Title: My Name Is Shinigami
Author: Avel
Summary: "I hate you." He growled venomously, eyes glinting as he stared into fiery violet eyes. Watching as a feral smile edged its way across the other's face. "Don't flatter yourself, I'm not afraid of you." He allowed a predatory smirk that didn't reach his eyes as he read the other's unspoken challenge "You should be." 1x2
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing… words cannot describe the disappointment.
Pairings: 1x2, past 5x2
CD Player:Artist: Band of Horses
Album: Everything All the Time
Most inspiring song(s): Funeral
Prologue: Drowning In Your Eyes"Duo?"
"Duo, come out of there, there's no one here!"
I could hear Heero screaming at me from the other side of the bathroom door. However, I couldn't register his words. Fragments of his sentence seemed to blur in my mind and his voice seemed muffled as if my head had been submerged under water. The words spun around in my dazed mind. Duo. Out. Here.
I stared at the door as if it had spoken. Open it? I couldn't open the door. Don't you realize that He is out there waiting for me?
"He's out there! Heero get away from here! HE'S OUT THERE!" I screamed, my voice cutting off in a terrified sob. Heero was in danger and all I could do was hide, cowering behind the locked door, unable to risk the chance of him getting in.
"Heero please go." I whispered, tears running freely down my face, I was putting Heero in danger. Knowing that He'd kill him. "Go."
I felt the rising panic and anxiety that I had been suppressing begin to swell and cave in on me. I was suffocating. I gripped my throat in an attempt to vanquish the invisible noose wrapped around it. My skin was heated, my eyes were starting to water, and the pressure in my face and neck increased. I'm chocking I thought unnervingly as I started struggling in attempt to free myself, my body writhing against the tile floor.
It hit me a moment later that He was in the room with me. That He was strangling me to death, and I was rapidly running out of air.
I managed a forced cry in an attempt to gasp for air as I continued to struggle with my assailant. But I couldn't focus on anything but the blurred bathroom. He was too damn quick and my arms felt like lead weights, unable to move my attacker's hands from my neck. My eyes turned upward, lingering on the ceiling and the bright fluorescent lights as they began to darken. No, the lights weren't dimming, my vision was! My vision swerved, as a cool trickle of liquid dripped off my eyebrow causing my attention to briefly focus on my burning lungs and my now sweat drenched clothes.
Duo!
The lights were so overbearing. I couldn't focus on anything but the blaring lights and the dark spots that were starting to spill across the ceiling. I felt my body moving on its own accord, my steps faltering as they brought me towards the sink, in front of the wall mirror. I tried to grab the doorknob to the side of me. I used the mirror as my guide, but my hand wouldn't budge.
Duo!
My eyes rested on my neck, and the figure suffocating me. My eyes widened in fear as my eyes caught his. The only sound that penetrated through my fading consciousness was my slowing heartbeats and sickly deprived gasps for air. He was killing me. And I couldn't fight him off. I was helpless as my weakened legs finally gave way, and I felt my body falling. The lights were fading. He had won. Everything went black.
1 Year Earlier.
"Duo?""Fei?" I replied. The adrenaline and excitement coursing through my veins caused my voice to take on an edgy tone.
"It's over." He breathed as he came to sit down next to me on the couch.
It had been a week since the official end of the Mariemaia fiasco, and the media wasn't letting the story die anytime soon. It marked the end of the Eve Wars and signified the ending of our lives as soldiers. It was certainly difficult to grasp. Especially when considering that in just four words all five of us were handed a freedom that we had spent most of our lives fighting for. The war is over.
"It's over." I repeated, testing the foreign words, tasting them for the first time. Not disillusioned like at the end of Operation Meteor. This was the real deal. I took a glance at Wufei, growing a bit concerned when I noticed that he looked exhausted.
"You okay?" He asked suddenly, catching my gaze and giving me his full attention.
"Sure, but you need to get some sleep buddy, your looks are worse for wear." I winked at him.
He gave and indignant huff, but his eyes held playful humor.
