Title: What Duo Said
Author: Kasa
Series: Gundam Wing
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Deathfic, shonen-ai, 1x2
Summery: Heero tries to cope with the deteriorating health of Duo Maxwell.
And it came to me then that every plan
is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes
in an ICU
that reeked of piss and 409
Heero couldn't bring himself to look at the figure in the hospital bed in front of him. He could feel the prickling of tears welling in his eyes as he clasped his lover's pale hand tighter.
"Why couldn't have been me? Why did it have to be you…?" he asked the unconscious boy. He couldn't stop the tears, and Heero was ashamed of how often he had been crying recently. They had seen every doctor and specialist in the entire Earth Sphere and done everything that they were told. He had been on the upswing, he was getting better and they were still cautious, he was going to be okay.
But then he caught pneumonia…
And I rationed my breaths
as I said to myself
that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak
on the LCD
took you a little farther away from me
Heero was brought out of his thoughts as the steady beeping started to slow its rhythm. He looked at the heart rate monitor in surprise, the peaks that indicated his heart beats were steadily getting smaller. Heero turned his focus to the pale laying in mechanized bed. "Duo…" Heero rested his hand on the boy's cheek and leaned in to give his dying Love a soft kiss.
Away from me…
Heero could hear the squeak of hospital shoes and the thundering of the rolling defibrillator coming toward the room as the as the heart monitor rang straight signaling his lover's still heart. He stepped back and the doctor and nurses do their job of keeping the Shinigami alive.
He was a tad bit annoyed when a nurse ushered him out of the room asking him wait outside. But he left without incident, knowing it was for the health of his love.
Amongst the vending machines
and year-old magazines
in a place where we only say goodbye
Heero sat facing his friends, Quatre, Trowa, Wufei, Relena, Noin; all the people that held Duo dear. Heero knew that Duo wouldn't have wanted them to drop everything for his sake. But Duo no longer had any say in the things that happened to him, and it wasn't his fault.
It stung like a violent wind
that our memories depend
on a faulty camera in our minds
He wished he could recall exactly how Duo had looked after the first time they had slept together, how the moonlight seeping through the window looked on his pale flesh. Or how he had tasted the first time they kissed, he recalled it was faintly like peanut-butter and that he had smelt of something far sweeter. He felt the sting of tears in his eyes, knowing that the love of his life would soon be gone…
But I knew you were a truth
I would rather lose
then to have never lain beside at all
…And what hurt most was that it was his fault. It was his fault that Duo had gotten sick, his fault he was dying. It's always possible to be a carrier and not know it.
And I looked around
at all the eyes on the ground
as the TV entertained itself
Quatre and Trowa held hands across from Heero, Trowa talking in a hushed voice. Relena sat next to him, arm slung across his shoulders; but she was lost in thought, her hand tightly clasped in Noin's. As the TV over head went on and on about the suction cups on the Giant Squid's tentacles.
'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
Heero found the steady beat of Wufei's shoes against the linoleum was almost mesmerizing as he waited for news of his braided love. He almost didn't hear the squeak of hospital shoes.
Then the nurse comes 'round
And everyone lifts their heads
The burly overweight nurse in charge of the night shift rounded the corner of the waiting room, the mechanical doors shutting noisily behind her. Her mouth was a thin line, and she looked at the largely unoccupied waiting room. The occupants all looking at her, the only one's not waiting on news of the dying Shinigami was a young couple at the other side of the room.
She starts to say something, but her words were lost to the pounding of blood in Heero's ears.
But I'm thinking of what Duo said:
But he managed to catch the tail end of her words, the chocked sob Quatre emits, the thud of Wufei's fist against the painted brick wall. He could barely feel the tight clench of Relena's arm across his shoulders.
He shook it off and stood on unsteady legs. Everyone looked at him with worried eyes, tears welling at their corners. Heero didn't know what to do, just that he wanted to get rid of the overwhelmingly numb feeling he had. He looked at the retreating form of the head nurse.
"That love is watching someone die"
He took after her, slipped through the mechanical doors that closed the ICU off from the public. He ran past the nurses telling him he wasn't allowed, past the rows of doors until he ran to the room where his braided lover lay.
