Title: Don't Cry Author(s): Becka Warning: This fanfic is yaoi, meaning it contains m/m content. For further information about yaoi, please see the notice on the main page. Category: Heero-POV. Angst, AU?, Blood, Dark, Deathfic?, Duo-torture, OOC?, and Violence. Very mild shonen ai. Pairing(s): 1+2. Disclaimer: Gundam Wing does not belong to Becka; Characters are used without permission for a non-profit purpose. No infringement is intended. Feedback: Please! ***** ## *** ## ***** "Don't cry," came the soft, insistent whisper. Always, "don't cry." "Cry?" I would say. Why would I cry now? Tears have been trained out of me; they serve no purpose. Maybe you said that because you were trying to make me feel human. Once, a long time ago, before this hell claimed both of us, I might have been human. I might have smiled and laughed like you do. I might have been able to joke and make light of the war. I might have been able to wash away the stains. Maybe. I don't remember. J trained that out of me as well. When I first met you, you shot me. I don't think you've ever forgiven yourself for that, so maybe that's why you try to make me more human. Maybe that's why you told me, "don't cry." It's a stupid sentiment. You did what you believed was right. You protected the girl who may end this war. But you still feel bad about it. Why? Better my blood than hers. And over the months, we became partners of sorts. We worked together. I've never worked with anyone on my mission before. But you pulled your own weight, and there was no reason for me to get rid of you. If you failed, I could always kill you. So I told myself as I typed my mission reports and ignored your endless chatter. I always told you, "shut up." And now you tell me, "don't cry." Do I deserve that? Maybe. Because you did fail. You were caught and you paid the price. I had to kill you, like I always thought I would. I had to break into an OZ base and plant a bullet in your brain. I had to kill your smile, and your laugh. I had to. When I walked into the holding cell and saw your battered, broken form, I still intended to pull the trigger. You shot me. I'd shoot you. Always we should do what we feel is right. Better my blood then hers. You looked at me, somehow you knew, and you smiled. You tried to make it easier on me. You tried, because you knew once I pulled that trigger, there was no coming back for you. And you knew that I would never forgive myself. That smile made it a thousand times harder, because I looked into your eyes, and I saw /her/. I saw a little girl with a puppy. I saw an innocent. My mission has always been to protect the innocent. So I helped you when I should have killed you. We broke free of that base. I endangered my mission. And for the first time in my life, I didn't care. I had saved that little girl. When I went to sleep that night, she didn't come to haunt me, and I didn't wake up screaming. You were in my dream instead, with your smile and your laugh, and when I woke up, I almost smiled too. Partners again, and all was as it had always been. But something had changed. Something that I could /feel/ when all feelings I had should be dead. You talked just like always, and for once, I began to listen. You made me feel. And then, one mission, we were captured. The both of us, together, partners in the war. Partners in pain. Partners in death. Because it didn't matter that we were captured. We were together, and together we'd allowed the other three pilots to escape. The little girl smiled at me in my dreams that night. OZ must have been ecstatic. Two Gundam pilots to break. Two Gundam pilots to crucify. Two Gundam pilots to kill. They took me first. They did things that would have made full-grown men scream. Torture is too kind a word for how they treated me, but it didn't matter. Every bruise they gave me, every mark and every scar, made the little girl smile wider. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, and she wrapped her frail arms around me and told me that it was okay. I was protecting innocents. I was fulfilling my mission. When I woke up in the cell, it was your arms which encircled me, not the little girls. I looked into your eyes and saw your jaw clench a little. "Don't cry," you whispered fiercely. Only that. Don't cry. I said nothing when the cell doors opened again and they took you this time. Hours ticked away, and I was left to wonder. There was a heavy feeling in my stomach, and I made a note to ask you if that's how you felt when they took me from the cell and you were left there, waiting. Eternity passed and my heart did something. It began to quicken its pace, the beat tattooing against the inside of my chest with a /thump thump, thump thump/. I glanced at my palms and they were sweating. I didn't understand why. The doors slid open with a soft hiss, and they threw a limp rag doll of cloth and marred flesh in. I didn't understand. Why would they give me this pale imitation of a human being? And then the bloody mess coughed violently and lay still. I touched it curiously, and when I brought my fingers away, they were covered in sticky redness. Again, my heart leapt, /thump thump, thump thump/, and I turned the mess over. It had your face. Violet, bright eyes looked up at me, blinking owlishly, and the mouth on the refined, blood-splattered face smiled slowly. "Don't cry," it told me. Don't cry. So I stared down at you, hard, and asked you why I would cry. Reaching one hand out to touch you, you flinched away from me. I never understood why. They no longer bothered with me. It was always you. Only you. Each time the doors opened, you'd be taken away from me, but not before you'd look at me with those sad, beautiful eyes and say, "Don't cry." I don't remember hearing you say anything else. Your endless chatter was a thing of the past, and I was oddly glad for all the times that I'd really listened to it. In the beginning, you were only gone for a few hours. It felt like eternity to me. Then they started to keep you for days at a time. Eternity felt like hell. And my heart kept up with me, kept count of all the time you were away. /Thump thump, thump thump./ I stopped counting the seconds and started counting my heart beats. They meant more to me anyway. I slept occasionally. Really, only when my body told me I wouldn't be able to function properly without rest. The little girl no longer visited me. You took her place, wrapping slender arms around me and telling me, "Don't cry." Always and only that. Don't cry. And one day when they threw the shell of your body I'd become accustomed to seeing into the cell, you didn't open your eyes and smile and say, "Don't cry." You didn't move. I reached out to you, touched your skin softly, because anything more would hurt you, and turned you to face me. Slowly, oh so slowly, the two pale eyes opened. You looked up at me, but you didn't smile. Your hand reached up and brushed across my lips, and you stained them red. Your fingers tangled in my hair and tugged at me and brought our parted mouths together. That was the first time I'd ever kissed anyone. I felt you take a deep, shaky breath, and our mouths parted. I looked down at you, and you looked up at me, and I could see something in your eyes slowly fade, then die. I finally understood, Duo. Looking into your eyes and seeing a mirror of my own soul, I knew why you always said, "don't cry." You weren't telling me. You were telling yourself. So I did something which surprised me. Something that took more courage then surviving J's training or self destructing ever did. I smiled at you, and brushed my fingers across your lips. I ran my hands through your hair, but I don't know who I was trying to comfort. "Don't cry," I told you. And smiling back, you didn't. ***** ## *** ## *****