Pair: Duo, Zechs, mention of 1xR, 2+1, 13x6, 13+11, 13xLeia
Warning: The sequel of To Die. Angst, some mental breakdown, past-demons-ness, drunkenness, minor drug abuse, dealing with death, harsh language, some vivid images... and of course more Zechs with Wild Turkey (but he's got his shirt on this time, damnit).
Dedication: For Tresses and the 6x2ML on yahoo... the girls wanted a sequel, and their wish is my command. Also a special thanks to Anna and Michele for the idea about Une, and of course a special glomps to Kagi and Karina, of whom I've both missed terribly because I'm so bad about posting in the MLs (not to mention GWA). Oh, and this is also-also-also for Cinderzol again, because the first one was for her, and I love her so muchly. *squeeeeeze*
Note: This is the sequel of To Die, but I suppose you can read it just fine as a stand alone. It doesn't follow the exact same style as it's predecessor (To Die was in past tense, this is in present), but if you don't mind, I certainly don't.
Summary: Zechs is drunk again, and this time, Duo gets personal. The sequel of To Die.
Death is here, standing over my drunken disgrace. Death is here, and he is laughing. I try to ignore him, but I cannot. And I'm afraid.
I've never wanted to die. I have feared many things in my life, but nothing so much as death, and anyone who breathes can surely understand that. Especially when a man has fought so hard to breathe, that to die--to stop--is wrong. I have lived and breathed when any lesser man wouldn't have bothered try, so why die now, when I have survived for so long, and so hard? I fear death because I would not want to die knowing that my entire life has been wasted on avoiding such things. It's hard to remember a time when I was not running--from my birthright, from the Federation, from Treize, from Noin, from war, from peace... from inevitability.
From death.
But for all that death might be horrifying, it is a subtle thing. It is far more subtle than life ever could be, and carries far more secrets than anyone or anything could dare imagine. Which is ironic, because death, like Duo Maxwell, never lies. All anyone would need to do is ask the right question, and death will tell you all that he knows... for a price.
My father, mother, Otto, Treize, and the others... they paid for it. I'm still waiting for mine. Waiting is always the hardest part about death, because when I wait, I remember things, and memory is the reason that I fear death as much as I do. The things that I remember when I think about death are things that I'd rather not remember at all.
But it's hard not to think about it. It's hard, with the wine in my skull, sloshing through the folds of my mind, infecting every thought with drunken madness--it's hard, with the wine so red, so thin, as if I've poured my veins into this beautiful bottle of Wild Turkey if only to drink and savor the flavor. It's hard, with the wine.
It's very hard. I don't want to think about it, but I do, because I'm drunk and more depressed than I've ever been in my life, and because all of the sudden, with no warning, I've realized...
All of the sudden, I've realized how much I...
I shake, and drink more of the wine.
And I remember.
I remember my mother. I remember that death was there with his ear pressed to my father's bloodstained lips, listening to the uttered prayers tumbling from his mouth as Ungol's blade gutted my mother open in their bedchambers, her blood and organs spilling out of her like a fish under a filet knife, her mouth gaped open in the same kind of agony.
It's hard not to remember it, now that I remember again.
Death sits down across from me, and he gives a friendly grin. His eyes are red-rimmed, and his shoulder is twitching, fingers fidgeting with a constant, bubbling energy. I know without looking that his knee is bouncing under the picnic table, and he snuffles his nose with back of his hand, laughing nervously.
Laughing. Death laughs, and says, "You look like hell, Zechs."
The focus shifts with that familiar voice, and I drawback, acknowledging Duo. Not death. We're in a park, at a picnic table, and I'm stone drunk. I don't remember why, but I am. Several empty bottles of Wild Turkey, rum, whiskey, vodka, beer and anything else I could find alcoholic is stranded around us in a wide circle. As I take it in, remembering reality, I put my head in my hands and grunt at him.
He laughs again, still twitching with that erratic energy. I know without asking that he is high. I didn't even know that he was a drug user, but being an alcoholic, I can make no judgement. And so I don't.
He drums his fingers on the wooden table top and stares at me as I stare back at him. He is waiting for a response from me, something to laugh at.
And so I say, voice hoarse from the drinking, "Been there, done that, got the fuckin' mobile suit."
A wavering frown. "Been where?"
"Hell," I tell him, and feeling more spirited, I slam my fist down on the table for emphasis. A liquor bottle rolls off the edge, and thumps onto the grass at our feet... Duo's eyes watch it go, distracted. "S'Hot there."
He stares for a minute, and then laughs again, harder this time. Tears in his eyes, he points at me stupidly, and says, "Tha's good, man."
