Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Death Becomes Him ❯ Coming to Terms ( Chapter 18 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
Gundam Wing is copyright...Sotsu, I think it is, and I don't own the GW boys, if I did I'd have my own personal harem and a billion dollars instead of my pathetic 486 CPU and small fansub collection...

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SUNDAY:

Shi -chan: Apologies...I didn't get this up last night...
Duo: Thank God...
Shi-chan: Um, yeah. I spent most of the night looking for Ground Zero scans.
Duo: And fanfics....
Shi-chan: Oh yes, and the fanfics. *grin* I read so many good darkfics...too bad I can't write them...
Duo: Oh, what a shame! *grins evilly*

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Death Becomes Him
~By Shimegami-chan
Part 18
WARNING! SHOUNEN-AI, LANGUAGE


The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully, although Duo was getting quite annoyed at having to stay phased all the time and having Heero following him everywhere. By bedtime Duo was starving, he hadn't eaten since the pizza early that morning. Once he and Heero were settled into bed--or at least as settled as Duo could get half-solid as he was--Duo was releived to see Heero immediately falling into dreams. The Japanese pilot snored softly, a smile on his lips, mumbling to someone or something in his dream.

Quietly Duo slipped out of bed and turned solid, then headed down to the kitchen for a snack--or something equivilant of the twomeals he had missed that day. //Funny, I'm not usually this hungry after just missing dinner...must be this weird phasing thing...//

He began fixing himself some noodles absent-mindedly, still listning carefully to noises from just above in case Heero woke up, and barely noticed the approach of someone else from the doorway.

"Duo."

"Hey, Trowa."

"How's Heero doing?" The unibanged pilot sat down the the kitchen table.

Duo scooted over with his bowl of noodles and a fork. "He's doing better, I think..."

"Still haven't figured out how to use chopsticks?"

"Um..." Duo grinned and put a forkful into his mouth. "Not really..."

Trowa's blank face softened. "How are *you* doing?"

"Fine, fine!" Duo reassured him. "he's pissing me off to no end, but it's okay! It's not his fault. I think."

"No. Not if his problem is as severe as we think." Trowa sighed and rubbed his temples. "You're going to have to decide what to do. Heero is in your hands."

Duo looked sad. "I know. I've thought a lot about it, Trowa...and I think maybe he's right, you know?"

"What do you mean?"

The braided pilot clasped his hands together. "If you really *think* about this...Heero's right. I'm dead. He knows it, accepted it, maybe hasn't come to terms with it yet, but it's true. I haven't been able to accept it...because I've been living. But all this could be taken away again in the blink of an eye, and you and Quatre and Wufei and I are going to have to come to terms with it--all over again. Heero's kind of done it already. But I don't know why I'm *here,* Trowa, was it all a mistake? Or was I right from the start, I'm only here to determine whether Heero lives or dies? Maybe it was because of the split personality. Maybe once that's cured or fixed or however you say it I go back to oblivian. And I don't want to, but it's probably going to happen. I know it...and I think you do too."

Tears glistened in Trowa's visible emerald-green eye. "I don't want to beleive you. But you may be right."

"That's the hardest part of all, not knowing." Duo said softly. "Not knowing what to do."

"I have another theory that I think you should know..."

Duo looked up. "What's that?"

Trowa hesitated. "Don't you think...that maybe losing you again really *would* kill Heero?"

"Yesss...."

"Suicidal or not, most people deep down still want to live. It's possible that your sudden appearance caused the split, so that once you...left us again only one side of Heero would have to face the pain?"

Duo's face froze. "Oh, no...that time when he came up behind me in the mirror...he was acting so oddly...and then he started getting violent..." Duo closed his indigo eyes and sighed. "That might be when it happened, right there, when he actually acknowledged that I was really real. I touched him and we kissed...maybe it was too much for him..."

Trowa's face was even more stricken than before, and Duo finally realized why. "Trowa...I just had an awful thought..."

The unibanged pilot looked down at the table. "So...do you think that when you go, Heero might go back to normal?"

Duo grimaced. "No...I was thinking that if I were to die again, that soft personality of Heero's--the one that sees me, the one that loves me--will die with me. Leaving..."

"Leaving that semi-suicidal other Heero with us."

"Right." Duo couldn't keep the pain out of his eyes. "At least until he makes good on his promise to kill himself."




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Heero stirred and noticed that Duo's soft blue glow beside him was missing.



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"That's just a theory though, right?" Trowa asked worriedly.

"Yeah. Just a thought. I'm not really suicidal, you know, Trowa...it occured to me once or twice, and more than that over the last few days, but I really don't want to die. I want to be here, with you guys and Heero, and be the legal drinking age and get on with a normal life. I never really had a normal life. None of us did...except maybe Quatre, or Wu-man." He looked a little angry. "But all that got taken away from me, without any warning. And now here I am, barely half a person, I couldn't fend for myself until I got to Quatre. I would have died again, without him being there to take me in. I would have died again on the cliff if I hadn't come to my damned senses. I could die any minute now, when God or whoever's up there realizes that I've come to this realization and accepted that fact that it's over! I would give my life for you, Trowa, or for Heero or Quatre or Wu-man. But I don't think I have a life to give anymore. Even if I wanted suicide now--if I had to do it to bring Heero back to his senses, I would--I don't know what would happen to me. Am I just here until Heero gets himself back together? Or am I just here until I decide deep-down that it's time for me to move on? Do I *need* to kill myself to end this, will someone do it for me, or will I just disappear someday? It scares the shit out of me that I don't know. That I've got no way of knowing. Not being able to go solid this morning really freaked me out...it could have been a sign of what's coming. Maybe tomorrow I won't be able to go back to normal at all. Maybe my wings will appear and I won't be able to concentrate them away. Maybe one of you won't be able to see me anymore. I don't know." He gasped for breath. "I don't know why this is happening! I thought at first that it was my personal hell on earth...that could still be true! I find myself having trouble beleiving in my own existance, what if tomorrow we find out that it was never really real at all, that it's just a dream you or Quatre or Heero are having? Is what I did in life enough to bring this upon me? I was Shinigami, I don't deny it, I killed and killed and killed for what I thought was the good of the colonies and my own survival. How important was my survival compared to all those OZ soldiers? How many more civilians would have died if I hadn't been there? Which was truly the *right* way for us to live, killing for others or getting killed ourselves?"


Trowa did not speak. "That's something all of us wonder, I think. You know I cannot answer your questions...some of them are my questions too. But rest assured, everything you did with your life went according to what you beleived was right, did it not? Duo, you're one of the most caring and loyal people I know. You would never have abandoned us if there was anything you could do about it. And we are not going to abandon you now."

"Thanks a lot, Trowa." Duo offered him a genuine smile. "If I die tomorrow, and I mean *really* die, I know that this time I won't be leaving anything left undone."








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Shi-chan: Starting to clue up, next chapter...I'll start working on it right away....
Duo: o.O