cozzybob (cozzybob) wrote in cozzybabbles, @ 2008-01-31 15:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2x6x2, dad, duo, zechs |
[GW] Death and the Devil 1b/5
Death and the Devil
--Death's Two Faces
Rated: R
Pairings: hinted 2+H, eventual 2x6x2
Warning: hinted het relationship, shounen-ai, language, adult situations, lil dark, blasphemy, brief mention of NCS, mention of Post-EW, a mirror-fic of "In God's Bar." Duo's half of the story.
Note: Written for the gw500 lj community, challenge #48 'mediums.' (Another note: These have not been looked over since 2005. Any errors are because I'm lazy.)
Previous / Next--"The Broken Marquise."
'You're always two faces, Duo,' she told me, before it happened. I was still on L2, in that crummy little apartment, sharing rent with the girl of my dreams who didn't want anything to do with me. Not until I stopped acting like a fool.
But I am a fool.
Two faces, she'd said.
'...Two goddamn faces and two goddamn lives, two fucking sides to a war that's never gonna end. Until you can draw a line between those two faces and make a choice, I can't do this anymore. Face your demons, Duo. Face them and... find yourself. It's not here.'
She'd basically told me to grow up and get out.
But I suppose she's right. Hilde always was right, even when she walked the wrong side of the fence. She's a tough broad, always had been and I think I loved her for that--she's just... stable. She's the only stability that I'd ever had in a very long time, the only stability I had the chance of having and I--the greatest fuck-up of them all--tossed it all away on a romp with a twenty cred slut who was perfectly innocent on that L2 street corner of Harriet Tubmen and St Jude, smoking her cigarette and eyeballing the guys with the big pockets and the diamond rings. I raped a whore. I did. And I didn't even like it.
I don't know. You try walking around my skull sometime, and you'll see just how fucked up Shinigami really is. I couldn't tell sanity off the face of God itself--yes, it, because I'm almost positive that thing upstairs swings both ways, every way and all ways in between. Like me, I think.
Yeah. Like me.
I pick up another chug of my gundam-fuel beer and swallow it in large gulps, not even wincing as the stuff eats at my throat like little leaches with razor teeth. I want to pretend that the pain won't matter after enough of these shots, I don't want anything to matter--me, Shinigami, my failure with Hilde and my uncontrollable fascination for all things wrong with the world.
I'm in a bar on Earth, I don't even remember which country, city and date, trying to drink myself into oblivion so I can commit to my mission of forgetting everything, everyone and move on. I have to keep moving. I can't stay here, stay stable, stay in the middle forever.
I just can't.
A man sitting next me is staring at the window, has been for quite some time. I think it odd, so I look up and notice the sign--it says "The God Bar" in bright blue neon letters, a missing O telling tale of lies and hidden messages. It's actually called The Good Bar, but I think God fits it better. It works with the infidelity lingering in the air--the sinful saints who want nothing more than a good fuck, desperate to feel something other than mundane life for a change.
I suppose I belong here.
The man who'd been staring at the sign suddenly snorts, and I watch as he catches the gaze of a married prostitute dragging in her customer toward the back, the golden band around her finger regretful, but somehow accepting. Everyone has a story, and everyone has a john. I don't bother to care.
The man turns back to the bartender, who had been standing there, waiting for an order close to ten minutes. The bartender is afraid of him, though the man himself is not very intimidating--rather, he's like an overused book that has too many pages torn to fully understand. I frown, noting the odd color of his hair, and the incredible length of it. The way he moves and assesses the situation screams 'general,' whether he'd be aware of it or not.
The bartender fidgets, determined to get his order, but he makes a mistake. He calls the man sir.
"Don't ever call me that!" The man is furious, and I wonder, my heart lurching in a twisted sort of way because I suddenly think that I've seen this man before... somewhere...
I know I've heard that voice before.
The man frowns, his face softening with effort. He narrows his eyes, trying to formulate the right response. "Call me..." A long pause. "Call me Joe. Good name for a drunk."
