By Asuka Kureru
Pairings: Well, you could say 1+2... *wails*
Type: your choice: songfic, angstangstangst (one told me it vas really dark), POV (Heero mostly), deathfic (I'm so sorry!!!! I soo HATE deathfics!!... I was in a depressive mood...) I'mreallysorrydon'thurtmeplease
Notes: I copypasted the lyrics off the net, so... I don't understand what this 'fill' means. Mebbe it was an error on the site, but I'm doubtful. If anybody could tell me, I'd be really glad. Many thanks to my kind and marvelous beta readers, Sheena and Jessie . Be grateful to them too, because otherwise this wouldn't even look like English. I don't even wanna say something fun or stupid about it... *sob*

Why do you sleep so still?

+

My Lady d'Arbanville, why do you sleep so still?
I'll wake you tomorrow
and you will be my fill, yes, you will be my fill.

+

"Duo!! DUO!!! DUOO~O!!!" Nearly frenetic, a messy-haired boy searches between still fuming pieces of torn Gundanium, lifting without acknowledging it metal shreds twice his weight.

"DUO!! Damn it, answer me!!!"

He runs on top of what was a metallic hand, tries to look the farthest he can.

From under a heap of gundanium pieces, a snake made of chestnut hair escapes. A disheveled and slightly burned braid.

The remains are thrown away. When it lands, he's already kneeling beside the other pilot's bloodied body.

A moment, he stays unmoving.

The other looks so thin. So frail curled up like this, his too pale skin dirtied by a scarlet, semidried trail.

"Duo... Wake up baka!! We haven't got time to play, OZ's coming!! Get up!"

The long lashes don't tremble.

Nothing moves. As caked in blood as they are, even the wind cannot make his bangs move.

Still... so still... Too still.

Duo is a being of movement, of sun, of laughter and joy ... Here, under this stormy grey sky, motionless, silent, he isn't at his rightful place.

The boy squats down slowly, running an unconsciously tender hand on his fallen comrade's cheek. "Duo, enough, wake up."

This morning, that's exactly what he had said. The same tone. The gesture, however, he had not. He wanted to, but he hadn't dared. Instead, he had roughly grabbed his shoulder and had shaken him once, brutal almost. Nothing could wake up the baka when he decided to sleep, not even an earthquake.

Is it the Earth that moves now under his feet? Of course, he doesn't loose his balance. Never. It's the Earth. It trembles and shakes. His head is spinning.

"Duo, get up... There won't be anything left for breakfast!", he threatens in last resort.

This. This always wakes him up, even when all the other things have failed, when Heero has tried all that he can to get him out of his sleep.

He's always starving...Starving for food nearly as much as he is for smiles and friendship, a friendship he searches for as much as he gives to whoever asks for it.

Duo doesn't move.

+

My Lady d'Arbanville why does it grieve me so?
But your heart seems so silent.
Why do you breathe so low, why do you breathe so low,

+

Last night Duo had a nightmare. Heero could tell easily, for the baka had awoken him. After all, who wouldn't be awakened by all that movement. The sheets crumpled, the kicks in the air, those lost moans?

Yes, who, apart from the dreamer himself? Even sleeping, Duo didn't know how to keep silent.

"Duo... Duo, we have to go, fast..."

Silence.

Slowly, he slips a hand under the American's nape, this talkative joker. He refuses to recognize the thick liquid that glues his fingers. Insensibly, he bends his head toward the narrow chest. Laying with reverence almost, his ear above his heart. The rhythm of his blood beats so loud in his own ears, he can't hear it in the other's chest.

He'll have to check his ears; maybe they've been damaged by the explosion... The explosion that made his world shake on it's axis...Deathscythe's explosion.

He doesn't hear anything any more, not anymore. He knows that the world is still here, he knows it ... yet he doubts anyway.

Is the rest of the world still existing when he closes his eyes? Are colors still there when he can't see them?

Does the world still exist if Duo is not there anymore?

-Of course he is, of course-, he repeats like a mantra, his ear on his comrade's chest.

Why doesn't he hear anything??

+

My Lady d'Arbanville why do you sleep so still?
I'll wake you tomorrow
and you will be my fill, yes, you will be my fill.

+

He doesn't even turn around when his senses try to warn him of a presence behind him. The click of a gun being armed, and the voice that shouts to stay still where he is, leave him indifferent. He doesn't care... Heero lets himself fall on his knees, not worrying about the metal bits that cut deep into him, holding the American baka in his arms.

Duo can't visibly walk. No worries, Heero will carry him. He's strong enough to carry him for hours. For days. For an entire lifetime.

He can't seem to lift him; his body seems unmovable.

Like a child who doesn't want to be carried, the braided boy is lethargic in his arms, all his muscles relaxed. Heero has to hold him correctly if he doesn't want him to slip. He'll never let him slip.

He's his partner. His comrade. His only friend, even.

He should have said to the baka, that like him, he wished they'd been more. He should have said it to him before... Admit that he was lying through his teeth. When he had coldly stated that he felt nothing for him.

Now it's too late.

... He'll have to wait for him to wake up ...

+

My Lady d'Arbanville, you look so cold tonight.
Your lips feel like winter,
your skin has turned to white, your skin has turned to white.

+

Empty eyed, he shivers, tightening his hold on the American. Duo must be cold ... He has to warm him up.

He will warm him up.

He tries to rub Duo's arms, but instead of making the boy warmer, he succeeds only in making himself colder. Heero is so cold ... He realizes, distantly, that he's shaking. His warmth has no meaning anymore. No goal. It runs away, leaving him utterly empty. A shell...

