Chapter 5
Mint: Ok…I'm lazy. I'm lazy, I have a short attention span, and I get easily distracted. I had planned to finish it up over new years, but that Twilight Zone marathon…. I'm weak! But here it is. It's late, but it's here! Gomen, minnasan. I'll try harder from now on I really will! Forgive me!
Now, on to the fic! I hope you enjoy it!
Is it true that we see people differently after they have departed from this world? In what way? Perhaps that depends on the person. Does this change our own views? Can death make us see people more clearly? Or does it only work to distract us farther? Be made a saint, or be seen as the devil. No matter, we are all the same in death.
Wufei watched from across the clearing as Heero sat perched in the branches of the willow with the unconscious Duo, his fingers moving lovingly over his face, through his silky chestnut locks. What would happen to Heero if something happened to Duo, Wufei wondered. They had all been there since the night before when Duo had been so viciously attacked by the monster, Ellek. But Ellek was dead now, and there's no reason to speak ill of the dead.
Quatre reached over and took his hand. He could tell the little blonde was worried about his friend. Duo was breathing a little better than he had been before, but it was still possible his condition would worsen again.
Trowa came over to Quatre and Wufei. "Are you ok, Quatre?" He asked quietly. Quatre had been a little shaken over having killed Ellek. They had been friends at one time. In spite of that, he just nodded his head slightly and managed a smile. "He was no longer the person I once knew."
"Duo!" Heero said. They all jumped and looked over to where Duo lay. Duo reached up to touch Heero. Quatre rushed over to Duo and threw his arms around the longhaired vampire, and kissing him on the face. "Duo! You're ok! How are you feeling?"
Duo laughed lovingly at the blonde boy's compassion, then winced as he remembered the pain in his chest. Heero took him gently and helped him to lay back down. "Don't strain yourself." He warned.
The braided young man looked up at his Prussian eyed counterpart. "I'm alive and I intend to stay that way."
That night there was much talking and laughing, but Duo seemed a little distracted. The glances he gave Heero were all very ambiguous, but despite this, Heero seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly. Duo was alive and that seemed to be all he cared.
Wufei went back to his own home that night, although now it was starting to seem less and less like home to him. He was glad Duo was alright. He wanted to see those red-violet eyes everyday for the rest of…. The rest of what? His life? Eternity?
He had lived with vampires for so long. He was not even sure how long. It was like he was not a part of the world of the living anymore and time did not matter. He only returned to get food and even those trips were usually at night. Perhaps it was time he took a more serious look at what he was becoming and where he wanted to be. Because he was becoming exactly like them. And with them was the only place he felt he truly belonged.
The next night he raced back to the clearing. He wanted to tell his friends about his decision. When he got there, however, all he saw was Duo sitting lying in the boughs of the willow. What memories that brought back. It was exactly like the night they had first met.
Somnolent eyes opened slowly and those beautiful red-violet orbs gazed at him from across the clearing. Soft lips parted as if to speak but no words ever came. Wufei walked reverently toward the exquisite being. "Where is everyone? I have something I would like to tell them."
Duo closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "They're gone. They went out hunting blood." Then he opened his eyes again, a little sadly. Wufei reached up and touched his hair. "Why didn't you go? You need to drink too, don't you?" Duo pouted for a moment before answering, "I'm not allowed to go. Heero thinks if I leave this clearing unattended I will be kidnapped and whisked away to some gruesome castle where I shall be raped and tortured until death finally comes to claim my undead soul."
The Chinese boy didn't quite know how to respond to that. Then Duo started to laugh. "Either that or he thinks I'll fall and bounce down a cliff and somehow manage to impale myself on a twig!" he laughed again. Wufei laughed too, but only to ease the tension. He could tell Duo was upset with Heero for always leaving him behind.
"So you've never been hunting?"
"No. When he first brought me here, he said I was injured and too sick to go out and hunt. He told me there would be plenty of time for that later, but even after I recovered he still kept bringing the blood back to me and never letting me go out. It makes me feel angry with him sometimes, but he keeps insisting that it is what I need. To be kept safe from harm."
Wufei thought over Duo's last line. "What harm are you to be kept safe from?" Duo shrugged his shoulders. "Any I guess." He took a breath as if to say more, but stopped short of doing so when the others reappeared in the clearing. The three looked a little surprised to see him, and as he looked at Heero, he saw why. He carried a man over his shoulder. "I didn't expect to see you tonight." Heero said, "I figured you would have stayed home and caught up on the rest you lost. You need to sleep like a human at least once in a while."
Then Quatre spoke. "Maybe you ought to go home for the time being. You know…. And then come back later." However, Duo quickly interjected. "No. I think he should stay. I wouldn't mind if he watched. After all, he seen everything else about us, why not show him how we survive." Again, Heero seemed quite uneasy with the idea, and he shot Duo a warning glance, but Duo shrugged it off and stood to partake of the beautiful red elixir Heero had brought to him.
Despite what Wufei had first thought, the man was not dead, only knocked out. His chest moved up and down in slow rhythmic breaths. The clearing became as still and quiet as death itself; so quiet you could almost hear the man's heartbeat…. Then Wufei realized it was not the man's but indeed his own beating heart.
Heero lay the man down in the grass and waited for Duo to come and drink. Which he did, walking ever so gracefully across the way. Then he stopped and waited for a moment, watching his prey. As he knelt down and lifted his victim's head and neck he looked up to Wufei and smiled and giggled briefly before biting into his victim's neck. The snapping of the arteries was audible to everyone in the clearing. It was a site worthy of damnation. Something every human has night terrors about.
Wufei watched as Duo ripped the man's throat open, feasting on the blood as if it were ambrosia. And it was the ambrosia of this dark and terrible god before him.
Duo lifted his head up to look at Wufei again. Blood covered his teeth and mouth and ran in slow trails down his neck and chest. Suddenly he was not the beautiful creature he had seen before. Surely, he was no angel but a devil instead. Then he spoke. "Do you think I'm finished here, mortal?" He wasted no time reaching down and roughly tearing open the man's thoracic cavity, and drinking deeply of the blood of the heart.
Then he stood. Blood ran down his chin and neck onto his chest. It ran in trails down his arms and there were strands of his hair died deeply from the sanguine fluid. "Am I beautiful?"
Nevertheless, even death may have its distinctions. On the other hand, perhaps it is up to us to see those distinctions. Whichever the case may be it may greatly behoove us to remember we have been warned: All that glitters is not gold.