There was a doctor in the room, fluttering about, turning off the various equipment that had once kept his lover alive. Heero fell on his knees next to the body of his love, throwing his arms around him, crying into his chest. He listened desperately for any signs that he was going to pull through, but when the beat finally stopped, Heero couldn't help but cry out. He was gone. The love of his life was gone, and it was all his fault. If only he had gotten sick first… But he knew Duo wouldn't have let Heero go without him.
So who's gonna watch you die?
He clasped the pale hand of his late lover and gently kissed his soft lips. He could hear the footsteps in the hall that signaled the coming of the hospital staff, coming to take him down to the morgue.
But he wasn't going to let them have his love.
So who's gonna watch you die?
Heero looked at the doctor and two nurses that had come to take the dead boy downstairs, but he wouldn't let them. Heero had the right to decide what happened with Duo, and he meant to have his lover's final wishes carried out.
"Before we do anything, we need to discuss exactly what we're going to do here…" Heero addressed the hospital staff.
Who's gonna watch you die?
Heero sat clutching the small canister to his chest. It was a simple silver canister with a lid that screwed close and a simple cross engraved not very far down from the lid. Heero saw the green light turn on, indicating he was okay to go and open the air lock. He looked out at the expanse of space and clutched the canister closer to his chest.
But he knew this is what he wanted. They had talked about it only once, Heero had wanted Duo to focus on getting better, not what happened if he did die. But Duo knew what he wanted, and he had made sure that Heero knew it.
Heero stepped out into space and float-swimmed a little ways away from the shuttle, making sure his lifeline to the ship was still attached. With a quick glance back at the stationary shuttle, Heero opened the canister, and proceeded to spread Duo's ashes amongst the stars.
Heero paid no attention to the tears that escaped his eyes; it wasn't a pleasant experience giving up the last remnants of his lover. But he knew this was his final wishes, and that was all that mattered.
When the canister was empty, he looked at the floating ashes, recalling all the time they had spent together in space.
He had to turn away and pull his way back to the shuttle before the urge to take off his helmet outweighed his self-control. But, he made it into the safety of the metal belly of the shuttle before he finally broke down. Crying in the frustration of it, knowing it was his fault, but also that Duo never held him responsible in the least. Frustrating that with every precaution and they took, he had still died. They had done everything, seen every specialist, there didn't seem to be any reason why he shouldn't be here today, but the cold hard truth was that he wasn't.
It was awhile Heero sat in the bay, work through his emptiness and anger, but he was able to join everyone eventually, firm in the knowledge that Duo would want him to try and be happy, even if he wasn't there.
End Note: I got the idea for this story after listening to my Death Cab for Cutie CD in the background whilst reading depressing GW Fanfics that are majorily 1x2 and often had Duo hurting himself. I had just finished a chapter when the 'I'm thinking of what Sarah said/That "love is watching someone die"' came on. I broke into tears, mainly because three years ago, when I was a freshman, one of my best friends passed on, and her name was Sara. That song then fascinated me, I would listen to it on repeat for hours, when one night, I sat in the car waiting for my mom to finish shopping at Ross, listening to the CD, when the song came on and I suddenly got the idea for this songfic. I couldn't decide whether I wanted him to die of prostate cancer or AIDS, but when I asked a friend and got the response that AIDS was more dramatic, it was settled. I know I must sound horrible, like I hate Duo or something, but it is exactly to the contrary, Duo is my favorite GW character and I only do this to him to show the despair losing someone you love to any type of disease. So please, don't be too hard on me, this is my first songfic and my first completed BL piece. ((I used to write DBZ B/Vs & T/Ps)) I also need to state that this might be somewhat AU, I haven't actually been able to seen the series since it was on Cartoon Network, for I am a High School Senior whose only income is irregular baby-sitting jobs… so I am not sure what hospitals are actually like in the series, I just based the one in the fic off of a waiting room and hospital I visited a lot when my Grampa was still alive. And there is the fact that there is probably a high possibility that they would have a cure for AIDS by then, but I don't know. So, please, no flaming, my fragile self worth can't take it.