"Is it?" I'm not so sure. Hell wasn't very good, little too hot for my tastes... though the devil was nice.
"Yeah," he says.
He sobers, and falls quiet. I lay my head down on the table, and all this hair piles around me as I try to concentrate on thinking rationally.
"Duo?"
"Yeah?"
"Why're you here?"
Duo is more than sober now, as if the high was but an act. He looks away from me, and shrugs very carefully. I would have been intrigued if I wasn't too drunk to give a damn.
He doesn't answer. I know that Duo does not lie--I have not known him for very long, but I know that he doesn't lie, and when he refuses to answer something, it is because he'd rather not want to lie to me. It means that whatever the answer is to my question, it's something that I don't want to hear, or something he'd rather I not know at all.
"Why are you drunk?" So he changes the subject instead.
I glare at him, but I waver and have to put my head down again. "Drank a lot," I say. "Happens."
"You were drunk before. You've been drinking a lot."
Not a question. "You're high."
He tries to be serious, but the sober is broken with the twitch an eyebrow, and he waves his hand in annoyance. "Yeah," he says, but smiles for the hell of it.
"Why?"
"Took some stuff. Happens."
We grin at each other, but mine fades first. I suddenly remember why I came here, and I start shaking again. It's not fear or anger or drunkenness.
It's grief.
"Zechs?"
It's loss. It's a black hole for a sun, swallowing up the Earth and all the colonies and billions upon billions of innocent lives... it's remembering, just now, how much I miss my--
"Yo. Zechs. You okay?"
I have to shake my head. I have to shake to make it stop, and I know that I'm showing the strains because of the way that he is looking at me, from one madman to another.
You're showing your crazy, Mr. Lightning, Sir.
I can't smile. "Fine." Just peachy, as Duo would say. Just fucking bloody peachy, with mother's gore on top.
Duo giggles. I've never heard him giggle before, and I have to stare again.
"You're cracked," he says.
"And you're on it," I tell him.
That giggle turns into another laugh. "Damn, I wish."
His voice is sultry, and I lift an eyebrow at him, but Duo just scratches his nose and quirks that Devil May Care grin at me. He seems to be smiling and laughing enough for the both of us, which is nice because I have turned into quite a depressing drunk, and we all need a bit a laughter...
Distraction. I cannot be held responsible for what comes out of my mouth in following: "You gay?"
"Queer as a blue jay." He gives me that look, the one that states so smoothly, Aren't you?
Something cracks. Something more.
And I snort at him, shrugging off all assumptions. "No," in answer to his silent question. "I'm bi."
"Bi?"
"Bisexual," I tell him, then burst into something of a giggle of my own, though I would dare call it a chuckle instead. I do not giggle. Much.
Duo is dying of laughter. He finds this amusing, somehow, and my own laughter is not abetting him.
"Y'know," I say, more than incoherent, "Father didn't like that." I waggle a finger, and it wobbles in the air. Harsh, drunken laughter.
Duo sobers a little and studies me. I calm as well in a mood swing that terrifies some still-sane part of my mind, the mention of my father not doing well to abate the darkness crashing against the wine, the vodka, the beer, the whiskey, the liquor... I begin to feel ill.
Or perhaps I'm just remembering the pain again.
"So," Duo says intelligently.
I grunt again, now thoroughly back in the throes of my own pathetic misery.
Duo tries for another distraction. "What about Treize? Is it true?"
"What?"
"The rumors. The implications. The girl talk."
I need to talk to him about his distractions.
"Yes." Bitter. Angry. "And no."
"What's that mean?"
"Duo--"
He just looks at me.
I say nothing.
But he won't let it go. "Now that's something I never understood. There's Mariemaia, the daughter of Treize and Dekim Barton's daughter of all combinations, and then you, and of course Une--"
"He never slept with Une."
"No? He certainly tried hard enough. You don't have a woman like that draw rose baths for you unless you're trying to jump her bones. I think Une was just too... Une to notice." When I try to argue, he shrugs, holding up his hands in truce. "All I mean is that Treize seemed to be into everyone, but you're not the kinda guy to go hangin' on a man sleepin' with half the sphere's population--"
No. He doesn't understand at all.
"Look," he says, trying to fix the damage. He's not in his right mind, I'm not either. Not the best situation in which to have a calm, clear conversation between comrades. "I just wanna know what's botherin' you. Treize is the only thing I can think of."
"It's far more than that."
"Is it?"
Such a simple question, deserving such a simple answer. But I cannot find one.
"Why are you here, Duo?"
He mumbles into his shirt, plucking at the end of his braid which has fallen over his shoulder. "You ever love anyone?"