"You look worn out yourself, Maxwell." He replied a bit more seriously, falling back on calling me by my last name. I could tell that he was concerned about me, but I shrugged him off carelessly.
"You know that now that we're all here, Quatre will probably trap us here. I don't think he quite appreciated the last time when we split and didn't quite 'keep in touch'." I gave him a mischievous smirk.
"I'm sure you wouldn't mind." Wufei gave an almost arrogant smile at me, "Free food." He stated before attempting to dodge the pillow I threw at him in irritation.
"We all know that I would stay to observe the ever reclusive Trowa in his natural habitat." I grinned at the emerald-eyed ex-pilot as he entered the room.
A silent, raised eyebrow was his only response to my offhand comment, as he made his toward the adjoining kitchen.
Playing into the low laugh I had won from Wufei, I started narrating Trowa's movements.
"There, striding towards the kitchen is the mysterious uni-banged creature known as Trowa Barton. This tall, lanky and silent predator is a dangerous beast that when approaching…or stalking, should be regarded with the utmost caution." I dropped my Australian accent as his form had almost disappeared from sight and quickly called out after him.
"Hey Tro, can you get me a soda?"
Wufei gave a chuckle at my spontaneous nature and I heard a lighter laughter come out of the kitchen.
You know Duo, One of these days he might not get you that soda." Quatre smiled at me as he made his way toward the chair opposite me. Trowa reappeared a moment later, with two Diet Cokes in hand. As he handed one off to me my eyes strayed past his shoulder, eyes catching a glimpse of a dark figure in the mirror behind him. I nearly lost the grip I had on the soda, causing another concerned look to be directed toward me, only this time it was Trowa who asked about my well being.
"Duo, are you well?" Trowa asked softly, eyes analyzing me for any signs of illness.
"Just fine, thanks." I grinned at him, knowing full well that the possibility of the figure in the mirror being more than just an illusion was slim to none.
"What's with this whole 'Is Duo okay?' deal you guys got going on?" I gave a mock huff of annoyance.
"The one you should be concerned about is him!" I attempted to stray the attention away, pointing a finger toward the desk in the corner. Situated in it was a currently preoccupied Heero Yuy with his constant companion, a.k.a his laptop.
"I don't think he's taken his eyes off that laptop since this morning, if you ask me that sounds pretty damn unhealthy." I stated rather loudly, listening intently as the clicking of computer keys stilled for a moment.
Quite frankly, I enjoyed teasing Heero. After all, it wasn't everyday that you had to compete with a laptop for the attention of your best friend. Well, as much as you could call any of us friends. Are relationship was based on our past as war allies, comrades in arms, and so forth. Sure I acted friendly with each of them, but the awkwardness of our relation to each other was blunt and sometimes fairly uncomfortable.
Stick me alone with Trowa and surprisingly I could get him to talk about a wide number of subjects, but the conversations we held weren't in the casual form of friends, just as acquaintances. Other times the room would go dead silent, both of us uneasy around each other, but unwilling to go ahead and state the obvious. However that tension had been easing slightly, he was intelligent and I actually felt that we had the most experiences in common. He was the one I turned to talk to, but in itself those times had been fairly rare, considering the war had been going on and the one-year of complete lack of communication hadn't helped either.
Quatre was a sweet guy and a well natured character, but unable to relate in most cases the hardships and serious issues that some of us had dealt with in the past. He was naïve to a lot of things, but that didn't make him incompetent. He knew when to leave a subject alone, or when silence was necessary. He was fun to hang around, but I looked upon him as I had with some of the younger orphans in my childhood gang. Which made it hard to really share my whole character with him. He still held an air of innocence about him, even though he had killed just as many people during the war as we had.
Wufei, well lets just say it straight, was just a complete riot to be around. Even when I was in a shitty mood threatening bodily harm to everyone and everything within five feet of me, we held some pretty damn good yelling matches. I hadn't held too many completely serious talks with him. Our conversations were more or less spread out sentences throughout the day. But we made up for that in our fights, paragraphs of heated words, views, points, and facts all compiled so that the entire house could listen in on us. To put it simply, we were great.
