Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Death Throws ❯ Record 1.2 ( Chapter 2 )

Death Throws: Record 1.2

By: Kiamirei

~I don't own Gundam Wing. Please review this, or email me with your questions and comments!

THE LIFE OF DEATH'S FORMER SOUL

"Two thousand."

"Two thousand? You want me to starve?"

"It's plenty."

"Sure, if I had no need of food or shelter!"

"Three thousand, then."

"Six thousand."

This was slightly comical, and Duo would have laughed out loud, instead of just in his mind, if it would not have been considered to be offensive. The exact value of the scrap heap that he was selling to this man was four thousand five hundred twenty dollars and eighteen cents. But if the customer did not know that, which he did not, then Duo was not about to say it; part of the fun was trying to make as much money as possible without completely conning the customer. The other part was imagining how it comical it must look to others when a tall, forty-year-old man started to argue with a fifteen-year-old boy. Of course, Duo knew that his sense of humor was odd sometimes, and that there was a good possibility that it was not funny in the least to anyone else but he. Not that he minded.

"Three thousand five hundred," the customer offered.

"Five thousand eight hundred."

"Four thousand."

"Five thousand five hundred."

The man thought about it for a few seconds.

"…. Deal."

They shook hands, and Duo handed the man a clipboard, so that the proper papers could be signed.

It had been about a year since the end of the war, and the American felt that he was adjusting well to the change. He had settled down with Hilde, and they had started up a salvage business together, as a form of income, although it was more of a voluntary thing than a necessary one; Duo could rob even Relena of her wealth if he chose to, and almost no one would be able to find out who had done it. But Hilde would not allow it.

"There's no war, Duo," she would say, amused. "You can't just go around stealing from people anymore!" She knew that he had more morals than to do that, which was why he did not get offended when she scolded him.

Still, working was something that he did willingly, both out of consideration for others and out of boredom. They had bought a condominium together in one of the countries on Earth, because Hilde liked it there and most people would be expecting him to go back to his home colony. He did not want to be easily tracked, even in times of peace. It just gave him a better sense of security than if he knew that anyone could reach him. In the beginning, it had been hard for him. Nightmares of the Zero System would have him up almost every day of the week, and sometimes haunted him even in the daytime. Duo wished that he had not set foot in Wing Zero before knowing about what would happen to him -but he did not wish that he had never piloted it, because the suit itself was stunningly powerful. It was just the system running in it that was problematic. Damn thing. He did not miss the mobile suit either, though, even though he was grateful for having piloted it the few times that he had. But eventually the dreams had subsided, and now he was plagued by it only occasionally, and when those times did come, Hilde was always right there by his side. He was very grateful to that girl; she had helped him make the transition from war to peace and to partly defeat his inner demons countless times over the past year, and it was because of her support that he was so content.

"Sign there, too," he informed the customer. The man did so, and then handed the clipboard back to Duo.

"I'll pick it up in two days," he said.

Duo nodded, and the man left without saying another word; there was no small talk whatsoever. As he watched his customer walk down the street, he was reminded vaguely of Heero. Perhaps it was the man's aloofness. Most clientele he had had were at least partly friendly, but not this one. Heero had been like that, also: not friendly, sometimes hostile -but only if he was being bothered during fighting or the rare times when he was trying to relax, or interrupted when he was working on something- and as silent as possible. Trowa was cold, quiet, and detached also, though he lacked Heero's hostility most of the time. He missed them, including Wufei. After the war had ended, it had not taken long for those three to leave he and Quatre, and they did not say where they were going. At least he knew where Quatre was. The two of them kept up correspondence, and a stronger friendship was being forged. Trowa was probably with the circus that Duo had once seen him at when the boy was amnesiac, but one could never be sure.

If he wanted to, Duo knew that he might be able to track the three of them down, but that would mean invading their privacy, and no matter how annoying he was sometimes, he was not willing to cross that line; he cared about them too damn much. That was why he had watched them go without a word, and did not ask where they were going. It was only a month after the end of the war before it was just he and Quatre. They had kept each other company for a few more days, but then had gone their separate ways, Quatre to his sisters, and Duo to Hilde. But before he could settle down with the girl, though, there was one last thing he had been required to do: abandon Deathscythe.