Changing the subject again. "Maxwell--"
"I have," he says. "Lots of people. All dead or married now. I don't understand the point of love, if all you ever do is lose it..."
"I do," I tell him. "It's just another way of gettin' fucked."
"Say what?"
"Sure," I say, grabbing another bottle of whiskey, that I slosh at him. "You fuck, get fucked, fall in love, fuck some more, get royally fucked, and then fuck yourself over. Big fucking cycle of fucking, you see?"
Duo stares. He doesn't laugh, as I expect. He stares and he tries to understand. "Did you love Treize? Like that?"
Hurt. And gaping, hollowed, terrifying loss.
"Not... not at first," I say. "When we were younger..." I have to shake my head again, eyes stinging with the water of grief. "He changed, when he became 'The General.' Started fucking everything with a hole big enough for his cock."
I start to laugh, and then it evolves, bubbles over into something harsher, something that cannot stop, something that had been waiting to be laughed and released for a long time. I laugh, and I can't stop.
"Zechs," he says. Drawing me away from the madness.
And I look at him. Take a deep breath, his eyes say. Stop laughing. Stop with the tears. Stop.
Tears?
"Zechs." He stares and I stare. "You loved him?"
Rich. I laugh again or keep laughing, and shake my head, trying to shake away the images those words create in me. Of course.
I know from his eyes that he takes my laughter for denial, but then I say, "Loved him as much as a man has any right to. Then he changed. Slept around. Had a daughter." I wave a hand, casting it off. Doesn't matter anymore. "He lied to me. Lied to Une, too. Lied to everyone. Said he loved me, but he didn't. I mean, how could he... how could he love me back, and then do the things that he did? But still I loved him, and I made love with him until he had Darlian killed and I left him." I stare at the bottle of Wild Turkey before me, unwilling to look at Duo's face. "He said that he didn't know, but he knew. I told him. I told him about Darlian, about Relena... I told him that I wanted them protected. I told him, I asked him, to make sure Darlian didn't get himself killed... and then he went and killed him anyway. Tried to kill Relena too. Never forgave him."
"I heard about that," Duo says. "Rel said it was Noin who told Treize about it, and something about Treize apologizing. But I guess it is pretty questionable, I mean, how could he not know Relena was your sister, especially if you had in fact known each other as well as you say?"
I don't answer. I don't have to, don't want to, doesn't matter anymore; Treize is dead, and any hate that I had died with him. The only thing left is the hole in my heart that he had left behind before he ever parted from this realm in the first place.
Duo lets it go, but from the way that he glances down at the wooden tabletop, he's already filing it away to be considered later. We might have found a friendship in each other, but this is the first time I've ever been honest with him. It's rather amusing, in a way... I didn't even realize it started when it started, and now I consider him a brother in arms. The Maxwell charm has stolen the last raving bit of me--I can only hope that he knows what he's doing with it.
Time to change the subject again.
"Have you ever loved anyone? Like that?"
Duo glances at me with a brief look of resentment, and then it morphs into another shrug. His fingers start to drum again, and he scratches at a spot behind his ear, biting his lower lip. "Yeah. 'Course."
"Who?" It's only fair. I still have fairness, I deserve that.
But he shrugs again, and looks away. "Yanno, people. I get around."
"Maxwell--"
He winces. The drumming of his fingers speeds up a bit, and that bitten lip is freed for a sigh. "I... Well." He sighs again. It seems to be a hard confession, and I start to wonder if pressing him is the right thing.
But he says, "Saw too many die to much care for that sorta thing. But then..." His eyes flicker with something old, but amused. "But then I shot Heero," he said. "...and somewhere between the second shot and him punching the daylights out of me several months later, I found a massive crush on my hands. I must be a masochist, to fall for that. It was doomed from the start."
"He married Relena."
"Yes," he says. We were all at the wedding.
There is nothing left to say.
So I ask him, "Why're you here?"
No answer.
"Duo--"
"Une," he says. "Une asked me to."
Stunned. Or something like it.
"Asked you to what?" I don't understand; how would Une know to find me, and why would she care to send Duo in her place?
"I owe her a favor, remember?" He shrugs. "Asked me to take care of you. She said she couldn't afford to have you fall apart. Said you trusted me. Said that was... she said that was rare."
"It is." A confession spilled involuntarily, like blood from an open wound.
I glare at him, telling him with my eyes that I do not need to be taken care of. But he only smiles in a way that is hard to define, and says, "So it is."
"Why?"
He frowns. "Why it's rare?"
"No. Why would she..."
"...have me take care of you?"
"Yes," I say. "Why?"
