Duo listened to the hiss and crackle of static that followed in silence. Deathscythe's hum filled the air gently around him with familiar white noise.
Not his Deathscythe.
But now it was.
He turned, leaning his forehead against the metal skin of his best friend. The closest thing to one. A piece from a home that wasn't his.
"If this is your plan," Duo said softly, speaking into the alloy burning his face with thin pinpricks of cold, "It rates about a twelve on the fucked scale."
There was water on the metal. Duo could feel it slip down his skin, warm against the chill. It smelled like salt.
Not alone. Not solo. Not ever.
He laughed, as shaky as the one he'd just listened to. The breath caught and stuck in his throat, choking up his chest. His ribs ached. Head ached with a beat that matched his heart, blow for hammer blow.
"Running on fumes," he whispered, letting the words die in static. "That's what I'm doing.” He shook his head slightly. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore."
He couldn’t breathe.
Duo stood up, dragging himself back onto his bleeding feet. "Saved the world once already, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing then, either." He didn't open his eyes. "And the colonies. Saved them, too. All but the ones that we didn’t."
He'd never counted. Had never asked if the other's had.
"This doesn’t work, I’m going to damn well make an afterlife so I can track you down and kill you again." Duo leaned his head against the cockpit doors and did what crazy people did. He talked to himself. "Okay."