InsaneJournal

[GW] Put Up A Parking Lot
Put Up A Parking Lot
by cozzybob

Rated: PG

Pair: Duo, Hilde

Warning: post-war, angst, oddity, the desecration of graves, some religious themes, hints of mental breakdown, Duo-and-the-past-ness. Maybe a little bit twisted... err...

Note: I was tired of reading about Duo and his grief over the The Church, so I wrote my own version. Inspired by the song if you know where the title (and the quote in the fic) came from. Written for gw500's "fake."

Summary: Duo prays over a spot in a parking garage once a year, and Hilde asks him why.


He belongs somewhere in the Sahara without a canteen, turban on his head and a spitting camel under his ass, waiting for the storm rip him six ways from Sunday. He belongs with the thirsty and the hungry; the desperate, swatting at the sand still lodged in the corners of their eyes from that eternal sleep that beckons him and them and all his fellows closer, night after night, day by day.

He does not belong in a parking garage in downtown L2, standing and looking down at that perfect cement road way, no matter how many cars stop and stare at him, honking their horns and calling him a freak of nature. He does not look up, and he speaks not a word. The cars that find him in their routes are forced to go around, shaking their heads and bitching like only the crowded streets of a colonial could do it.

This is his routine. Stand and stare at the spot in the cement floor from dawn until dusk once a year, every year, uttering prayers in his head of things he does not believe, but knows by heart upon perfect memory and the face that raised him. Every year, an officer comes and talks to him, and every year, the officer leaves with a stricken look on his face, pale as the ashen cement under his shiny black boots. Sometimes, the officer wipes a nervous sweat from his forehead and makes a sign of the Christian cross, uttering a silent prayer for the damned and the far less fortunate.

And every year, the man comes back, and he stands in that spot. And he does not move.

Hilde sits in her car and watches him. This year, she followed him, and she found him standing here doing what appeared to be absolutely nothing, though she knows better now. She knows that he will not eat, talk, refresh himself or sleep the entire day while he stands at this particular spot. This spot is his entire world, and he will not leave it or let himself be distracted for nothing and no one until whatever penance he is putting himself through is over. She respects that, more than anyone would perhaps give her credit for, because she, more than anyone else, understands. She knows that she cannot stop him, and so now she's decided to aid him in this strange quest instead. She sits in her car and she watches him, deflecting all traffic that comes in his direction.

And he stands, and he prays, and he stares.

At dinner hour, she cannot take it any longer. There is only so long a woman can stand by and watch her brother kill himself before she acts out of shear will. She knows perfectly well that whatever he did to deserve that penance is not right, and so she steps out of her car, ready to give him justice, ready to make her opinions known. Enough, she thinks, is enough. He will know that he is not hated, that he had been forgiven long ago--perhaps he'd only forgotten it, and she should only need to remind him.

But her movements are tentative, afraid to make the slightest noise should she scare him away and lose him forever to some desert storm that swallows him whole and spits out the bones, dry of blood and gore--as if, for a thought, this penance would devour him entirely, until there is nothing left at all. But no, she thinks, that makes no sense, and she shakes her head and moves forward, still afraid even though she knows that he will not move a breath. Baby steps, right into the monster's mouth. Still frightened, she finds that she cannot look at his face, and so she stares at his hands, callused fingers clutching a black rosery that she knows means more to him than the prayers ever did.

And she walks until they are exactly three feet apart. He does nothing.

"Duo," she starts, but stops when she knows that he will not acknowledge her. He will stand, and he will stare, and he will pray until the colony's dusk, and then he will leave and speak not a word of it tomorrow. He'll be back next year, and the year after that, and he'll keep praying until maybe he finally decides to let them rest once and for all, or maybe when he dies first.

But he surprises her. He glances up, and he smiles. It is the first smile that she has seen from him since yesterday morning.

"Hey."

His voice is rough with disuse. She imagines sand clinging to his vocal cords and shakes the image away, licking her lips to wet the sudden dryness.

"Duo..." But what can she tell him that she knows he won't deny immediately? That won't insult him or drive him away or destroy the fragile husk of a man that he has become, become once a year on this day, for this spot in a parking garage in downtown L2?

He lifts the hand that is holding the rosery and brushes his knuckles against her cheek. She feels the black beads rub against her skin, and she shies away, blushing. Duo, she realizes, is not grieving. In fact, he doesn't seem to be upset at all. The smile on his face is that of a man relieved of all guilt, all circumstance.

She only frowns, and asks him with her eyes.

What are you intending?

He laughs a light and fair sound, waving the rosery at her with two fingers. "I'm praying," he says, not-so-much stating the obvious as speaking the pretenses hidden under forty mattresses and a pea.

"Why?" Such a simple word to carry so much. Her eyes continue, saying, I thought you didn't believe in God.

And his own eyes darken, sobering, and he returns, I don't.

She is more confused than she ever was, and she stares.

He laughs again--darker, but not quite bitter. "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot."

