digits. But the cold was nothing now; only the fact that Duo had took one look at me and had driven himself and his children upstairs, away from my piercing and prying stare. He had answered my question; he remembered me. And he still hated me. I wasn't as sad as I thought I would be. But then again, I didn't really expect to see Duo's door open with him in the doorframe, sharing a smile for me alone like when we were children. I didn't expect forgiveness. The least I expected was nothing at all, because I didn't even think I would have the courage to let Duo see me. But I had…and now what? What this feeling that I felt inside? It wasn't sadness…
It was loneliness.
Yes.
Loneliness. Something I felt now more strongly than ever.
Slowly, I hung my head and looked down at my white hand, grasping the even paler cream fence. I pried my hand away with shaky, frozen fingers, but it wasn't just the cold that was making me shiver. It was the impossible need to just throw back my head and scream. Then, afterwards, I would crumble up happily into a little ball right in front of Duo's house and cry; cry until my tears would become crystals on my cheeks and the crystals would become some sort of shell, the shell I had so long ago that I so desperately wanted right now. So I couldn't feel that emptiness wretch my insides apart. So it could protect me from the love that I felt for Duo right now, that was killing me. Love, a fatal killer and it always got away with murder. Oh, the irony. The stupid, fucking irony of it all. It was so funny when you thought about it. Love makes you sacrifice your every desire and will; Love makes you want to die for damaging it; Love makes you want to go insane. And people say it's the most wonderful thing in the world to ever possess.
If someone said that right now today, I'd have pulled out my gun and shoot them. Then turn the gun at myself. Unfortunately, I didn't have that choice. So I picked the secondary option.
With the coolest demeanor that put the winter to shame, I gripped my gray hat again before slipping it over my head. I fitted it tightly around my ears, and I took great care with fixing any hair that would give me trouble. My knees were wishing to shake, ready for collapse, but I kept them so straight that it hurt and I was surely cutting off the needed blood supply. But I didn't care. I was forcing myself not to care at the moment. I was definitely forcing myself not to care when I felt the first trickle of anguished tears begin to appear.
So I had failed. Big whoop there. I screw up all the time. I couldn't expect anything from Duo; how could when I know I had hurt him so bad? That cracked smile haunted every smile I've seen for the last six years. I was never the same after that earth-shattering moment. That shattered, forced grin had broken me more than the gunshot you fired at me unsuspectingly the first day we met.
Duo broke the Perfect Soldier.
Even when I felt like crying, I chuckled then. I actually laughed. Oh, the irony. Tears that were only spoken through mad laughter. The Perfect Soldier breaking the breaker with a few harsh words.
I felt like dying.
But instead of falling into the welcoming, freezing snow, I turned around with my spine so straight that it felt like I was going to break it. A muscle that felt like a disc was hissing with burning venom. It hurt; it hurt so bad. It hurt everyday since I left him, his hand no longer there to massage the firey ache away. It never went away because I kept my back so straight. It was my only way to keep from slumping forward and dying.
I had just made a few crunchy footsteps forward when I thought I heard something. I stopped, and listened intently for the noise again, but it was gone. Two steps forward and I heard it again. I froze like death had just touched me and my frozen digits slowly curled themselves into fists. I felt something begin to blossom inside of me and I tried to hide the sun that forced the emotion into awakening. But it was too late. Blinded by hope, I slowly turned around.
Duo was filling up his doorway, a shawl around his shoulders and arms…and sharing me a tight, light, faint, small, beautiful, amazing, hazy, fatherly smile. I knew I had to have died; maybe I really did fall in the snow and curl into a fatal position and the hand of winter death quickly took away my wicked and guilty soul. Maybe I really did have a gun in my pocket and I took it out so fast that I couldn't see it, couldn't comprehend what was happening before I pulled the trigger. Maybe even Duo somehow killed me. Maybe I had a heart attack.
I felt like I was having one right now.
"Heero," Duo addressed calmly, leaning casually against the doorframe.
My mouth parted to return his greeting but nothing but another heavy fog came out.
"Would you like to come in?"
TBC…