Title: Inner Battles
Theme + Number: #19/ The War Within
Genre: Drama/Introspective
Warnings: None
Character/Pairing: Duo/Heero
Word Count: 667
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After the war is over, there's another war to be fought...
He was just a boy, a child really, who was haunted by the ghosts of his fifteen years of life. In slumber, those ghosts would haunt him. Digging through his memories, taunting him with the innocent deaths he'd caused. Even after the war itself was over, his war inside was only beginning.
It had begun a few months after the end of the war. Simple dreams, memories really, that would turn into horrendous nightmares. He'd wake up in cold sweats, sometimes crying out and tears welling in his eyes.
For a heart ruled by such strong emotions to be plagued by such tragedy- it was really a cruel twist of fate. And when the boy named Heero Yuy found a reason to live to the future- the people he wanted to live for- these tragedies seemed to lessen.
But now, they were back to haunt him. Vivid memories of bloodstained hands and the broken feeling killing others left him with. On the outside, he seemed fine- not the type to let his past ruin his future. It was at nighttime though, that he lost control and the darker dreams began to win.
At first, he thought it would pass. Studies everywhere spoke of how soldiers would often experience post-war trauma and have hallucinations and dreams that would come with it. Heero hoped that was his case, but after months of restless nights, he sought out an unlikely ally in name.
Now at night when the nightmares would overtake him, Death would watch him from the doorway with sympathy brimming in his eyes.
Heero had the name of a dead man, and it was in a man who once called himself death that he found some relief from his troubles.
But even Death could not wake him from his slumber. It was a war he had to fight alone, a war within himself. So tragic was this state of being, that even Death wept for him- his unseen tears being shed for the sake of the man trapped in his own war.
Nights passed, and the war only grew worse. Sometimes he'd toss and turn until the blankets strangled the air from his throat.
Quietly, Death would reach out and save him. It was not his time to die.
Perhaps, had Death been the cynical type, he would have taken the boy's life long ago. There was once he almost had, but that gunshot was not meant to kill. Now, he had hope that the pains would be overcome and that the boy could live again. This boy- was meant to live.
Each night, the shell of indifference would crack and break a little more. Emotions of sorrow and regret allowing themselves to surface as he slept.
And all the time, Death held his hand; comforting him and trying to soothe away the pain. These silent nights, left him a lot of time to think, as he stayed awake beside Heero. He'd once called himself the God of Death, but that seemed almost like a sick joke now. Like his companion, he too was fighting a war within. As Heero struggled in his sleep to find peace, a boy named Duo Maxwell struggled on the outside for that same peace.
Together, they made their amends with the past. Repentance for the innocent lives they took, vows to never let such a terrible war happen again, and hope that no other children would have to befall the same fate as the five boys called Gundam Pilots did.
One night the dreams ceased and Death left in name, but not in presence. Heero Yuy, the dead man, the killer, the failure, was dead. And the God of Death himself, died right beside him.
As the morning light came shining through the window, two new lives were born into the world. A boy by the name of Heero Yuy and his companion, Duo Maxwell. They were children of the future- a future they were going to live out to the fullest.