"Because," he says, and takes an empty bottle of vodka, tips his head back, and drops the last of it on his tongue.
"Because why?"
He slams the bottle down and glares at me. It's not angry, but more... amused. "Because she knows about Tallgeese. Because she knows that I know about Tallgeese. Because she said she didn't want the world's last gundam in the custody of an unstable drunk with PTSD and severe depression issues. Because she asked me, jack off. Because I owed her. Because I'm a fool, and we all freakin' care." He makes a sound, half-laughter, half-growl. "Does it matter?"
I showed Duo the keys to Tallgeese a week ago, told him that I still had it hidden. Une already knew, we'd discussed it, and she allowed me the private permission to fly it to keep the machine at top efficiency in the case of attack. It was agreed between Une and I that this policy of the ESUN to remove all arms of the world has been a mistake, especially in the destruction of the gundams. That I still had one that the world wasn't quite aware of was an advantage to her position, and she agreed to help me maintain and hide it so long as I cooperated with Preventer. No one else had been told--the less that knew, the better. I hadn't even meant to tell Duo, but I was drunk, upset, and out of my mind. Some part in me is still frightened by that.
But Une wasn't supposed to know that I'd shown Duo the keys, let alone know of our... friendship. That Une sent Duo to keep watch on me because I have the last gundam in my custody...
"I'm not depressed."
He snorts at me. "Of course you are."
"I'm not," I say, trying to be threatening and failing. "I'm... not."
He doesn't bother to dignify it with a response, which only annoys me even more. The silence... the silence brings the darkness, and the darkness brings the death, and the death brings the loss, and the loss brings... reminder.
"You said Treize lied to you."
I have to shake again. His eyes are knowing. I shrug miserably and search for another full bottle, but alas, I've drunken them all. This makes me groan, loathe am I to admit it.
"Zechs."
"Hm?" I want more alcohol... stronger, darker, deadlier...
"Liars aren't so bad."
And now he's gotten my attention. I lift a brow at him, but he looks away. "People lie with good intentions all the time. I can't say that about Treize, Treize was a complicated man, but the point is, it's a two-sided coin. You got good lies, and bad ones. You go to work, tell the boss lady she looks so fine, you go on home, tell your wife she hasn't aged a day... you go to the hospital, tell all the dying children they really aren't gonna die."
"I thought you hated liars."
"No," he says, and his shoulders tighten with an unconscious defense. "I just don't lie. Nothin' wrong with liars, if you mean well."
"You think Treize meant well?"
For a moment, he doesn't answer. He leans over, lifts a bottle from the ground, and contemplates the blades of grass stuck to the condensation.
"Duo--"
"I dunno," he says, and picks at wet glass. "Did Treize ever steal?"
Thrown. "What?"
"Treize. Did he ever steal anything?" Still, I stare. He elaborates. "Was he a thief? A robber? A crook?"
"I..." I have to take a deep breath and consider it, because Duo is serious. After a moment, I say, "No." Treize was a lot of things, but he wasn't a crook. He didn't have to be.
"Have you ever met someone who stole with good intentions, Zechs?"
"No."
"Then he must've been a lot better man than I."
"That's not fair," I say.
"But it's true, in't it? You been tryin' to tell me in not-so-many slurs that you've buried him back at Lagrange point whatever, but here ya are drunk off your pretty little ass, and he's the only thing you been talkin' 'bout since we started this dig. Lemme tell you Mr. Madman Alcoholic I-Hate-The-World, Sir, that ain't gonna mix wi' this lil' crook." He stands up over me, eyes suddenly firm, the drug gone and replaced with a thick accent bred from scum and high colonial rafters. "You fallin' apart all over the damn place. I wanna know why. What's on yur mind, baby? What's you thinkin' 'bout?"
At first, I do nothing.
And then, gradually, I start to laugh. Without answering, I waver off to the ground and yank up a bottle of Wild Turkey that still has some nice devil-red wine waiting for my mouth at the bottom, beyond the golden glass. I swirl it before my eyes, comparing it to blood.
Laughter gone, I tip my head, tongue out to drink.
Death takes it away. Death steals my only solace.
"No," he says, furious. The bottle smashes against a tree, glass glittering in the golden sun pierced through the shadows of the wood. I've almost forgotten that we're in a park, outside, at a picnic table, drunk and drugged and mad... there must be a law against public drunkenness in Brussels...
I blink at him. Duo's teeth are bared into a snarl, braid over his shoulder like the rope of a life saver, thrown to catch me. I reach but he slaps the hand away, leaning over me, dangerously close. He is crouched on the table now, hands on my shoulders, eyes a mere breath from my own, lips close... close, but not electrified, not like Treize, not like that...