He ponders a moment if he wasn't mistaken. If, what he's holding isn't just an empty shell. A lifeless doll. Duo can't be here... can't be ... that.

But it would mean that ... No; he's still here. Inevitably.

"Heero Yuy?" Another voice behind him. This one is calm, composed. And because it seems vaguely familiar, he allows himself to hear it.

He turns around slowly, Duo in his arms, and looks up at the man in a long blue coat between enemy soldiers. He has to blink to get rid of a bit of dried blood which crumbles in his eyes.

He recognizes him.....It's Kushrenada, Treize Kushrenada, identifies the part of his mind that stays always cold and analytical. Behind him, trying to prevent him from going too near to the danger the teenage boy represents, is Zechs Merquise himself. His archenemy... Someone has probably told them about his arrest.

He doesn't want of this part of his mind at the moment. What it says to him he doesn't want to hear it.

+

My Lady d'Arbanville, why do you sleep so still?
I'll wake you tomorrow
and you will be my fill, yes, you will be my fill.

+

"Do you accept to follow the soldiers without resisting ...?" asks Treize in a low voice, surprised at his lack of reactions.

The boy doesn't answer. Treize moves forward... and muffles a surprised gasp when he recognizes what Pilot Zero One holds against him.

Beside him, Zechs stiffens. "Pilot Zero Two..."

"He doesn't move anymore... He's so cold, so cold..." The Japanese pilot's voice is calm.

Too calm. Unconcerned. Dreamy even. The voice of the logger who doesn't yet understand his hand has been lost.

"Help me...", moans Heero. "Tasukete, kudasai..." He seems suddenly younger, much more than his fifteen years. So younger than the ageless soldier he was normally.

Cautiously, Zechs moves forward between DeathScythe's remains. He would fear a trap if it were not for the blank look of his adversary; one that couldn't be imitated ... neither could the way the body hung in his arms.

Slowly, as to not startle Heero, he grabs a thin wrist dirtied by blood and puts two fingers on the vein.

Heero look at him, his eyes full of a mixture of hope and despair. He raises his blue eyes, opened wide, toward the white-haired man before him, a look of absolute supplication on his face.

It's the hope that fades away when Zechs ceremoniously takes off his mask and accepts at last to meet his eyes.

+

My Lady d'Arbanville why does it grieve me so?
But your heart seems so silent.
Why do you breathe so low, why do you breathe so low,

+

The rain is warm against the young pilot's cheeks, and he wonders why. Why, it falls on him alone.

Quiet, Zechs and Treize watch spill the rarest liquid ever existing on Earth and the Colonies: the tears of a young boy known under the code name Heero Yuy.

"No..."

The moan is so weak it nearly can't be heard; pitiable. A puppy drowning.

Then it repeats, growing slowly. The puppy becomes a wolf howling to the Death, a broken, sobbing, torn cry. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! No!!! Oh my God no!! Please help him, help me I beg you!! I'll do anything, I'll tell you anything you want, please help us! I'm afraid! Oh no, please God make it a dream, I wanna wake up! Why don't I wake up, why? Usually I always wake up at this moment, he always wake me up at this moment, Duo, Duo, wake me up, wake me up! Wake up!!!! WAKE UP!!!!! DUUOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

Treize cries openly. They're only children. He never wanted this. He wonders at this moment if the sacrifice needed to build his new future isn't, finally, too big. Zechs lowers his head. He would like to put his hands on his ears, but he knows he would hear anyway. And he feels he has to ... listen. To witness his pain maybe. Not to deny it.

"DUOOO!! Duo... Duo, my Duo, wake up, wake up, suki da, aishiteru Duo! Zutto, honto ni!! Don't leave me! I swear it's true Duo, I was lying! Suki da! Onegai, wake up... don't... leave me..."

He is rocking frenetically, back and forth, the body in his arms. He is hysteric, alternating his cries and his prays, full of a broken tenderness, between their language and his native tongue, Japanese. Even the soldiers who were targeting him lower their guns and look away, embarrassed grimaces on their faces.

Then an ice-cold calm comes over him.

Duo isn't here anymore. He is dead.

He is dead.

His hand grips the gun he had let fall at his side, he doesn't remember when. The soldiers aim at him. Treize stops them with a single gesture, face tense and racked with pain, trying desperately not to burst into tears undignified from a general.

Enemy soldiers, the muzzle of their guns on him. Smoking remains of a Gundam he knew as well as his own. One man standing, another kneeling near him, enemies too. What importance. All of that looses it's meaning.

Heero looks around with ageless eyes, full of hot blinding tears, before returning to contemplating the visage of the boy he loves.

He loved.

He LOVES. His death... it doesn't change a thing.

He looks so calm; too calm.

So pale. His skin ivory-like.

So beautiful. Serene even...

"Wait for me..."

+

I loved you my lady, though in your grave you lie,
I'll always be with you
This rose will never die, this rose will never die.

+

Zechs turned his head as fast as he could, eyes closed tight. He has already seen Death from near; but nothing forces him to like it. He opens his eyes to look at the hand he leaned on. A puddle grows and stains his white glove crimson.

The detonation rolls a long time under his skull. Distractedly, he wonders if one day he'll be able to not hear it anymore.

"Soldiers..." mutters Treize, pointing out the two teenagers.

Without a word, his men begin to bury the two young pilots where they had fallen, side by side, still intertwined.

Treize doesn't say anything. A speech isn't needed here. Slowly he leans over, depositing the rose he held on the disturbed ground.

Such a low priced offering. A symbol maybe.

+

I loved you my lady, though in your grave you lie,
I'll always be with you
This rose will never die, this rose will never die.

+

Slowly, a petal, then two, fly away in the cold breeze.

~owari~

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