For: language, adult content, violence? Ish?
Pairings: 1x2, 3x4
Warnings: Yaoi, cross-dressing, substance abuse, psychological disorders
Disclaimer: Do I need to continue to have the same conversation with you people?
A/N: Thanks for your patience. This will be my last post of Redemption, including the last two chapters and epilogue. Freakin sweet; my first ever finished multi-parter (finished being a key word there.) Thanks to Sintari for betaing, and to whatever loyal followers I may have incurred for being so cool.
Chapter 13- Pretty When You CryLela leaned her forehead against the glass of the window, watching her son and ignoring the fog of her breath against it. He was still hooked up to machines and tubes. Needles in his arms gave him food and kept him alive. For the first time in years, even with people bustling behind her, as she watched her baby's slow wasting away, she was filled with emptiness. She felt completely alone.
Duo came up beside her, letting one long finger slide down her pale skin. It felt cold and rubbery against him, dimpled like chicken skin with icy goose bumps. He leaned down his lips and pressed them against her smooth cheek. She didn't move towards him even as his mouth moved to her ear. "You need sleep," he whispered softly against her, the warmth of his voice making the hairs within her ear stand at attention.
"I do sleep," she answered, her own voice tempered and even. Purple bags sunk beneath her eyes and left her skin waxy and pale.
"Not enough," he replied, sliding their hands together and lacing her icy fingers in his warm ones. She still didn't move towards him, but accepted his touch, pressing her fingertips into his hand.
"As much as I need."
"What do you do here all day?"
Lela raised her hands and pressed the palm against the glass. "Watch him." She waited for a moment, letting herself pause. He wasn't sure but he though her voice got caught in her throat. It took a second for her to force her chest to move again, let herself breathe again. "See what's happening to him. It's hard."
Duo didn't have anything to say. They stood once more in silence, for a moment longer. Then, Duo heard his voice puncture it, saying, "One of my friends sent you dinner from Chinatown. You like lo mein?"
"I don't eat meat."
"Lo mein has veggies, dear. Come eat with me."
"What if something happens?"
"Nothing will."
"I'm not leaving."
"You don't have to leave the hospital. Just go down to the cafeteria with me."
"Duo…"
"I brought you food."
"Duo…"
"The change in scenery will do you good."
"Duo…"
"Please."
She looked to him, the soft pleading in his eyes. She tried to mask her own want to be free from this with a fierce wall before her eyes. It took almost no time to crumble it, and she nodded, turning her body away from the plate glass for the first time in hours, hours feeling like days. She followed him with a languid frame into the hospital cafeteria. He pulled out her chair and set the little cardboard box in front of her. She didn't look at him; rather, she poked through the vegetables in silence. She stabbed the fork into her carton again, twirling the plastic between her fingers before raising a noodle-laden lump to her lips. She wasn't looking at him, her green eyes tipped down with an intense stare at the intricate Chinese symbols emblazoned in red against the white carton. He anxiously watched the cup of tea he'd poured for her. So far, she hadn't even glanced at him, which was disappointing for a number of reasons; firstly, because it meant that his efforts to pull her out of her depression were almost entirely void, and also because that high of a quality opiate had cost him a pretty penny. Revisiting the "herbalist's" shop on Sanchu Avenue reminded him of why he'd dropped the habit. It was pretty hard to handle. Finally, she spoke, saying the last words he'd expected to hear.
"We can't afford this." Her voice was softer than usual, the harsh and analytical tone having left it for the time being. Duo stared at her with blank eyes, hoping to meet her face, but only finding a curtain of black hair.
"What?"
"Julian and I… we don't have any money. We can't pay for him to stay here. We can't afford to get him better."
Duo smiled easily, a reassuring gesture that Lela would not lift her head to observe. He speared a piece of chicken on his own plastic fork and dipped it into the little plastic container filled with a translucent pink sauce. "Don't worry about that," he answered, popping the morsel into his mouth.
She looked up for the first time, her eyes shrink-wrapped in lingering tears. "How can I not worry about that?"
"Because," Duo replied, his teeth still grinding away. "I'll take care of it."
"You don't have money either."
"Oh ye of little faith." She stare at him like there were lobsters crawling out of his ears. "I'm Duo Maxwell, babe. Duo Maxwell doesn't offer what he can't promise." She couldn't help but smile at him, his debonair wit and charm that made him so beautifully like Duo Maxwell.
"Where will you get the money?"
He leaned back, tilting his chair onto its back two legs with his feet straining to stay on the ground. He tucked his hands behind his head and stared into the fluorescent ceiling lights. "Let's just say that Yuy and I and the other pilots know some things that be quite damaging to certain aspiring politicians and maintain knowledge of several conspiracies, plots, and government contrivances that have the potential to cause a coup d'etat and establish total and utter anarchy." She stared back at him, a slight terror in her eyes. "It's not the kind of thing I want. I'm a fan of peace. However, I'm not above accepting hush money, and the new government isn't above giving it out."
"Don't they think that the boys who fought would want war the least?"
"They thought no one would want war after the first one. After the Marimeia Incident, no one's taking chances. Not to mention, they're so busy with maintaining the peace, they just throw the cash at us without really thinking about it. Eventually, someone will figure out that we're the ones who would have to fight in another war, and we're just trying to keep our lives together."
"There's one more thing I don't get."
"Hm?"
"You guys have a lot of money."
"Indeed we do, m'dear."
"So why do you live… where you live?"
"Hm?"
"Your apartment's pretty shitty. Why don't you live in a house or at least get a better place?"
Duo sighed, his chair coming back down onto the ground. He leaned onto the table with his elbows and stared, his eyes penetrating hers. "It didn't seem right."
"What?"
"It doesn't seem right to either of us that we live like kinds just because we lived. It doesn't make sense that we have rich lives while people two feet to the left of us don't even have lives. Why should we exploit the money that they give to us while they ignore people… people like you and Julian, y'know?"
All Lela could do was nod as she felt tears rising to her gentle eyes. She couldn't stop one from falling, dripping onto her warm skin. Duo smiled with eyes of sadness as he reached up to wipe them away. "Don't be sad, columba. I just wanted to make you happy."
"Columba?"
He nodded, his smile widening. "Yeah. It's Latin for dove." His eyes fell and grew soft. "Peace."
"It's pretty."
"Thanks." He looked away quickly. His heart was steadily growing heavier. He felt then like he was deceiving her, like he was keeping her from something, and then hurting her again. He knew, somewhere deep inside of him that this was wrong, and that there was a chance he would regret this the way he regretted so many of the choices he had made in the war, and the way he regretted so much of his life. He had led her on, made her believe that they were poor and it had caused her pain. But he couldn't stop it, this deception, this web of lies that he was so thickly tangled in. That is why when her body relaxed, and she reached for the Styrofoam cup of tea that he had poured for her, he made no move to stop her. And as she finished that, and asked for more, he gave it to her.
And why that whole evening, he did not once say no to her.