This is like succumbing unwilling to a cold vampire, to death.
He shakes me, as if trying to wake me up, and I laugh again. I laugh at him, at me, at everything.
"You tell me, Zechs. You tell me why you're here."
"I walked," between breaths, choking, "...walked to the store, walked here, picked a table, started drinking..." He slaps me, and then I'm not laughing anymore. I brush his hands off of me, and stand up, snarling at him. "You do not hit me."
"And you don't lie."
The fight is gone again. I sit down. I sigh.
This is pointless.
He jumps off the table and sits down at my side without looking at me. He doesn't ask again. He waits.
What's on yur mind, baby? What's you thinkin' 'bout?
"I came here..." Swallow. "I came here, because I..."
His eyes are soft again. Listening, unjudging. I have to tell myself that Une or not, she's right, they are both right. It is important that I keep my mind cleansed of all temptation to madness. I have responsibilities... I've always had responsibilities...
"I just... I've just remembered that I missed... I mean, I miss..."
Take a deep breath. The itch for a drink is strong, but I fight it, and catch Duo's gaze. I can feel my eyes burning. I can feel the hurt, the hate, the bullet holes in my chest.
"Duo, I just..."
His eyes aren't sympathetic. Death is never sympathetic... death just understands.
And the hurt... the hurt, like ten thousand babies screaming out of a mother's womb.
I can't look away. He puts a hand on my shoulder, and I shake. I'm breaking down--no, I'm imploding.
"Zechs," a whisper barely there at all. Hand in my hair, dragging the shield from my eyes. "Tell me."
"It's not Treize," I say, drowning in the waves, burning, "It's just..."
Tsunami in my eyes, fighting to let loose a round of hell. I let them close, and the wall of salt water bursts. Tears fall.
And with it, everything... dies.
"Fuck," I say, grabbing onto him, teeth gritted with emotional agony. My hand takes that braid, takes it and holds on as the waves carry the last of me away, ripping me apart from the inside. His hands are in my hair, and he holds on. He holds on.
Death says not a word.
I cry all over his jacket. I make a noise, a whining, hurting, painful noise, and I cry... I cry, and I cry, and I cry, and I scream, and I hate, and--"I miss my mother," I tell him, wretched. "I just miss my fucking mother..."
I can't say how long it lasted. I can't say when it even began. I just know that when it was done, we hadn't moved, and Duo--Death--was still holding on to me. I should have felt awkward, but I didn't. Strange, but I've never felt awkward around him, I don't even think it's possible. I think it would go against everything that he is.
Voice still a whisper, he asks, "You okay?"
I grunt at him, refusing to move. It's a loud no.
He smiles weakly, and asks again, "You feel that?"
I frown, red rimmed and miserable, but lightened at the same time. I shake my head.
"Life," he says. "Feels great, doesn't it?"
"Feels like I've been hit by a gundam."
"Yeah," he says, pulling away, stretching. "Yeah, true. But still great."
"Great."
"Very great." He takes a deep breath, and all the tension is gone from him.
I lean on the table, and glance at him from the corner of my eye. "You were.. high," I say, guarded. It's hard to tell if he even was to begin with.
"Sort of." Not a denial, not a true confirmation.
"Why?"
"Same as you," he says. "I miss my mother."
"You remember your mother?"
"I remember being born."
"That doesn't count."
He smiles again, but lighter, stronger. It's a beautiful, sad smile. "Yes it does," he says. "'Cause I'm still alive. Mother would have liked that."
"Do you think..." I shake my head then, unwilling to carry on.
But he's entrapped. "Do I think what?"
"Never mind."
"No." Death is firm again. "Do I think what?"
"Drop it, Duo."
"Zechs--"
"No."
"Damnit, just answer the question!"
"Duo, do you think... do you think my mother would have..."
"...liked what you've become?" At my look, he says, "Probably not. But..." He sighs. "I think... weather changes. People don't. If she loved you then, she loves you now. Right?"
"I don't know."
"Hell, I don't either," he says. "Never really had a mom. But it sounds good to me."
"You should stop taking drugs, Duo."
He grins at me. "And you should stop drinking."
I stand up and begin picking up the mess I've made. Bottles everywhere--I must remember to have a little more respect for nature.
"I'll stop if you will," he says.
Slowly, I turn around and glare at him. "Fine. We'll do it together."
"Partners, you mean?"
"No. Just friends."
"Good enough."
"Good enough?"
"Good enough," he says, and then grins viciously. "For now."
I shake my head, groaning as it gives me a headache. I stumble a little, the drinks still swimming through my system.