Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Creed Arc ❯ The Creed: Reason ( Prologue )

The Creed

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so. This creed is somewhat short, but is long enough for this life; long enough for this world. If there is another world, when we get there, we can make another creed. But this creed certainly will do for this life.
~ Robert G. Ingersoll

-Reason-

Quiet. Dark. Empty. I know what it means. I've been here before. I'm at the safehouse; it's quiet. In my room; it's dark. I'm me; it's empty. These are the three pillars of my life; the unchanging medium I rely on to survive. As long as these three exist I know I am alone. And if I am alone, I can't hurt anyone.

It is cold, being alone, yet it makes me warm. Distance keeps those I might have loved safe. The unspoken lie is clear on my face, yet so beguiling none see it and it passes for truth. After all, it is not spoken, so I have spoken no lie. It is simply a manipulation of the truth, and that manipulation keeps them alive. Keeps me alive.

A soft crash. It's the door. I could get up, I could go down, I could put on my mask and see who it is, make them something to eat. They're tired, I can feel it. Weariness seeps into the very walls of the places we reside. But I'm tired too, and for once I don't want to run, to hide, to not have to lie. I just want to lie here, in the quiet, empty dark. I like it here, whether it's good for me or not. I want to stay here. So I do.

They're coming up the stairs. They open a door. It's the third from the stairs. Trowa. The would-be clown who wouldn't know how to make someone laugh if I had taught him since birth. One of those small ironies of life. Yet he makes Quatre smile. How does he do that? I don't understand. I only know he does, even when I can't…Perhaps I am not as good as I think. Maybe I'm getting old, rusted, worn. Or maybe I always was.

I'm sinking. I can feel it, and it's not just the lumpy, sagging mattress. It's a sickness inside me I struggle to control. It wants me to drown and I want to do as it says. Maybe I'm mad, maybe that's my real name. But I call me Duo Maxwell and I think I know what that means. I want it to mean something…But what if it doesn't?

There's another crash and I don't have to wait for the feet to choose a door. There was only one other on the mission with Trowa, and he would have stayed in the hangar, making sure the Gundams were hidden, ensuring his precious piece of metal wasn't damaged. And if it was, what did it matter? He would use mine to heal his own wounds, not caring how it hurt. Not caring about the blood that wasn't there to be seen. The blood inside, dripping from the confines of a broken heart.

So poetic in this mood, am I not? Not like me at all. Yet I seem to know more here, in this darkness. Is my heart broken? When did that happen? I can't remember. I don't remember a day when the sun shone brightly, always shadowed by the clouds of memory. When does the sun rise and set on the darkness of the soul? Is it when happiness comes?

I see it everywhere, this cancerous cure. It eats people whole and they shine, like little stars in the black satin of night. They are joyous, in harmony with nature, at rest with themselves. How do they do that? Find peace as if they cannot see the guilt laid thick upon their skin? How do they just forget what I cannot?

He's in his room, I can hear a whirr that was not there. I have not missed that sound. It disrupts the silence. It makes me mad. It makes me hungry, and not for food. I seek a different source of sustenance and finally I am drawn from the dark, the emptiness, the quiet.

The mask is on, donned almost physically and I feel my face change, as if another's hands are pushing and prodding, as if it is clay and I a mannequin ready to be formed. It makes me confident, my self buried so far below the surface I am unaware of it. That is my great sickness. I am not two beings. I am merely one who has split in two, one half struggling to breathe, the other already dead.

They call me Shinigami, but they don't know why. They haven't seen the dirt. They haven't felt the fires. They haven't seen the smoke. They haven't breathed death. Why? If I knew that, I wouldn't be Shinigami.

The door closes and I am gone. The mask is walking, nodding to Quatre in the hallway as I wonder why I didn't hear him come in. His eyes are wet, pleading, his face tinged with pink. Flushed they call it. I don't know why.

"Duo…are you alright?"