The bartender nods stiffly and turns away, and the man at my side scowls at his back.
I smile--no grin, and pick up my beer for another swig of alcohol. I suddenly know who he is, like a bolt of lighting flashing across the back of my eyes. "Fucking Zechs Marquise," I mutter, but it's slurred because I'm trying to be half-drunk and I know he didn't catch it. I look at him, see his white brows raise questioningly, those fiery lilac eyes confused and... old.
He looks like the devil. He does. I don't understand it, but I think if the devil ever walked the Earth, he'd go under the name of Peacecraft and wear long white hair, bearing the look of an angle minus black wings. I smirk and wave my hand toward the broken neon sign in the window. "Don't you think it's ironic that the devil would brood in God's bar?"
He only frowns at me. "The devil? Hm." He thinks about it for a second, and firmly shakes his head. "I don't believe in the devil and I don't believe in God."
I spit a wad of phlegm built up from deep in my throat and scrape my stool back, looking at him, staring at him, trying to understand him. I can see it in his eyes. He's lying to himself.
"Bullshit," I say to him and he looks surprised. "You are the devil, and the devil doesn't believe in God, but he knows him on a personal basis and loathes the very thought of him. Believe me, I know."
He snorts. "I'm not buying a bible from you."
I almost laugh. "I know who you are and I know what you did. The whole world knows what you did. Do you know what you did?"
He looks pissed, but not in the way that I want. He's confused. I sigh lightly and slump back on my stool, taking another lasting swig of my beer. "You don't remember me, do you?"
He shakes his head. He's not angry anymore.
I shrug. "I was one of the men you almost slaughtered with Epyon." He makes a sound of something between a gasp and a growl, but I wave a hand vaguely, not really caring. "One of the many, I guess. Weird how I got out alive, but I guess God likes me... God doesn't like you, though."
"Why not?" He sounds genuinely curious.
I shrug again, almost rolling my eyes. "You're the devil, I told you."
He grunts and drowns his beer, ignoring me for a good long minute or two. After eternity he asks, "...Is the devil always born from a pacifist family?"
This time, I do laugh. "Every fuckin' time man."
"And does he always feel guilty about what he does?"
Zechs Marquise feels guilty? But I look at him and I nod. I can understand that. "That's what the devil is all about."
His lips firm, almost unconsciously. "Does the devil always brood in God's bar?"
I laugh, this time hard. I can't help myself. "Does the Devil always flirt with Death?"
Ahh. There it is. The flicker of recognition.
"Fuck Zechs, will you ever learn?" I roll my eyes and pull off the black cap hiding my braid, feeling it tumble down behind me. "Duo Maxwell," I say smoothly, "...at your service. It's nice to finally meet you, Satan."
He is speechless.
One year has passed since Mariemeia. One year has passed since I said goodbye to my buddy, said goodbye to Death and faced the unknown world of freedom. Peace. Stability.
One year has passed since I'd heard the name Zechs Marquise--even if he did call himself Wind.
Hilde accused me of never staying in the mediums. She said I always had to be on the outside looking in, that I had to be the little dot outside of the box, the jester in a family court case, the laughing mask before the eyes of a convict. She said that I could never handle being a middle man because I never was and never will be an average suburbian follower. I won't mow my lawn every morning and take out the trash every Thursday and garden my petunias in the little patch before my fenced in home with the dog that barks until midnight and the kids that knock over expensive knick-knacks you haven't notice in years. She said I can't be the middle man, the peaceful man, the man with a definition and a cause. She said I can't be--could never be--in one small little house in one small little family with two small little kids who love one small little dog for the rest of my--so young, so old--damn life.
I could never do it. But then... neither could Milliardo Peacecraft.
I lend out my hand, asking the Devil to make a pact with Death.
I will never be in the medium, because I am a fool and my name is Duo Maxwell. Like the Devil, I have two faces, and like Death, I am one with it.
Zechs only smiles and takes my hand.
We agree with each other. The contract is closed.
All is forgiven.