"They did what?" What paradise, she thinks, and what desecration? Angels and waterfalls and mile-long tables of the best food humanity ever cooked, with virgins in playboy gear acting as a waiters, or the simple notion of utter contentment for a moment, for a day, for a year when problems are minor and everything just falls into place like the lost pieces of a puzzle, where no matter how deep the hole becomes, the walls growing ever taller above you, all you have to do is stand up and realize just how high you really are in the world. A paradise where, if given the slightest chance, you--he--she--could have touched the sky and not had to kill to get there.

And now he is bitter for the things that he has lost, but only for a moment. He clutches the rosery dangerously tight, and grates, "They paved a church."

Hilde does not believe in God, but she has respect for the House of such things. She understands, if not for the details.

And he continues, continues like he'd done for the officer that approached him at noon and asked him why he was standing there, why he came here every year on this exact day from dawn until dusk to pray in this precise spot.

He scratches at his chin and it makes him look twenty years younger.

"I buried them right here. I was told they'd been removed and sent to Earth where there's more room for the dead, but I researched, and they didn't. They lied to me. They're still there, Hilde, under all this cement and mortar, dead as the fuckers that killed them."

Hilde jumps backward as one does when she realizes she's standing atop a grave, and then she winces, staring up at him. She opens her mouth to say his name, to say something, anything, but she forgets, and says nothing at all.

And he continues, staring at the cold stone floor. "At first, I was angry. At first, I fought to dig them up again, to pay them a little respect. At first, I demanded it, but no one heard me. No one believed me. I thought about asking for help, you know, from Quatre or Relena or maybe even Une, but they wouldn't like that." When Hilde opens her mouth again to tell him that no, they would, they owe it to you for all that you've done for them, he shakes his head. "Not them. Helen. Helen'd want me to do it on my own. This is my problem, my family, and I don't want the others involved."

Staring. Hilde doesn't believe him. She never knew Helen, but if she was as wise as Duo could make her out to be, she'd have wanted Duo to accept whatever help could be given to him. Hilde is sure that she'd have wanted him to learn that sometimes accepting charity isn't a bad thing at all--sometimes it proves to the world that giving is still a thing that is needed in this world, and it causes another man to offer that extra coin to someone who could use it, rather than spending it on useless things. And what is so wrong about accepting a friend's help? Is that not what they are there for, to be a friend?

Especially in something so terrible, so... personal. They will be furious if they ever discover that Duo never asked them. And hurt, Hilde thinks. Very hurt.

But she doesn't tell him this. She knows that he won't listen, so again, she waits. She waits and she watches.

And finally, he says, "I didn't win. Didn't even get into court. I gave up. Unlike me, but I did." He half-smiles, something positive despite how bitter the words. "I started coming here to pay my respects. I stopped being angry. I started being happy. I buried them here, the place they lived and died for, and here they still lie. They're happy here. This is their home, no matter what building currently sits atop of it. So I've left it alone."

Hilde asks, "How many years ago?" He lifts an eyebrow, and she elaborates, "...Since you gave up?"

How many years had he come here, to accept such a twisted, cruel fate? And be so... so happy about it? With no one ever knowing?

He shrugs. "I dunno," he says. "I lost track."

He is twenty eight. The war ended when he was sixteen. They probably died when he was tenish, she thinks. And even though that seems an awfully long time to mourn, she understands.

It isn't right.

"It isn't right," Hilde repeats, fists on her hips, eyes red with rage. "They need to be respected. You can't build a parking garage over two graves--"

"Twelve."

"--and get away with it! Never mind that it was a church--"

"Orphanage."

"--and they replaced it with a parking garage--"

He smiles at her, sadly. "Forget it, Hilde. Been there, done that. Let them rest in peace."

"It's a parking garage over two--"

"Twelve. Twelve graves. Buried the kids too." Hilde stares at him with agony in her eyes, and he shrugs it off. "Don't feel pity for me, and don't feel it for them either. They're in heaven and that was a long time ago."

She sighs. She doesn't know what to say, and so she says, "I didn't think you believed in God."

"I don't."

"Then why--"

He smiles again and lifts his black rosary to study the fine detail of the cross. "This rosary might as well be fake for the good that it does me. I don't believe an iota of it. But they do," he says, and waves his beaded hand to the cement floor again. "They believe. I pray for them."

She still doesn't understand, but she nods anyway. The sandstorms have passed, and Duo has long survived his penance. It leaves him confusing and far from whole, but he is still alive, and for now, that is enough.

Unsure and awkward, she asks, "Duo?"

A grunted, "Yeah?" Still staring at that cement spot. Still thinking, still praying, still lost within his own warped mind.

She shifts, uncertain. "Duo, can we go home now?"

Nothing. Not even silence, for the parking garage is never quiet enough for such things, and she hears the start of engines and tires rolling over gravel, the low hum of conversation at the toll booth as the lady there trades stories with a janitor.

And he sighs. It is an exhalation of demons, an exorcism of endless nightmares.

"I've forgotten where it is," he whispers.

On a hunch, Hilde takes his hand, and drags him toward the car. Duo lets her. And as she parks him into the passenger seat, buckling him up and shutting the door, she says, "I'll drive, then."

And she takes him home.