Author: Chauni

Website: www.oocities.org/asukalangley2nd/

Warnings: Death, Angst

Disclaimer: Nope, I don’t own Gundam Wing, and I didn’t make any money off this.

The Marble of His Eyes

The slight coughing was nothing compared to the blood that bubbled from the blue-tinted tiers that were parted with effort for denied air. The breath that was expelled from them hung in the dismal room, smelling of death and mildew and the things that hung through the dark corridors of mausoleums at midnight. Fingers infused with fading strength reached up, trembling, and made it halfway towards the cherub face that floated so close, before falling to the dirty, discarded mattress below.

Small hands, bearing the burden of too much too soon, pulled blankets up to the coated chin of the dying, tucking the sides in a bit as a particularly cool draft blew in through a shattered window off to the left, one of many. It seemed the weather regulators were on the fritz again, had been for a few weeks now, and that did nothing to the sickness that was rampant through the colony…and this person’s lungs. Kneeling down beside the mattresses, he watched the plagued boy through flat amethyst jewels housed in the pearl of his face.

Another coughing fit, the fluid in the lungs bubbling and frothing over, causing more crimson to slide down the pallid chin. A slight groan, a closing of the eyes, a hitching of the chest.

Silence.

“…no…not yet….not yet!”

A slight start as the torso moved again, rising under the useless protection of blankets as slips of emerald peeked out from long onyx lashes. A smirk that would haunt him for the rest of his life slipped into play as the lips moved, forming sounds and words that were barely breathed across the tiers they were born from.

“It’s b-been a f-fun ride, eh, k-kid?”

“Don’t say that! Ya’ll be fine, do ya hear me? FINE!”

The alabaster cheek lay across the stained pillow, one with the stuffing half torn out and scattered through the garbage can he had found it in. Beggars can’t be choosers, and they were neither and both all at once. “N-nope, ain’t n-nutin’ for me here, s-so I’m told. B-but ya’re special; I…can feel it. Ya’ll…be fine.”

“Ya promised to be here with me! Ya promised to protect me! Don’t ya dare fuckin’ leave me! Don’t ya FUCKING DARE!”

His back arched under the mess of discarded blankets found in back alleys and dumpsters, his face wrinkling, distorted under the mess of pain. Whimpers, followed by coughing, escaped from his rapidly closing throat, blotches of scarlet forming in his cheeks. “Ain’t g-g-got much of a-a ch-choice in the matter…” Writhing, weak and pitiful, strained and quickly fading, breath ceasing, movement gone. His eyes slowly went flat, like a window being shut, a mirror being shattered, nothing there, no soul, no life, as they stared ahead.

Nothing.

Silence.

“…Solo…?”

Suffocating stillness that smothered life from all.

“…Solo?… Say somethin’….Please?”

Somewhere, people were yelling over the busy din of rush hour traffic.

“…Ya promised…”

But here, there was only silence.

“…YA PROMISED ME!!!!”

Crashes filled the room as those same small hands tore apart the walls, ripping the passé flowered periwinkle wallpaper down in screaming strips until crimson streaks were left in the wake from ragged fingers, broken nails. He turned to that shattered window, where one stubborn piece of glass stood, oblivious to the misery within the small abandoned house that was dated for demolition in three days. Stomping over as fast as his six-year old legs would carry him, the violet-eyed child heard a satisfying snap as the piece broke off in his hand.

“If ya can break a promise, then I can to!”

Special…

And here they were, finally, the burning tears that slipped out of the corners of his clamped eyes and down the slopes of cheeks that still bore hints of baby-fat, cheeks many aunts and grandparents would have enjoyed pinching. The jagged glass was poised in the air, high over the swan’s neck, reflecting supernova swirls across the room, and for a split second, those innocent orbs opened and looked at the spectral rainbow birthed by the broken window.

The colors finally were laid to rest along the blue-tinted lips of his beloved friend, his brother, his parent, his life. They were still parted, his teeth tainted with the blood that had finally ceased their merciless path from his closed throat. The obsidian waterfall of his hair was shimmering from oil due to lack of baths, riddled with snarls and knots, and hung off the mattress for the ends to pool on the floor. A fly landed on his motionless cheek, it’s legs rubbing friction before launching up into the thick air seconds later, buzzing merrily with disease and pestilence. The marble of his face, slack, lifeless, was overlapped with memories of thieving, smiling, embracing, of life, like double vision, television with horrid reception.

“…Solo….”

B-but ya’re special; I…can feel it.

The way his hands were so warm as they held him in the oblivion of evening, coaxing nightmares out of him. The soothing sound of his voice that was quiet enough to get drowned out by his very own frantic breathing, but still rose over the calls of a colony in the throes of night. The warmth of his body as it filled him completely with love and adoration after years of abandonment, of torment, of Hades dreams.

“…Solo…”

Promise, kid, I’ll protect ya. Ain’t nutin’ ever gonna happen to ya ‘gain.

“…I am Death and He is me, and together, we walk through the valley to feed our bellies for pain and hatred is all we know…”

The window shard crashed to the floor, rainbow and spell broken completely as the silence of the room forbid any more noise, sucked every heartbeat from his chest, devoured the very breath of his lungs. And not ten feet away was Solo’s face, eyes half-closed, staring blankly at nothing, glass portals into nothing, door shut.

Yeah, kid…best thin' I ever found in one o’ these fuckin’ back alleys was ya.

“…NO!!!!”

Panicked footsteps echoed in the room, filled it with screaming sounds as his miniature feet bore him from the room, took him from this hell of silence where his life danced no more. He bolted out of the suffocation, darting out the beaten door that was hanging only from one battered hinge and out into the darkened shade of the alley that he had grown up in, had survived in, had met his angel and his demise.

“Are you all right?”

Oceans filled his vision, a pair of them so wide, so deep and so frigid, for a moment he wondered how he had ended up on the beach. Blinking brought him back to his senses, swung around reality, and his shaking body, full of ache and emptiness forbid him to forget what had happened.

“I’m fine, Heero, just a dream, is all.”