| The Most Bittersweet Gift - Chapter 9 | Home - Review - Previous - Next |
“I swear, Relena,” Duo muttered from where he was laying down on the couch, head titled back slightly over the edge, giving everything a skewed view. “I swear, if I see that damn camera one more time I am going to break it over his thick head, which will hopefully break the camera.” Relena sighed and patted Duo’s knee reassuringly from where she sat next to him, silently studying the pictures Heero had had her drop off to be developed earlier. She had to admit the pictures were excellent, taken from the viewpoint of someone with a steady hand and a lot of patience. He must have waited at least a good half hour to get just the one she was looking out, having stood silent holding the camera long enough for Duo to get up and gather the strength to wag a finger at him, no doubt threatening to come over and do something very similar in nature to what he was threatening to do now. The picture was sweet and humorous, catching Duo off-guard and in the brief minute before he gave up and was trying hardest to bend Heero to his way. Duo was silent and Relena glanced over, seeing his controlled and even breathing, noticing the slight hitch to each breath. Heero had mentioned that Duo didn’t look his best, and Relena silently agreed as she watched Duo struggle to right himself, then struggle to catch his breath, then struggle to stand, then struggle to stay standing. It was a cycle, but only if he’s feeling especially tough would he consider upping the dosage of pain pills, and even then it’s an inner battle to admit the weakness. “I’m…going to go…do something. I’ll…be in the bedroom,” Duo managed. Relena let him do it on his own. She would have preferred it that way for her; she knew he did for himself. I barely have the strength to keep these up. Just barely. I look down and see my handwriting, always so neat and precise, although the letters were a bit looped here and there, and now…now I’m lucky I can get this many words out on the paper without giving up. But I persevere. I have come to a conclusion; there is one thing in my life I will ever truly regret, and that is never having tried to write something for someone else. There’s a book in me somewhere, maybe a silly dithering thing, or perhaps a war story, not just A war story, but MY war story. If for no other reason than to be remembered. I suppose that’s the greatest fear after dying, that there will be nothing to remember you by as the years pass and people eventually forget, until you’re not even a distant memory, your grave overrun and trodden over, forgotten, never to feel the caress of another flower’s petal against the earth at the bed or to have someone look at the name and say, yes, I knew this person, and I sure do miss them. With a book someone will remember, with a book there is record of your being a unique individual who made something of who you are and you alone. Sure, my name might be handed down as a gundam pilot, I might be remembered that way, but why should I? So much pain and suffering and I am remembered for helping that along. Perhaps this disease is my penance I pay. Oh, if that were true I would accept each ache and pain, each stuttering breath, each forced morning of willing myself out of bed, each second of every minute of every hour of every day that I live in discomfort with open arms. If I suffer like this, and my friends, those I love most, escape the pain and heartache and sheer terror that comes with the memory and our past…if only my death would make it right. I would gladly die a thousand million times over for just one of the pilots. For Quatre’s shattered innocence and the faith he struggles to embrace now that he is freed, for Trowa’s painful and silent past, for the boy who used to call himself Nanashi, no name, who took a name. I would gladly take this for Wufei, who I fear may be one of the last truly good and noble souls left on this planet. For Heero, who doesn’t even realize the pain he has because there is no scale to judge it. How do you feel sorrow over a childhood when the word’s only real meaning comes straight from a dictionary? I even had a childhood, not a great one, mind you, but it was a childhood. I can’t answer that question, I’m not sure anyone can, I’m not even sure if I’m asking the right question anymore. I had hoped to at least get 20 Journal’s, one to mark every year of my life I guess, but I don’t have 20 days left. Since I have to take breaks or my hand gets cramped and the words start to whirl in front of my eyes, each time I begin again I will start a new journal. I suppose I’m cheating, but if I don’t tell, you won’t, right? Duo Maxwell * * * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dear Heero, Two days. Two days, 48 hours, 2880 minutes, 172800 seconds, approximately of course, it could be several hours earlier or later, but that is my countdown until I meet my maker. I don’t know what will happen after that, sometimes I wonder if I truly care, but I do know if I have consciousness, I’ll know I’ll miss you. Not that comfortable to the newly bereaved, I bet, but it’s what I have to offer. I don’t know if I mentioned or not what my palm held somewhere else, but I think I should just mention it briefly in passing. Basically it was I would meet someone who had a large impact on my life, I would lose them in some way, but my presence would not be forgotten. No big deal, ya know, but just thought I should say that to open where I’m going next. I’m sure you remember when I read your palm, well, I never told you, but you have the most beautiful life. It’s full of triumph and recovery and self-sacrifice and caring and loving. You shape your own destiny, you’re palms make me want to cry, to see such a human being reflected like I have in you. It’s there, and one day you’ll find it. But beside the fact that you have beautiful palms, you have beautiful hands. The hands themselves are just beautiful. I want to hold them, to be held by them, to feel their gentle caress on my skin. They showed who you were, the deep woven lines, the knotted muscle, the roughened calluses that just never seem to go away. You have the hands of an artist; I bet you didn’t know that. I’ve always had a hand fetish, which is why I always seemed to want your touch. I love hands, yours especially… Maxwell * * * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dear Heero, I’m only facing this because of you, you know. The only reason I’m fighting each day to live, fighting for that one extra second, the two extra seconds is for you. I’m not saying I would have killed myself, although I would be lying if I said it had never crossed my mind. What I’m saying is that if it weren’t for the fact you were here and I could see you everyday and see your face light up with a smile one more time, or hear you murmur ‘baka’ in my ear [tear stain], then I would have given up my will and let Shinigami claim me as his own. Though…though I wish that there were some way to make what he have something