Leaving it in some random place on earth had hurt. Giving up his Gundam had meant giving up a part of him, and it had been a hard thing to do. After all, he was Shinigami, the God of Death. He was Death's very soul. It had been his only identity starting from the day that Father Maxwell and Sister Helen had been massacred by the soldiers. He hoped the murderers had been damned to the deepest pits of whatever Hell might exist. Not that he was any better than the ones who had been doing the killing; no, in some ways he was worse. But regardless of that fact, the incident had been the birth of his new identity as Shinigami. Piloting Deathscythe had given him the means to make that dark but fitting characterization a reality, and he had immersed himself in the personality utterly and completely. He did so without regret, also; if good people such as Sister Helen and Father Maxwell could be cruelly killed, than he could play his role as Shinigami.

When the war ended, there was nothing to do with his mobile suit. He was aware that to be safe he should have destroyed it, but it was not something that he could bring himself to do. To demolish Deathscythe would have been an act of abomination that he would not be able to forgive himself for. But he could not keep it with him, and so he had dropped it off on one of the L3 colonies, the area that Trowa claimed to be from. Peace had come, and so Deathscythe's role was over, and with it his own role as the God of Death. There had been nothing else to do but to shed it. In the beginning, it had been excruciatingly hard to shake the mindset that he was Shinigami. He had felt lost, useless, with no identity to call his own; he was simply Duo Maxwell, That Sweet Child That Lives Down the Street From Us, in the words of his neighbors -who, he admitted to himself, were kind people.

That was how Trowa feels all the time, or at least did before the war ended, he thought to himself, shuddering. How does he stand it?

But fortunately, Hilde had been with him every single step of the way, from the bars he had frequented to the streets he had roamed at all hours of the night, and the period had eventually passed. He was adjusted, and liked his new existence. Even the loss of his mobile suit did not bother him much anymore, nor did the loss of three of his companions, although he would never stop missing them in a way. Heero, Trowa, and Wufei had each been kindhearted in their own subtle, deeply hidden ways, and had been worth knowing. His life was better for having met them. Still, it was slightly hurtful they way they had left he and Quatre without a word.

It was not as if they did not like him, though. Once, after a particularly hard battle, Wufei had lightly tapped him on the shoulder after they had exited their Gundams. Duo had turned around, expecting to be yelled at or rebuked. Instead, the Chinese boy had spoken only three words to him: "Good job, Duo." Just that. And it was enough. It was, among other things, the first time that Wufei had called him by his first name, and the first time that he had been complimented by the other boy.

Other incidents he kept close to his heart were the times that Heero had spoken to him in English. This was strange, since when they were together with just the five of them, each spoke their own native tongue: Heero in Japanese, Quatre in Arabic, and Wufei in Mandarin or Cantonese, depending on which he felt like at the moment. They had learned each other's languages while being trained, though they had not known the purpose at the time. Of course, Trowa spoke whatever language the person he was speaking to spoke, and they had not learned any other tongues but English, Japanese, Arabic, Mandarin, and Cantonese during training. That, Duo suspected, was more to conceal his true ethnicity than to be polite. He did not take it offensively; it was true that what allies did not know they could not be forced to tell.

There had been times at least once with each of them when they had uncovered themselves just enough to imply friendship. Once, when Duo had been particularly depressed, Trowa had told him to just call if he needed someone to talk to. It had been done very casually, as if it was no big deal, and that was how they both treated it. But Duo knew better. Those small acts were made even more meaningful by the fact that all three guarded themselves very closely. The American knew that he seemed like an idiot sometimes, but he was not as stupid as he seemed, and did know how to recognize when a relationship became more than just a convenient alliance.

And he knew that when he was old, looking back on his life, he would do so happily. There was a lot to be happy about now.