Warnings: Deathfic. Shounen ai. Yaoi.
Pairings: 5x13
Notes: Set after the end of GW.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or these characters. I'm just messing with their minds a bit and will put them back where I found them. *crosses fingers behind back* Promise!

To You - One Last Time
1/1
By Ekaterinn Duval

After the military casket was lowered in the ground. After the stumbling priest had mumbled his last meaningless phrases and useless condolences. And after the last of the mourners had left...that was when a slender figure clad all in white stepped out from an overhanging oak tree. He was carrying a bulky package twrapped in a white sheet.

I should hate you.

He walked over to the lavish grave.

You gave me every reason to.

He placed the package down at the foot of the grave gently, as in ritual offering.

You defeated me in combat.

Leaning down, he traced the name inscribed on the tombstone with one slender finger.

You proved that I was weak.

Treize Khushrenada.

And then you killed yourself.

Wufei straightened his dark ponytail and arranged himself so he was sitting cross-legged, facing the package and the grave, with his delicate hands resting on his knees. He stared at the obidsain gravestone, surrendered by other's offerings of the red roses Treize had loved so much.

I should hate you.

But I don't.

Wufei closely watched the lightly engraved name on the tombstone as if it would change if he should happen to blink. "How did we get here?" he asked it, his voice eerily calm. "How the hell did we get here?"

When you placed your sword on my neck, I closed my eyes. I thought the world had ended. But then I heard your weapon clatter to the ground. My eyes flew open, but I couldn't say anything. For your lips were pressing against mine and my body and my heart were dying in delicious flames.

"Yes, you are right. I remember."

I still cannot believe how I responded. Instantly. I...I had never done that before. Not even with her. I arched my back and kissed you right back. An instant response to an irresistible challenge. Or so I had thought when I pulled you to the floor and everything fell into a dark dizzy merry-go-round of bodies pressing against each other and souls crying out for a warrior's comfort. Your hands, fumbling with the strings on my pants. The sweet scent of roses covering the sweat and the blood. Pain and pleasure. Pleasure and pain. My cries and your cries. Tangled together, we took the night by its war-torn horns as we took each other. And, as we slept until the rise of the unholy sun, it didn't matter that the pleasure had barely overtaken the pain or that the challenge had become something much more binding. We were just two warriors in each other's arms, bathed in the dying embers of the fire.

Wufei shook visibly, shivers moving down his suddenly tense frame. "But do I really have to remember it like that?"

I had thought the world would have ended. But that was only the beginning. Only the beginning of the confused exhilaration of having you for a lover and an enemy. Only the beginning of the cycle of love and hate, solidarity and enmity. Only the beginning of shame.

"You know, I can still see you raise your eyebrow at me again for that." Wufei turned his pale face away from the tombstone for a moment. His voice was a whisper. "But it was the only way I knew how to be. The only way that I still know how to be."

Wufei dragged his head back towards the tombstone. "But it was never shame with you. It was always something else. It was always...as you would say...beauty, elegance, and noble-mindness." he stated quietly, looking ashen. The calm mask had clearly crumbled.

The shame gave me nightmares.

It gave me doubts.

Almost of its own volition, Wufei's right hand stirred. Moving slowly, it caressed the space in front of the tombstone. "Treize..."

It was the shame, and not the sense of injustice, that made me battle with you that one final time. It was the shame, and not the deaths you had caused, that turned my love into hatred once more. It was the shame, not my belated sense of duty, that made you my enemy again.

Wufei's hand dropped back into his lap. " No, Treize. I do not deserve forgiveness."

And so it was only in that last explosion - your last explosion - of metal and fire and dust and torn bodies and souls that I realized it didn't matter. The shame. The hatred. Even, Natuku forbid, the injustice. None of it mattered. Only you did.

Wufei's face became hard and unreadable once more. Making a decision, he reached over and pulled a bottle of red wine and a fine wineglass out of the white package. He filled the glass up with the blood red substance and then moved the white cloth and the bottle to the side of grave. He stood up and raised the glass to the sky, watching it glint in the sunlight. His hands trembling, Wufei poured a little of the wine on the newly sod ground and said softly "To beauty."

I should hate you.

A few drops more of red on the lush green grass. "To elegance."

But I don't.

The wine was nearly gone now. "To noble-mindness."

I love you.

The glass empty, Wufei placed it down on the blood-red wine stained grass. Closing his eyes for a moment, he whispered "And to you." as his boot clad right foot came down hard on the glass. It splintered and broke with a loud crack and Wufei nodded once as if in satisfaction. And as he walked away from the desolate grave, there were tears streaming down the face he had tried so hard to keep stoic.

To you - one last time.

~Fin~