Space heart. It's inside him. He can't escape it any more than I can. I know I've been hurting him, that he only now got up the courage to ask me to stop, to bury myself and come out. He doesn't realise what he's asking though. He thinks he's just trying to make me feel better. Why would I feel better, knowing those tears are because of me? Why would I fee better knowing he was suffering because of me? Because of me…It's always because of me.

The whirr is still antagonising in the back of my mind. It gives me the excuse I need.

"I'm fine Quat!" And all the cheer of every happy person to ever breathe is in my voice. I watch him visibly relax, the agony finally lifted and he smiles, completely genuine, believing me. It wasn't a lie. I am fine. This is what makes me fine. This mask, this knowing of what I am. Knowing I'm a freak, and that I have to keep them all away. Keep them sane, and safe.

I turn to the next door, it's the one right by my own. I don't knock. If I did he might appreciate it, and I can't have that. He's right where I knew, where he always is, as the desk, fingers flying across the keyboard, mind focussed completely on the task at hand.

Everyone thinks Heero Yuy is invincible. It's not true. There is one time you could kill him, and its while he's reading whatever J has written on that damned computer. That's when he won't see you, won't hear you and won't know you've hit him. If I ever really lost, that is when I would do it.

But I'm not about to lose it. I can't afford to. I won't. I don't want to.

"So how was the mission Heero?" Who is this person? Why are they so happy? Where is the sunshine that lights their life? It can't be me, but it is. A me that knows nothing of themselves and sees the light. Why? Who am I? Why do I do this?

A small smirk at the corner of Heero's mouth tells me why. Because it makes them happy. It gives them something to come home to. Something to look forward to. Sure it annoys them, but they like to be annoyed. They like having someone pay them so much attention they can'' get rid of it. It makes them feel special, wanted, needed…even loved.

They aren't loved. Not by me. I can't love. I haven't forgotten how, and I haven't forgotten how it feels…No, I will never love again. I will keep them safe. I will! I just don't know why. Only how.

There was a strange grunt in reply. Heero seemed happy, so I knew it went well. I only asked because the asking is important. Because the asking makes him happy though he will never admit it.

I lean over his chair, hands gentle on his shoulders, casual in their touch as I skim over the words he is writing. It did go well, I was right. Mission Complete? Mission Success. He is tense under my touch, it is unwelcome. It makes him uncomfortable to have me touch him, but I don't care. If he learns to allow it, which he has, others can take over, others who love him and that he can love. Touch will bring him pleasure, and a happiness divine. Just not my touch…

Why?

"Duo, daijobu ka?"

Why does everyone ask me that? Do I look strange? Do I seem unsettled? I'm thinking too much, I realise. I'm letting me seep through the mask, not much but enough. I throttle myself.

"I'm fine Heero." Then I get that mischievous glint in my eyes. The same one I get when I want to kill. Only I'm not going to. Not really. Not this time, with him. "Why? You worried about me?"

He doesn't reply. I sigh dramatically, floucing over to the door and swinging it wide. I'm going to slam it, and he knows it as well as I. It's my habit, you see, and he loves it to be. It reaffirms his belief I'm fine. Or I think it does.

For a second I'm not so sure, as I see him turn slightly toward me in his chair as I let the door go, and just before the slam I hear the whispered reply.

"Always, baka."

Does he know? How can he? I stare at the closed door in horror. Did I hear true? Of course I did, my ears never lie. But I didn't understand. I fled next door, throwing myself on my bed and covering my head with my pillow. It did nothing to drown out the cries in my head.

Why why why why why why why……WHY!

I wanted it to be true. I didn't want it to be true. I just wanted them to be happy. That was enough, wasn't it? I no longer knew. I sat up straight on the bed and glared at myself in the mirror. Was that me? I don't know. I assumed it must be.

"Why Heero?"

The boy in the mirror mimicked me. I imagined him laughing at me. Tears were on my cheeks. My face was…flushed.

"Just give me a reason."