more, something permanent. Perhaps if we were still together, if we hadn’t drifted after the war, maybe then I would have that permanent brand on my heart that claimed me for yours. And…and a guy can dream, maybe a gold band on my finger, a promise ring. The best I can do now is know that the last few days were mine with you, and that your eyes lit up when you saw me, and that you can still hold me close as this sickness devours me from the inside out, and that you still can still run your fingers through my hair and love the feel despite the fact that most of it’s falling out [tear stain]. And through you I found an unexpected, and I’ll admit, at first completely unwanted, friendship. Get past the first few layers and I guess Relena’s not that bad. I just…if I had one wish, one wish, it would be that you always find happiness in life. And if that meant me always in your arms, by your side, then so be it and I don’t go before my time. But if it were something else, I would gladly pass up that one wish to give it to you.” Maxwell * * * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dear Heero, I know you’re going to be the one to find this, or perhaps Relena will, but I’m sure she’ll give it to you, but I hope this is found before you decide to do something with all my things. I know I don’t have much, but they are my things, and I want them taken care of for me, and of course, I want the right things to go to the right people. Just for you to know, there is a will in my duffel bag that I brought with me, you just have to lift up the platform on the bottom and it’s there, also, Quatre has a copy in one of his many vaults in case something happens to this one, the original. But in there you’ll see all my monetary assets will be directed either to charities or orphanages or programs designed to help people get back on their feet after the war. I know you guys don’t need any more money, you probably went the same route I did, taking a little from Oz here and a little from Oz there. It’s not like Quatre can use it, and Trowa is like part of Quatre’s life, so he wouldn’t need it. Wufei both has what was leeched from Oz, if anything, as well as the decent salary he is making in his job. So that clears that up. I don’t have any property, I sold it all when I received the news, and there’s really nothing else major left to part with besides what I carried with me and what I gathered during that time and while I was with you. So… In the closet with the stuff I’ve been doing lately, all those notebooks you’ve bought and stuff like that, I’ve taken the time to slowly create memory books for each one of you. Just little things in there really, my thoughts and feelings and pictures that I think the person would like and little mementos that might remind them of something or that might be funny or sweet. Each of them has the name to the person that it goes to on the cover, I would like for you to make sure that they get these. All the other things that I’ve been doing lately, the scribbles, the stories, the cartoons or drawings, any of that stuff, you decide what happens to it. You can do whatever you want with them, throw them out or keep them or give them to the others to see if they want any or try and publish something (yeah right, like that would ever happen). This journal…either keep it, or burn it, no one else needs to see any of this stuff. Don’t be too hasty to do something with my few books I have in that bag, I have things stuck between pages, so go through them before you decide. Beyond that, everything else that I have as a person, it’s your choice. All right, I think that’s everything. D.M. * * * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Heero, have I said I love you, yet? Because if I haven’t, I want you to know. I can feel death breathing down my neck, and the smell is acrid, biting, and I think death can smell my fear because the more fear I feel, the more it hurts, the closer death looms. Just for the record, babe, I don’t recommend dying a slow, painful death. Ha ha…still joking, but no, I mean it. If I had known it would feel this way I would have ended all my misery and pain long ago. I hope you’re glad I didn’t. But I do love you, I’ll always love you, I think I was meant to love you like this. There’s never been anyone else. Not in all the time since you disappeared was there someone else. I dated, don’t get me wrong, and I made out with a couple people (all guys). But there was always something there between us that I didn’t understand. No matter how they wanted me, at a certain point they would break off and look at me…and that was it. It’s almost as if they could feel you’re claim on me, even though you didn’t want me anymore. It’s almost as if they knew…just knew that I belonged to someone else. That really messed up my life, or at least that time in my life. Maybe it’s my fault somehow…maybe I messed up somewhere along the way to make them recoil…to force them to draw back and decide, you know, I don’t think I want this anymore. For the longest time I wondered if maybe they could see what I was beneath everything else, or maybe…maybe when I touched them they could feel the blood on my hands even if it wasn’t there in reality. Is that why you can touch me? Is it because you’re hands are as bloody as mine? Do you want to know what I’m afraid of? It’s not the dying, although most people are afraid of that, are afraid of the pain of dying. No, I have two fears that haunt me right now. One of them is where am I going to go. I’m no angel, that’s for sure, so if there really is a heaven and hell, I don’t think I’m good enough for heaven. But what if I’m not bad enough for hell? What if neither wants me, where will I be? The other fear is where will you be, you and all the other guys? Their faith is different; I don’t know how this is going to work out, not really. Maybe I won’t see any of you ever again. And if I do go to hell…what will greet me once I’m there. My nightmares have changed, I’m afraid to close my eyes unless it’s a drugged sleep. I see thousands and thousands of people who I’ve killed greeting me when I do, and they kill me every night for all of eternity. Is there pain once you’re dead? I hope not. I’ll tell you one thing though…I have a feeling I will see you again some day. Maybe there is such a thing as reincarnation; maybe we’ll be together in another life. Maybe…oh, I have to go get something for this pain, I can’t breathe and I’m beginni… ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * * * * * Relena put a hand over her mouth and let out a shout for Heero, who dropped the dishes he was putting away and located the source of the disturbance. The tightening hold of fear gripped his stomach as he directed Relena to call for help and he dropped to his knees, pulling Duo up and into his lap, checking for a pulse and to make sure he was breathing. Just a fainting spell, he reassured himself, rocking the body subconsciously, just a fainting spell. |
|
| Layout Designed by Ivy Dreams. Edited by Wispy. | |