My relation with Heero, well out of all of the guys, I felt the most comfortable with him. I could keep talking and he would just listen. With Trowa he would talk back in some small form, Heero normally didn't. I don't know why I considered him to be my best friend, I didn't go announcing it, but I guess I had just known him the longest. Sure I could annoy him at times, but I had fun doing it. I was pretty sure he didn't take the teasing to heart, so to speak. But I was able to get some smirks out of him, which lifted my confidence a bit. I liked to feel needed and with Heero I felt that I could accomplish that by getting him to open up a bit. And there should be a rule out there that states that Heero needs to be needed. That's probably the reason he puts up with me; I need him to listen to my rants and my thoughts. I just don't want to be alone again. I'm afraid of the silence, which is why I fill the void with my voice and my chatter most of the time.
"It's normally you who does the talking, not Yuy." Wufei pointed out, drawing me from my silent contemplation.
"Doesn't change the fact that it's weird." I replied smoothly, but inwardly disappointed with my choice of words.
"And you're not?" Wufei questioned rather arrogantly, a superior smirk etching at the corners of his mouth.
"Nah, I'm just gifted." I grinned back at him, feeling as if I had just said something wrong.
"In what, is the real question," Wufei at times could possess a quick tongue.
I wound up to retort with something witty, but realized I didn't have an answer, but before I could respond I was interrupted by Heero's monotone voice.
"His gift is his words, and if you keep pushing him Chang, he'll continue to demonstrate."
I looked at Heero, caught off guard by the comment. Heero normally didn't stick up for me so I was unsure if it was to stop the bickering or if it was something Heero actually believed. The moment passed quickly when it hit me in a sick and gut wrenching realization that my gift was death. Not words.
I had lost those who I had loved and held dearly to my hated counterpart Shinigami. With the war over, Shinigami had been put to rest, but the fear was still there. The fear of getting close to anyone and unknowingly putting them in harms way. I couldn't lose any more people I cared for. I shoved those thoughts aside quickly, opening the diet coke with a snap, gulping down some of the bubbling soda.
"We wouldn't want that." Wufei agreed, before standing and quietly excusing himself from the room.
Leaving a heavy awkwardness in his absence. I looked up cautiously only to meet Quatre's aquamarine gaze, I flashed my eyes away to Trowa who had situated himself farther from us and was currently fixated on his own drink. Lastly I glanced at Heero's back, wanting more than anything for him to say something and knowing full well that he wouldn't. That settled it I had to leave. Standing abruptly I gave a flash smile to Trowa, who had tensed at the movement, and met Quatre's unwavering stare.
"Looks like I'm going to head upstairs catch up on some of that beauty sleep I recommended Wufei." I stated rather hurriedly. Quatre was putting me on edge and I knew that all three of them had picked up on it, so I took controlled steps to the stairs and started up at a casual pace, that lasted half way before I broke into a jog the rest of the way up.
Why was I running? I thought a bit nervously as I headed into my temporary room. What didn't I want Quatre to see? Or was it that I just didn't want to see the image reflected in Quatre's eyes? I shut the door quietly before sitting on the side of the bed, fingers splaying through my hair and stopping when both my palms rested securely against my temples. Why was I acting this way? I felt lonely and depressed, but I didn't understand what had brought these emotions on so suddenly. I had just let out a frustrated sigh when a knock on the door brought a soft groan of complaint to escape my lips.
"Sleeping." Came my reply, not in the mood for entertaining. The door opened a moment later. My temper aflame, my face shot up, eyes narrowing intent on snapping at the intruder. My voice caught in my throat momentarily, I addressed my housemate in a surprised tone.
"Heero?"
"But that's getting too far ahead of the story, almost to the end, although the end is in the beginning and lies far ahead." – Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
A/N: This fic is going to be the real "challenge", so to speak. Personally, I'm prepared for this to be very hard. Also, I'm incorporating a style I haven't used before. That style, being Duo's point of view. I'm pretty psyched that the beginning prologue turned out as well as it did, it definitely made me happy. Can't wait to work on the next chapter. Remember to review before you leave!